2007 - The Ministry of Special Cases

by Nathan Englander

  Lillian rocked and wailed and felt her whole body running out of her face, through eyes and nose and mouth. She wondered if she could die this way, if so much of her could leak out that nothing remained.

  It was not in the downward motion that it happened, as she cried her face into her hands and her head into her knees. It was in the return, in the great empty wail that she let out as she rose up for a new breath. Lillian cried so hard, rocked so hard, blew so hard that in the thumb pressing and tissue squeezing, Lillian felt her nose give way.

  Her face went numb The rest of her head was shot through with pain. The only point of focus was a viselike tightness in her two front teeth.

  She cried on this way, ignoring the laxness in her blowing nose, ignoring the spotty blood turning fluid on the tissues, on her hands, and then reaching her blouse. It was simply one more thing to help drain herself dead. Ignoring the pain, keeping to crying, she made room only for the obvious conclusion. Her two-bit bad-debt first-time nose job seemed to have come undone.

  What had she expected from such shoddy workmanship? What other outcome from such a rickety nose and a Kaddish-cut deal?

  He made his way to the bedroom with a cup of tea and a slice of buttered baguette on a little plate. Kaddish is doing his best, Lillian thought.

  “What is it?” he said, a ludicrous question considering their son’s absence. Then, taking her in, he took a step back. It was something else entirely.

  “It’s the nose,” Lillian said.

  “I can see.”

  “No, you can’t,” she said, her voice nasal and gurgling, the crying continuing behind it.

  “Something’s not right with it, Lillian.”

  “Every time they look,” she said, “when they see his picture—when they see both faces—already they don’t believe.” Lillian grabbed for more tissues and pressed them to those in place. “The first time I ever enjoyed my own reflection was after Pato was born. For a parent, from then on, when I looked in the mirror I saw myself and I saw him. We were the same, Kaddish. A son and a twin. Now he’s gone from the mirror too. It is like murder, this nose.”

  “You can still see Pato in the mirror.”

  “I can’t,” she said, the blood running thick. “I can’t find my own face in there anymore; how am I supposed to find his? My son is gone and the one way I always had him, that is gone too.”

  “Your nose, Lillian,” Kaddish said.

  “It bleeds.”

  “It more than bleeds. It’s not right. It doesn’t stand on your face,” he said. “I think it’s broken free.”

  “My best student. That was his promise. As with all your endeavors, Kaddish, a job well done.” The crying slowed and then she laughed. “When the freezer went on your bargain off-the-back-of-a-truck fridge, when the engine gave out on your poker-game car, when the cabana in Mar del Plata turned into the only one I’ve ever seen that wasn’t near a beach—for these things I was always prepared. Even the nose job ending ugly was no great surprise. But to get a warranty on my face. To guess my nose was on consignment—this I couldn’t have expected.”

  Kaddish came closer and did his best to follow. Lillian’s speech was delivered in an ever more nasal pitch.

  “Let’s get you some ice and head over to Mazursky.”

  “Before dawn?” Lillian said.

  “To his house,” Kaddish said. “We’ll pick him up and take him over to the clinic.”

  “And waste how many hours shuttling around and getting ready, each one amplified?”

  As if she had to tell him. He had his own fears. “You’ll be better off,” Kaddish said. “It needs to be fixed.”

  “Get Mazursky to see me before the city opens or after the city sleeps. If he’ll only work in daytime, get him to operate in the backseat of the car while we patrol the streets. Otherwise it’ll stay until Pato is back. The only waiting rooms I’ll sit in are those for our son.”

  “This is an emergency, Lillian. You have no nose.”

  “I do. It’s just not connected to my face.”

  “You can’t be of use this way.”

  “You just watch what I do without it.”

  “Mazursky will fix it. This time we’ll see it done right.”

  “Not right, Kaddish-1 want it wrong. Wrong in the old way, big in the old way, crooked in the old way too.” She gave Kaddish a push toward the door, one hand still clasped to her face. “I want my big nose back, Kaddish. I want to see Pato when I look in the mirror. Go find me my old nose.”

  [ Twenty-two ]

  KADDISH WENT OFF to get the doctor. Lillian went to the kitchen to put ice on her swelling face. She found the freezer completely frozen over, a solid block again.

  We make adjustments, Lillian thought. We ignore things bit by bit until they’ve gone too far. Here was another encroachment that had slipped by her. She’d not be chiseling today.

  Lillian tossed a dish towel into the sink. She turned the tap on high and let the cold water run. It was then that Lillian noticed what a mess she was. She took off her bloody blouse and the bloody bra underneath. She touched her hand to her chest, sticky as well, and took off the rest of her clothes. Leaning her head back, she placed the compress against her broken nose. Naked and poised and nearly blind with pain, Lillian made her way to the telephone.

  The operator would help her. When all turns to loneliness how nice to know the operator is always awake. A woman answered, and she had a voice kinder than Lillian could have imagined. She placed Lillian’s calls and stayed on the line while the telephones rang and rang and rang.

  They tried the Army. They tried the Navy. They tried the Air Force.

  Lillian had learned. She did not say to the operator, “My son has gone missing.” She did not ask if the operator had heard other mothers asking to place three just such calls. The operator let the last one ring for what seemed like minutes before saying, “No one is picking up.” She said it in a way that made Lillian feel like she knew everything and understood.

  Lillian said, “Thank you.” And then she said, “It’s the perfect time to invade the country. The whole of the armed forces closed.”

  Lillian stood with her head tilted, eyes shut, and the compress in place. With uncertain steps, and unknown to her, Lillian followed a trail of blood to her bed. She lay down backwards, with her feet on the pillows and her head at its foot. Lillian turned her face to the side so she wouldn’t choke. She’d told Kaddish she would manage just as well with a nose or without, but already Lillian knew it would be better if he came home soon.

  She lifted the compress for a glimpse at the clock but couldn’t focus. It was enough to see morning brushing up against the bedroom window. The sun would soon clear the building across the way, filling the street and flooding the bedroom; then it would reach the air shaft and daytime would invade their apartment from all sides.

  Lillian’s intent was to lie there another minute. She would not sleep, only collect herself until Kaddish or Pato came through the door. A little more light, a few more minutes, and she would muster herself, muster her work voice. She would start calling again, and this time she’d say the right things to the right people. She’d embark on her new business: the getting of her son.

  It was the last thing Lillian thought before she fell asleep.

  [ Twenty-three ]

  “HANDSOME DEVIL,” Dr. Mazursky said. “Look at the face on you.”

  Mazursky had followed his maid into his office, spouting a steady stream of curses and with his robe hanging open. He was about to start in on Kaddish as well, when he’d set eyes on him.

  “This is why I get up in the mornings; this is why I do the work that I do.” The doctor tied his robe, adding an air of formality. He let out a whistle, and his smile was all teeth. He stood there shaking his head and then coming up close, he snatched Kaddish’s chin. “A Don Juan. A Romeo. You’re beautiful as only the beautiful are.”

  “Come see, Silvia,” the doctor said. The maid came close, as
if all was forgiven. “A perfect job. I can’t even tell you—damn me. Damn me.” Here for a second the smile disappeared. “Why didn’t I take a before picture? My best work yet.”

  As the maid left, the doctor called for coffee. “And breakast for two?” the maid asked.

  “One,” Mazursky said. “He won’t be staying long.”

  Taking a seat behind his desk, the doctor said, “A pleasure to see you.” Then the smile vanished. “A pleasure to look upon you, that is. To find you at my house unannounced and when we have no business, that’s another matter. It’s not in my best interests to associate with you. Fine specimen that you’ve become, you’re an hijo deputa nonetheless.”

  “As are you, Doctor.”

  “Me? Show me proof.” He showed Kaddish his empty hands. “All gone,” he said. “So thanks for coming by. A day-maker, I’ll admit. A beauty, Poznan. You came out nice.” The maid returned with coffee for two, and the doctor took both cups.

  “Lillian’s nose,” Kaddish said. “It’s an emergency. That’s why I’m here.”

  “I saw the nose she walked around with until now. That was an emergency and she lived with it fine.”

  “The kid’s nose collapsed,” Kaddish said.

  “The kid’s?”

  “My wife’s,” Kaddish said. “The kid’s work is no good. The bone—”

  “Cartilage.”

  “It’s hanging loose on her face.”

  “That’s a different story,” Mazursky said. And as quickly as he’d turned stern, a flash of empathy set in. He passed a coffee to Kaddish. “Was she hit?” the doctor said. “Did she walk into a wall? Frisbees—ever since the Frisbee made its way south, they break many a nose.”

  “Crying actually. She was upset and crying and it fell.”

  “It collapsed on its own?”

  “Came loose, more. She feels—we feel—it should be under warranty.”

  “Crying is regular nose usage by any standard. I wish you’d clarified right off. It’s Bracchi’s bungle. We’ll get him back in for the repair. These young doctors won’t amount to anything if they don’t learn from their mistakes.”

  “You’ll do it, Doctor. And you’ll make it right. She wants her old nose back.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “You work miracles. Work another.”

  “I don’t even know what I’d use to reconstruct it. We’d have to fashion it from a rib. Maybe we can pull her femur if she doesn’t mind walking with a cane.”

  “Not funny, Doctor.”

  “Then don’t turn me into a joke. I’ll make the fix. But you can forget about restoring that monstrosity. Have your wife call the clinic when it opens and tell the receptionist to put her in as a bump instead of the Hiegelman titties. It’ll be tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Not tomorrow, today. Right now. Wake up your nurses and sharpen your knives.”

  “I have other emergencies ahead. There’s a child with a hole punched through her cheek, what of her?”

  “Let the little girl’s ice cream run out her face for another day. I’ve got my own kid to worry about, Doctor. They’ve taken my son.”

  “God,” he said. “I’m sorry,” he said. Then the doctor pulled the top of his robe closed. “I’ve always heard you had no sense, Poznan. That your talent rests with the dead and not the living. But I can tell you, I’ve never heard a case pleaded so poorly before.”

  “Will this be a long lecture?”

  “It’s not a lecture, it’s an offer. One hidden in a chiding.” The doctor stood up and faced the painting behind the desk, his four horses racing. “You tell your story backwards. It should start with the missing son.” He turned to face Kaddish. “If I can help in any way I will.”

  “No one helps,” Kaddish said. “It’s only fate that returns them alive or dead, in whole or in part—or not at all.” Here Kaddish’s eyes misted over. “I didn’t say a word to my wife, and an offer from you only further confirms it. I don’t believe you make any deals you can keep.”

  “And here I am offering to assist.”

  “The last I’d expect.”

  “Kidnap and ransom is our gross domestic product,” the doctor said. “But like everything else that ends up government run, they’ve sucked the profit out of it. They take and nothing comes back. That’s why I’m offering, because what they’ve started is dirty in a new way. To kidnap the innocents, to take revenge on them—we’ve seen enough of that in this century. Too many are blameless. And too many are Jews.” The doctor came around to Kaddish’s side of the desk. “If there’s one thing I learned from my dear forgotten father, sometimes, no matter how numerous or powerful the enemy, it’s up to the individual to try and fuck those boys up.”

  “How can you help?” Kaddish said.

  “I don’t know yet. It’s an imperfect plan. Corae and ask when you need something specific, when you can make a better request than Get me back my son!”

  “What other request could there possibly be?”

  “There’ll be something. You’ll have to progress beyond that. Now give me a couple of hours, then meet me at the hospital with Lillian and I’ll put her back right. And tell her not to eat, if she hasn’t.”

  “Can I ask one more thing?” Kaddish said. He sounded almost shy. “No offense,” Kaddish said, “dangerous as it is, and your explanation aside, why would you offer to help?”

  “Penance,” the doctor said. He put a hand on Kaddish’s back and gave it a quick rub. “I have a new sin.”

  [ Twenty-four ]

  A NOSE IS RESILIENT, it finds its own way. Lillian could feel it situating, somehow cozying up. There was the sensation of something calcifying, a sandy bond forming and a congealing elsewhere within. She thought her nose might have fused in place below the swelling. As she reached up to touch it and tried to open her eyes, Lillian recognized that she’d succumbed to sleep. She also recognized that it was the phone ringing that had woken her, and her nose wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t the nose that had her home in bed.

  Lillian rushed to her feet. She moved down the hallway, steadying herself against one wall and then the other, propelling herself forward. She opened her sticky, murky eyes and made her way to the phone, knowing as she reached it and grabbed it and said, “Hello,” that it had stopped ringing two steps before.

  The pain then came back with a vengeance.

  Lillian blinked her eyes. She pressed her fingers against them and sat down in the chair by the living room window. She couldn’t believe how much it hurt. “You cannot know,” she said out loud in the way that speech can escape us.

  More than the pain, what Lillian truly couldn’t bear was the transformation that came with first sleep. It’s sleep that makes reality. She’d never have lain down if she’d known. She’d never have closed her eyes.

  Lillian had lost control of the horror that had befallen them. She’d slipped into a world with no son.

  She looked down into the street to see if maybe Pato was coming. She sat in the wingback chair and watched the corner. She tried to force Pato around it, tried to move him around the bend.

  At the first sign of motion Lillian gave a start. It was only a dog. A dog and then a leash and then a man on the other end. She immediately wondered how many children the man had. She wondered if they were home. This is the world Lillian woke up into, a world of parents with children and those without.

  There was a wisdom that came with her new position, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t understood these things the day before. Here’s what Lillian had come to understand: They wouldn’t all get them back in such a place, they couldn’t all get back their sons.

  Lillian wanted to apologize to the man with the dog, to throw open the window and scream down to him, If indeed they’ve taken one from you, I apologize, because I’ll be getting mine back. And this time it didn’t slip out; she kept it in her head: I’ll get mine back.

  Lillian sat in that chair watching the street until Kaddish doublepar
ked out front and stepped from the car. It was really something to see Kaddish this way.

  When Lillian had wanted to bring Kaddish home to her parents, her father had asked, “Who is he?” and she’d had no answer. When they first got wind, they banned him from the house and then, heartbroken, demanded to know what she could see in such a man. Lillian told them. “I’m in love with what he’ll become.” Her father waved this off, her mother had tfu-tfu-tfutd.. “A golem,” her father said. “A shaygets, a man unformed.” He’d called him everything that day, everything but the one thing her Kaddish surely was. In that initial fight, hijo de puta wasn’t said.

  Now look at him, Lillian thought. Had her father only lived until this dark day.

  Lillian stood and leaned her forehead against the window. She couldn’t herself believe it. Her husband with his handsome new nose, the face after a lifetime finally right, and now, the final touch, his proper boundaries had fallen into focus. The man coming toward her was sharper, more defined, more perfectly and painfully her Kaddish than any she’d set eyes on before.

  It was the closest to him she’d ever felt, the clearest he’d ever been. Kaddish stepped between cars and onto the sidewalk. He craned his neck to look up into their window, as if remembering something, as if he’d sensed he was being watched. Lillian waved with both hands, sliding them back and forth across the glass. Kaddish gave a sad half smile. He raised a hand and waved back to his wife. He paused for a second before disappearing into the building. Her husband, her dear Kaddish, a perfect fit. Kaddish Poznan, father to a missing son.

  [ Twenty-five ]

  KADDISH HADN’T WANTED TO WATCH. He stood outside the hospital smoking cigarettes. The nurse, his nurse, came out to get him. She led Kaddish to a recovery room where he found Mazursky smiling and Lillian bandaged up. Swaddled in blankets and still looking unconscious, Lillian cursed at the doctor in an unceasing mumble.