Like the Italians say: I was kissing fog.
Later, when I walked out of the hospital, I thought I heard a woman’s voice. I turned but saw no one. Again, over the din and through the thicket of noise, I heard the insistent female voice, which now seemed to come from above me.
I looked up. It was Betty, way up on the fifth floor, shouting some words that were subsumed, absorbed, drowned out by automobile traffic, ambulance sirens, heavy trucks rumbling, an occasional motorcycle that revved up like a 747 taking off, mouthing something — how she was able to open a window which in hospitals never open I’ll never know — words that sounded like: “…take the pen.”
I waved my thanks to her and even cupped my hands around my mouth as I shouted, “Thank you” in appreciation of her astonishing generosity. Don’t feel bad you took the pen, she seemed to say. It’s my gift to you. Perhaps she was unwittingly — or maybe even unconsciously — reprising the famous Talmudic anecdote of a sage who witnessed thieves running off with items from his house. A goodhearted man, the rabbi did not want the thieves to bear the sin of theft, so he shouted, “Hefker!”—abandoned property.
Then, a moment later, my mind played with Betty’s words and spun them in a different dimension. I heard other words that turned her beneficent phrase upside down. Instead of “Take the pen,” she might have said, “Why did you take the pen?” And with the city swallowing the first three words, I heard the last three to my own rhythm. Rather than offering me the pen, perhaps Betty was complaining about my inadvertent act of taking it. No wonder she looked like she was ready to leap out of the window and swoop down on me like a predator bird, a hawk, an eagle, maybe even a pterodactyl. But if it was indeed her pen, and she was calling for it from the window, it was too late now to return it, for I had an appointment uptown. I figured I’d give it back at my next visit.
A couple of days later, unable to go back to the hospital, I called Patient Information.
“Beth Israel, how may I assist you?” came the voice of a female operator.
“I’d like to know how Jiri Weisz-Krupka is doing?”
“It’s Krupka-Weisz.”
“That’s what I meant. How is he?”
I knew they’d say Fine. They always say Fine, even if a patient is clinging to life. Even if he already unclung it.
“How do you spell the name?”
I spelled it, last name first, first name last. She repeated the spelling.
“That’s right,” I said.
“Gone.”
“Gone?”
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Gone gone.”
I barely choked out the word, “Dead?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but the new privacy laws do not permit me to give out any personal information.”
“Then why did you correct his name and ask me to spell it?”
“So as not to disappoint you right away.”
“Then why did you say, ‘Gone’?”
“Three reasons. But I’ll give you only the fourth. We don’t give out personal information.”
“But I don’t want personal information. I just want to know if he’s alive, at least if he’s still in Beth Israel.”
“That’s personal and I cannot give it.”
“May I speak to your supervisor?”
“Of course.”
After a brief delay a woman with a raspy smoker’s voice answered.
“This is the supervisor. The lady at the other end was right. We cannot give out personal information without the patient’s consent.”
“All right. But if, let’s say, he’s — I’m not saying he is, but for argument’s sake, suppose he is. How can he give his consent?”
The supervisor seemed to take a sip of something, then cleared her throat and said:
“So if you know that already, not that it’s necessarily so, which I can neither confirm nor deny, why ask me?”
“I don’t know it. I just used it as an example. But I would like to know.”
“That is personal information.”
“Can’t you contact him to see if he will authorize information to be given to a relative?”
“Not without his permission. Sorry.”
“Can I speak to your supervisor?”
“Certainly.”
A moment later I heard, “Supervisor speaking.”
“Wait a minute, I recognize your voice. I just spoke to you.”
“I know. I am the supervisor’s supervisor. I supervise myself. I’m very sorry.”
“You don’t sound sorry.”
“But I am. Very, very sorry.”
“We’re talking in circles, lady. I’m a relative—” I figured since Jiri affectionately called me bruderl, little brother, I could honest say: “Actually, I’m his younger brother.” And I gave her my name.
“But that’s not the same name.”
“I know. We come from one different father and two of the same mothers and the one who is my mother changed her name when she remarried my uncle for the second time to avoid confusion. You see, she had the same name.”
“As who?”
“My uncle.”
“Then why did she have to change her name?”
“You see, that’s just the point. So as not to get it mixed up with my other father, who fathered Jiri, who also had the same name after he changed it after my adoption papers were misplaced. You follow?”
“Even Napoleon couldn’t follow what you’re saying.” The she sniffed. “And anyway, a supervisor never follows. Always leads. Now let’s see if you’re on the list… How do you spell your name?”
“If you tell me how he is, I’ll spell it for you. I’m at the airport, madam, about to take off for Prague…”
“How do you spell that?”
“…and I desperately need this information for his other brother in Prague who cannot contact him.”
“I am not permitted to give out that information, I regret.”
Indeed, now the dark timbre of regret sounded in her voice.
“Okay, I’ll spell my name for you.”
“It’s not on the list,” she said.
“Then what can you do for me?”
“Connect you to Billing.”
“Wait! If you can’t give me any information, what is Patient Information?”
“In our department, my dear sir, Patient Information is not a compound noun. People always make that mistake. Patient is an adjective. That means I am extremely patient when I give or withhold information,” she said softly.
“One last attempt. I don’t want personal information. What illness he has. What medications he’s on. If he has Medicaid or Medicare. What his account number is. If he’s contagious. If he has a disease that’s spelled only with all caps. If he has one of the dozen sicknesses or syndromes with other people’s names. Or even better, if he has a hyphen with a doctor’s name tagged on either end, like Creutzfeld-Jakob. I just want to know if the poor man is alive.”
“According to the new federal guidelines on privacy, that is precisely the kind of personal information we’re not allowed to give out.”
I could swear I heard a catch in her throat.