The Ministry of Special Cases (31 page)

But something in those first seconds was different; it changed Kaddish’s mind. The house was not so much ransacked as it was disheveled. Kaddish looked around the room. All the expensive stuff was still there, and all the things you’d break stood unbroken. The place was only victim to a rush. He was about to follow the trail of clothing toward the bedrooms when he better understood. Kaddish faced the concierge and now felt small; he felt tiny, so sincere was the look of pity in the man’s eyes.

They’d left. The Álvarezes got their daughter back and ran.

BEFORE FEIGENBLUM GETS A CHANCE
to establish himself, his office makes it clear: Here is a Jew of import. On side tables and shelves, on pedestals and windowsills, on the walls and across his desk, from any angle that a visitor might face are visible the honors and accolades, the statuettes and Judaic symbols that those in power procure and acquire and, most often, award among themselves.

Hung in a grouping was a selection of antique
channukiot
, with their fingernail wells and Roman design. Freestanding was a large brass menorah, seven-branched as in the Holy Temple. And if a visitor could not picture the glory of that place, on the pedestal to its right was a die-cast replica of the Third Temple itself, just as it will be lowered down from heaven. Next to it a shofar rested like a samurai sword on a fork-armed stand.

Closest to Feigenblum’s desk—to keep him full of humility and lest he never forget—was a yellow Jude star, pinned to velvet in a mahogany case. On the other side, in bas-relief, a representation of the Western Wall was hung so Feigenblum also might never lose his cunning.

Between the threshold and the desk, one wall was covered with photos of Feigenblum and personages of import, proof of his connections to the outside world. There were many grinning handshakes on display and a couple of images, in Lillian’s quick survey, that seemed more
questionable, as if Feigenblum had jumped in before the flash. There was also a large portrait of this President Feigenblum with the original President Feigenblum, his father, who’d help found the United Congregations of Argentina and who stood by so long ago while the cemetery was divided.

Feigenblum sat behind his desk, marking up a letter. He was very very not-busy with this letter. He was so deeply and ridiculously not busy with marking it up that Lillian, who had admittedly been nervous about the meeting, was put at ease. As Feigenblum moved the nib of his pen along a line, Lillian wanted to tell him,
I have sat across from the masters, Mr. Feigenblum. I have been to the ministries already
. To see such a tepid stab at self-import, to be confronted by a man so obviously aware of her presence and his own, whose faux thinking smelled of thought about thought. It was not only rude, it was funny. Lillian let out a sound that could only be described as a guffaw. Feigenblum redoubled his efforts. He left her standing.

When ready, he pressed the letter to his desk blotter and moved a paperweight in the shape of a dove of peace atop it. He placed this artifact over the intended recipient’s name.

“Mrs. Poznan,” he said.

Lillian sat. Feigenblum cocked his head, ready to listen. He arranged his hands on the desk, one resting on the other in a way that complemented his welcoming clean-slate expression. She thought it downright aggressive. It was graciousness as a weapon.

Lillian waited for him to talk, to commit to a position as detestably gracious. She would hold him to everything from word one.

“I’m surprised to see you,” Feigenblum said. “Let me say, though, that all are equal in my office. Any unpleasantness that has arisen because of your husband—past or present—is today as if it never happened.”

“Agreeing to forget would be less than prudent,” Lillian said. “Not when this is all the junta asks of us. Not,” she said, “as the mother of a disappeared son.”

The gasp and sigh from Feigenblum, the sudden smell of empathy in the air, the quickness with which he was around that desk, comforting Lillian, offering an arm, leading her over to sit with him on the couch
below the photos, underneath all those powerful watching eyes—it was real. In his haste, Lillian noticed, he’d even knocked down his little dove.

Lillian had been waiting for this, waiting for anyone at all to do as Feigenblum had, to rush, literally, to her side.

“You didn’t know?” Lillian said.

“So much whispering,” Feigenblum said. “A nexus, this building. Every bit of talk makes its way through.”

“Then you did hear?”

“I’m hearing what you tell me now. And I swear to you—not even promise, Mrs. Poznan, a Jew swearing—on my honor, I will do my best to bring him back. And all the missing children along with him.”

That was it. All these days, this was the promise she needed. Lillian was suddenly and deeply consolable.

“I should have ignored my husband’s wishes from the start,” she said. “The moment Pato was taken I should have run to the United Jewish Congregations, to you, President Feigenblum. This isn’t about defending Kaddish’s pride. This is about larger ideas of family. You should be aware that I’ve already brought this to the top. I’ve sat with generals.” At that Feigenblum gave a nod. “Nowhere have I witnessed such courage; no one else has said it straight. We have to bring the children back,” Lillian said. “Pato and the others.”

“That is all I work toward.”

“And how else to do that if we don’t admit they’re gone.”

“Absolutely,” Feigenblum said. “It is the first step in the battle.”

“You’ll help, then?” Lillian said.

“I won’t stop until every Jewish boy and girl is returned home.”

This was good, Lillian thought. This was family. If being Jewish brought extra trouble onto their heads, why should it not bring extra help.

“Every child the same,” Lillian said. “You will fight just as hard for each of them, yes? Even for the son of Kaddish Poznan, for the
hijo de puta
who is also a Jew.”

“Old talk, old tales,” Feigenblum said. “Why bring back the rumors of long ago? As my grandmother always said, there’s no such thing as a
Jewish whore. Let’s leave it at that. Children are children. All the same.” This was already too much for Lillian. But Feigenblum couldn’t resist. “Since you bring it up, my problem with Kaddish has nothing to do with his claims,” he said. “It’s the actions that are at issue. He is a vandal, your husband. He takes money to desecrate the dead. I don’t want to make comparisons. Please don’t push me to say what sort of people topple and smash Jewish graves.”

Lillian felt a surge to the pulse in her neck, the blood pushing with a
shush
past the temples and into her head. She felt the fury and speed of it must be apparent to Feigenblum. She dropped her gaze to her hands for a glimpse of those slow, steady veins.

“It takes too much to understand how you keep my husband on the outside for a lifetime and in the same breath deny the very reason that you do. The grudge against us started long before the names began disappearing. For a people so dedicated to remembering everything, how is it that my husband is punished for doing just that?”

Feigenblum sat as rigidly as he could against the give of the couch.

“Nothing is being denied. There is a wall in our cemetery over which is buried a defunct congregation. All the world over, there are such separations among Jews. There are breakaway shuls and breakaway schools. This one calls kosher what another calls
tref
. It’s in our nature. There are always two synagogues and two cemeteries. This one belonged to the Synagogue of the Benevolent Self, a renegade shul.”

“Not shul,” Lillian said. “The Caftan Society is what it was. Pimps and whores, why not say it? How can I trust you to take on this government if you employ their tactics?”

“There are no tactics involved, Mrs. Poznan. I simply refuse to do to these people exactly what you accuse me of doing to your husband. There’s a wall, yes. But it’s all the same cemetery. What is the point in stressing differences? These people put themselves on the other side, same as your husband. Sad as that is, it’s a choice.” Feigenblum gave her a warm smile. “To me, all Jews are one. And I feel equally responsible for them all.”

“It’s not good enough,” Lillian said. “Not when we’re dealing with Kaddish Poznan’s child.”

“What more can I tell you than I already have? Would you have me agree to bring back the Jew with horns as I would the one without? You dredge up old prejudices. Leave them where they are, Mrs. Poznan.” Feigenblum put his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward him. “I’ll do everything that’s in my power,” he said. “The same as I would for my own son.”

With that statement, whatever trust Lillian had mustered slipped away. She knew Feigenblum’s boy, younger than Pato. Looking at the father, seeing Feigenblum as parent, not president, she knew—however far he might go for the community, however much he believed he would champion their sons—that saved up in this man was a secret absolute, a single call, an only favor. He was ready for the day when they might take his child, and Feigenblum in his heart knew that’s when he would do the real getting back.

“The list,” Lillian said, getting up, pulling him along.

She led him to the bulletin board in the hallway outside his office. It was the place where they pinned up the flyers for cultural events and holiday services, for WIZO meetings and Israeli folk dance, and for all the other groups that no longer dared meet. The board was behind glass, in a metal case the putty color of file cabinets and hospital equipment, of functional things meant to last. It would hang there as long as a wall stood up behind it and—Lillian gave it a try—it would also stay locked.

The case had lately been assigned another use. In it hung the list. Double-spaced and single-columned, it already ran two and a half pages long. These were the names of the Jewish missing typed up in alphabetical order, posted for easy confirmation and to keep people like Lillian right where she was—on the outside of Feigenblum’s door.

Lillian gave the metal frame a solid yank. It didn’t move. So she brought her beautiful new nose right up to the glass. She hunted with a finger, locating the spot where Pato would fit, nestled between Néstor Lewin and María Rabin.

“There,” she said to Feigenblum. “Right there is where his name goes.” She tapped her nail against the pane. “Let’s open it and write it in now.” She steamed up the glass with her breath and stared with such
agony, it was as if the children themselves were right there on the other side.

“Soon enough,” Feigenblum said, lifting his eyes past Lillian, a silent greeting to a colleague going by. “The moment Pato makes the list, we’ll add him to the rolls. Not in pencil, either. We will type him into his rightful place.”

“What does that mean,
make the list?
How to make it except to be added?”

“Nothing is simple these days,” he said.

“A million times I’ve heard that,” Lillian said. “A million other places. Only once, only here, have I gotten,
I’ll help, my best, all I can
. Only from you, Feigenblum, has it been uttered. From your mouth alone have I heard, ‘I’ll bring the Jewish children home.’”

“It’s my sworn duty.”

“Then what could be simpler? It’s silly even. A little concession so a mother feels good.”

“It would take nothing to add it,” Feigenblum said, agreeing. “Not a bit of effort.”

“Yes?” Lillian said. “And?”

“It doesn’t help if we add every name in the world. This is a list as registered with the government. There’s a protocol. They approve every name on it, even if they don’t agree or actually note the same names themselves. But they know we have it right out in the open, for anyone to see. It’s a protest. It’s a list that contradicts and calls the government to task—of this I’m proud. Our staff does the research, working in tandem but independently. We use the government’s very resources to challenge its claims with our own official roll.”

“So it’s their list,” Lillian said. “A farce.”

“It’s ours. And it’s more than anyone else has managed,” Feigenblum said. “We negotiate the names, and it’s a fight to get each one. The government still denies that these people are in their custody. It’s through perseverance and pressure, through finagling and back channels, that we have reached this watershed. We have gotten them to admit that these are the people we accuse them of incarcerating.”

“They admit that you accuse them?”

“Yes,” Feigenblum said.

“What’s that worth?”

“Everything,” he said, “when it’s official.”

“That’s your best?” Lillian said. “That’s the most the officers of the Jewish community can do?”

“Do you think more would get done if we chained ourselves to the doors of the Ministry of Special Cases? Aggressive tactics, rudeness and tough talk—that would leave me feeling satisfied at the end of the day but where would it leave us?” Feigenblum gave a sweeping gesture to include Lillian and the United Congregations and, she imagined, all the rest of Once’s and Argentina’s Jews. He raised his eyebrows and made a point of staring. “Why cut off our noses, Mrs. Poznan, only to spite our face?”

“As worthless as Kaddish swore,” Lillian said.

“Does that mean you’d prefer I don’t submit your son’s name?”

“For approval?” Lillian laughed. “You work with them, Feigenblum. You channel the grand tradition of Jewish diplomacy: Never acknowledge catastrophe until it’s done.”

“That’s a preposterous accusation.”

“Afterward you’ll raise up a tall building around it. You’ll enlist a great Jewish after-the-fact army to fight with all of hell’s fury over how it is to be remembered.”

“This is a fantasy.”

“You’ll deal with the very same officials,” Lillian said. “You’ll fight bravely over how many of our dead they’ll agree to list on the monument.” Lillian gritted her teeth. “What it means, Feigenblum, is that I want my son, my Pato, home alive. Not the Museum of the Jewish Disappeared.”

“How dare you,” he said. “I risk my life, and my family’s, advocating for this cause.”

Lillian shook her head. “I can see already in your eyes, I can see how you plan to mourn.”