The Magician

by Sol Stein

  Mr. Japhet said, “His throat. Someone tried to strangle him.”

  Immediately the doctor ordered Ed transferred from the examining table to a morgue cart, saying something to the taller attendant which Mr. Japhet couldn’t hear, and then Ed was being whisked away. “I’m having him put in the intensive-care unit,” said the doctor.

  Mr. Japhet and Lila hurried after the morgue cart, not hearing the doctor’s parting words, and got into the same large elevator, watching Ed’s face in the harsh light.

  They were made to wait outside. Very soon the senior resident was going through the swinging doors of the intensive-care unit, still buttoning his white coat, followed by the emergency intern, talking. Mr. Japhet made out something about the difficulty of getting the tube through Ed’s nose down into the stomach because of the swelling in the throat, and that was all.

  Mr. Japhet felt the hot ache in his shoulders, the stiffness of his back from the difficult drive, a sudden great tiredness and a need to sleep. When he went into the waiting room across the hall to talk to Lila, he saw her being questioned by a large policeman.

  “Oh,” she said, “that’s his father, Mr. Japhet.”

  The policeman took his cap off; it seemed to Terence Japhet a sign of condolence. “The radio car at the school,” he said apologetically, “they talked to the custodian, but he didn’t know much. Can I ask you a few questions?”

  “I have to call home,” said Mr. Japhet, then thought, “Lila, you’d better call first. Here’s a dime.” He gestured to the phone booth just outside.

  After a minute she let the receiver dangle and told Mr. Japhet her mother wanted to talk to him.

  When he hung up, Mr. Japhet said, “Your father’s going to get dressed and drive down for you.” He searched in his pocket for another dime.

  “You’re allowed to use the hospital phone to call the patient’s mother,” said the policeman, pointing to the phone on the nurse’s desk.

  “Try not to tie up the line too long,” the desk nurse said.

  His mind went blank about his own number. He’d feel like an idiot asking Lila; she was calling them all the time. Then he remembered and dialed.

  “Terence. God, I was getting worried.”

  He played down everything, making it seem as minor as would be plausible, emphasizing the broken windshield on the car and the fact that he’d have to get a ride home, probably from the police.

  The senior resident was coming out. “Have to go now, Jo,” he said and hung up.

  He stopped the doctor.

  “I’m his father.”

  “Well,” he said, “I think we can get the tube down, we’ll be careful. He came damn close to being strangled. Can’t tell too much from the contusions. Nothing broken in the neck, but could be a fair amount of trauma on the inside, have to see. You’d probably better get home and come back in the morning. We won’t know much till then anyway.”

  In the waiting room the policeman said, “She says it looked like the attack was planned. Would you agree with that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mr. Japhet without really thinking.

  “It makes a difference. It’s premeditated if your boy dies.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I was just explaining the legal part.” He turned to Lila. “Go on about that chain.”

  “I really don’t remember clearly. I remember the windshield breaking.”

  The policeman, his notebook ready, said, “Mr. Japhet, could you start at the beginning and tell me everything you remember?”

  And so Terence Japhet told what he knew, wanting to sleep, droning on, sentence after sentence, till he saw the resident and the intern returning to the intensive-care room with a small table of instruments, leaving the door open long enough for him to see the nurse at Ed’s bedside taking his pulse.

  “Go on,” said the policeman.

  Terence Japhet, who might have made a great deal more money in the outside business world, and who had stuck to teaching because it seemed so far removed from stress, went on talking a minute more until he had to stop because he realized he was crying through his spread-fingered hands.

  Chapter 7

  Urek, thick-tongued from four beers, pressed the point of the opener into another sweating can top, sending a small spray into his own grin. He punctured two more triangles and passed the can to Scarlatti, who threw a quarter on the pile.

  Feeney still had half a can, waved away the offer of another. Smoking, drinking, sex, made him sick. The others put up with him because of old credentials. Feeney had been booked at age seven, caught by cops prying open a parking meter on an older boy’s dare.

  Dillard, half-pissed like Urek, motioned for another beer. Urek pointed to the pile of change, waited till Dillard put his money in, then passed the can.

  Urek hated the formality of chairs. The four squatted hump-hunched on the linoleum floor of the playroom near the fake brick fireplace Urek’s father had built during one of his layoffs. A fan behind the electric log cycled a monotonous pattern against the brick wallpaper.

  “Scared the shit out of ’em last night,” said Urek.

  “Shouldna smashed the suitcases,” said Scarlatti. “He’ll make trouble.”

  “What trouble?”

  Dillard shifted weight. “Shouldna smashed the windshield.”

  Urek raised himself to his feet. “It’s insured, ain’t it?” Six eyes stared up at him. “Whatsa matter with you guys?”

  He stood over Dillard.

  “Okay,” said Dillard, sucking at the beer can. “When’s the kraut coming?”

  “If you can’t wait,” said Urek, “whyncha go pull off?”

  While they waited, Urek sold each of them, including Feeney, who wasn’t really drinking, another can of beer.

  The playroom walls had been papered in imitation pine board, which looked real except at the seams. At regular intervals on the main wall memorabilia hung from spikes. The centerpiece was a World War II M-l stolen in parts by Paul Urek, who kept the ammunition upstairs in his bedroom drawer alongside the package of rubbers.

  Near the M-l hung a black-wood-framed, captioned photograph of a squad of soldiers, second platoon, C Company, 18th Regiment, 1st United States Infantry Division. A red crayon circled Urek’s father’s face. He was the only one in the squad, he had told Urek, who never collected a Purple Heart or a dose.

  To the right hung a plaque from the Volunteer Firemen’s Association, same style black frame. Then a certificate from the Croton Bowling Alley with a score of 299. At the other end of the wall was a picture of Jesus; if you caught it from the right angle, the eyes seemed to open and shut.

  Scarlatti let a fart go just as the doorbell rang.

  “Not now, stupid,” said Urek. “You’ll smell up the place.”

  “I couldn’t help it,” said Scarlatti.

  They heard the shuffling of feet upstairs, the front door being opened by Mrs. Urek, who hadn’t cared about anything since her right breast was removed seventeen years ago. She figured the cancer would come back. It didn’t. Afterward, she figured maybe she hadn’t had cancer, the stupid doctor shouldn’t have taken the breast off. Her husband said she disgusted him. She had given birth to Urek with one breast, bottle-fed the baby, hating him.

  Mrs. Urek let the kraut in. She didn’t care.

  The’ kraut came down the stairs into the playroom. Dillard, happy now, shut and locked the door behind her.

  They all acknowledged her presence with a wave or a grunt.

  “Beer?” asked Urek.

  “Why not?” Unlike the boys, she got the beer free.

  The kraut was built, big tits, blonde, round face, German accent. Came over with her mother five years back. They all laughed when she said her mother was a war bride.

  The kraut didn’t go to school dances because the other girls made her miserable, even the ones who did it, because the kraut would with anybody. They told her about the events of the night before.

&nbs
p; “How bad you hurt Japhet?” she asked. The question startled them because they had been talking about the suitcases and the car.

  Urek laughed. “He’ll live.”

  “Someday you’re gonna kill somebody,” she said. “You nearly did me.”

  “Shut up!” said Urek. Once, when Urek couldn’t get it up, he had tried an implement on her.

  Urek tried to talk in a gentler voice. “You wearing pants tonight?”

  “Maybe you’ll find out,” said the kraut.

  “Did you take it today?”

  “Take what?” she said.

  “Don’t make like you don’t know. The pill.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Don’t give me smartass talk. I don’t want no trouble.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Who’s first?”

  Chapter 8

  Terence Japhet watched the two nurses, the intern, and the resident come and go; and then, just after three A.M., the specialist arrived, still wearing an overcoat laced with snow. One of the nurses helped him out of it and into a clean smock. The nurse pointed Mr. Japhet out. The specialist acknowledged his presence with a nod of his head, then went into the intensive-care unit. For the longest time he didn’t emerge. Why, thought Terence Japhet, didn’t someone tell him what was going on. Was the news that bad?

  He was sitting on the bench, watching the wall clock like an idiot, his muscles aching with fatigue, when the taller of the two nurses brought him a piece of paper, a hospital consent which read like an obituary.

  The nurse pointed to the bottom of the page and asked him to sign.

  “Why, are they operating?”

  “No, no, it’s just authority if they have to.”

  His mind wandered.

  “Mr. Japhet, we can’t go ahead with procedures until you sign.”

  “What procedures?”

  “Whatever the doctors decide.”

  “Will they tell me?”

  “Yes, they’ll keep you informed. Please hurry.”

  He signed, unaccepting and compliant, just as he had signed countless bank notes, government forms, charge-account agreements, the language of which always needed emending, and you didn’t change a word unless you were ready to be thought a crank.

  Where it said “Parent or Guardian” he scratched out “or Guardian” with a stroke that penetrated the paper. Then he went to the phone booth.

  He counted eleven rings before he heard Josephine’s voice, thickened by sleep.

  “Terence, why aren’t you and Ed home yet?”

  Lie, he thought.

  “Terence?”

  “Yes, Jo.”

  “I thought you’d left the phone. Are you bringing him home?”

  “Can’t do that, Jo.”

  “What’s wrong? You said it was minor.”

  “It may be, they just don’t know yet.”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “You can’t, Jo. He’s in the intensive-care unit.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “They don’t know. It’s the throat, some internal thing.”

  “There’s something you’re not saying.”

  “Please, Jo, I—”

  “Let me talk to the doctor.”

  “The doctors are all busy, Jo.”

  “Are you lying to me?”

  What could he say?

  “Terence, is he dead? Terence!”

  “No, no, Jo, he was choked.”

  “Badly?”

  “No, well, yes, his throat’s swollen on the inside.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Don’t know yet. Jo, someone else wants to use the phone.” That was a lie.

  “Don’t hang up. Terence, I’m coming down.”

  “It’s nearly four in the morning, Jo.”

  “Maybe the Tarrytown taxi is running.”

  “Jo, there’s nothing to be done here. All I’ve been able to do is pace the floor and sign a consent.”

  “A what?” It took a moment for her to realize that he was crying. “Terence, if there is nothing you can do by being there, why don’t you come on home. We’ll both come back in the morning, love. You need to sleep.”

  “There’s the intern, Jo, I’ll call you back.”

  He hung up, blew his nose again, and caught the young man as he came down the hall. “How is he, please tell me.”

  The intern looked at Mr. Japhet’s red-splotched face. “He’s had morphine twice, he’s asleep, he’s not feeling any pain. His breathing is okay, but we’re watching him carefully. The ice reduced the swelling a bit, but if the inside of the throat swells up again, we might have to give him another access to air.”

  “A tracheotomy?”

  This father, the intern thought, is an educated man. “Sort of,” he said, and before Terence could ask him what the specialist said, the intern excused himself and vanished down the hall. Mr. Japhet sat down to watch the clock again, to keep awake, until he remembered Josephine.

  This time she answered right away.

  “He’s had morphine.”

  “Is he conscious?”

  “Sleeping.” He didn’t say anything about the tracheotomy.

  After a moment she said, “I could walk it down there.”

  “No, Jo, it’s dark, you could get hit by a car on Route 9; by the time you’d get here in this weather, it’d be morning. Phone Elsie, she’ll drive you down.”

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “I meant in the morning.”

  “The morning is Sunday.”

  “She wouldn’t mind, if you explained.”

  “I’ll call her at seven.”

  “I’ll be here,” he said. It sounded idiotic.

  “Call me if there’s any change. Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “I love you,” she said and hung up.

  * * *

  COMMENT BY MR. JAPHET

  People, by and large, love their children. Seeing them grow up and taking pride in their achievements makes up for the chores and expense, but is love of a child an irreversible habit? How often does one feel love for children past the age of eight or ten? Less and less. Surely from the children’s side, they can’t feel this kind of continuing love for their parents, certainly not in their teens.

  During that vigil in the hospital I felt for the first time a kind of love for Ed quite apart from what I felt for him when he was a child. I mean, at sixteen he is such a different human being from what I had known him as a child, different from me and from Josephine, not just his interests, magic and the like, but the whole cant of his life, his interest not in the mechanics of what he does but in the mystery. It may be a generational thing. That evening I felt I liked—all right, loved—Ed as a particular human being.

  * * *

  The quiet hours of the night had begun to be interrupted by the early-morning activity of the hospital. Mr. Japhet had just been given permission to don a white coat and go into the intensive-care unit when Josephine arrived. Elsie hung in the background. The Japhets did not hug or kiss, because the corridor now had people passing. Elsie waved good-bye to them.

  “She’s just got a coat over her nightgown,” said Josephine.

  Mrs. Japhet was given a white smock to put on, and they both went in. Ed was in the second bed from the right.

  They were told to be very quiet. The man in the next bed to their son was expected to die within the hour.

  Ed’s eyes were open. The orange tube taped to his upper lip went into his right nostril and then presumably down into his stomach. It was connected to a jar with a small amount of brackish liquid in the bottom.

  Not only was his throat swollen, but the puffiness extended upward to his face.

  Josephine remembered when she had been a religious woman, finding occasional peace in prayer.

  Terence stole a look at the chart to see if it would tell him anything. He was about to touch it when he saw the nurse approaching, and his hand fell.

 
Ed moved his eyes as if to make up for his inability to speak. Then the nurse said to them both in a whisper, “The swelling hasn’t increased. There’s no sign of internal hemorrhage now.”

  Josephine started to take Ed’s hand.

  “No,” said the nurse. “Sepsis. Wait till he’s out of this room.”

  “Oh,” said Terence, “when is that likely?” His heart bounded.

  “If all goes well, maybe tonight.”

  Later that morning Lila came with both her parents, but they were not allowed to see Ed. The Hursts, who did not really know the Japhets except by sight, chatted with them for a minute and then took Lila home.

  Josephine persuaded Terence to go down with her to the hospital cafeteria for some food. The feeling had left that if he quit his vigil Ed would die. But when he returned from the cafeteria, the nurse had to reassure him that there had been no adverse change.

  Frank Tennent came by in the afternoon. He thought Mr. Japhet looked like he was in a trance. He spoke to Mrs. Japhet, expressing his sympathy. When he left, she kind of waved stupidly to him. He hurried out to his car where his date was waiting.

  It was late in the afternoon, when Mr. Japhet was trying to read the Sunday paper Josephine had brought, that he realized he was rereading the same paragraph over and over without catching its sense. He looked up at his wife and knew that unless he went to bed he might pass out. He had had no sleep since Friday night.

  He didn’t want to leave the car with the smashed windshield near the entrance to the emergency room; so Josephine drove it home. The snow had stopped, and with the heater going full blast, it was bearable despite the open windshield. Though he usually sat near the right window when she drove, this time he sat very close.

  From the garage she took him to the kitchen, but he wanted no food. He undressed by himself, his limbs moving slowly. He slipped on a pair of flannel pajamas, crawled into bed, and was asleep almost instantly. Josephine watched him for a while, then went downstairs. Nothing on television held her attention. She called the hospital to check, distrusting the cheerful nurse, then went to bed, taking care to keep her distance from Terence so as not to disturb his sleep.