The Ministry of Special Cases
Page 35
Lillian held her foot behind the door and Kaddish tried to edge his way in.
“Do you know what time it is?” It was the middle of the night.
“No,” Kaddish said, with utmost sincerity. He really was having difficulty keeping track.
“What couldn’t have waited until morning? For a visitor, that would be the appropriate hour.”
He looked down at the doorsill and pressed a toe against it.
“I’ve come back to put things right.”
“Right is with Pato. Right is him safe. Tell me that you’ve managed it, that you’ve proven yourself the hero you always swear to be.”
Kaddish stood silent. He couldn’t produce for her the fortune that she’d asked. And he knew by her tone that she didn’t expect it.
“How do you show up here empty-handed? That’s what I don’t understand.”
“I’m not,” Kaddish told her. He wasn’t. “I’ve brought you something else.”
Now it was Lillian’s turn to stand silent, waiting for Kaddish to show her something when all she wanted was the money to rescue her son.
“I’ve made a decision,” he said. “For both of us.”
Lillian blinked. Limitless was her husband’s ability to misconstrue.
“You weren’t supposed to do that, Kaddish. A decision was already made. You were supposed to be off helping me with mine.”
“I tried that,” Kaddish said. “And I nearly succeeded. I think you’d be proud. Only, you can’t make a murdered son live. That can’t be done no matter how hard even the best man tries.” Kaddish lifted his foot and gave a little kick to the sill. It was white when they moved in and the stone was now black, the threshold stained with a million comings and goings, the crossings from the three separate lives lived within.
There was nothing to do but to say it, and so Kaddish did. “If not for your sake or for mine, then for Pato’s alone we owe him a grave. It’s time to bury him, Lillian. A dead son is all I have left to give you. That’s why I’m here. That’s what I’ve got. I brought you back his bones.”
Lillian had seen him through everything and stood by him through everything and couldn’t know him any better. Looking at him right then, there was nothing left for her of the Kaddish that was. There was no sense to be made of him now.
Lillian was in the midst of recoiling, and Kaddish, who’d been pressing on the door, found himself stumbling forward and, regaining his balance, standing inside. How nice it felt to be home, even in the midst.
The door—heavy as it was—struck the wall with its momentum and knocked from it Lillian’s scalloped shelf. Lillian looked down at the shelf as Kaddish had at the doorsill. She was thankful for something concrete to process so that she might gather her thoughts, find the tongue in her mouth, and try to comprehend the stranger before her.
“Bones?” she said, her face open with the asking.
“Yes,” Kaddish said. He motioned feebly behind him toward the hall.
“You can’t mean it. You can’t have done this. It would, Kaddish, top all.”
“I swear,” he said. “I’ll show you.” He glanced at the clock. “We should hurry, though. This is the best time for the Benevolent Self, the best time to climb over the wall.”
Lillian did not beat at his chest; she did not raise her voice; what she did was stand in the doorway and look over her husband’s shoulder into the darkness of the hall.
Kaddish craned his neck, looking with her. Again he pointed. “Come,” he said. “Come see.”
Lillian did not move and Kaddish did not try to lead her. The only noise was the broken exhalation as she let out, in a thousand steps, her breath.
“A mother knows,” Lillian said. “A mother knows her own son and when he is near. I’ve no idea what you’ve got out there, Kaddish, but I’ll swear on my life that they’re not Pato’s bones. If they’re another man’s, God help you. Take them and do what you need to set yourself right.”
Kaddish nodded. Kaddish understood.
He backed away from his wife, keeping his eyes on her as long as he could, and then the door closed in front of him. Kaddish picked up the sack from where he’d left it and started down those stairs, two bodies descending. He didn’t bother with the hallway light. He knew every step.
This was indeed the best time for the cemetery, and the plot next to his mother’s belonged to One-Eye. There was a lovely stone on it and Kaddish had already chipped away the name. A chisel works both ways, he figured. He could add another just the same. As for the bones, there’d be plenty of space alongside One-Eye’s. The old man always was a good sport. Kaddish was sure he wouldn’t mind.
In the house, Lillian stood with her back to the door. She let out a long slow wail and, for the first time in a long time, she let herself cry. She cried about Kaddish and the bones, about the fortune she’d never muster, and about the priest’s call she knew would never come. When she was done, she wiped her face on her sleeve and made her way to the chair by the window. She sat down and settled in. She set her gaze on the corner Pato would come around. And as she did every night, Lillian thought, He will turn.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Bard Fiction Prize, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Over the years, there were many people whose kindness and wisdom were invaluable to the completion of this book. A sincere thank you to all of them; and to Jordan Pavlin and Nicole Aragi, thank you for your ceaseless dedication. The following sources proved helpful during the writing of the novel: Nunca Más, The Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared; A Lexicon of Terror by Marguerite Feitlowitz; The Flight by Horacio Verbitsky; The Disappeared and the Mothers of the Plaza by John Simpson and Jana Bennett; Circle of Love Over Death by Matilde Mellibovsky; Prostitution and Prejudice by Edward J. Bristow; Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires by Donna J. Guy; Making the Body Beautiful by Sander L. Gilman; Seven Nights by Jorge Luis Borges; the article “The Gray Zone” from The New Yorker, by Seymour M. Hersh; and the testimony of survivors and relatives of desaparecidos at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem in March 2001.
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, APRIL 2008
Copyright © 2007 by Nathan Englander
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Englander, Nathan.
p. cm.
1. Disappeared persons—Argentina—Fiction. 2. Missing children—
Fiction. 3. Human rights—Argentina—Fiction. 4. Argentina—
History—1955-1983—Fiction. 5. Jews—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3555.N424M56 2007 2006048731
813′.54—dc22
eISBN: 978-0-307-56978-3
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