Evan Hunter - Far From the Sea

“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?”

“Your father tells me you’re a lawyer,” Kaplan said.

David visualized the man smiling and for the first time felt some sort of kinship with him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m simply trying to get this straight.”

“I’m giving it to you as straight as I know how,” Kaplan said. “If he continues on his present downward course, I think he’ll die, yes. And his chances of surviving surgery in his present condition are fifty-fifty. That’s all I can tell you, Mr. Weber.”

“He’s very fearful of another operation, you know,” David said.

“Well, of course,” Kaplan said.

“Apparently the first one was very painful.”

“Not the operation itself. There’s always some pain following surgery, of course. But we try to moderate that with drugs.”

“He told me he was suffering.”

“Not now? You don’t mean now?”

“No, not now. After the first operation.”

“Well, yes.”

“Are you sure you have to operate again?”

“I would not take the risk unless I were positive.”

“When would you do it?”

“Tomorrow. First thing in the morning. He should be back down by the time you get there.”

“At eleven, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Back down where? The Recovery Room?”

“Intensive Care.”

“Will he recognize me?”

“Not until the anesthesia wears off.”

“But I can see him.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Will you be the only surgeon?”

“I plan to ask the chief surgeon to attend.”

“What about my father? Will you tell him, or shall I?”

“I’ve already told him,” Kaplan said. “He had to sign an authorization form. I think we’ll need your signature as well. His hand was a bit shaky.”

His father’s signature on the hospital form almost moved David to tears. The fine curlicues and loops of the Morris L. Weber had deteriorated to a scrawl that meandered across the page. He looked at his father’s signature for a long time, remembering the signs he had meticulously hand-lettered for the puppet show and posted all over the building, the signs he had made announcing the first issue of the short-lived newspaper. He read the consent form while the Cuban nurse waited. He signed his name in the space provided for next-of-kin and hoped he was not signing his father’s death warrant.

He went into his father’s room. The machines blinked and beeped beside his bed, electronic sentinels. His father’s eyes were closed. It occurred to David that he had never seen him asleep before. He kept looking at his face. They had not shaved him today; a gray beard stubble covered his chin and his jowls. Asleep, he did not look sick. Three thousand calories a day, the Cuban nurse had said. He hadn’t lost a pound of weight. But he was dying. He would die unless they found whatever they were looking for and cut it from his body, or drained it, did whatever they had to do to it.

His father’s eyes popped open.

He let out a startled little gasp.

“Oh,” he said.

“Hello, Pop.”

“Another operation, right?” his father said, instantly awake.

“Yes, Pop.”

“When?”

“First thing tomorrow morning.”

“Terrific. Just what I need, first thing in the morning.”

“It is what you need, Pop.”

“What’d they find? All those pictures.”

“Something that may be an area of infection.”