Free The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander

father’s weaker, this he could win. When that yank came, Pato let his arm go without resistance. He let it go so limp that when the hammer reached its apex and he gave his hand a yank straight down, Pato managed to pull it free. While his father bobbled the hammer in that crucial moment, Pato moved his right hand over his father’s left, trying to free his other arm and run. Pato felt a boy’s nervousness. He nearly giggled as he peeled his father’s fingers back.
    Pato’s left hand was coming loose when the hammer met chisel. It hit with so much force that the blade sunk into the stone, and the chisel rattled like a saw. A divot of marble came flying off. Pato’s body went limp, as did his father’s behind him. Both of them lay there in the dirt, side by side, Kaddish panting in Pato’s ear.
    Kaddish got to his knees, trying to prove he had some fight left. “Come,” he said. “Let’s hurry, it really is getting too light.”
    Pato didn’t respond. He remained curled up as Kaddish retrieved his hammer and surveyed the mess he’d made out of the stone. Kaddish worked the chisel back and forth. That’s when he felt the stickiness of the blade.
    Pato didn’t resist when Kaddish turned him over. He let his father take hold of his hands, still cupped together. He let Kaddish open his left, which was tightly curled around his right, and the right hand was clamped shut on itself. With some effort Kaddish forced that slippery hand open. In the wash of blood that ran out, Kaddish glimpsed the white of bone.
    On a long flat chip of marble already pressed down into the ground Kaddish found what he was hunting for. Pato’s perfect fingertip rested on that sliver of rock. Kaddish snatched it up. He held it tight in his palm, as if it were the only proof of what he’d done.
    Kaddish pulled at the weight of Pato with one hand. With the other, the tool bag heavy around his wrist, he held what he’d found. “We’ll go to the hospital,” he said. “I’ll get you put right.”
    Pato cradled his wounded fist and the two moved slowly along. As horrified as Kaddish already was, he was further distressed by Pato’s expression. It was the look of a son who saw true fear on the face of his father, a fear that unmasked something beyond fatherly concern. Pato knew Kaddish was already worried over what Lillian would say.
    “I won’t tell,” Pato said.
    “No,” Kaddish said.
    “An accident,” Pato said. Then they reached the wall and Kaddish helped Pato over.
    On the way to the hospital, Kaddish drove the car with his hand shut tight. As tightly, he was sure, as Pato clutched the one where the hot prize he held was supposed to go.
    “Jesus,” Kaddish said. “Jesus.” How much of his life did he have to spend asking himself,
What have I done?
    Pato spread himself out across a row of chairs in the waiting area of the emergency room. Kaddish paced the length of it, a cigarette in his endlessly moving hand.
    An elegant lady sat across from Pato in the opposite row of seats, a Recoleta-type lady who kept smiling at his son. A nurse had given Pato a towel, which he’d wrapped around his fist. He sometimes stared backat the lady and sometimes pressed his face into the towel, so that there were now patches of blood on his cheeks.
    The woman’s foot was raised up across a young man’s lap. Kaddish wasn’t sure if it was her very young boyfriend or very old son. It was obvious why she was there; a shard of wood, a giant splinter, was sticking through her foot. The woman’s wound, like the woman, was elegant. Nothing out of place, just the shard—like an arrowhead—poking through.
    When the doctor finally arrived he attended to the woman first. He tucked his stethoscope into the pocket of his coat and leaned in to study the woman’s foot where it rested in her companion’s lap. Straightening, the doctor replaced the stethoscope, draping it around his neck.
    “That won’t pull out,” he said. “A good tug, and