2007 - The Ministry of Special Cases

by Nathan Englander

  “Yes,” Teresa said. “Eat up, as who knows when the opportunity will arise again.”

  Lillian pushed her plate away. “I ate at home.”

  “That’s a shame,” the general said, “as this is the perfect month for the perfect oyster. These we harvest ourselves.”

  In the painful silence that followed, Kaddish reached for oyster after oyster. He swallowed them as fast as he could. “Delicious,” he said, “incredible,” trying to fathom how he’d gotten into this position. He’d never had to cover for Lillian before and wondered if this was what it was like for her, raising a husband for all these years.

  Kaddish slowed down, running short on superlatives, and feeling green. He wanted this to work. He agreed with Lillian, this man could produce their son. “A rare treat,” Kaddish said. Then, summoning up enthusiasm, he said, “Did you say you grow them?”

  “Not grow,” Teresa said. “Harvest.”

  “My father-in-law’s legacy,” the general said.

  “When he first sailed to North America,” Teresa said, “he was horrified to find that they rinsed the brine from their oysters.”

  “Think of that,” the general said. “Washing the flavor right off. It ruins them. It’s the Yankees,” he said, conspiratorially. “Their influence. In mixed company let me say it as delicately as possible—the Yankee doesn’t like anything to taste of the sea.” Lillian put her hand on Kaddish’s knee. “From that trip on, they never made a voyage without their oysters. If you keep them in their own sand and flush their water, you can fool them into staying alive the whole trip. When he moved here for good he shipped the whole operation over. He made the final crossing with his precious cargo as if he had his own ocean belowdecks.”

  Here came the single bit of life shown by Teresa.

  “A funny man, my father,” she said, with actual sweetness. “He hated the passage and did everything for his comfort but was always jealous of the food. He always said, ‘First class passage is first class passage, but my oysters travel in their own beds.’” She held out her wineglass and a servant filled it. “As ridiculous as it sounds, it’s more natural than bringing along the livestock. There’s nothing more pitiful than a seasick cow.”

  “At the end of the war, when the United States was storming every beach in Europe with their amphibious crafts, her father would scream back at the newsreels about the churning up of the shallows. “Those barbarians won’t stop at the Nazis,” he’d yell. “The Yankees will put an end to decent dining so as to protect the democratic way of life.””

  Kaddish pried open a belon. “Again, they’re a rare treat.”

  “Yes,” Teresa said. “They transplanted to our bays very well. As good an acclimation as any Italian or Jew.”

  “At least as well as the general takes to new governments,” Lillian said.

  He didn’t seem insulted. “It’s my loyalty to the uniform, which is a loyalty to the state.”

  “As long as it leaves you in good stead,” Lillian said. “It’s of the uniform that we need a favor. My son has been abducted. It’s been more than a week,” she said. She looked at Kaddish. “And we’ve made no progress in getting him back.”

  The general gave the wine in his glass a turn and watched it swirl.

  Teresa reached for an oyster and piled it high with horseradish. She swallowed the oyster and the horseradish and then looked right at Lillian, her face flushed. “Your son has disappeared?”

  “He hasn’t disappeared,” Lillian said. “He was disappeared. The government did this to him.”

  Kaddish sucked on a wedge of lemon. He watched the exchange, eyes darting between them.

  “Taken by the government?” the general said. “Arrested is very different than vanished. Where is your son being detained?”

  “If I knew we wouldn’t be here.”

  “You shouldn’t be here anyway,” Teresa said.

  “But you know they have him?” the general said, his face full of concern.

  Kaddish popped the lemon from his mouth, and his front teeth felt as if they’d been dried down to the roots. “There were agents,” Kaddish said, “four men in suits.” He ran his tongue along the front of his teeth, “One with a windbreaker underneath.”

  “Agents?” the general said. “Insurance agents like your wife?”

  “Cleaning agents?” Teresa said, catching on. “Like Odex or Ayudin?”

  “It happened very quickly,” Kaddish said.

  “You were there?”

  “Yes,” he said. “They took three books. They beat up our neighbor.”

  The general gave a sniff. “Who did they say they were when they arrived?”

  “They just knocked,” Kaddish said.

  “Well, why didn’t you accompany these agents when they took him? Wouldn’t you ask where they were headed with your child?”

  “You know it’s not like that,” Kaddish said. “They would have killed me—killed my son—in a heartbeat.” Now Kaddish looked to Lillian. “There’s nothing that can be done.”

  “You attend these home invasions regularly, then?”

  “No, but I’ve heard.”

  “They pointed their guns at you? Did they threaten to shoot?”

  “No,” Kaddish said.

  “How about we stick to what is verifiable?” the general said. “We are fortunate to live in the best nation on earth, and yet, the more I hear, the more I’m convinced we destroy ourselves with gossip. It’s a fifth column in itself. If we aren’t careful, idle chatter will be this country’s downfall.” The general shook his head, looking gravely disappointed.

  Teresa spoke up. “There are many wild ideas that the hopeless grab onto,” and she reached over and patted Lillian’s hand. “I’m sure my husband is interested in helping. But to believe such rumors? It’s just not so. This band of missing, it’s made up. They don’t exist.”

  “I think you might mean that,” Lillian said. “It’s even scarier to think that the people who nin this country believe their own lies.”

  “That’s too far,” the general said. He was on his way to standing when his wife stopped him.

  “I do believe those lies,” she said. “What I want to know from you is, if everyone believes the same lie, isn’t it, maybe, the truth?”

  Lillian didn’t pause, not even a beat. “That’s how the world stays balanced. You can never get everyone to believe the same thing.”

  Kaddish wondered if a lie could become truth even if everyone agreed. But there was a consideration more pressing. He wasn’t sure there was anything that he couldn’t be made to believe.

  “There is lying going on,” the general said, “and there are young people missing. But they aren’t in secret jails or fighting alongside the leftists. They are on drugs, they are lost. They’re a bunch of hippies who’ve run away to the beaches of Brazil and Uruguay to chase after sex. The lie this government tolerates is that it’s political. The people aren’t disabused of the notion that these drug addicts and ne’er-dowells are up in the mountains planning revolution. A generation of youth hasn’t been raised right, which is as much the government’s fault as it is the fault of the family. Why not let the parents believe their children are off somewhere fighting for a cause? The only secret being kept from the people is that a whole generation is being lost to selfishness and bad behavior.”

  “What could you possibly be saying?” Lillian went white.

  “Admittedly, it’s hard to put ourselves in your shoes,” the general said. “I do understand how you’d interpret that as a denial of whatever trouble your son may be in.”

  “This meeting is actually our greatest accomplishment yet,” Lillian said. “You’re the first official to admit I have—that I ever had—a son.”

  “And sadly this in an unofficial capacity. There is one other bit of information I can offer. It doesn’t help, but it may make you feel less alone. This problem is not limited to Argentina. We talk to our neighbors. There is a wanderlust, and it’s
as bad in Chile and Bolivia and Peru. For every one of our kids who crosses those borders, another is on his way here to get lost the same way. I don’t want to be the one to tell you that the child you’ve done all you can for has run off without a good-bye. The clerks draw straws at the Ministry of Special Cases. No one wants to tell the parents these things.”

  “Our son didn’t run off,” Kaddish said. He rushed it out, hoarse. “I told you what happened.”

  The general sighed. “I’m a military man. This kind of hand-holding is not my forte.”

  Kaddish couldn’t wait any longer, he held a cigarette to a candle until the tip burst into flame. Blowing it out, he took two quick pulls, the paper of his cigarette scorched black.

  “There’s really nothing more forthright that I can offer,” the general said. “I wish you success. And if you want to achieve it, I recommend a large dose of self-control. Rabble-rousing will get you nowhere and only see your son farther away.”

  “That’s an admission,” Lillian said, pointing a finger. “That means the two are related, that what we do affects Pato—what we do to you. You admitted it just now, that there’s a link.” Lillian looked to Teresa as if she’d feel obligated to support her.

  The general said, “I made a point about preservation and about silence.”

  “You made a point about cause and effect. You can help us. I’m begging you. Use that uniform for someone else as you have for yourselves—”

  “What does that mean?” Teresa said, angry.

  “Use it to get back our son,” Lillian said. She spoke to the general. “You’re a powerful, powerful man and I beg of that power.”

  “This excess energy would do better if it was focused on restraint,” the general said. “Silence saves lives. If there’s to be any chance for you or your son, you need to go home and behave and be quiet. Go home and wait. The boy will return when he is ready, probably with a tan and a pregnant revolutionary on his arm.”

  “There were four agents,” Kaddish said. “They took three books.”

  The general looked at Kaddish as if he were a madman.

  “Do you see?” he said to Lillian. “This kind of protest does him no good. Your husband sounds as if he’s coming unhinged.”

  “I’m fine,” Kaddish said.

  “Please,” the general said, “such a tough-looking little man. You think I don’t see it? I could make you cry right now with half a word.” Kaddish took a drag of his cigarette to hide the fact that what the general said was true.

  “Go home,” the general said. “Wait quietly. See it as a contribution to order. We are all making sacrifices to mend the torn fabric of this country, to put the economy back on track and build ourselves up. Do you know officers holding government positions have had their salaries wiped away? Do you know I now serve for free? We all must do our part. I only request you don’t feed the hysteria. It’s easy to set a whole society on its head. Panic spreads worse than wildfire.”

  “You’re not going to help us,” Lillian said. “You will look us in the eye and do nothing.”

  “I can’t say I’m convinced anything has happened that you can be helped with.”

  Lillian said, “Children don’t just vanish as if they never were. The same as they don’t just appear.”

  Teresa, working at an oyster, slipped and pricked her finger with a knife. She rushed her finger into her mouth and then, pulling it out, studied the droplet of blood that formed. “There’s always something rotten inside when they are locked that tight.”

  She reached under the table and, with the corresponding finger of the other hand, she pressed an invisible button connected to a bell they could not hear. The maid arrived, walking at a clip, and reacted as if her mistress’ head had been cut off. She then, sweetly, kissed the cut. “Patch me up in the drawing room,” Teresa said, and she left the table without even a nod good-bye, her arm raised above her head.

  “You can do this,” Lillian said to the general, as soon as Teresa was gone. “You are the only one who can get him back.”

  “Go home, Lillian.” It was the first time he’d said her name. “Powerful as I am—I admit it—I can’t undo what’s not been done. I can’t make your son from nothing. You are Jews,” the general said. “Go to the river and mix him from clay. People from nothing is a Jewish affair.”

  “That’s what I came to hear,” Kaddish said. He stood up and slid past Lillian on the bench. “My wife expected help. I came looking for clarity.” Kaddish offered Lillian a hand, addressing her. “When you want to see which way the wind blows, always talk to a frightened general. You won’t find any bravery but at least you’ll learn the truth.”

  And then it was Lillian who was shocked by Kaddish. She didn’t believe that what he said was inappropriate or rash. She thought it was strong.

  “I can only pity you,” the general said. “It’s hopelessness that makes you talk this way.”

  “I’m not hopeless,” Kaddish said. “Everybody better pray that it doesn’t get to that.” The general, amused, leaned back in his chair.

  “You go on my list,” Kaddish said. “The government has its list. You go on mine.”

  The general was holding his stomach as Kaddish threatened him, his eyes welling up. He was afraid he might fall from his chair. The general watched the tough little man leave with his tough little wife, and he laughed and laughed and laughed.

  [ Twenty-nine ]

  KADDISH JOINED LILLIAN at the Ministry of Special Cases on the day her number was called. Kaddish had come late. He’d slipped out to buy cigarettes and then again for the papers, and finally to fetch them lunch. Still, when the number hit in the afternoon, he was by Lillian’s side.

  On the way to the front of the room, a woman thrust her number out at Kaddish. “Trade,” she said. “Please.” Kaddish sidestepped her and walked on with his head turned, keeping an eye on the lady. The woman kept her eye on Kaddish too. When he sat down in front of the clerk, the woman stood up and, a final try, waved her number back and forth in the air.

  Lillian gave him a pat and acknowledged their good fortune. She said to Kaddish, “You’re a charm.”

  They sat across from a young man who didn’t bother to look up. He was sharp-faced and bespectacled, and Kaddish felt he was staring down the blade of a knife. After some time the clerk raised his eyes long enough to say, “Number?” Lillian handed him the slip of paper, which he dropped into the wastebasket without a glance.

  “Passports,” the man said, this time without locking, only the hand outstretched.

  “We don’t have our passports,” Lillian said.

  “No passports?” he said. “Is this travel related?”

  “No,” Lillian said.

  “Then let’s see the letter.”

  “Which letter is that?” Kaddish said.

  And in the way the weary bureaucrat fills his days so he’ll have something to be indignant about when reflecting at night, he said, “Sir, I will not sit here and argue with you.”

  Kaddish, honestly confused, looked to Lillian.

  “We don’t understand,” she said.

  “The letter. The letter from the Ministry of Special Cases, what did it say? In relation to what issue was your presence requested? Have you been abroad in the last six months? Have you requested a visa for travel within the Soviet bloc?”

  “No letter,” Lillian said, “no travel, no visa. We’ve come on our own. We were told—we have heard—”

  “Stop,” the clerk said. He pressed his fingers into his eyes as if to relieve a headache, but he pressed so hard, Lillian thought he might have been trying to give himself one or worse. “I already know,” he said, dropping his arms and engaging Lillian properly for the first time. “I swear the others make sure it works out this way. I don’t know how they manage it. A thousand, thousand things to deal with, and always they send the parents to me. Am I right? Someone’s flown the coop? Someone’s missing at home?”

  “Disappeared,” Lil
lian said.

  The clerk looked at the other clerks, as if they really had it in for him, as if he were the butt of some joke.

  “Rapscallions,” he said, referring to his co-workers.

  The man then shook it off and extended a hand.

  “Habeas,” he said.

  Lillian kept her own hands on the bag in her lap. She blinked. Kaddish pulled at the legs of his pants and exhaled.

  “Do not threaten me, sir,” the clerk said. “This is not a barroom, it’s a ministry of the government. It’s the same as assault, the threat. It’s exactly the same as far as I’m concerned.”

  Again Kaddish turned to Lillian.

  “He means nothing by it,” she said. “We have no habeas corpus. Our son has disappeared.”

  “A police report,” the man said, clipped.

  Lillian just shook her head.

  “Room two-sixty-four,” he said. “Down the stairs, back to the lobby you entered but on the other side, another door, another stairwell, to this floor on that side.” The man then sneered at his co-workers, giving them a look through hooded eyes. In the quickest turnaround Lillian had witnessed, he then waved at the man who called numbers and another number was called.

  Lillian and Kaddish found themselves going down and across and up, then opening a stairwell door onto the narrowest of corridors. There was a desk, its drawers facing them, directly in their path. Had someone been sitting at it, they’d not have been able to enter. This also was likely the reason that the gentleman on the right side of that desk, on its short side, had placed himself there. His feet, invisible from the stairwell, were up on the desk’s corner and the man had a brown Borsalino tilted over his face, ostensibly to aid in sleep. There was a fan of three short feathers, blue as a bluebird’s, arranged in its band.

  Kaddish and Lillian stood on the left side of the desk. Before they could clear their throats, the man righted his chair and tipped back his hat. At first glance Lillian thought he was a woman, so fine were his features. She imagined this was why he had cultivated a sparse mustache—to help nudge people toward the right guess.