“Sex fiends,” her sister agreed, nodding.
“There are very active people at seventy-five,” the man in the business suit said again.
“English mostly,” Helen said. “The sex fiends. Am I right, Jean?”
“English,” her sister agreed, nodding.
“Where was this cruise?” Mrs. Horowitz asked.
“On the Rhine,” Jean said.
“In Germany,” Helen said.
“There were Englishmen going to Germany?”
“Tons of them.”
“After what the Nazis did?” Mrs. Horowitz said, shaking her head.
“The world forgets,” the man in the business suit said philosophically. “The world has a short memory.”
“Who’s your patient here?” Mrs. Horowitz asked the Dolly Sisters.
“Our mother,” they answered in unison.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“A stroke,” they said in unison.
“Can’t we go in now?” the man in the business suit said. “I’m running the store all alone with my brother sick. It’s almost two o’clock. Can’t we go in?”
The pink lady tore her attention from the television screen. She looked at the clock. “Just a few more minutes,” she said.
“A pill,” Mrs. Horowitz said. “Thirty seconds, and it’s all over.”
“How are you feeling, Pop?” he asked. “Are you feeling a little better?”
His father nodded weakly.
“I just had the worst pastrami sandwich I ever had in my life,” David said. “I thought you had good pastrami down here in Miami.”
His father looked at him blankly.
“Not that you want to hear me beefing about it,” David said.
His father raised his hand.
“Yes, Pop?”
He brought his hand to his mouth.
“You want some pastrami? You’re better off without it.”
His father shook his head impatiently. He touched his lips again.
“Some water? Something to drink?”
His father shook his head. He dropped his hand wearily.
“I’m sorry, Pop, I don’t understand. Shall I get the nurse?”
His father nodded. David went out into the corridor. The Vietnamese nurse was at the nurses’ station.
“My father wants something, but I don’t know what. Could you come in, please?” David said.
The nurse looked at him blankly. The Dragon Lady, David thought. Inscrutable. Without saying a word, she came from behind the counter and walked into his father’s room. David followed her.
“Did you want something, Mr. Weber?” she asked.
His father raised his hand to his lips again.
“He doesn’t want water, I already asked him,” David said.
“Some ice, Mr. Weber? Did you want some ice chips?”
His father nodded.
“I’ll get you some ice, Mr. Weber,” she said, and walked out.
“Is your mouth a little dry?” David asked.
His father nodded.
“You’re looking much better now than you did this morning,” David said. “Good color, good...” His voice trailed. “Plenty of plates you’ve got there in the apartment,” he said. “Those small boxes are plates, aren’t they?”
His father nodded.
“Plenty of them there. Lots of mail for you to look at, too, when you get out of here. It’ll just be a while now, Pop. Nothing to keep you from getting well now. Just a matter of...”
The Vietnamese nurse was back. He wondered if she had overheard him. He wondered if she knew the exploratory surgery had found nothing. He wondered if she knew he’d been lying to his father. She handed David a paper cup full of ice chips.
“Try to give him the smaller pieces,” she said, and left the room.
He went to the bed.
“Here’s your ice, Pop,” he said. “Do you want it now?”
His father nodded.
He took a small sliver of ice between his thumb and forefinger, placed it between his father’s lips.
“Here you go,” he said.
The ice slid between his father’s lips and into his mouth. His lips moved. A dribble of water worked its way down his chin. David pulled a Kleenex tissue from the box beside the bed and wiped his father’s chin.
“More?” he asked.
His father nodded.
David searched for another small sliver in the paper cup. He found one and held it to his father’s lips. The inside of his mouth looked red and raw. The sliver of ice disappeared. His father moved the ice around inside his mouth.
“Does that feel good?” David asked.
His father lowered his eyelids and raised them again.
“Do you want some more?”
His father shook his head.
“I’ll put it here on the windowsill, if you want more later,” David said.
A look of pain crossed his father’s face. Again, as he had done during this morning’s visit, he brought his hand to his belly. His belly rippled under the sheet. He kept his hand flat on the sheet. The wave subsided.
“Little pain?” David asked.
His father did nothing. No nod, no blink of the eyes, nothing. He seemed to be concentrating on his belly, on his hand spread flat on his belly.
“Have they been giving you anything for pain?”
Still, his father remained motionless, his hand on his belly. He lifted his hand from the sheet. The fingers widespread, he waggled his hand from side to side, the way one might signal “so-so” if you’d asked him how he was feeling.
“What does that mean, Pop?” David asked.
His father kept waggling his hand.
“Shall I get someone?”
His father nodded.
David went out into the corridor. A tall, strapping young man with muscles bulging in his green T-shirt was just passing the door. “Excuse me,” David said. “My father needs help.”
The muscular young man walked into his father’s room. The weight-lifter, David thought. The one his father had told him about. Allan? Alvin?
“Hello, Morrie,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
His father stared at him blankly.
“Not so good, huh, Morrie? Don’t worry, you’ll feel better.”
“His mouth looks very raw,” David said.
“That may be from all the medication,” the young man said. “Sometimes you get a yeast infection secondary to the use of antibiotics. What can I do for you, Morrie?”
His father lifted his hand and made the same wigwagging motion.
“Do you have to urinate, Morrie?”
His father nodded. There was apparently a sign language all the nurses began to understand after a while. If a man waggled his hand from side to side, it didn’t mean he was feeling only so-so, it meant he had to pee. A universal sign language spoken only by the sick and dying and understood by their keepers.
“There’s a tube in your penis,” the young man said. “It may give you an urge to urinate. You don’t have to worry about wetting the bed, Morrie. Just urinate whenever you want to, okay?”
His father sighed.
“Was there anything else, Morrie?”
His father shook his head.
“Now you get better, you hear me? We all want you to get better, Morrie.”
He patted the sheet covering his father’s legs and left the room. David remembered what his father had said about him. He used to lift weights. He picks me up like I’m a baby...
“It’s a hell of a thing to be eighty-two,” David said, “and have to worry about wetting the bed, isn’t it, Pop?”
His father nodded wearily. He lifted his hand again. His forefinger trembled. He made the letter M on the air.
“Molly?” David said. “She’s fine, Pop.”
His father’s finger snaked on the air. An S.