The Ministry of Special Cases

by Nathan Englander

  [ Thirty-one ]

  KADDISH RAN HOME AGAIN to gather up the papers, to grab Lillian’s purse, and to call Tello, the lawyer, to see if he had any advice. Lillian stayed back with the baker; she wouldn’t leave her side.

  When the baker went for a new apron, she brought two, and together they reopened the store. Lillian was happy to try out the baker’s fantasy to pretend, with every swing of the door and sound of the bells, that it was her Pato shuffling in. Lillian took orders and wrapped up pastries while she waited for Kaddish to get back. It was as she pressed down a piece of tape and sent another customer off with his breakfast that she understood how part of their problems came to be. Everything in the whole damn country comes wrapped up like a Christmas present, cotton balls, a bar of soap, the medialunas with which she’d sent the customer home. “The land of pretty paper,” Lillian said. “Everything full of promise until you peel the wrapping away.” The baker only nodded and opened the register to make change.

  The Ministry of Justice was peopled with brittle, unfriendly workers who had actual answers to questions posed. The workers gave off the impression that information might be communicated to them and that such information might merit eventual consideration. It was still a government office, but a level of efficiency was apparent. Lillian saw people working everywhere she looked. And one spinsterish clerk was, in answering her, actually kind. The mood among those waiting was no cheerier than over at the Ministry of Special Cases, but there was a marked difference in how those assembled waited. Missing from their faces was the flat affect of those who know there’s no hope of getting anything done.

  Before the baker had turned the sign in the window of her shop, she’d packed a hard leather case with thermos and maté and wrapped up enough pastries for a family often.

  “You have high hopes for our appetites,” Lillian had said.

  “There will be other people there. It does no good going stale.”

  The baker hadn’t said a word since they’d arrived at the ministry. She didn’t offer a single stranger a pastry. She sat stock-still, the leather case hugged to her chest. At the bakery, she’d seemed liberated by her admission, excited to be free of her secret and to have done right. At the Ministry of Justice, Lillian thought she might be slipping into shock.

  Lillian wanted to tell the baker to pace her panic. It would be days, she expected. The baker might be forced to join them for some time before she could do her part.

  Lillian was surprised then when a stern-looking man in an undertaker’s suit approached them and quietly led the baker away. “Thank you,” Lillian said, reaching out just in time to touch the small of her back.

  Lillian’s fingers tingled the whole time the baker was gone, so intense was the idea that Pato’s story was being told, that a case was being built, and that Pato might, as the bird-feather man explained, be moved from darkness back into the white world. She sat there and shivered. Kaddish stayed planted at her side, a crushed and empty pack of Jockeys clenched in his fist.

  Kaddish was having a stretch in his seat when he caught sight of the baker rushing across the room, giving them a wide berth. Even at this distance, Kaddish could see the sheen of sweat on the woman and a distinctly gray pallor to her skin. He tapped Lillian and, taking his cue, she turned. Lillian found what she was supposed to be looking for as the baker, who could not resist, stole a glance their way. The baker caught herself caught by Lillian. She put a hand to her mouth and rushed off, nearly in a sprint.

  Lillian begrudged her nothing. The baker could turn into a stranger like all the others. She could deny Pato ever was for having remembered him now.

  Kaddish pulled off the leather top of the maté case the baker abandoned, as if he’d just been given it as a gift. Before Lillian could even figure out what to do next, the man in the dark suit returned, carrying a clipboard.

  “I want to go over something,” he said, matter-of-fact. “And there are statements for you to fill out and sign.”

  “There is a case?” Lillian said. “There’s a habeas corpus?”

  The man lowered his clipboard and gave Lillian a hangdog look.

  “There will be an investigation into the claims. If there is merit, a writ of habeas corpus will be issued.”

  “Just like that?” Lillian said.

  The man turned the clipboard toward her. “Fill these out,” he said, “and sign.”

  It appeared to Gustavo that all they did was hug. If Lillian was in the office, she and Frida were locked in an embrace. Gustavo had returned from a lunch meeting with a bit of a tilt to his step. He’d walked in to find the two of them pressed together and Frida cooing, “A good sign. It will end well.”

  “Is he back?” Gustavo said.

  The women separated. It was baffling to Lillian that Gustavo needed to ask. How could the answer ever be anything but obvious? Frida would bolt upright in bed, she’d know in her sleep if Pato was home. Frida went back to her desk and Lillian started for hers. “So much to catch up on,” was all Lillian said as she sat down.

  Gustavo scratched at his ear.

  “Lillian,” he said. And Lillian looked up.

  “Hard to believe the sea change it makes. It’s only a nose, but you come in here more stunning each time.” Gustavo kicked at the leg of a radiator. “Could we talk in my office?”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a private matter,” he said.

  “Then I’ll only have to repeat it to Frida after. You know we share everything between us.”

  Gustavo gave another kick to the radiator and rubbed at his neck, doing his best to emphasize that he was torn. “Then stand up,” he said. “At least stand up and come over here.”

  Lillian stood up and went over.

  “What is it, Gustavo?”

  “It’s not a time for messing about.” Gustavo paused, expecting Lillian to interrupt him. “We have powerful clients, some of them.”

  “Yes,” Lillian said. “You’ve built up quite a reputation. Many delicate situations handled well. Top-notch.”

  “It’s not just your own life at stake,” Gustavo said. “You’ll get us all killed.”

  “I will?” Lillian said. “That’s what you think?”

  “I’ve had a call from the general. You stole his number. You took it from me, Lillian.”

  “They stole a baby. Someone stole my son.”

  Gustavo shook his head. “You knew there’d be repercussions.”

  Lillian didn’t even blink.

  “You must have,” Gustavo said.

  They stood there, the two of them, staring.

  “You’re going to have to do it by yourself,” Lillian said. “It’s the one time I can’t do your work for you.”

  “I promised him,” Gustavo said.

  “I need this job, Gustavo. My family won’t be able to survive without it. We’ll end up on the street.”

  Gustavo looked to Frida. She held his gaze and he turned back to Lillian.

  “I won’t understand,” Lillian said. “It’s wrong. Don’t do it.”

  Gustavo pursed his lips. “You’re fired,” he said.

  Frida gave a sharp, awkward cry. Gustavo went into his office to get the severance check he’d already written—generous, he thought, as generous as could be. Lillian stood there, not even stunned. She felt relieved. One less thing to think about.

  Lillian needed all her time for Pato, to see to his return and, when he got back, to be by his side. If she missed an opportunity because of this job, what good was money anyway. And when her son was with her she could live off the joy. From looking at Pato alone, Lillian knew she wouldn’t starve. She’d eat the boy up for a lifetime. Gustavo came back and handed Lillian an envelope. All she could think in the moment, all Lillian could manage, was to note that first thing in the morning she must rush to the Ministry of Justice and remove her work number from the forms.

  [ Thirty-two ]

  KADDISH BREATHED THE FUSTY BREATH of the two officers fla
nking his chair. He made no attempt to stand. Still, they each kept a hand on a shoulder, pushing him down. There was no excuse for such treatment. He wasn’t a criminal (or, at least, if he did break certain laws, he wasn’t in the police station because of them now). If he had to take some responsibility for his current predicament, he’d concede only to souring the overall tone.

  Kaddish had maybe driven a bit fast en route to the station, upon arriving he might have expressed his concerns a touch too loudly, and, when the policeman out front had been unwilling to facilitate his request, Kaddish might just have seen himself into the subcomisario’s office, already familiar with the way.

  It was Lillian’s optimism he was bearing. She’d been energized by the Ministry of Justice and convinced that with the baker testifying to having seen the police, the police might admit to having been seen. If Kaddish didn’t feel as upbeat, he was still ready to try. He’d offered to go back on his own to the station that had first held Pato.

  “You do not barge into my station and make a scene,” the officer behind the desk said. “You do not demand anything, especially an audience with me. I remember you,” he said. “I know who you are.”

  “That’s more than most,” Kaddish said. The policeman on Kaddish’s left gave him a shove.

  “What,” the officer said, “could possibly have brought you back here?”

  Kaddish, who didn’t care about a shove and didn’t care to be bullied, who feared more deeply and differently for his son’s death than ever before, did not feel like being polite. “Why the fuck else would anyone show up at a police station except to get help? That’s your fucking job.”

  “Sometimes they come to turn themselves in,” the officer said. “We’ve had a huge run of guilty conscience. Is that why you’re here? To confess to something?”

  “I came by to see if you wanted to do the same,” Kaddish said. “If there’s something you’d like to tell me, now is your chance.”

  The officer looked bored. He took off his glasses and placed them on his desk next to Kaddish’s papers. “It’s probably unwise to keep talking this way. If you want to commit suicide, it would be simpler if you went home and shot yourself in the head.”

  “And if I die in this chair won’t I end up at home and listed a suicide just the same?”

  “You wouldn’t necessarily end up anywhere.”

  Kaddish leaned as far forward as those restraining him permitted. “I know what you do,” Kaddish said. “I know how you do it.”

  The officer picked up Kaddish’s ID. “Mr. Poznan,” he said, reading from it, “what could you possibly know?”

  “Really, I only came for assistance in locating my son,” Kaddish said. “I have a witness now. Somebody saw you. If you’re ready to admit your part, then it’s best I don’t say anything, as you’ve advised.”

  “Too late,” the officer said. “You missed your chance to kiss and make up.”

  “You arrested my son,” Kaddish said. “You released my son—you released him to me, in this station. And then you came over to my house and took him right back.”

  “We took him back?”

  “Forget that part,” Kaddish said. “If the lady officer will come give testimony, or if you’ll give me the page from the logbook, we are in the process—we are very close to getting a habeas corpus. It would be useful if you would tell the truth.”

  “You say your son was released into your custody.”

  “I do.”

  “So what kind of habeas corpus do you want? Do you want one that says your son is with you? You could issue that yourself. I’ll have one of the men take dictation if you’d like.”

  “You took him back. That’s how it works. You release them so you can snatch them right up again. It’s one of your tricks.”

  “My tricks?” the officer said. “Since we didn’t rearrest your son, and since we didn’t have him in the first place—”

  “You did,” Kaddish said. “That’s the frustrating part. You can’t deny what I know, what is fact.”

  “I deny it.”

  “I know how it works, even. I know about the phone books, I know what you do.”

  “What is it we do?”

  “You use phone books and class lists and anything that links two people. You take them for nothing and that’s why you don’t charge them with a crime, that’s why it’s secret. This government has started a crazy war of association. You’ve made up a national threat. I didn’t believe it myself,” Kaddish said, “but now I do. You take one, and then you take the others without reason.”

  “Using phone books?”

  “Yes,” Kaddish said.

  “Theory aside,” the officer said, “there’s a hole in your reasoning. If you’re under the impression that I have your son here, aren’t you afraid of what such a visit will cost him?”

  Kaddish considered before answering. “I’m not afraid. And I’d rather not consider why that is. I’d rather not worry about why I don’t worry.”

  “There is one part of your claim that touches on reality, and even that you got reversed.” The officer stood up. He unbuttoned his uniform jacket, removed it, and hung it carefully on the back of his chair. He lifted a thick, worn Buenos Aires telephone book off a file cabinet and held it with both hands. The officer stood before Kaddish and the policemen at Kaddish’s sides put more weight onto his shoulders. Each pulled back on one of his arms. “It’s not what’s inside the phone book that’s most useful”—and here, with two hands, he raised it high—“it’s the information that the phone book draws out.” Like that, he swung it down onto Kaddish’s head.

  In that first instance Kaddish wondered if his neck had broken and was only happy to register the pain from the policemen pulling at his arms. If it’s possible to be surprised in such a manner twice, Kaddish couldn’t believe how much it hurt the second time the phone book was brought down on his head. The blow was delivered with such force, Kaddish thought his eardrums had burst outward from the pressure generated within. Kaddish meant also to say something, to request that the officer stop. Opening his mouth, he found it shut with another blow, his teeth driven deep into his tongue.

  Right then the officer stopped on his own.

  Kaddish used the break to great effect. He freed his teeth, retracted his swelling tongue, and set himself up for the next series of blows, which came quickly.

  “Do … not… bother… me … again,” the officer said. He brought down the phone book once with each word, punctuating. Kaddish saw endless points of light and heard a great roar each time he was struck.

  After the next round, the officer said, “All right, then.” He followed it up with such a wallop, Kaddish heard a crack. He took a deep swallow of blood.

  “You want to know our secrets, Mr. Poznan. This is one: I can beat you to death with a phone book and it won’t leave a mark. I can see you’ve bit your tongue,” he said, studying Kaddish’s face. “Otherwise what you feel inside doesn’t show. Do you get it? Now do you see why the phone book is our greatest investigative resource?” The officer patted the book and gave Kaddish a moment to agree.

  “Do you have my son?” Kaddish said.

  The officer let loose with a pounding so relentless, Kaddish was sure it would not stop until his head, like a nail, was driven into his chest.

  The officer stopped and waited to see if Kaddish had anything smart to say. When Kaddish didn’t, the officer gave him the handkerchief from his own pocket. “Wipe your mouth,” he said. “There’s blood.” The policemen at Kaddish’s sides released him. Kaddish could still see and could still hear, but he was so disoriented he wasn’t sure how to process what it was that he saw and heard. It took him some seconds to connect his brain to the burning in his arm and to move the handkerchief to his lips.

  “That was three short minutes,” the officer said. “A little bit more or a little bit less. There are five hundred such periods in a day. Think of that, Poznan. Think of that day after day, and imagine what ca
n be done if delicacy were not a factor, if I was not interested in sending you back out as pretty as when you came in.” The officer put his jacket on and began to button it up. “I do not have your boy here. But now I promise you, my own search begins right now. I’d very much like some time alone with him. All this to tell you, Mr. Poznan, you and your wife do not help anyone. You make things worse. And no parent should be out making things worse for a son.”

  Kaddish wanted only to sleep this day off. With small painful steps, with a grinding headache behind his eyes and a feeling of sickness that he couldn’t isolate, Kaddish pushed through their always-open apartment door.

  Lillian stood with a drink, facing him. Kaddish had the sense that he’d stepped into a conversation they’d already started. She took a sip. He wiped his lips against his sleeve. Kaddish didn’t think he’d ever seen her holding a whiskey in her hand.

  Kaddish wanted to tell her everything, to tell his wife that he’d been tortured at the police station, and tell her what the officer had threatened to do to their son. He wanted to bend his stiff neck and lean his head on Lillian’s shoulder. If he did that he knew he’d tell, and if he told he didn’t think Lillian would live through the night. She wouldn’t survive, Kaddish thought. Not three times three minutes of considering the fate that had befallen their son.

  He kept his lips pressed together and tried to communicate as best he could by looking into her eyes.

  “I got fired,” Lillian said. She took another sip. “Gustavo let me go.”

  Kaddish felt his legs start to shake. He didn’t say a word. “That’s it?” Lillian said.

  It seemed that it was. Kaddish walked right past her, down the hallway, his mouth full of blood.

  [ Thirty-three ]

  NOT SINCE THE NIGHT of the abduction had Kaddish stood so solemnly before Pato’s books. He first tried to bring to mind the three missing volumes, the ones that had disappeared down the elevator shaft along with his son. Then he went about trying to cull with new eyes. He wasn’t after contraband. He was looking for anything that might link Pato to one of his friends. Kaddish found a humor magazine with a classmate’s name written on the back. He found the class portrait where Lillian had left it and placed it on top of the magazine in his tool bag. This he lifted with a moan, so sore and stiff was he from the beating, and carried into Pato’s room. He didn’t know how he’d swing his hammer in this state, let alone climb over the cemetery wall. Kaddish had managed to get a new job.