The Ministry of Special Cases

by Nathan Englander

  “Like university students,” Lillian said, taking Kaddish seriously, thinking it through.

  “Yes,” Kaddish said. “Politicals and revolutionaries and hippies and university students.” He reached across the adding machine and pressed at the keys. He liked the clicking of the paper roll.

  “What about bogeymen who roam the graveyards in darkness?”

  “Not even on their radar,” Kaddish said. “The only danger from that cemetery is to those who don’t protect their names.” Kaddish could see that he was losing Lillian’s attention, problems appearing in her head. “I want to give him something, Lillian. The world flips: Good people with everything, comfortable people in a flash out on the streets. To survive one must have a skill. A bunch of facts won’t protect Pato, not if he reads every book in the world.”

  Lillian didn’t need to hear this from Kaddish. She knew better than him what a person could lose. Every permutation of bad fortune made it across her desk. She was also the one whose parents were both struck down by illness within the same month—her parents gone, and she’d never gotten to reconcile. Not once had they seen Kaddish with her as her husband. She couldn’t match him for sad family history. This didn’t mean she was oblivious to the hardships in the world.

  “I’m taking him with me tonight,” Kaddish said.

  Lillian stretched out her fingers and stared at her hands.

  “That Rafa is too fast,” she said. She put her hands on the table, her fingers spread wide. She raised her eyes to Kaddish. “You should take it more seriously, who your son hangs out with. It is no good these days to mix with the wrong crowd.”

  “You want me to tell him, his father with a whorehouse education? This is what strikes fear into a college boy? He didn’t listen to me when he was six and thought I was the greatest thing in the world.”

  “He didn’t think it at six.” Lillian replaced her glasses and straightened up her papers. Kaddish lifted his drink. “If you can drag him to that cemetery, you can convince him of this. Anyway, he is your son. Still you should try.”

  Kaddish bit an ice cube in half.

  “Trying is the one thing I’m good at. When have I ever stopped trying?”

  [ Eight ]

  THE DOCTOR’S INFORMATION was as good as his name. The stone read PINKUS “TOOTHLESS” MAZURSKY in Spanish and had an epitaph in Yiddish underneath: Hang a scarlet cord from the gates of Heaven, as Rahab did from her wall.

  Pato dropped the tool bag and it hit with a clatter. Kaddish asked for nothing. He got down on his knees. He pulled a chisel with a crenellated end and then switched it for another.

  “A toothless chisel for a toothless job,” he said. And, like a shochet, Kaddish ran his thumbnail along the cutting edge, searching for nicks. “An inscription half again as old as you are, Pato. Not a very long life for such a thing.”

  When there was one good swing left to the job, Kaddish turned to his son and offered him the tools.

  “I won’t do it,” Pato said.

  “I’m pretty sure you will. You’re an easy mark, Pato. Always you say no, and always you come along.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “That you always say too. I’m your father, and I don’t even feel it anymore. Come, this is a big money job. Finish the name and this time I’ll give you real cash, a real cut.” Kaddish held out the hammer. “By the looks of you, it’ll be painless—stoned out of your gourd.” When Pato wouldn’t take it, Kaddish placed the tools at his feet.

  “It’s like you don’t hear me at all,” Pato said. “I won’t live your life, and I don’t understand why you’re living theirs.”

  “Whose?” Kaddish said. He had no idea.

  “The Jews,” Pato said. “They reject you since birth and you still play the role they gave you. A son of a whore for your own self is your concern, why would you want to be that for somebody else? Why not be done with them completely? Get out of this business and out of the neighborhood and start a new life.”

  “You’ll see in time. There’s no running away,” Kaddish said. “If you do, when you’re old it’s much worse. You’ll forget your name. You’ll forget what you’re saying as the words come out of your mouth. Then, without anything left, you’ll remember who you are and you’ll find yourself afraid and alone among strangers. Better to struggle at home.”

  Pato pointed up through the fence in the direction from which the sun would rise. It was almost dawn. “Why not finish before we get arrested?” he said.

  Kaddish switched off the flashlight and dropped it in the bag. “Swing or we stay. We can go off to jail together for all I care.” He stood face-to-face with his son. “Take the swing and we get home safe and tomorrow you’ll have money to spend.”

  “You can’t make me,” Pato said.

  Except Kaddish thought that he could.

  He snatched his son’s wrists and, with embarrassing ease, turned the boy around and pushed Pato down beneath him. He got in position before Pato had the sense to struggle.

  Kaddish squeezed Pato’s narrow rib cage between his legs and put his whole weight on Pato’s back. He slipped his strong hands off Pato’s wrists and up around his son’s hands and, clamping down with those thick fingers, Kaddish forced Pato to pick up the chisel in one and the hammer in the other.

  With all his strength, Kaddish forced Pato to move the tools in place, and with all Pato’s strength, Pato kept his father from wielding them.

  “You’re insane,” Pato said.

  “Swing and it will be over.”

  Pato pushed one way and Kaddish pushed the other and neither one moved. “It’s a deadlock,” Pato said. “Let’s both let go on the count of three.”

  “Then it wouldn’t be a deadlock anymore. It would be that you’d won. How about on three you finish chipping away at the name?”

  “I know why you’re doing this,” Pato said. “I’m not going to be like you. I won’t live your life.”

  “Swing,” Kaddish said. “Swing and it’s over, and you can play psychologist the whole way home.” He pressed his chin against Pato’s skull. “It’s for your own good,” is what Kaddish said.

  They’d maximized their respective positions and both understood they’d arrived at the point of action. Their muscles were so long tensed there was almost a hum.

  In the instant when Kaddish yanked the hammer hand back with all his might, Pato knew he’d been overpowered. His smart son, his university son, already had a strategy prepared. Stronger arm to stronger arm, he’d never defeat his father. But two hands against his father’s weaker, this he could win. When that yank came, Pato let his arm go without resistance. He let it go so limp that when the hammer reached its apex and he gave his hand a yank straight down, Pato managed to pull it free. While his father bobbled the hammer in that crucial moment, Pato moved his right hand over his father’s left, trying to free his other arm and run. Pato felt a boy’s nervousness. He nearly giggled as he peeled his father’s fingers back.

  Pato’s left hand was coming loose when the hammer met chisel. It hit with so much force that the blade sunk into the stone, and the chisel rattled like a saw. A divot of marble came flying off. Pato’s body went limp, as did his father’s behind him. Both of them lay there in the dirt, side by side, Kaddish panting in Pato’s ear.

  Kaddish got to his knees, trying to prove he had some fight left. “Come,” he said. “Let’s hurry, it really is getting too light.”

  Pato didn’t respond. He remained curled up as Kaddish retrieved his hammer and surveyed the mess he’d made out of the stone. Kaddish worked the chisel back and forth. That’s when he felt the stickiness of the blade.

  Pato didn’t resist when Kaddish turned him over. He let his father take hold of his hands, still cupped together. He let Kaddish open his left, which was tightly curled around his right, and the right hand was clamped shut on itself. With some effort Kaddish forced that slippery hand open. In the wash of blood that ran out, Kaddish glimpsed the white of bone.


  On a long flat chip of marble already pressed down into the ground Kaddish found what he was hunting for. Pato’s perfect fingertip rested on that sliver of rock. Kaddish snatched it up. He held it tight in his palm, as if it were the only proof of what he’d done.

  Kaddish pulled at the weight of Pato with one hand. With the other, the tool bag heavy around his wrist, he held what he’d found. “We’ll go to the hospital,” he said. “I’ll get you put right.”

  Pato cradled his wounded fist and the two moved slowly along. As horrified as Kaddish already was, he was further distressed by Pato’s expression. It was the look of a son who saw true fear on the face of his father, a fear that unmasked something beyond fatherly concern. Pato knew Kaddish was already worried over what Lillian would say.

  “I won’t tell,” Pato said.

  “No,” Kaddish said.

  “An accident,” Pato said. Then they reached the wall and Kaddish helped Pato over.

  On the way to the hospital, Kaddish drove the car with his hand shut tight. As tightly, he was sure, as Pato clutched the one where the hot prize he held was supposed to go.

  “Jesus,” Kaddish said. “Jesus.” How much of his life did he have to spend asking himself, What have I done?

  Pato spread himself out across a row of chairs in the waiting area of the emergency room. Kaddish paced the length of it, a cigarette in his endlessly moving hand.

  An elegant lady sat across from Pato in the opposite row of seats, a Recoleta-type lady who kept smiling at his son. A nurse had given Pato a towel, which he’d wrapped around his fist. He sometimes stared back at the lady and sometimes pressed his face into the towel, so that there were now patches of blood on his cheeks.

  The woman’s foot was raised up across a young man’s lap. Kaddish wasn’t sure if it was her very young boyfriend or very old son. It was obvious why she was there; a shard of wood, a giant splinter, was sticking through her foot. The woman’s wound, like the woman, was elegant. Nothing out of place, just the shard—like an arrowhead—poking through.

  When the doctor finally arrived he attended to the woman first. He tucked his stethoscope into the pocket of his coat and leaned in to study the woman’s foot where it rested in her companion’s lap. Straightening, the doctor replaced the stethoscope, draping it around his neck.

  “That won’t pull out,” he said. “A good tug, and instead of one you’ll have a hundred splinters moving through that foot. I think we’ll split the bottom.” He made a cutting motion across his hand to demonstrate. “It’ll come out cleaner if we cut across the sole and lift the splinter clear.”

  A wheelchair arrived for the woman. She smiled at Pato, and Kaddish saw the strain in Pato’s smile back. “Never go barefoot walking on a dock,” she said. “Even shod, one should never run by water.” Advice from the stranger and then the orderly rolled her away. Kaddish liked what she’d said. Advice so limited in scope that it never needed challenging. She’d addressed his son in the way Kaddish dreamed of doing. Never had he managed a bit of wisdom so sound.

  The doctor approached Pato. Kaddish stood there with his closed fist extended, ready to present the segment of his son.

  The doctor pulled off the towel. There was a doctorly, “I see,” and then he mumbled something into Pato’s hand as if he were talking to the wound. The doctor wrapped it tight again. “Fingers and toes today. You wouldn’t think they come like that, in groups, but they do. One day it’s all stomachs, and the next everyone’s getting poked in the eye.” He helped Pato up and, seeing that he was steady, let him go.

  Here Kaddish came to the rescue. He unfurled his fist, and there it was in his blood-red palm, a small fingertip set in the middle. It wasn’t horrible like in the cemetery. It was more like Pato was there sprouting from him, as if the world had never changed and the ancient rules still held. As if this was how sons were born to fathers, from ribs and hands, from parts taken and shared.

  “What’s this?” the doctor said, sloping his shoulders and looking into Kaddish’s hand. Curious, he lifted out the fingertip, peered at it this way and that. “No good to me,” the doctor said. He then tossed it unceremoniously into the ashtray, a slice of Pato stuck in the sand. “I’ll take him back and sew him up. It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.” The doctor led Pato away, holding the boy’s good hand.

  Pato was gone for a lot longer than a few minutes so that Kaddish began to worry about complications. He was caught off guard when Lillian walked through the sliding doors.

  “How?” Kaddish said.

  “Motherly intuition.”

  It had been a tough night and a tough morning and Kaddish, frazzled as he was, took this to be true. Lillian recognized his confusion.

  “Pato had the sense to have a nurse call.” She sat down beside Kaddish. “Where is he?”

  Kaddish didn’t answer. He stared at the handful of money that Lillian dropped into her purse.

  “I raced over in a taxi,” she said.

  Kaddish nodded. He was sick with worry about Pato and sick with guilt over what he’d done. With Lillian next to him, he thought he might pass out from the pressure of that ashtray. God help him if Lillian turned to look in the sand. He wondered what they’d told her on the phone.

  “He’ll be done soon,” Kaddish said.

  Pato came out of the emergency room with a modest bandage on his ring finger. The bloodstains on his shirt had turned brown and he was a shade too pale.

  Lillian ran up to him and took hold of his face.

  “How many stitches?” she said.

  “A bunch,” he said, very calmly. “I lost half the tip and part of the nail.”

  “Lost?” Lillian said. “Your fingertip?” She turned to Kaddish and looked as if she might yell but simply shook her head once. Everyone was on best behavior. Lillian for her son. Pato for his mother. And Kaddish guessed he’d be on best behavior for his own miserable self.

  “Will it be fine?” Lillian said. “Will it be perfect?”

  “What’s perfect?” was Pato’s answer. “They said wait and see. Maybe a bit stubbier but the same, more or less.” After considering and with a bitter laugh, Pato added, “I guess that would be less.”

  “My fault,” Kaddish said. “I’m sorry,” he said. Lillian was wiping at everything while Kaddish drove. The front seat covered in blood.

  Pato was laid out in back, his head touching the door. He watched the tops of the telephone poles, measuring the car’s slow progress along the telephone wires and the tops of buildings floating against the sky. He didn’t say a thing.

  “You feel strong enough to drop me at work?” Lillian said. Kaddish, who was happy to be addressed, nearly answered.

  “Sure,” Pato said. “Absolutely.”

  Kaddish’s family ignored him but he was the one steering them along the lush avenues of Buenos Aires and was in this way involved. He loved these avenues, the very widest in the world. Kaddish believed in their greatness as a real and palpable truth. A city built around such avenues always held promise. What couldn’t such streets manage to carry; what wouldn’t be raised up in estimation by lining their sides?

  The traffic slowed and Pato came forward from where he lay, resting his chin on the front seat. There was a roadblock nestled in a crook of the avenue. Three jeeps were parked on each side of the road, closing off the lanes. Columns of flares had been lit. Patches of lava sputtered on the pavement. Because of gawking, because of the way people are, the traffic continued beyond the roadblocks as well.

  Kaddish pressed in the car’s lighter. He’d already gotten a cigarette into his mouth.

  Lillian fought off panic. It was an unlucky morning already. She looked around that front seat and prayed that no one would notice what was left of the blood. She stared out Kaddish’s window and saw a man on the other side of the road being beaten with the butt end of a gun. Two hits and he disappeared down between the cars. The soldiers circled around him.

  This was not Lillian’s first militar
y government. It was not the first roadblock in her life. This one Lillian could tell was a danger, and not only because of the beating. The roadblock soldier has its own personality, and each pack of soldiers, Lillian believed, could be read by its leader. From the last fifteen meters it was already clear. She could tell by the look of the young officer, spread out on the hood of his jeep, his shirt open, and catching the sun on his chest. It was a position that no one with a real enemy would hold, a lazy bullying stance. There was a jumpiness to the soldiers in motion that gave Lillian a very bad feeling about the one they approached.

  “War,” Lillian said. This was addressed to Kaddish, and he nodded and picked a fleck of tobacco off the tip of his tongue.

  It was a war they were in. And this, Lillian felt, was its form of combat. The endless battles of Argentina. And how many of them did they fight against themselves? This is what set loose the panic in her, a reverse progression she’d been caught up in before. First the government declares victory, next comes the fighting, and then—as an afterthought—an enemy is picked up along the way. If a country wants to go on the offensive, always there are takers. Always there is an enemy who will step up to be had.

  “ID,” Kaddish said, holding the wheel from the top so that both arms were in view. He’d heard of a man shot for reaching down to scratch his leg. Lillian opened her purse; Kaddish quickly pulled his wallet and tossed it up on the dash. Lillian held their two ID’s together.

  “Pato,” Kaddish said.

  And Pato said, “At home.”

  “What?” Kaddish said.

  “I didn’t bring my wallet to go vandalizing with you.”

  “Not an excuse,” Kaddish said. “You know the rules of this city. You know there’s no fucking excuse.”

  Lillian fought to keep a tranquil expression on her face.

  Kaddish raised his voice. “What do we do now?”

  Lillian surrendered to a fear that springs from helplessness. She’d felt it from the first glimpse of those jeeps. In Kaddish it welled up with Pato’s irresponsibility and turned right into anger, into a rage that overtakes fathers who only want to protect their sons.