Waiting Room, The

by Kaminsky, Leah

  Dina uses forceps to place a new seaweed dressing on Mrs Susskind’s ulcer. It’s supposed to work miracles, according to the rep that brought it in last week.

  ‘I pity her flesh.’ Dina’s mother stands beside them, staring down at the inflamed lesion.

  ‘What can you do?’ Mrs Susskind says. ‘I should die like that. You have to live your life. People tell me I should travel.’ Mrs Susskind has all the time in the world and doesn’t seem to care that Dina has other patients waiting. ‘They all go on these package tours full of alte kakers, to Budapest and Bangkok. What do I need to hang around old people for? Anyway, I get so much adventure and excitement right around here, it wears me out just to step outside my own front door. Besides, I have my cats. I could never leave them. Who would look after them if I went away?’ She utters one of her deep, long why-do-we-have-to-suffer sighs. ‘Like I said. You have to live your life.’

  Sometimes Dina wishes the woman would just drop dead. Mrs Susskind stops talking long enough to look up at the clock.

  ‘You are so slow today.’ She rearranges the handbag parked on her lap. ‘It’s too much for my nerves to wait so long. And you are cutting off my circulation. Can’t you make it a little looser?’

  Dina tries to adjust the bandage but it keeps unravelling. A sense of dread tightens her breathing, an awareness of something lurking, stabbing at her.

  ‘That’s so uncomfortable. It’s starting to throb,’ Mrs Susskind whines.

  ‘Wounds hurt more under pressure,’ Dina’s mother mutters, looking out the window now.

  Yes. Dina knows this in her bones. When she was ten years old, at the start of her summer vacation, she went along with her father to his tailoring workshop. She would often spend time there during school holidays, playing with buttons, learning how to use sewing scissors by cutting out clothes for her dolls. But one day has always stood out in her memory more than the rest. It was the day her father died.

  That morning they had pulled a roll of fabric from the rack together and lifted it onto the cutting table. As they spread the material out, ready for her father to cut out ladies’ suits, the roll started unfurling itself. Dina stretched out her small fingers to help him stop the metres of grey worsted wool falling over the edge and onto the floor. They both tried to catch it, but it was just out of reach. Her shoes clattered as she chased the wayward roll across the room of ordered disorder. The material finally met the wall, giving up its rebellion with a thud. Dina sat down cross-legged and started to cry. Her father strolled over to her and leant down to pat her hair. She knew he was waiting for her arms to reach up and ask for consolation; he was always there with a smile to comfort her.

  When Dina calmed down, he sat her at the cutting table, hemmed in by piles of folded cashmere and tweed, beside the Singer sewing machine. A rainbow of coloured cotton spools lined a shelf. A brown Bakelite container cradled needles, thimbles and pins. She puffed up with pride when he told her she was finally old enough to help him out with the most important job of all. Handing her a pair of pinking shears and several sheets of cardboard, he asked her to cut swatches from pieces of cloth and glue them down, making coloured fabric charts that customers would choose from before having their garments made up. Then he went off to attend to a client in the changing room.

  A rotund lady stood on a small stool, facing two long mirrors. The curtain was only drawn halfway across, so Dina could see her father take the tape measure draped over his shoulder and whip it around the lady’s waist. He mumbled something and the woman’s arms shot up, as if he were holding a gun to her back. He was measuring her.

  Dina pretended not to listen to the two of them, focusing instead on the serrated blades of the scissors in her hand, which she used to cut the cloth, careful to preserve the zigzag edge to stop it from fraying.

  ‘I promise you, Mrs Kanatopsky, this will fit like a glove when I’ve finished.’ Her father held the tape measure against the tip of the customer’s shoulder and carefully stretched it down the length of her arm.

  ‘You are a size fourteen, I see.’

  ‘Are you sure? I’ve been a size sixteen all my life.’

  Dina saw the abundant woman’s reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Well, madam,’ he said with a smile, ‘My tape measure never lies.’

  Mrs Kanatopsky was blushing.

  ‘Now, drop your arms and we’ll check the length.’

  He bent down on one knee, as if proposing to the woman, making chalk marks along the material as he went, pinning the hem evenly.

  ‘You were in camp?’ Mrs Kanatopsky asked him, sounding like she was talking about the weather.

  Taking pins one by one, which he held firmly between his lips, Dina’s father stabbed with precision at the chalk crosses. ‘Yes. I was.’ He pierced the fabric again.

  ‘Which one?’

  Dina’s father lowered his voice. ‘Auschwitz.’

  Mrs Kanatopsky smiled. ‘Ha! Same place I got my education.’

  Dina felt a lump form in her throat. She’d heard her mother’s stories, but until this moment it never occurred to her that her father had also lived through the war. That morning, Dina saw her father reflected in the fitting room mirror – instead of radiating happiness, his pale face seemed to crumble at the edges, showing that same tormented look she was so used to seeing in her mother’s eyes.

  ‘I was twenty-two when I arrived there,’ he said. ‘They asked for bricklayers, shoemakers and tailors. That disaster of a three-month apprenticeship with the Getter brothers back in Vilna when I was seventeen ended up saving my life. I lied and told them I was an experienced tailor. They sent me straight off to make uniforms for the SS. Everything had to be perfect, and I was sure one day I’d be found out. But, well, you see for yourself, Mrs Kanatopsky – here I am.’

  He folded the lining slowly as though he was pleating time. Meanwhile, Dina cut the swatches of material, straining to hear the whispered story her father was sharing with his customer – the way he carved his name with a knife into the wood of his camp bunk-bed, how he would risk execution some nights by sneaking out to steal a potato from the kitchens.

  ‘I never dreamt I would come out alive. I was skin and bones by the end.’ He grabbed the seams around his customer’s waist. More pinning. ‘I had another family before the war – a wife and a daughter.’ He lowered his voice. ‘All gone.’

  The pinking shears slipped in Dina’s hand, their point nicking the edge of her index finger. A drop of blood oozed from the cut and she brought her finger to her mouth to stop the bleeding. She grabbed a swatch of paisley rayon and used it as a bandage. She wanted her father to keep telling his story about over there, but suddenly he stepped back, as if climbing out of a deep pit, and stood staring at Mrs Kanatopsky.

  ‘You see? It’s better already,’ he said, satisfied with his work. ‘Now you can hop down.’

  With that, he left the changing room, pulling the curtain across, and came over to Dina, who quickly picked up the pinking shears and went back to cutting out another swatch. He patted her on the head, not noticing his daughter’s awkwardly bandaged finger. She laid her scissors down again, leaning her elbows on the bench, wanting to ask questions but not knowing how. She sat there staring at the fabric swatches strewn over the work table, their dizzy patterns drawing her into her father’s hazy past.

  ‘Well done, darling. Keep going. Don’t give up now,’ her father said, coughing a little as he wound his tape measure around his fingers. Suddenly, the phone rang and he hurried off to answer it. Dina’s moment to ask about her father’s other family was lost.

  That evening, just as Dina was getting ready for bed, her father complained of a crushing pain in his chest. Her mother called an ambulance and within half an hour they arrived and carted him off to the hospital, where he had a massive coronary and died.

  Dina rolls the bandage up and wraps it around Mrs Susskind’s ankle again, trying to make it more comfortable this time.

  ‘Oy!
’ the old woman bellows. ‘Be careful! You’re scratching my skin with your nails.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Well, you should be,’ the woman shifts her bottom around on the chair like a ruffled hen. ‘Why does a doctor have such rough claws anyway?’

  ‘She’s right, you know.’ Dina’s mother stands behind Mrs Susskind. ‘You should trim your nails.’

  Dina looks at her hands, making sure the bandage doesn’t fall loose yet again.

  ‘And didn’t they teach you to wear gloves in medical school?’ Mrs Susskind’s complaints seem endless today.

  ‘You always knew you weren’t his first child,’ her mother leans on Mrs Susskind, who is hunched over, her wiry fingers already tugging at the bandage.

  Dina remembers the blonde curls of the little girl in the photograph she found in the trapdoor inside her mother’s wardrobe – the same picture her mother was clutching in her hand the night she died. Dina feels a wave of nausea rising. She quickly tapes Mrs Susskind’s bandage back in place and rushes to extricate the garrulous crone from her room.

  ‘He wanted to name you Lily, after her, but I wouldn’t let him. So we settled on Dina instead. A compromise.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Dina says, trying to edge past Mrs Susskind, who is making her way down the corridor.

  The old woman lets fly again. ‘The doctor is so rude today. She’s in such a hurry she can’t even manage to put a simple bandage on properly. Probably couldn’t care less if I dropped dead.’

  Trying to ignore her, Dina heads over to talk to Yael.

  ‘Can you try to shuffle around some appointments? I need to get out for half an hour.’ Dina stands behind the desk, feeling light-headed.

  ‘That’s a big ask.’ Yael peers over the top of a fake pair of Gucci glasses. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I promised Shlomi apple compote for dessert tonight and I just don’t want to keep disappointing him.’

  ‘Dina, you can’t do the impossible. Make it for him some other night. It’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘Yael, please find me half an hour to sneak out. I really need a breather.’

  ‘Ha! Don’t we all? Okay. I’ll see what I can do, but you really bring all this upon yourself, Dina. Why did you spend so much time in there with that stupid woman? Such chutzpah to barge in like that without an appointment. You always let her manipulate you. It doesn’t hurt to say no sometimes.’

  Suddenly, there is a loud crash in the waiting room.

  ‘Piece of filth! Farshtunkeneh Arab!’

  Hassan is standing in the middle of the room, chisel in hand, staring blankly at Mrs Susskind, whose face is turning purple as she yells at him. Her walking stick lies on the floor by Hassan’s feet.

  Yael rushes over. ‘What in heaven’s name is going on here?’

  ‘She threw stick at him.’ Sweat dripping from his forehead, Evgeni grabs the old woman’s arm.

  She tries to pull herself away. ‘This Arab deserves a grenade, not an old lady’s walking stick.’ She is breathing heavily now, clutching at her chest. ‘He called me a bloody Jew!’

  ‘I did not,’ Hassan says, moving a bucket of cement away from the broken tile he’s been working on.

  ‘Liar!’ she shrieks.

  ‘He would never say such a thing, Mrs Susskind,’ Yael says, rubbing the woman’s shoulder to try to placate her. ‘You probably didn’t hear him right.’

  ‘My hearing is fine. I’m telling you, they’re all the same. A bunch of murderers who won’t rest until they’ve pushed us into the sea.’ She thrashes her arms and kicks at the air. ‘And you get your trashy hands off me, you kurveh, or I’ll call the police!’

  ‘It’s true what she says.’ Dina’s mother is standing beside Mrs Susskind now, staring straight at Dina. ‘The whole world hates us.’

  Dina glares at her mother, who hates Arabs, Nazis, goyim, wasted food, unworn shoes stuffed in closets, loudmouths, silent bystanders, the child who feels too much, the man who doesn’t feel enough, politicians, journalists, those who have confessed and those who have lived without war. She died disgusted with them all.

  A terrible stabbing pain in Dina’s chest jolts her forward. She storms into the waiting room and finds herself standing in front of Mrs Susskind.

  ‘Enough!’ she shouts, drunk with her rising anger. ‘I’ve had it with you.’

  Mrs Susskind stares at her, eyes ablaze. Dina’s mother looks away.

  ‘The police have better things to do today than worry about a torrential troublemaker the likes of you. I’m tired of you, always playing the victim. You’re nothing but a bigoted old bitch. Now, get out before I throw you out myself.’

  Mrs Susskind’s face turns from purple to beet red. ‘How dare you speak to me like that? I’ll report you to the Medical Board.’

  ‘Go right ahead. I should have told you exactly what I think of you a long time ago,’ Dina roars. ‘Why don’t you go home and drown a few more kittens? That should keep you happy for a while.’

  Everyone is staring at Dina. Yael cups her hand over her mouth to cover a huge grin. Hassan’s eyes cloud over with generations of smothered fury.

  After several moments of hushed silence, Mrs Susskind fires a huge gob of spit straight at Dina’s face. Dina stumbles and steps backwards, tripping over Hassan’s bucket and landing right on top of the broken tile. She feels a searing pain in her side. At the same time the heel of her shoe snaps right off. Hassan drops his chisel and leans over to help Dina up.

  ‘You Arab-lover!’ Mrs Susskind yells at Dina. ‘Both of you deserve to rot in Hell.’

  Dina struggles to her feet, holding on to Hassan’s arm with one hand and clutching her broken heel tightly with the other. Breathing heavily, she limps over to the desk, grabs her handbag and bolts straight out the door. She hears Yael calling after her:

  ‘Dina, wait!’

  Dina forges ahead along the path.

  CHAPTER 9

  Her car is almost driving of its own accord, as if it wants to escape from the clinic, too. Still trembling, Dina holds the steering wheel tightly. She takes her eyes off the road for a moment, glancing up at the crumbling old buildings that might have been beautiful once. The history of this city is now hidden behind faded laundry and car fumes. An elderly lady, hair tucked into a floral scarf, perches on a rickety balcony, her elbows leaning on a rusty, ornate railing as she watches the traffic below. Suddenly, a young boy cuts in front of Dina, one hand holding a black skullcap down on his head, side curls flying behind him as he races across the road.

  ‘Watch out!’ Dina’s mother yells.

  Dina slams her foot on the brake just in time, scraping her toe against a sharp piece of metal that has worn through the pedal cover. The kid runs off and disappears into the narrow doorway of a synagogue.

  ‘You nearly killed him!’

  ‘What are you doing here? Stop following me!’ Dina wriggles her bottom around, trying to readjust the seatbelt that’s cutting into her belly. Her toe begins to throb as she lifts her foot slowly off the brake.

  ‘Well, if it wasn’t for me you would have run him over.’

  ‘I saw him.’

  ‘Where are you going, anyway? You shouldn’t have left the clinic like that.’

  ‘You’re the one who told me I should put family first. So, that’s what I’m doing. I’m going to buy some apples for my son’s dinner and fix your shoes.’

  ‘Always so smug, even as a child.’

  ‘Is this going to be your My-Daughter-Believes-In-Land-Rights-For-Gay-Whales diatribe? Or the You’re-Killing-Me-But-What’s-The-Use-Of-Living speech? Do I get a choice?’

  ‘Your father spoilt you – that’s why you turned out this way. Buying apples isn’t going to make you a better mother. And no one ever asked you to keep my old shoes, let alone wear them all the time. And tell me something, Dr Know-It-All. What exactly makes you so sure that Arab in the waiting room didn’t call the woman a bloody Jew?’

  A truck passes th
em, belching exhaust fumes through the open driver’s window. Pressing down on the gas, Dina raises her voice. ‘Look, mother. Why don’t you just go back and hang out with Mrs Susskind? You two could be twin souls in the Jewish cosmos.’

  Dina heads downtown to Wadi Nisnas, the Arab neighbourhood, and turns right towards the Shuk Ha’turki, an open market area filled with anything imaginable that can be sold, from candied pecan nuts to mechanical hula-dancing dolls, and delis filled with ‘white meat’, a euphemism for pork. It’s a two-minute drive most days, but today it looks like Dina’s going to be stuck for a while.

  Her mother seems determined to keep poking at her. ‘Is it so hard to imagine he was rude to a Jew? I would be giving her the benefit of the doubt if I were you.’

  ‘Well, luckily you’re not me. Why do you always need to be at war with the entire world?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I forgot. Everybody loves us, Dina.’

  ‘What is your problem? You were taken in by a peaceful country who gave you refuge; raised a family there, found stability, made a decent living. I suppose now everyone in Australia hates Jews, too?’