“By the way,” David’s father said, “I may have a hole in my belly, but my hearing’s fine.”
“I didn’t say anything to your son that I wouldn’t say to you,” Wolfe said, raising his voice again.
“Why do you sound like you’re calling long distance when you talk to me?”
“What?”
“You yell like you’re on long distance. I’m not in Philadelphia.”
“Have you been seeing those shelves again, Weber?”
“I don’t know what shelves you’re talking about.”
“The ones you told me were behind the wall.”
“That isn’t a wall, it’s a fake wall.”
“It’s a real wall. With a room behind it,” Wolfe said. He was writing on the clipboard pad. “When you get up and can walk around, you can see for yourself there’s a room there. No shelves.”
“I’ll give you a full report when I can get up and walk around,” David’s father said. “Don’t hold your breath, though, it may be a while.”
“How’s your memory? He’s been forgetting things,” Wolfe said to David, lowering his voice. “Can you remember things a little better now, Weber?” he asked, raising his voice again.
“What was your question?” David’s father said. “I forget your question.”
“Can you remember things a little better now? Do you remember when you came into the hospital?”
“The first Thursday in May,” David’s father said.
“That’s close, it was May twenty-sixth.”
“But a Thursday.”
“No, a Tuesday.”
“Close, but no guitar,” his father said. “All these Cubans,” he said to David, explaining the pun.
“If I gave you a hundred dollars...” Wolfe started.
“I wish you would.”
“If I gave you a hundred dollars, and you gave seven back to me, how much would you have left?”
“You give me a hundred...”
“Yes. I give you a hundred, and you give me back seven. How much is left?”
“Seven from a hundred,” David’s father said. “That’s...”
It was painful to see him struggling with the arithmetic. He had always prided himself on his meticulous bookkeeping. His checkbooks were as balanced as a high-wire act. His brow furrowed now in concentration. He wet his lips. “That would be... well, sure, that...”
“Pop, what he wants to know...”
“Let him do it himself, please,” Wolfe said, even though David hadn’t been about to prompt his father.
“It’s ninety-seven,” his father said.
“No, it’s ninety-three,” Wolfe said.
“Somebody must be hitting the cash register,” his father said. “That gonif who worked for me in the pool hall.”
“If you had three wishes, Weber, what would they be?” Wolfe asked..
“I wish you’d go away, that’s my first wish.”
“And the other two?” He was writing on the pad again.
“That’s all three. I wish you’d go back to Vienna.”
“Why Vienna?” Wolfe asked, still writing.
“Why not Vienna?”
“He’s making a reference to Freud,” David said.
“Let him answer himself, please,” Wolfe said. “Why Vienna, Weber?”
“Go away, will you, please?”
“Tell me your three wishes, seriously.”
“Serially?” David’s father said. He was looking up at the ceiling. “I wish I could get out of this place, that’s my first wish.”
“And your second wish?”
“I wish I could go someplace and sleep in peace, without people coming in all the time and bothering me.”
“Yes?”
“Yes what?”
“Your third wish?”
“I wish I could go to temple again soon and thank God for relieving me of the pain of this suffering.”
“Those are all really the same wish, aren’t they?” Wolfe said.
“Are they?” David’s father said, and turned his head into the pillow.
He called Kaplan from the hotel room at ten minutes past five. The answering service told him the doctor would get back to him. Kaplan called fifteen minutes later. The same soft, tired, sad voice.
“Mr. Weber?” he said. “Dr. Kaplan.”
“Hello,” David said, “how are you?”
“Fine, thanks.”
“Have you seen the new pictures yet?”
“Yes, I have.”
“And?”
“Well, there’s a slightly larger area that may be an abscess, but we can’t be certain.”
“By larger...?”
“The size of a dime.”
“Why can’t you be certain whether...?”
“It may simply be a scar. From the operation.”
“Can’t you tell whether it’s a scar?”
“No, I’m sorry, we can’t.”
“I mean, don’t you know where the scars are supposed to be?”
“Yes, but... Mr. Weber, I wish I could be more definite, it would make life easier for all of us. This may or may not be something, we simply can’t tell.”
“Let me understand this,” David said. “If there is something in there, an infection, an abscess, whatever, wouldn’t it have to show on the pictures?”
“Not necessarily. There are yards and yards of intestines in the abdominal cavity, all of them in loops. There may be something hidden between the loops, inaccessible to the scan.” He paused. “Mr. Weber,” he said, “I feel I ought to be perfectly frank with you.”
“Please,” David said.
“We’re doing everything possible for your father, but if he keeps deteriorating at his present rate... Mr. Weber, it would have been very nice if we’d found something positive on those pictures, something we could really have gone after. But lacking such evidence — and I’ve asked for other opinions on this, believe me — lacking such positive evidence, I feel obliged to do exploratory surgery, anyway.”
“He’s eighty-two years old,” David said.
“I realize that. And we’re all well aware of the risk...”
“How great a...?”
“... but if we go in and find something that isn’t showing on the pictures...”
“How do you know you’ll find it?”
“If it’s there, we’ll find it.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“We’ll keep trying to isolate the source of the infection.”
“How great a risk is involved?”
“An estimate? Fifty-fifty.”
“I see,” David said.
“That’s an estimate.”
“And if you don’t do the operation, the exploratory surgery?”
“Well... unless something unforeseen happens in the next few days...”
“Like what?”
“A marked and dramatic improvement. Normally, we shouldn’t be having this problem at all. Your father should have healed by now.”
“But he hasn’t.”
“No, he hasn’t,” Kaplan said, and sighed. “Sometimes a patient loses his will to live, Mr. Weber. He simply gives up. I hope that isn’t happening here.”
“What do you feel his chances of improvement are?”
“I don’t know how to answer that. That may be up to him, you see.”
“Up to him?”
“His will to stay alive, yes.”
“But do you think there might be a marked and dramatic improvement?”
“No, I do not.”
“Then what you’re saying is if you do the operation he’s got a fifty-fifty chance of survival, and if you don’t do it, he’ll die.”
“In effect, that’s what I’m saying.”
“In effect? Well, that is what you’re saying, isn’t it?”