Evan Hunter - Far From the Sea

From his hotel room he could see the ocean on the east and the bay on the west. The hospital was on the bay side, not very far from the sea. He stayed in the room only long enough to unzip his bag and lay it flat on the bed.

It was stiflingly hot in the street outside.

The cab driver who responded to his hand signal wheeled the taxi up onto the hotel ramp and asked where he was going.

“St. Mary’s Hospital,” he said.

The light on the corner took an eternity to change. He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to three. Visiting hours were at eleven, two, four, and seven — for ten minutes each time. On the telephone last night, the doctor had told him he would leave word to admit him whenever he arrived.

“You got somebody in the hospital?” the driver asked.

“My father.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“He’s sick.”

“Well, sure, a hospital,” the driver said, and fell silent for the remainder of the trip.

The receptionist in the main entrance lobby told him what floor Intensive Care was on and then said he could visit at 4:00 p.m. He thanked her and took the elevator up to the third floor. He walked past the nurses’ station opposite the elevators and then followed the signs directing him to Intensive Care. He passed a small waiting room, walked to the end of the corridor, and opened a door. There were overflow beds in the unit’s hallways. A thin, balding man with a mustache was sitting up in one of the beds. Smiling, he began walking toward the man, and suddenly realized it was not his father.

A nurse in green tunic and pants approached him.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m Morris Weber’s son,” he said. “I just got here from New York. Dr. Kaplan said he would leave word...”

“He’s in five.”

“How is he?”

“His condition is stable.”

He moved down the hall and stepped into the room he thought she’d indicated. A doctor was examining a woman on the bed. He saw her pale white breasts, her pale white belly, and backed away in embarrassment, out into the corridor again.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “what room did you...?”

“Number five,” the nurse said. “On your left.”

“Thank you.”

His father’s eyes were closed. There was a tube in his nose. There were tubes taped to his arms. There were tubes running under the sheets. There were plastic bags with yellow fluids in them hanging on metal stands beside the bed. A brownish liquid bubbled and seeped along one of the tubes and drained into a soiled plastic bag hanging on a machine. Another machine on a higher stand alongside the bed beeped and flashed with orange digital numbers, glowed with the cool blue electronic peaks and valleys of his father’s heartbeat.

“Pop?” he whispered.

His father’s eyes fluttered open and then widened in surprise.

“David?”

“Yes, Pop.”

Disoriented for a moment, his father blinked into the room. The last time David had seen him — on his eighty-second birthday, three months ago — his hair and his mustache had been tinted black. Tufts of white now stood out on either side of his otherwise bald head. What had once been a neatly groomed line of black hair on his upper lip was shaggy and white. The upper lip seemed caved in. It took David a moment to realize they’d removed his father’s dentures.

“How are you?” he asked.

“What are you doing here?” his father said.

“Dr. Kaplan phoned me.”

“Dr. Kaplan,” his father said, and pulled a face. “I went to him for two weeks, telling him I had pains. He said they were gas. Some gas. He probably still thinks it was gas.”

“He knows it wasn’t gas, Pop,” David said, and smiled and took his father’s right hand between his own. There were puncture marks all over his father’s arm, dark angry bruises.

“So what was it?” his father asked.

“You know what it was.”

“Blockage.”

“It was a tumor, Pop. Dr. Kaplan told you that.”

“Malignant.”

“Yes, Pop.”

“But he got it.”

“Yes, Pop. No spread. He got it all.”

“So why am I still in the hospital? I came in three weeks ago, it’s three weeks already. What’s the matter with me?”

He did not know what to say. Now that he was here, he did not know what to say. The silence lengthened.

“They still have to do another one, don’t they?” his father asked.

“Another what?”

“Operation.”

“Well, that won’t be for a while yet. When they... they have to close up the intestines. So you won’t need the bag anymore.”

“Maybe this time I’ll get rid of the gas , too.”

David smiled again. His father seemed to be his same alert, cantankerous, sarcastically humorous self, and he was wondering whether Dr. Kaplan’s call last night hadn’t been somewhat premature. But all these tubes—

“You’re not in any pain, are you?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

His father nodded.

“I sent a check for your rent,” David said, “so you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Bessie called and said you were...”

“My mail must be piled up to the ceiling there.”

“Don’t worry about your mail.”

“I told Bessie not to bother you. I knew you had that big case.”

“Well, I thought I’d better come down.”

“How’s the case doing?”

“The trial ended last Friday.”

“Did you win?”

“We lost.”

“Terrific,” his father said, and shook his head.

“I’ve been talking to the doctor almost every day,” David said. “He tells me you’re coming along fine.”

“Then what are you doing down here?”

He hesitated.

“Well, you’re running a slight fever, Pop.”

“You’d run a fever here, too,” his father said. “They’re in here day and night, poking needles in my arm. How slight?”

“I don’t know exactly. Nothing to worry about.”

“When will they do the next operation?” his father asked.

“Well, as soon as you start getting better. You’ve got to help them beat this fever, Pop. Dr. Kaplan said you’ve been very depressed these past few...”

“There’s a hole in my belly,” his father said.

“I know that, Pop, but that’s because you’ve got the bag, you’re draining into a bag. Once they close up the intestines again...”

“Sure,” his father said. “Another operation.”

“Yes, but that’ll be the end of it. And then you’ll be able to go back to your normal life again.”

“Hello, swee’heart,” a woman’s voice said from the door.

“Here’s the bane of my existence,” his father said. “What is it this time?”

“I wann to check your dressin’, darlin’.”

She was wearing a green tunic and pants, like the other nurse. Her hair was black, pulled to the back of her head in a ponytail. Her eyes were a dark brown. She was quite pretty, no older than twenty-four or twenty-five, David guessed.

“Won’t leave me alone,” his father said. “Can’t keep her hands off me.”

“Tha’s ri’, darlin’.”

“Used to run a butcher shop in Cuba.”