“Hello, Pop,” he said.
“Yeah, hello,” his father said. “What’s going on here?”
“What do you mean?”
“They shaved me, they washed me, they told me I’m going down for an operation, and all of a sudden I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, Pop.”
“So who does know?”
“I called Dr. Kaplan early this morning, but he never returned my call.”
“Of course not,” his father said, nodding. “President of the United States.”
“He should be here soon, I’ll find out then.”
“Got me all ready,” his father said, “and then nothing happened.”
“Well, there must be a reason,” David said.
“The reason is they don’t know what they’re doing. Where’s Bessie?”
“Outside.”
“Why isn’t she inside? What’s she doing outside?”
“Pop, I didn’t learn until a minute ago that you didn’t have the operation.”
“They don’t tell you anything around here,” his father said, nodding. “Go get her, would you, please?”
When Bessie came into the room, his father said, “Hello, kiddo.”
“Hello, Morris,” she said, and went to the bed and kissed him on the cheek.
“Did you bring the scissors?” he asked.
“Oh, Morris dear,” she said, “I forgot.”
“My nails are getting like Fu Manchu’s,” his father said. “Many man swallow,” he added, “but fu man chew.”
“He always makes jokes,” Bessie said fondly. “I miss your jokes, Morris, you’d better hurry up and get out of here.”
“Are you still playing cards?” his father asked.
“Every night, Morris. But it’s not the same without you.”
“Nobody to cheat them, huh?”
“You don’t cheat, Morris.”
“I cheat,” he said.
The Vietnamese nurse came in.
“How are you doing, Mr. Weber?” she asked.
“Why’d they call off the operation?” his father said.
“You’ll have to ask Dr. Kaplan.”
“I’m asking you. This is the Dragon Lady,” he said to David. “Bane of my existence. Can’t get a word out of her. Inscrutable.”
The nurse pulled back the sheet.
There was a tube sticking in his father’s penis. They had shaved his pubic hair and the hair on his legs. He looked very white all over. His penis looked tiny, like a boy’s, the tube sticking into its opening, yellow fluid seeping along the tube, bubbling along the tube. David was embarrassed for a moment by the intimacy of the situation, Bessie standing beside the bed as the nurse exposed his father so completely, he himself seeing his father’s genitals for the first time since he was a small boy undressing with him in the locker room at Jones Beach. His father’s penis had looked so huge and threatening then, and he had turned away, somewhat frightened. He turned away now, too, but only because he was suddenly overcome by a wave of grief so keen that it brought quick, hot tears to his eyes. The sight of his father lying there helpless and vulnerable, the nurse checking the tube as if it were attached not to his father’s very masculinity but to some machine instead, as impersonal as any of the machines around—
“Does that feel all right?” she asked.
“Oh, it feels just fine,” his father said. “I’ve always wanted to pee in a tube.” Then, forgetting he had used the same line yesterday, he said, “You’ll be the urination of me.”
“He’s a very funny man, your father,” the nurse said unsmilingly, and pulled up the sheet and walked out.
David went to the bed. He took his father’s hand in his own.
“I’ll find out about the operation,” he said. “I’ll let you know.”
The tears were still standing in his eyes. His father looked up at him. His own eyes widened when he saw the tears. A look of surprise crossed his face. The look said: What’s this? Tears? He kept looking at David in surprise until finally David turned away and left the room, hoping he had not revealed too much, hoping he had not transmitted to his father the knowledge that he was dying. Bessie came out a moment later.
“He looks terrible,” she whispered.
“Excuse me,” Kaplan said, “but is this your mother?”
“No, she’s a friend,” David said.
Kaplan looked at him. Bessie nodded expectantly.
“She can hear anything you have to say,” David said. “What happened? Why didn’t you operate this morning?”
They were standing in the corridor outside the waiting room. A long table on wheels was in front of the window streaming sunlight. Kaplan was dressed more severely today. A dark blue suit, a white shirt, a blue tie. He looked like a mortician.
“Well, we planned to,” Kaplan said, “but we thought it best to postpone. We discovered fluid in his lungs, and we...”
“His lungs? I thought his lungs were okay.”
“Well, they are, basically. The fluid is something we can take care of, we’ve put him on medication to clear it up. His kidneys were beginning to malfunction as well...”
“Is that why there’s a tube in his penis?”
“No, that’s to facilitate emptying of the bladder.”
He looked at Bessie. Bessie looked back at him, her blue eyes unflinching. “It would have been foolish to risk an operation until the numbers were right,” Kaplan said.
“I’m not sure we should risk an operation at all,” David said.
“Is there a choice, Mr. Weber?”
David looked at him.
“I don’t think there’s a choice, Mr. Weber.”
“When will you do it?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. I expect the problems will be resolved by tomorrow morning. We normally operate on infected patients in the afternoon. We try to operate on any noninfected patients in the morning.”
“But you were supposed to operate on him this morning, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And he was infected, wasn’t he? He’s still infected, in fact.”
“Yes, but we ran into the problems I just told you about.”
It was all beginning to sound like gobbledygook.
“So now you won’t be operating till tomorrow afternoon. When you normally operate on infected patients.”
“Once we resolve the problems,” Kaplan said, and nodded. “And when we’re sure his heart can...”
“His heart?” David said. “What’s wrong with his heart?”
“He’s eighty-two years old, there’s fluid in his lungs,” Kaplan said. “We want to make sure he has the optimum chance of getting through this surgery.”
“You’re certain you’ll be able to resolve these problems?”
“I would hope so.”
“So what time will he go into surgery? Tomorrow, I mean.”
“Shortly after noon, I would expect. If the numbers are correct.”
“The numbers?”
“The readings on the heart and kidneys. I’ve been in constant touch with the cardiologist, and I plan to update the anesthesiologist before we operate. I can assure you we won’t do anything foolhardy, Mr. Weber.”
David felt mildly chastised.
“We’re trying, believe me,” Kaplan said.
“Then why is he still sick?” Bessie asked suddenly.
“I wish I could tell you that,” Kaplan said wearily. He turned to meet her challenging gaze. “My own wife died three years ago. I’m a physician, a surgeon, I still don’t know what killed her. There are things we don’t know. I wish we did know them. But we don’t.” He sighed heavily and turned to David again. “I wish I could get him to walk out of here tomorrow, believe me. I wish I could wave a magic wand over him and cure him. I can’t. I’m doing my best.”