The Full Story of the Boy Ahmad Shawqi Abu Zayd

A psychological shock following the catastrophe of the "Abu Ali" flood robs him of his hearing and speech

Psychological treatment restores them... and the boy loses his memory!!

Published serially by "The Woman's Voice"

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At the home of Renée Arman: Miss Renée Arman's car carried me to her home, where she was in her study gathering her papers and the notes she had kept and written about "Ahmad" — and everyone in her house showed visible nervousness and concern. No wonder: months ago the boy had been a guest in this house — an honored, cherished, and pampered guest for twenty days! — during which he managed to win an eminent place in all their hearts.

I saw before Miss Arman the file on "Ahmad," full of the reports and correspondence surrounding his case, with Renée perplexed, not knowing where to begin telling the story... But a knot arose between the two of us, and we managed to untie it only after a long argument in which the victory was mine!! Renée clung to the condition that her name not be mentioned at all, pressing the point and insisting... and I clung to the position that the interview would be meaningless without mentioning her name... Finally I went on recording the events and the information, presenting her with the accomplished fact, while she came back, every other moment, with renewed energy to set forth her point of view — which got her nowhere with me! At last she began her account thus:

The first thread... My first acquaintance with Ahmad came when the campaign of the ladies of the Red Cross returned from visiting the victims of the "Abu Ali" flood in Tripoli — a campaign led by the First Lady of Lebanon, Mrs. Chamoun. That day they told us, with much feeling, a number of painful stories, the most striking of which was the story of Ahmad. They had seen him during the visit to the "Islamic Charitable Hospital," the object of the care and love of all the doctors and nurses... above all the nurse Nihad Ghantous, who grew devoted to him and followed his steps after his coming to Beirut, never once hesitating to serve him and to work for his help...

He neither speaks nor hears: In the Islamic Hospital Ahmad was mute, dumb, and deaf — he neither spoke nor heard... Many attempts were made by those responsible at the hospital to induce him to speak... and all of them ended in failure. But they discovered that the boy had the ability to write... and from there some of the obscure points were cleared up, and the truth of his identity and of his situation became known. They would write questions for him and leave in his hands a pen and a small notebook, and he would sit and write... In those circumstances he wrote his story...

Ahmad's story in his own hand:

"On the night of the disaster we were all sitting at the supper table, and after we finished eating we heard screaming and a great clamor, so my father went out to see what had happened, and there was a man crying out in the water, so I went out after him, and he had jumped into the river to save the man, so I began calling my mother and saying that my father had gone into the river with the man, and after a short while the water had broken into the house, so we wanted to flee when we saw the river had come close to the house while we were inside, and the waters poured in and began to come in through the house, and after that they swept us all away, and when I reached a place full of orchards I clung to the edge of a tree until I was able to reach the top of the tree, and I was saved by means of the tree, and a little later a man came and brought me down from the tree, and after that I did not know where I had turned until I was at the Najjadeh Party in Beirut, and I did not know who had carried me to Beirut, and afterward they brought me to the College of Education and Instruction, and after that I came to the Islamic Hospital."

His age and his identity: At that time too, while he was in the Islamic Hospital in Tripoli, scraps gathered from here and there shed light on his past, of which no trace at all remained to him... He was born in 1941; his father, Shawqi Abu Zayd, was an officer in the Jordanian army who had been pensioned off... He left Jordan and came to Tripoli with his wife and children.

This is the summary of the information that Ahmad gave, and it shows that his age is above thirteen years — the age he himself recently stated at Radio Lebanon.

The search for his family: Inquiries were made in Tripoli and efforts exerted to search for his kin, by Miss Arman, by the Islamic Hospital, and by the police as well, but all of them went for nothing. Not one person came forward from the district the flood had swept away, or from the neighboring district, to say a single word confirming that Ahmad's family had one day lived in that quarter! In vain did the people there stare into Ahmad's face; no one recognized him...

Ahmad at Deir al-Salib: We have said that the campaign of the ladies of the Lebanese Red Cross came back from Tripoli telling the story of Ahmad and what his heart-rending sight had left in their hearts. The feeling spread to the members of the bureau, and a Red Cross car set out especially to carry the boy to Beirut and then to the Deir al-Salib hospital, where he was placed in the charge of the specialist, Dr. Edouard Azouri. That was on January 25, 1956 — five weeks after the catastrophe...

With the psychological treatment he recovers his hearing and his speech, but loses his memory:
Dr. Azouri devoted himself to Ahmad, using with him the most modern psychological treatment. The days and weeks passed, and one day Ahmad awoke with the doctor at his bedside — and behold, he could hear and speak... Then he asked where he was, and who had brought him to the hospital, and where he had come from... and who he might be?! In vain did Dr. Azouri try to remind him of his past life and of the flood disaster... for the events he had lived through before recovering his hearing and his speech had all been wiped from his head, and in their place had come emptiness, bewilderment, and the most intense astonishment... Who am I?? Who are my parents? Did I come thus, out of nothingness?! I want my family!!..

These questions remain without answers, and the days pass with Ahmad at Deir al-Salib, where the doctor, the nuns, and all the patients surround him with their tenderness and love, until he grows used to this life and applies himself to study with the help of Sister Jeannette, in the hospital's warm, merciful atmosphere, everyone regarding him with affection...

Ahmad visits Tripoli: During this period Dr. Azouri exerted his utmost efforts to help Ahmad within the scope of his psychological treatment, taking him two and three times to Tripoli, in stormy winter weather like the weather in which the flood had come, in the hope that his locked memory might open and the problem come to an end. On these journeys he was accompanied by Miss Renée Arman, who had become Ahmad's favorite friend and the foremost of those to whom he gave his trust — thanks to the extraordinary care she lavished upon him, care which, truth be told, no one fell short in granting him...

O father, O mother! On first reaching Tripoli, Ahmad denied ever having seen that city before. As the car advanced toward the bridge where the deluge had occurred, leaving behind it the many terrible ruins, his bewilderment grew, and little by little he began to believe what he had heard from them, as though surrendering to them in a matter that was closed to him — the story must be true; these are truthful people; they love me. And before this moving sight he suddenly began calling his father and his mother and his brothers at the top of his voice, weeping and bursting into sobs and striking his head from the force of emotion, until he fainted, and nothing but an injection brought him back to consciousness!

His bewilderment at the Islamic Hospital:
They led him gently to the Islamic Hospital, where he had stayed five weeks, and he denied knowing a single one of them — except those who had visited him in Beirut and whom he had come to know after the psychological treatment was carried out. They showed him his writing and his handwriting, and he acknowledged that the hand was his own, but he was greatly astonished that he could actually have stated and written things of which he was utterly ignorant... For how could he have written his name, his father's name, his date of birth, and the story of the flood — things that had so long perplexed him, about which he himself had asked, and which everyone had been powerless to answer!!..

Back to the beginning: It also appeared on investigation, confirming what Ahmad had written in his own hand, that he had in fact been rescued on the morrow of the flood, clinging at his last gasp to a lemon tree, and was carried straight to the Najjadeh house in Beirut; there those in charge returned him, that very day, to the College of Education and Instruction in Tripoli and from there to the Islamic Hospital, where the doctors determined that he was suffering from a violent psychological shock that had robbed him of his hearing and speech, and that he had to be treated in a hospital specializing in nervous diseases — the object for which the Red Cross delegation worked, and whose execution was entrusted to Miss Renée Arman, as I mentioned before.

They took Ahmad back to the Deir al-Salib hospital, and he returned to his psychological treatment. A tracing was taken of his head, and everything proved normal. The days and months went by with the boy under observation, loved by all the doctors, the nurses, and the patients, until he became part of the daily routine, taking his daily lessons with Sister Jeannette and helping with such tasks and services as he was able. He began to regain his former happiness of heart and peace of mind, and the smile returned to his lips, expressing his contentment and his conviction that the seven months he had spent at Deir al-Salib, and the quiet daily life he had grown used to there, were a kind of stability in which he found rest — a good model for his uncertain future...

A new problem: But Ahmad was no longer in need of psychological or physical treatment. The doctors of Deir al-Salib said his physiological condition had become entirely normal, and he could not be allowed to keep, forever, a bed in the hospital that was the rightful due of other mental patients.

So it became necessary for Ahmad to leave Deir al-Salib. Where was he to go? There was not one person in the world who acknowledged him... Where was the home, or the worthy institution, that would take him in and shield him from the shocks and stumbles that this handsome-faced youth would meet on going out into the world

— thus defenseless, with no one to guide him and no one to protect him?!