David Rotenberg - The Hamlet Murders

As close as Fong could guess, the next thing the man said was, “Do you not speak the common tongue?” Before Fong could attempt an answer, the man pulled a short white jacket over top of his blazer and lit a cigarette. “D’ya mind?” he asked, Fong guessed in reference to the cigarette, not the jacket. “Well, do you speak the common tongue?” This time Fong was sure that was what he asked.

“I speak it. What is it that you’re speaking?” Fong asked on impulse.

The man made a sound that may well have been laughter. Of course, it could also have been the preamble to some sort of Ukrainian folk dance. A Ukrainian in Shanghai. A Ukrainian eye doctor. How the fuck had he, the head of Special Investigations for the entire Shanghai district, ended up here? The guy must have given the department a group rate or something.

Dr. Wasniachenko parked himself on a stubby black stool that he had rigged up on wheels. Then he used his feet to trolley over to a tiny desk. His butt hung over all sides. He pulled open a tiny drawer in the desk and took out a pair of thick glasses, put them on and looked at Fong again. Fong smiled. A visually challenged Ukrainian eye doctor! The man turned and raised his head very high so that he was looking down his bulbous nose at Fong as if trying to get the glasses to focus properly for him. Then he barked out, “You’re not Mrs. Jian!”

Fong laughed out loud and wondered who in his office had set this appointment up for him. He would have to return the favour in kind sometime and very soon.

“You don’t look like Mrs. Jian,” the good doctor said, suddenly concerned. Then his cell phone rang. He checked his pants pocket for it – no phone, his jacket pockets – no phone. “They’re so small I constantly misplace them,” he said as he pulled open a battered old briefcase.

Fong walked over and picked up the bright pink phone that was sitting in the very centre of the man’s desktop and handed it to the doctor. The man’s fat fingers barely fit on the phone’s face, but he did manage, probably through good fortune, to hit the Receive button. Instantly, his face took on a concerned look and his heavy head waggled up and down several times somewhat like an overripe tomato on the vine. Then he said, “Hold on just a second, Mom,” and put the phone down. He indicated that Fong should sit in the big red chair.

Fong did and the doctor came up very close to him, “You’re not Mrs. Jian?”

“No.”

“Do you know Mrs. Jian?”

“There are probably several hundred thousand Mrs. Jians in Shanghai, but I’m afraid I don’t know any of them.”

This seemed to greatly concern Dr. Wasniachenko. He tut-tutted, made a face, turned back to Fong as if he were going to check the facts one more time, then evidently decided against it. “My mother’s on the phone,” he said as if that needed to be further explained. “I’m very fond of my mother. Besides my wife Tsu-li, who died seven years ago last April, she’s the only woman I’ve ever loved. And she loves me too.”

Fong was genuinely touched by the odd man’s blunt candour. He found it refreshing. “You should speak to her.”

The man nodded sagely several times then took out a small dark bottle with a dropper top. He trolleyed over to Fong while he held the bottle at full arm’s length so that he could focus on it properly. “Open your eyes wide, Mr. Jian.”

Fong did and instantly wished he hadn’t because the doctor squeezed the dropper, letting loose a flood of murky brown liquid that found one eye, the entirety of his nose and dribbled down his chin. “Very good,” Dr. Wasniachenko said. “Now open the other, that would be the right eye.”

It wasn’t, but Fong didn’t see the point of contradicting the man so he opened the other eye, the left one. This time the doctor’s aim was true. “Now close your eyes and stay like that. The medication takes about ten minutes to take effect. I’m going to talk to my mother. She’s on the phone. Now where did I put that darned thing?”

Ten minutes later, the doctor trolleyed back into the examination room announcing, “That was my mother on the phone.” Fong was going to reply, but the words stuck in his throat as he looked at the man. He was huge. Then Fong realized that the man’s inordinate size must be the result of some sort of process induced by the medication that had been put in his eyes.

“Ever had your eyes tested before, Mr. Jian?” “No,” Fong said, cowering back just a little from this gigantic white person.

“So you’re a virgin?” he said and giggled. Then the giggle exploded into a full-fledged belly laugh. Quickly, Fong found himself laughing too, although for the life of him he couldn’t say why. This man was a walking absurdity. Then Dr. Wasniachenko flipped off the lights and turned on a projector that threw letters onto a small mirror and from there onto a wall across the way. “Can you see the letter configuration?”

“You mean the letters on the wall?” Fong asked.

The doctor took off his glasses to get a better look. In doing so, he stepped between Fong and the letters. “Yes, the ones on the wall. Read me the big letter on the top.”

“I can’t . . . ”

But before Fong could explain that he wasn’t able to see the letters through the good doctor’s body, the man began that tut-tutting thing again. “Serious. Very serious,” he said as he leaned in to take a close look at Fong. To do this, he moved out of the way and Fong read the whole chart from top to bottom.

“Amazing. From nothing to everything. I’ve only seen one other case like this. A case of hysterical nearsightedness. At first she could see almost nothing. Hardly a darn thing. Then I approached her and all at once gazzammo and she could see. Like Christ with the lepers. Things falling off here and there, a leg, an arm, a nose and then gazzammo and those body parts back in place and they were ready to make blini.”

Fong sat there completely amazed by this man. All he could think of saying was, “What was the woman’s name?”

And of course the answer to his question was “Mrs. Jian.” Fong nodded, and the doctor asked, “Do you know her?”

“No.”

“Nice woman. You’d like her. She’s Chinese, you know.” Fong nodded again, but the doctor caught his head in his fleshy hands and moved a square machine toward him. He took a slightly soiled handkerchief out of his pocket and put it on the metal strut that faced Fong. “Put your chin on that.” Fong did. “Now keep your eyes wide open.” Fong did. The doctor sat down on the other side of the contraption. “Look at the green light.” There was no green light but there was a red one so Fong looked at that although it was all the way at the upper periphery of his vision.

The doctor looked through his end of the machine and muttered loudly, “Where the hell are his darned eyes?” As he did, Fong heard the cranking of turning knobs and the red light disappeared above his line of vision. “Darn and darn again!” The doctor stood up, walked over to Fong and looked at the machine and Fong’s eye. He drew a line in the air between the machine’s opening and Fong’s eye then hustled back to his chair. Knobs were cranked again and the red light descended from on high, stopping exactly level with Fong’s right eye. “Gotch you, you little rascal. Now open your eye wide.”

Fong did.

The doctor hit a button and a puff of air struck Fong square in the eyeball. Fong let out a quick gasp. “Bull’s-eye. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve still got it. Yes, indeed. Son of a Cossack never loses his aim.” Then it was as if he realized that Fong was in the room. “Did that hurt, Mr. Jian?”

“No, it just startled me a little.”

“Well, they tell you to inform the patient what you’re going to do before you do it, but I never believed in that. Now open your other eye.”