2007 - The Ministry of Special Cases

by Nathan Englander

  “Is it my husband?” she said. “Is it Feigenblum, who speaks for the Jews? Did he mess things up with his list?” Lillian thought her head might break like her tooth, so sharp and quick were the swings between hope and hopelessness, a hot-cold leap she was sure would kill her.

  “It’s you,” the priest said. “You’ll hate yourself.”

  Lillian yelled so loudly that passersby turned. “What could that possibly mean?”

  “It means, better that this rests on me than on you. That’s my only motivation. If your son doesn’t make it, you’ll live better hating me. I’ve seen it before,” the priest said. “They don’t recover. The mothers who know they failed their children are never the same.”

  “I won’t fail,” she said.

  The priest sighed. “One can arrange to get a son freed from a secret prison even in the middle of a secret war. The apparatus is imperfect; it can be gotten round.”

  “How do you not call me with this? How do you not give me the option?”

  “Because I know,” the priest said. “Because I took all your money to buy one question. I know your situation, and it’s too much for a mother to bear. It’s better that you believe yourself abandoned.”

  “Tell me what I need to do.”

  “Nothing. That’s the horror. All you have to do is pay. That’s why I didn’t call and didn’t tell, that’s why it’s painful to share. You could free your son right now, Mrs. Poznan, except that you can’t. Except that now you must sit and wait and pray, knowing you failed him, knowing there was a price to pay and you couldn’t manage it. Now it’s on you, Mrs. Poznan. Your burden to bear.”

  “I’ll pay it,” she said. “Just tell me a number.”

  “You won’t,” the priest said.

  “How much could it be?”

  “More,” the priest said, “than you’d ever imagine.”

  [ Forty-five ]

  KADDISH WAS HUNCHED FORWARD on his bench in the courtyard, smoking butt after butt, cigarettes of strangers pulled from public ashtrays and picked off the street. His tool bag was at his side.

  Mrs. Ordonez peered down from her balcony and called into the dark, “Who’s there?”

  “It’s Kaddish,” Kaddish said.

  “You don’t look like you,” she said, and, with a huff that carried down, she moved her giant body back inside.

  Kaddish wasn’t wearing his own clothes, and he had what was almost a beard. Thinking of it made his face itch and he scratched it. Neither of these changes was so drastic that Mrs. Ordonez should call down to him as if to a stranger after all these years. Destitution was enough, he figured. The sight of him set women to clutching their purses and crossing the street.

  Kaddish leaned his head back and took in his patch of stars. What he hadn’t expected to discover was that he could survive hungry and survive filthy and live while feeling so cold. Without a peso in his pocket, he could manage. It was without Lillian, he’d discovered, he couldn’t go on.

  It wasn’t about love.

  If Kaddish had a body to bury and Pato’s grave to visit, he might be able to take it all on his own. To be without his son and without his wife, and to be alone in his belief, this was too much.

  He couldn’t will Pato back any more than he could make Lillian believe him gone for good. The only thing within Kaddish’s power was to draw on his powerlessness. He could live as Lillian asked. He would live a lie for the right to return home.

  Kaddish fished out another butt and lit it with the last. If he’d smoked a touch more, tried a little harder, he maybe could have struck a single match when he was a boy and kept that flame going until now.

  Kaddish took the stairs in the dark and reached for a key out of habit. He could see the chink of light from his apartment as he turned on the landing from the third floor. When he pushed at the door, the door pushed back. Lillian stepped into the open space. She was forcibly blocking his way.

  “Have your senses become so attuned?” he said. “Did you pick up my scent?”

  “I heard you call up from the air shaft.”

  Kaddish took a step forward, and Lillian took one back, though she planted a foot behind the door.

  “You look—” she said, and Kaddish finished for her.

  “Like a rabbi. I know,” he said, thinking it was his beard and (under the navigator’s parka) the rabbi’s jacket.

  “No,” she said. “Like a bum. Like a real one.”

  “That’s because I am,” Kaddish said. Lillian seemed to hear it as an admission and Kaddish rushed to add, “That’s not what brought me back.”

  “I’m sure that’s exactly what brought you. You’d starve to death before taking honest work, and now you’ve tested it to its limits. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t matter. I’m not taking you in, Kaddish. This is as far as you go.”

  “I’m not back out of laziness,” Kaddish said, “and not out of hunger. I’m back because I can’t do this without you, Lillian. Your roof, your rules—I said it before. Now I’ve learned my lesson,” Kaddish said. “I’ve even been to the Jews.”

  “Who?” Lillian said, not believing.

  He showed her the jacket.

  “I went to the rabbi, Lillian. He said I’m wrong. That it’s a sin the way I live. He said I should do like you, that the waiting is right.”

  “The old rabbi said that?”

  “He did. And I thought about it. And I’ll try.”

  At that Lillian started closing the door.

  “I won’t try,” Kaddish said. “I’ll do it. I’ll wait with you for Pato to come home.”

  “You’re a man who needs to be saved,” Lillian said. “Unfortunately, I’m no longer capable.”

  “I honestly don’t think I can make it.”

  “That’s a shame,” Lillian said, “because I can’t take you back anymore.”

  “I’ll beg if I have to,” Kaddish said.

  “A truly brokenhearted man would already be begging. You raise the option. Always it’s the least that can be invested, the minimum at stake.”

  “Then I beg you,” Kaddish said.

  “Don’t,” she said. “It’s not up to me anymore. While you were with the rabbi, I went out and found myself a priest.”

  “A priest is in charge?” Kaddish said. “A priest deciding? It’s hard to say which is more shocking, your visit or mine.”

  “Together they’re no shock at all. Forever at cross-purposes. What did you expect when you showed up here ready to see things my way? It’s too late. I’ve come to see them in yours.”

  “About Pato?”

  “God forbid!” Lillian said. “I’m talking about money, Kaddish. If you’re really here to wait on Pato, I’ll take you back this second. The problem is, I can’t let you in for nothing. Entry into this house now has a price. Living here is no longer free.”

  “I don’t have a cent,” Kaddish said. “And I’ve no way to get money anymore.”

  “A shame,” Lillian said.

  “That’s it?” Kaddish said. “Everything a shame?”

  “How long have I believed in you, Kaddish? Through how many schemes and get-rich-quicks? Through how much of your gimme-six swagger and it’ll-be-OK talk? All of it. I saw you through everything, believing when I didn’t. Now it’s your turn. Go out and find us a fortune, Kaddish. Not what comes from chipping a name off a headstone. If you leave that cemetery blank, if you wipe every grave clean—that’s the kind of money they’re asking to get Pato back.”

  “How am I supposed to manage anything,” he said, signaling his current condition, “like this?”

  “If it’s really life or death, your survival or Pato’s, I’m sure you can manage it.”

  “Please, Lillian. This is madness.”

  “Good,” she said. “You’re a wellspring of that. From the million plans you’ve had over the years—every one a winner—you can’t tell me there’s not a single flimflam left. Go back to your underworld and talk to your cronies. I give you my blessi
ng. Seek out all the people I begged you to stay away from since the start of our marriage. Don’t look so confused,” she said. Then she went off, vanishing into the apartment. Kaddish stayed right where he was. Lillian brought back a piece of notepaper. “A new nose won’t do it this time,” she said, and pressed the paper into his hand. “Your way, Kaddish. Everything as you like. All you have to do is succeed.”

  Kaddish looked at the sum. He was stunned.

  “The way you like to do business,” Lillian said. “Figures written down.”

  A pair of dogs strained at its leashes trying to get at Kaddish through the doctor’s fence. It was night, though there was plenty-enough light for Kaddish to make out the doctor in his robe—open and revealing the doctor naked underneath. On his feet he wore a pair of unlaced boots, the tongues hanging out, lolling.

  “If you’re so hungry,” the doctor said, “why don’t you reach that head around and take a bite out of your ass. That should feed you for a while.”

  “If I want to feast on my own fat ass, it appears I’ll have to get in line.” Kaddish pointed at the dogs. With his arm that much closer, the dogs reared up like a pair of horses, front legs scratching at air. The doctor wrapped the leashes tighter and leaned back, his heels dug in.

  “Since when do you have guard dogs?” Kaddish said.

  “Let us say things have deteriorated.”

  “My report,” Kaddish said, “is more or less the same.”

  The doctor gave a yank to the leashes and the dogs responded instantly, as highly trained animals do. One dog heeled on each side of him, looking as if carved from stone. “I tried to get rentals,” the doctor said. “Apparently that’s not the way they do it. And I have to say, I’ve become attached.” The dog on the doctor’s left lifted its head from between its paws and stared back at its master. The master, following the dog’s gaze, tied the front of his robe. The dog sneezed and put his head down. “Loyalty is loyalty,” the doctor said. “Still doesn’t mean I should dangle my pija in front of them.”

  “Is that why you don’t invite me in?”

  “Because you’d bite off my penis?”

  “Because you don’t trust even those you trust.”

  “That makes my head ache, Poznan,” the doctor said. “I’m not going to unravel it. The reason I didn’t invite you in is because it didn’t cross my mind. What I was mulling over was whether to release the dogs on you or not. I’d have called the police and been rid of you forever but I no longer have the luxury of acting the good citizen. They might just take us both.”

  “If you didn’t begrudge me every visit, if you weren’t so downright nasty, I wouldn’t believe your love was heartfelt. I appreciate it, Doctor. For a pair of fuckups, it’s a very special thing we have.”

  “First of all,” the doctor said, “you are a fuckup. I’m fallen. It’s a very big distinction. It means, at some point in the past, I achieved something. That can’t be taken away.” The doctor made a gesture, and the dogs jumped to their feet looking fierce. “Second, you look absolutely terrible, Poznan. You’ve taken what we call, in medical parlance, a turn for the worse. Now, make this leap with me if you can, follow along: The madman always thinks he has some deep bond with the focus of his manic obsession. That’s what makes him a madman. All the visits, the stalking, the loitering outside my office, it’s unwelcome. I’d rather have Toothless’ name back up and be a son-of-a-whore surgeon than a surgeon who hangs out with a son of a whore.”

  “Now you’re making my head ache,” Kaddish said. The doctor didn’t respond and Kaddish felt sick with the size of the favor he’d come to ask.

  “Even the rabbi let me in,” Kaddish said. He opened the jacket, trying to show it off. The lining shimmered. “The rabbi let me sleep over. He gave me his suit.”

  “Then there’s someone else who loves you, Poznan. Go back to him.”

  “I recognize that you’re the last man I should turn to during my time of need,” Kaddish said.

  The doctor nodded. “It’s for the nose I do it. If I could take that and leave the leftover Poznan outside, I would.” He unlocked the gate and, loosing the dogs off their leashes, led Kaddish around the back of the house, through a patio entrance, and into a wood-paneled den. There was a card table set up, and a deck of Spanish cards out on it, foufhands dealt, as if Kaddish had interrupted a game. There were fresh logs burning high in the fireplace and a book was open facedown on the leather couch, a transistor radio stuck between the pillows at the side.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” the doctor said. And, following Kaddish’s gaze, “You think I don’t read? Nothing like a novel to knock a man out. Been reading the same two pages of this one for a year.”

  The doctor motioned for Kaddish to take a seat at the card table. He went over to warm himself by the fire. He crouched down and rested on his heels. “Was my man at the Fisherman’s Club to meet you?”

  Kaddish picked up a card, the ace of swords, and tapped its edge against the table, turning it over and over again in his hand. It couldn’t be that he hadn’t spoken to the doctor since that morning. Kaddish pictured the doctor’s socks, his view from under the bench.

  “Yes, he was there,” Kaddish said, “Thank you for that.”

  “Then it was good news?”

  “No,” Kaddish said. “It was bad. The boy is dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor said.

  “Me too,” Kaddish said. “I miss him very much.”

  “I’d been wondering. I wanted to know what happened—I was hoping for good news.” The doctor stood up and joined Kaddish at the table.

  “It’s actually a good-news question that I came over to ask.” Kaddish spoke while staring at the face of the card. “I need help paying a ransom. It’s for Pato’s release.”

  He looked up at the doctor. The doctor looked back at him, displeased.

  “Is it shock value you’re after? You can’t want that to make sense.”

  “It’s Lillian,” Kaddish said. “She thinks the boy is alive. She’s found someone who swore, if a bribe is paid, that Pato could be gotten back.”

  The doctor took the card from Kaddish’s hand as if ending the game. He swept the others up and shuffled the deck, contemplating what Kaddish had said.

  “I have nowhere else. No one at all.”

  “That’s readily apparent,” the doctor said. “Tell me, though. You’re sure the boy is dead?”

  “Do you know about the flights? Do you know what they do with the missing?” The doctor stopped shuffling. He put down the deck. Kaddish wasn’t sure if he was acknowledging the flights or not. “They push them from airplanes high above the river. Unless there’s any way to survive it, I believe Pato is dead.”

  Again the doctor said, “I’m sorry,” and then, looking toward the ceiling, “It’s hard to believe.”

  “The navigator, the man at the pier, he said it’s the impact that kills them, that the water is like a brick wall when dropped from that height. Do you think,” Kaddish said, “is there any way a person could survive?”

  “As a doctor,” the doctor said, “I think you’re asking a physics question.”

  Mazursky got up and walked to the window. He put his hands behind his back and stared into the yard, though from Kaddish’s vantage point, and with the night outside, all that was in the window was a reflection of the fireplace and his own sad figure behind Mazursky’s.

  “I can tell you this,” Mazursky said. “Assuming a great ability to swim or something floating by to grab onto; assuming also an extreme amount of strength and resilience—and tolerance to cold; beyond all that, and there are probably many more factors, just regarding the falling and the speed and the resistance of the surface of water, it would come down to the perfect dive. Water is not a brick wall; it can be forgiving to a great degree. I think—and this all very rusty—I think the molecular structure is very similar to that of glass.” And, as Kaddish had tapped the card against the table, the doctor tapped at the window
with a fingernail. Kaddish could hear the dogs run up from outside. “Have you ever looked at an old windowpane? Have you seen how the glass warps?”

  Kaddish nodded.

  “It’s the glass running, like a liquid. It happens over time.”

  “That’s hope?” Kaddish said.

  “It’s possibility, is all,” the doctor said. “Technically, or maybe theoretically, and maybe that doesn’t even hold, but if I were to get the timing right, the pressure right, the angle of entry—and maybe it would take all of eternity—I should be able to push my finger through, to dive through glass.”

  “And?”

  “And likewise, if everything were perfect, it would be possible to dive from a great height and cut seamlessly through the surface of the water, to rise up, and swim off.”

  “Nothing is ever perfect, though,” Kaddish said.

  “No,” the doctor said. Then, turning, smiling, he closed one eye and studied Kaddish. Kaddish knew the doctor was looking at his nose, that he was going to say, Except for your nose, the only perfect thing, but the doctor didn’t make that joke again.

  “I still need the money,” Kaddish said.

  “For what? To let your wife pay a ransom for nothing? You’re going to give it away?”

  “Yes,” Kaddish said. “It’s Lillian’s turn. A thousand fortunes promised her and none delivered.”

  “Touching,” the doctor said, “and not at all sensible.”

  “It’s my own ransom that I’m paying. The price Lillian exacts for forgiveness. And it’s only fair. Why shouldn’t she have her chance? Everyone deserves one hopeless scheme.”

  “If you recall, I didn’t pay when I owed you money. You can’t expect me to come through now.” The doctor rejoined Kaddish at the card table. “It’s bleak, Poznan, the coffers are empty.”

  “Then feed me to the sharks,” Kaddish said. “Put me in touch with the people you gamble with and borrow money from. Help me get into the same high-quality rich-man debt as you. That’s all. A fair shake when it comes to self-destruction. Class fucks both ways, Doctor.”

  “Two problems,” the doctor said. “The first is that the people I deal with will kill me when you don’t pay, either after they kill you, as interest, or before, as a warning. Both possibilities leave me dead—something I’ve been working tirelessly to avoid. The second is, you have no value. They don’t want to get paid back, they want debt to accrue and assets to seize.” The doctor motioned to the room and the house around them. “There is no value to you, Poznan. A fortune lent to make a claim on a chisel and hammer isn’t going to do.”