The Ministry of Special Cases

by Nathan Englander

  Cacho tried to agree enthusiastically but nothing coherent came out. His overcoat was thrown over one arm; he switched it to the other. There was an envelope in the uncovered hand.

  “You look very smart in that suit, Cacho,” Lillian said. She gave it a tug, straightening his lapel. “It makes you look tall.”

  “I got a summons.” He showed her the envelope. “I think I’m headed your way.”

  “Routine, I hope,” she said.

  “There’s nothing routine about it,” Cacho said, and his voice cracked. “It’s because of my trip to Punta del Este. Now they’ve called me down to the Ministry of Special Cases. I already registered my return—there’s no call for it.”

  “Maybe they think it’s a bit late for the beach.”

  “My brother’s business is there and he stays year round. It’s his business. It’s travel related. I really don’t know what he does. And I can’t stand missing work.”

  “Calm down, Cacho. You’re a model citizen.”

  “I can’t calm down. These things terrify me. That’s what makes me a model citizen: I’m too afraid to do anything wrong.”

  “I never thought about it like that.”

  “That place was bad enough before the coup. Since then, it’s the ministry of last resort. It’s a bureaucratic dumping ground, a loony bin for those with no redress.”

  “We all hear the talk, Cacho. But it’s likely only that.”

  “Have you heard about the chupadas, then? Families are sucked up into a vacuum, never to return. I’ve been told they go into that ministry and never come out.”

  “That’s not very logical, Cacho. Every ministry deals with big business and small. It’s a nothing reason you’ve been called in for. And I promise, you’ll come right back out.”

  “You promise?”

  “I do.”

  “It’s a matter for the judicial system, if anything. I should’ve been summoned to the police or to court. It makes no sense to start me there. I know they want us to be afraid. But why bother me? I was afraid already.”

  They walked Avenida de Mayo together, toward the plaza and the Pink House, the ministries and Lillian’s work. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud anywhere in the sky. Lillian switched the subject back to the weather, then their jobs, and Cacho asked about Pato.

  “I haven’t seen him lately,” Cacho said, “He must be studying hard.”

  “He was staying with a friend for a few days, is all. I assume you hear both my men screaming now and again. The apartment gets small as my son gets big. I hope last week wasn’t too loud.”

  “I go to sleep very early.”

  “That’s good,” Lillian said. “Only they don’t always fight at night.”

  “I’m only guessing for not hearing,” Cacho said.

  “Maybe it’s the new door.” It was then Lillian remembered to look: a nearby wall, the tree at her side. They were whitewashed.

  Police sirens hit them and the two froze in place. A cruiser raced in their direction and behind it ran a soldier on foot. The police car passed, and then the soldier, without even a look their way. Lillian and Cacho hadn’t moved, except that her hand was in her purse and Cacho’s pressed against his pocket, holding his wallet from the outside. They were reaching for their ID cards, a reflex like blinking after a boom.

  “I should hurry,” Cacho said, motioning toward the ministry. “Thanks for the support,” he said and turned.

  “Cacho,” Lillian said. Lillian pulled her sunglasses out of her bag, as if that’s what she was after when she reached. “It’s not only Pato,” she said. “You haven’t seen me in some days either.” Lillian did her best to grin. “I’ve had some cosmetic surgery.”

  “Oh,” Cacho said. Then he said it again, more loudly. “Your face,” he said. “I see,” he said. “Now that you mention it, I can see you’ve had something done.”

  Standing at the kitchen sink, Kaddish tore off his bandage in a single pull. He dropped it in the pail underneath and, while prone, pulled the plugs of gauze, absolutely foul, from his nostrils. He washed his face with dishwashing liquid, much to Lillian and Pato’s dismay. Using a dish towel, he wiped it harder than one would think sound and turned toward them—letting the towel drop.

  His drink he’d already prepared. Smiling wide, he toasted the air, took a sip, and said, “What do you think?”

  “Oh my God,” Lillian said.

  “Still swollen,” Pato said.

  “You look gorgeous,” Lillian said. “I mean really, really handsome.”

  “You look like everyone else,” Pato said. “A stranger to me.”

  Kaddish’s smile only widened.

  “Gorgeous?” he said.

  “You really do.” Lillian put on her reading glasses, perching them on the bandage she still wore. “A fabulous nose. Small but strong.” Her excitement for him was pure, and it blossomed as she touched the tape on her cheek. “You look like Hugo del Carril. You’re a movie star!” She tsk-tsked him and shook her head. “How can you trust my opinion and not run to see?”

  “Your reaction is enough of a mirror,” Kaddish said. He reached toward her face. “I’d rather see what you’re hiding.”

  Lillian drew back. “At the doctor’s,” she said.

  “It’s only a piece of tape.”

  “It’s only tape,” Pato said.

  Kaddish’s eyes were fluttering. He leaned against the counter and put two fingers to the bridge of his nose.

  “Still can’t breathe,” he said. “I think maybe he sewed it shut.”

  “Maybe there’s some seal you’re supposed to break,” Pato said. “Like a hymen in your nose.”

  “The wit of a boy who makes love to the sheets.”

  “A hot shower,” Lillian said, “and I’m sure it will clear up.”

  “We’ll take one together,” Kaddish said. “You lose the bandage, I’ll lose the kid, and we’ll see what we can arrange.”

  “The two of you with runny noses and black eyes. It’s the height of romance!”

  “Boundaries,” Lillian said. “We’re still your parents.”

  “Come, my parent,” Pato said. He led his mother back to her chair. “Let’s see if it’s cooked.”

  Lillian lowered her glasses. She turned her chair out from the table, and said, “Maybe I should wait.”

  “I’m not looking in that mirror alone,” Kaddish said.

  Lillian studied his fine new face, striking even with the swelling. “So handsome,” she said. “All right,” she said. She straightened up, tilted her head back, and put her hands on her knees.

  “Ready?” Pato said.

  “Ready,” she said, smiling. “Peel it slowly. One fell swoop and I’m afraid the nose will come off too. It’s a lady’s nose, remember. More delicate than the one on your father’s face.” She bit her lip even before Pato started. Partly for the pain and partly to keep down the smile until it was done.

  Pato worked the tape free. He peeled the gauze pad down from the top. It was sticky and had fused in the middle, so he warned her, “Deep breath,” and yanked it off the rest of the way.

  “Oh my God,” Pato said, stepping back.

  Lillian smiled wide. “Gorgeous?” she said.

  “Oh my God,” Kaddish said.

  “Stunning?” Lillian said.

  “Give it a minute,” Pato said.

  “A minute?”

  “Absorbing,” Pato said.

  “Roman,” Kaddish said.

  “Romanesque is nice,” she said. “Like Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra.” Lillian had seen Cleopatra at the Premier on Corrientes. She touched her nose gingerly, feeling its shape. Kaddish held the bridge of his own. He put down his drink. He wasn’t getting enough air.

  “It feels so different,” she said, getting up. “Come, Kaddish, let’s go see.” She took his hand and pulled him down the hall. Pato, shaking his head, went along. Kaddish started into the bedroom. “The bathroom mirror has the best light,” she said, cont
inuing on.

  Lillian flicked the switch as if she were at a surprise party and the guest of honor had arrived.

  She saw her husband’s face in the mirror alongside her own. She couldn’t understand. She didn’t—give it a minute—understand.

  “I’m sorry,” Kaddish said.

  “Roman ruin,” Pato said.

  “Oh my God,” Lillian said, and was struck dumb. When she could speak it was to spit out the name of the young doctor like a curse. “Bracchi,” she said. Lillian turned her head this way and that. “Kaddish?” she said, despairing.

  Lillian started her survey again. She began from the front where her nose, so thin, was nearly invisible. The prominent bump on the bridge seemed to have been lowered to the tip, where it floated, mottled and clownlike. It looked as if a gumdrop had been affixed to the end of her face. From the side, she was surprised to discover, the profile was even worse. That sharp bone came out from between her eyes and then dropped straight down, a crag that jutted out where the gumdrop began. What she settled on was the image of a carcass—it most reminded Lillian of a chicken’s breastbone when the bird is picked clean.

  And then it hit her. Lillian reached up. She touched it. She looked at her handsome husband. She looked at herself.

  “Worse off,” she said. “Always worse off.”

  [ Thirteen ]

  KADDISH WAS AT THE BOOKSHELVES trying to set things right. Lillian wouldn’t speak to him, which he didn’t think fair. She was the one who wanted him to go first.

  If anything, things had been better with Pato since he’d come back from Rafa’s. Now that Kaddish was getting normal airflow through his nose, now that he could eat with his mouth closed and nod off on the couch in silence, it seemed a great relief for Pato not to have to hear the sound of his father breathing. Kaddish, who didn’t consider himself very sensitive, had always pretended not to notice the pained look on his son’s face with each exhalation, with every reminder that Kaddish was alive.

  He pulled a Marcuse off the shelf. He was embarrassed and quickly turned as if Pato was right there behind him. Only Pato could make him feel inadequate in this way. When Pato shook his head at the holes in his father’s knowledge, Kaddish felt sorry for himself and felt stupid before his son. He didn’t have the slightest doubt about what he was doing now. It was only his ignorance that unnerved him. This wasn’t the cemetery. Running his fingers along a name pressed into the spine of a book, Kaddish had no idea about the man behind it.

  For Kaddish, the shelves were a sign of what he’d done right with his son. And this is where Pato misunderstood him. The books made Kaddish proud. He loved that Pato was educated. It was Pato’s educated attitude that made Kaddish want to wring his neck. He could dump them all if he wanted, every last book. Simpler. But he wasn’t an animal, he wasn’t being cruel. As always, as forever, Kaddish was trying his best.

  That’s why Pato should have been there doing it. Not solely because he could pull the right titles with ease, but because, if he really loved those books so much, they should be disposed of with proper respect. Kaddish remembered when there was a fire at Talmud Harry’s house and his library damaged. Talmud Harry left the unsalvageable books boxed up at the rabbi’s door. As proud a man as he was, he wanted his shemos buried with everyone else’s.

  Kaddish took down anything that mentioned Che Guevara in the title and then he added a Lenin and a Lermontov to the stack. The Lermontov was a thin little novel but there was a portrait of the writer on the cover and Kaddish thought he had the face of a rabble-rouser. The only book he opened for pleasure was a survey of Argentine poetry. He read “Martín Fierro.” He could still pretty much recite the first page by heart.

  Kaddish pulled out a psychology textbook. Hidden underneath it was a mimeographed pamphlet with sentences crossed out and additions made by hand. Kaddish flipped through it. There were jokes and political cartoons, a couple of reviews, and some left-wing nonsense. The last page was a nest of famous quotes that sounded more or less the same. This just the sort of thing they’d kill you over, some student’s after-school project.

  Kaddish went down the hall and checked Pato’s nightstand and the books strewn on his bedroom floor. Then he went back to the living room to give the shelves a once-over, to see if his selections held up.

  A Hebrew Bible Kaddish left. He took down a Spanish copy of The Art of Loving and Reflections on the Jewish Question and a Mein Kampf he’d never seen. He’d wondered how his son had come to read it. If Kaddish had asked him, Pato could have led him the whole way: how Ward Six had gotten him to The Cherry Orchard and that to Onegin and on to A Hero of Our Time, which led him by fluke to Voltaire. Each book begat another. For a boy whose entire family history dead-ended on his father’s side, this is how Pato traced his line. It was Pato’s proof of how he came to be. If there was any conspiracy to follow, this one left a trail.

  Such a big ruckus over thirteen books. Two trips, two piles on the bathroom floor, and then Kaddish fetched the kerosene from the service balcony and brought it inside. The bathtub had seemed the most sensible place to make a fire indoors when the intent wasn’t to burn the house down. There was water at the ready and nothing flammable in reach. Kaddish unhooked the shower head from its clamp and let it hang outside the tub. He cranked open the slats to the small bathroom window, and peered out with the lights off to see if anyone was in his courtyard or if he could spot any neighbors hanging laundry who might see the smoke, might call the fire department and the police, and, as with so many of his plans (even he understood after Lillian’s nose), bring about the exact opposite of what he’d intended. Kaddish had waited until dark. Every passing hour made it safer with the neighbors, but he had to beat Pato and Lillian’s return. Lillian was working late these days and his son, likely off causing trouble, rarely got home before his mother.

  One book at a time, and Kaddish figured the smoke would be no worse than a dinner gone awry. Kaddish knew there’d be aftermath. He also knew he was protecting the family, securing them better this way than Lillian ever could with a door. She might not show it while Pato was still seething, but Kaddish knew it would redeem him; at night she’d roll over to his side of the bed, put an arm around him, and kiss him on the back of his neck.

  Kaddish used the Lermontov as kindling. He poured the kerosene. He pulled a cigarette from a pack with his teeth, lit it, and tossed the match onto the book in the tub. Flames rose up.

  The match made a small stain on the book’s cover, a cradle for the match head, and then, around it, all this benign yellow flame. In the dark of the bathroom Kaddish found it calming. He enjoyed this window of time when he’d done what needed doing and there wasn’t yet any harm. He’d never expected a happy life, only moments of joy to carry him through. This he would cherish. For one perfect moment the book was on fire and did not burn.

  The cover caught first. Then the pages inside began to curl. Kaddish knew Pato would be furious but, watching the book burn, he realized he’d maybe underestimated to what degree. There’s something about the singular, Kaddish thought, that is always more distressing. He believed this about all things. Kaddish tossed the pamphlet on top as a remedy. It is why war and disaster were always spread across the front of his newspaper. It’s not just magnitude. It’s the ease of calamity on the conscience. A single death is too much to look at for long. Better the way Pato wanted it, like a bonfire, a mountain of books blazing in the town square.

  Kaddish took another book, fanned its pages, and balanced it as if on display. The smoke turned acrid with the addition. Kaddish cranked open the window the rest of the way and the smoke was drawn out, its path almost geometric as it rose up, then funneled into the air shaft before rising again. Bits of burning page flew over his head and circled around the bathroom like fireflies. The smoke became heavier; recognizing the ridiculousness of his cigarette, Kaddish tossed it into the tub. He used the biggest book to break up the embers of the last. He poured on more kerosene, hoping for that
gentle flame. It didn’t work that way a second time. The pages turned wet and then burned faster, so he added another book, hoping it would somehow exhaust the fire. Kaddish got down on the floor. It was hot and he began to worry about real damage to the bathroom as the tub and the wall tiles blackened. He’d planned to scrub it clean after, to wipe the ash away. He got into a rhythm and burned the books at a steady pace. As if saving best for last, the final volume turned out to be his son’s favorite. Kaddish didn’t intend for this, but it showed good instincts just the same.

  He was pushing at that last book with the handle of the plunger, as if tending to a hearth, when a gust of clean air nearly bowled him over. This was precipitated by the swinging open of the door. Looking up, trying to get his bearings, Kaddish turned his eye to the mirror, which held in it a reflection from the hall. The air was still hazy and the mirror glass smoky, and Kaddish’s eyes were adjusting while the remains of the fire flickered in the tub; all of this together made for a face hard to read. If one stared carefully, though, looked hard into that mirror—if one used a bit of imagination and applied it to those ghostlike features—a face could be made out. From the nose alone. From their lone nose.

  The last book wasn’t done yet. It would need some attention. But Pato was already at his father’s side, a hand on the edge of the tub to steady himself, the other grabbing the book. He pulled it out and dropped it to the floor. It made a puffing noise and there was a flurry of sparks. Pato rushed his burnt fingers into his mouth.

  “No,” Kaddish said. He reached into the tub and turned on the water. “Here,” he said, pointing through smoke and, with the water, steam. “To the kitchen,” Kaddish said, “you can still get at the ice.”

  Pato already had his hand out and was looking at his fingertips, waiting for the blisters to form. He lowered that hand to stare at his father. How many times had Pato raced down the hall trying to beat his father to the bathroom, the only room in the apartment with a lock. How many times had Pato feared that Kaddish—as Pato himself just had—would burst through the door? And Kaddish had tried. There were the cracks to prove it from Kaddish throwing his shoulder against it in a rage. Though the roles were reversed, they’d never been in there with all that fury before. Kaddish may have banged until the wood cracked, but he’d never gotten in.