Free The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander Page A

instead of one you’ll have a hundred splinters moving through that foot. I think we’ll split the bottom.” He made a cutting motion across his hand to demonstrate. “It’ll come out cleaner if we cut across the sole and lift the splinter clear.”
    A wheelchair arrived for the woman. She smiled at Pato, and Kaddish saw the strain in Pato’s smile back. “Never go barefoot walking on a dock,” she said. “Even shod, one should never run by water.” Advice from the stranger and then the orderly rolled her away. Kaddish liked what she’d said. Advice so limited in scope that it never needed challenging. She’d addressed his son in the way Kaddish dreamed of doing. Never had he managed a bit of wisdom so sound.
    The doctor approached Pato. Kaddish stood there with his closed fist extended, ready to present the segment of his son.
    The doctor pulled off the towel. There was a doctorly, “I see,” and then he mumbled something into Pato’s hand as if he were talking to the wound. The doctor wrapped it tight again. “Fingers and toes today. You wouldn’t think they come like that, in groups, but they do. One day it’s all stomachs, and the next everyone’s getting poked in the eye.” He helped Pato up and, seeing that he was steady, let him go.
    Here Kaddish came to the rescue. He unfurled his fist, and there it was in his blood-red palm, a small fingertip set in the middle. It wasn’t horrible like in the cemetery. It was more like Pato was there sprouting from him, as if the world had never changed and the ancient rules stillheld. As if this was how sons were born to fathers, from ribs and hands, from parts taken and shared.
    “What’s this?” the doctor said, sloping his shoulders and looking into Kaddish’s hand. Curious, he lifted out the fingertip, peered at it this way and that. “No good to me,” the doctor said. He then tossed it unceremoniously into the ashtray, a slice of Pato stuck in the sand. “I’ll take him back and sew him up. It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.” The doctor led Pato away, holding the boy’s good hand.
    Pato was gone for a lot longer than a few minutes so that Kaddish began to worry about complications. He was caught off guard when Lillian walked through the sliding doors.
    “How?” Kaddish said.
    “Motherly intuition.”
    It had been a tough night and a tough morning and Kaddish, frazzled as he was, took this to be true. Lillian recognized his confusion.
    “Pato had the sense to have a nurse call.” She sat down beside Kaddish. “Where is he?”
    Kaddish didn’t answer. He stared at the handful of money that Lillian dropped into her purse.
    “I raced over in a taxi,” she said.
    Kaddish nodded. He was sick with worry about Pato and sick with guilt over what he’d done. With Lillian next to him, he thought he might pass out from the pressure of that ashtray. God help him if Lillian turned to look in the sand. He wondered what they’d told her on the phone.
    “He’ll be done soon,” Kaddish said.
    Pato came out of the emergency room with a modest bandage on his ring finger. The bloodstains on his shirt had turned brown and he was a shade too pale.
    Lillian ran up to him and took hold of his face.
    “How many stitches?” she said.
    “A bunch,” he said, very calmly. “I lost half the tip and part of the nail.”
    “Lost?” Lillian said. “Your fingertip?” She turned to Kaddish andlooked as if she might yell but simply shook her head once. Everyone was on best behavior. Lillian for her son. Pato for his mother. And Kaddish guessed he’d be on best behavior for his own miserable self.
    “Will it be fine?” Lillian said. “Will it be perfect?”
    “What’s perfect?” was Pato’s answer. “They said wait and see. Maybe a bit stubbier but the same, more or less.” After considering and with a bitter laugh, Pato added, “I guess that would be less.”
    “My fault,” Kaddish said. “I’m sorry,” he said. Lillian was wiping at