Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 83 of a new online serial novel, Outside the Bubble, by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters.
Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications.
Martin left the emergency room building. He wouldn’t be foolish enough to head for the hospital entrance; it would be too easy for them to locate him, if that was what they would try to do. Instead, he ran on the sidewalk and turned into the next building in the row, a six-story building with a huge sign informing that it was the Pediatric Department. He confidently pushed open the door, colored in varying hues of pink and green, and walked inside.
He had to make contact with Weisskopf, to warn him. There was no way to know what they were doing now with his phone, and if Shimon had figured out what had happened, or if he was pouring too much information into Rob’s ears at this very minute, which could be dangerous.
Martin crossed a wide corridor, lined with parked kid-sized wheelchairs. He reached the end and, noticing a sign that said “Information,” he followed the arrow.
“Excuse me,” he said to the receptionist behind the desk. “My phone got lost. Can I make a call, please?”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“A friend of one of the patients. His relative is supposed to come to get him discharged, and I want to know where to wait for him.”
“Okay,” she said after a pause, and pushed the desk phone in his direction. “But make it quick.”
“Fine. I can pay for the call.”
“No need, the calls are free.”
But Shimon didn’t answer. Martin took a deep breath and looked around. Would Alfred dart out from around the corner any second? He didn’t think Alfred would do anything in public. The question was what would happen if the security guard let him go. He’d probably be even more thirsty for revenge than before. Martin had no time to lose!
In the middle of the fourth try, Martin hung up. “He’s not answering,” he muttered to the secretary, and walked away from the Information desk. He continued further on down the hall and stopped in front of a sign that said “Surgery—Pediatrics.” The glass doors opened for him, and he crossed the threshold.
The corridor was pretty quiet. He passed a cart full of lunch trays, pushed by a dark-skinned nurse who pointed to a nearby room and asked in an African-American accent if he was “Sandy’s brother.”
“No,” Martin replied.
“No one came for him!” The nurse clasped her hands, and at the same time, stuck a tray into Martin’s hand. “Go in, give this to him. Tell him to eat, and maybe visitors will come for him in the evening. Poor thing, no one has come…” Martin wanted to refuse, but then realized that a patient room could be a good place for him to hide, where he could sit and plan his next steps.
Sandy, a preteen with a long face, was sleeping in his bed. He didn’t move even when Martin mistakenly nudged his infusion pole, resulting in a squeak. There was a chair and a nightstand next to the bed; he set the tray on the nightstand and sat down.
He hoped Alfred and his friends wouldn’t find him here. He’d keep trying to call Shimon. At least he knew that Michoel wasn’t in danger, hiding behind a veil of feigned—or partially feigned—confusion.
Sandy moved in the bed next to him, and opened his eyes. He looked rather confused. Martin recognized another lonely, dejected creature when he saw one. Sandy looked at his uninvited guest and coughed. “Are you a new doctor?” he asked, when he finished the bout of coughing.
“No. I’m an assistant here on the ward, and they asked me to bring you your lunch.”
“Oh, thanks, but you can give it back. This food is gross. And after an appendix operation…”
“You’ve had an operation?”
“Yeah. I came at the last second. They told me that if I would have come just a few hours later, I would have died.”
“Sounds scary,” Martin said. “You’re here alone?”
“The nurses told me that my father was here this morning, while I slept.” He grimaced. “Not that I believe them. John came twice. I’m probably going home tomorrow.”
With John, whoever he was? Maybe this John was a social worker at an institution or something like that. Well, Martin decided, he’d hang around here a bit more and then move on. “You’re not eating?” he asked Sandy.
“No, do you want it?”
“No, thanks,” Martin said. He had no intention of being a grandma trying to cajole spoons of hot cereal into mouths, but he didn’t know what kind of place the youth would be going to after his release, and how much John would worry about his full recovery. “Won’t you be hungry later?”
“No. Can you take my phone out of the drawer?”
Martin took out the phone and handed it to the boy, thinking all the while.
“Mom!” Sandy complained. “When are you finishing and coming to me already? I’m so bored. There’s someone here, maybe a volunteer, but he’s not doing anything with me.” The mother said something, but her son shrugged. “No, I don’t want John here instead of you! A driver is not a parent! And parents should spend time with their kids, especially if their kids are in the hospital!”
Martin raised an eyebrow. Suddenly the curtain moved, and he leaped to his feet. But it was just another nurse, who looked at him questioningly before turning to the patient. “I see you’re up, Sandy, that’s good. Here are your antibiotics. Have you spoken to your mother today?”
“Yeah, she might come in two hours,” he muttered, and obediently took the pill. “What’s your name?” he asked Martin, once the nurse left the room.
In Israel, he’d played the role of Michoel Perl—or his imaginary assistant—for so long. Now he had been playing Yosef Schorr. Maybe he’d finally go back to using his real name, Martin Posner?
“What’s your name?” the boy repeated.
“Now it’s Martin.” He couldn’t stand just idling here and doing nothing. What was going on in the meantime? What was with Shimon?
“Are you going?” The boy scowled. “Like all adults, right?”
“Not yet. And if you want, you can give me your phone number and we’ll stay in touch. Um…could I use your phone for a minute?”
“Who are you gonna call?”
“My relatives in Israel. There’s something urgent I need to tell them, and someone stole my phone out of my pocket.”
Dov and Hinda listened from two different extensions, and Sandy listened from his bed to the jumbled sentences in English and Hebrew. Martin shared the problem that had arisen with his eclectic audience.
“We understood from Shimon that someone else had picked up on your conversation,” Dov said slowly. “But what happened to Michoel?”
Martin pressed the phone to his ear. “He collapsed yesterday at some procession—I’m not sure exactly what it was. On the whole, he looks fine, but it seems that the loss of control confused him for a while. Now he claims he doesn’t trust me, or himself, because he’s brain damaged.”
“That’s what he said?”
“Yes, and he said he wants to rest here until it’s clear to him what is going on.”
“So he’s trusting them now?”
“No, but he’s not trusting me either.” He took a deep breath. “The problem is that they’ve figured out that I’m not some innocent patient… I have no idea if they also know that I’m not Yosef, and if they are going to try to hurt me.”
“Are you still in the hospital?”
“Yes, in Pediatrics. Shimon Weisskopf is in the area, right?”
“Yes, but we’re not sure if he’s already reached the hospital or not. When we spoke to him, he was planning to contact the federal police in Charleston.”
“But by the time he gets here with the agents, Skulholt and his gang might already be back at the facility with Michoel, and he’ll be under much closer watch!” His teeth were pressing hard on his lower lip, and Sandy murmured something about how he was hurting himself.
“It didn’t help to speak to him?” Dov asked.
“No,” Martin replied despondently. “I nudged him, I shouted, but he keeps claiming that he’s a sick, confused man, and because he can’t trust himself, it’s better for him not to do anything.”
“Maybe you can tell Michoel,” Hinda said quietly, “that he should remember what he himself once said to…someone. That it’s worth forcing himself to get out of his miserable place, so that he can get to somewhere that he’ll find much better.”
“It’s dangerous for me to go back there,” he said.
They were quiet.
Really, now, he’d dealt with more complicated situations than this. As long as he was here, in the hospital, he wasn’t really in mortal danger…
Martin sighed. “If Yosef, your son, would be here now, would he try to speak to Michoel again?” he asked.
More silence.
“I…” he said heavily, “I’ll try to go again to convince him. At least once more.”
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