Ethan Canin - A Doubter's Almanac

“I’m going to request that you put that out now, Milo.”

“Whatever you say, Danny.” He dropped the butt onto the floor, where his shoe moved over it like a slug over a leaf.

“And you have emptied your bladder?”

“Of course I have.”

Two chairs came over next to the bed now, and the doctor helped Dad shift into one of them. My father lifted his shirt. Wrapped around his huge midsection was something like a truss — a shiny plastic girdle tightened with thick laces at the center. When the doctor untied it, a quivering mass of belly burst out, like a sandbag falling off a wall. It yanked Dad forward. He steadied himself, unbuckled his pants, and pushed the waistband down over his knees. When he inched his legs apart, the sandbag toppled the rest of the way out until it spread across the second chair. It was a jiggling, gargantuan version of the belly I’d first seen at the Tapington swimming pool, a dozen years before. He was straining from the weight.

From the edge of the bed, Dr. Gandapur reached across and scrubbed the skin. Then with one palm he slapped the flesh, which trembled like Jell-O. With the other, he made a swift movement, and when the Jell-O stilled, I realized with a start that a needle was poking out from the center of it. There was another flurry of motion, and now a coil of tubing curled from the needle. The doctor attached the other end of it to a jar. I turned away. When I turned back, fluid had appeared. A narrow straw-colored column that emerged from inside his body and pushed hesitantly around the loops, like a timid snake exploring the room. At the far end, drops began to trickle. At first, just a few; then more and more, until after a time, it sounded like he was peeing into a cup. When the first bottle was full, Dr. Gandapur switched to the second. Then the third. All the while, Dad’s face was brightening.

When at last the needle was withdrawn, the man who rose from the chair looked something like my father again. The truss lay behind him on the floor. His belly slid easily back into his pants. “Lord, oh Lord,” he said, coming forward, “I can breathe again.”

He crossed the room and shook my hand, then the doctor’s; then, from a bottle on the dresser, he poured us all a round of bourbon.

—

“BY CHANCE YOU took note of what I did for him?” said the doctor. He set his case on the kitchen counter and poured his drink down the drain. I took a sip of mine, then did the same. We’d left Dad dozing upstairs. “That was called a paracentesis,” he said. “About a paracentesis there is little beyond the obvious. You place the trocar and allow the fluid to seek its own level.” He smiled, busying his hands with his tool bag. “And yet it means everything for his comfort.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I see that it did.”

“I’m just pleased that I can do something to ease his burden. You know, I count your father as a friend now.”

“That’s generous of you.”

He glanced. “And despite his condition, he is still the man who proved the Malosz theorem.” He seemed to bow slightly at the words. “Of course, either of these two things would have been more than enough to bring me by.”

“You know the Malosz theorem, then?”

“Of course I do. Your father would not have told you, but I once hoped to be a mathematician myself.” He looked up at me. “Although it did not take me long to abandon the project.”

“That would make two of us.”

He reddened. “Except in my case, Mr. Andret, it was because it was beyond my capabilities.” He opened the bag again. “Your father has of course spoken of you.”

“What was your field?”

“Well, I suppose you could say I was a geometer.” He continued busying himself with his instruments. “The only problem was that the Lord failed to inform me early enough that I was no good at it.” Into his pocket went the stethoscope. “Treating a man like your father, however, remains one of the privileges of my profession. One does not encounter many Fields Medalists in these particular woods.”

He moved to the counter then and picked up one of the bottles of liquid. “What we have here,” he said, holding it to the light, “is the by-product of his cirrhosis. The fluid presses against his lungs until his existence, if I may be blunt, becomes rather uncomfortable.” He tightened the lid and set the bottle into a box. “It feels like trying to breathe inside a packed suitcase. This is when I drain him. Whenever it is done, he can look forward to a period of relief.”

“Really? How long a period?”

“This varies. A week or two. A month, perhaps.”

“And then?”

“Sometimes the relief persists. He is a formidable person, your father. But this is a grave illness, and like all men who suffer from it, he waxes and wanes. I have seen him look entirely well for weeks.”

“But, Doctor, may I ask — it always comes back?”

“So far — yes.”

“How long can he go on like this?”

He set the other bottles gently into the box, gathered the last of his belongings, and moved toward the door. I opened it for him. “That is a good question,” he said, stepping gingerly out onto the stairs, as though they might not hold him. “I wish I could say. His is a grave condition, but he is also a resilient man — like many with his particular history. The medical texts may not assign him the best of odds, but in my own career, I have yet to see a man who obeys the medical texts.”

“He didn’t look so resilient when I arrived.”

“Well, that might be because you are accustomed to the flower in bloom. Did you not see how much better he looked today when we’d finished?”

I followed him across the drive. When he climbed back into the old Mercedes that was sitting beneath the trees, I leaned down to the window. “Tell me, then,” I said, “in his condition, should he really be doing what he’s doing?”

“Which is what, I might ask.”

I gestured toward the upstairs window, where we could see him now with a cigarette in his mouth and a glass in his hand.

“Ah, Mr. Andret,” he said, shifting the rattling coupe into reverse, “he still has his pleasures, hasn’t he? If I were you, I would be happy that he can at least rise from bed to enjoy them.”

—

“PAULIE,” I SAID. “He’s in bad shape.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“Worse than we thought.”

There was a pause. “He’s been in that kind of shape all our lives, Hans. Probably all his own, too.”

“Well, this is different.”

Silence. I was talking from the garden behind the cabin.

“Why?” she finally said.

“Why what?”

“Why’s it different?”

“You’ve never seen him like this. He’s got cirrhosis. He’s enormous. He’s swollen all over and he sounds like a girl. His voice sounds like Emmy’s.”

“But he’s better now since the doctor came, isn’t he?”

“The doctor said he’s in grave shape, Paulie. That’s the word he used— grave . I think you should come.”

“He’s been in grave shape before.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve talked to that doctor myself.”

Upstairs in the cabin, I could see Dad sitting in the window again, looking down at me.

“What about Mom?” I said. “Do you think Mom would want to be here?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not. I think if she knew—”

“No, Hans. Mom does not want to be there. She’s got her own life now. It’s taken her a long time to get it.”

“Well, then what about you ?”

“What about me? I survived.”

“I know that. I understand. Listen, Paulie — can I tell you what I saw in the bushes yesterday? The HMS Victory .”