A Chinese Bar Mitzvah

The widower, Mr. Chen took his dog for a walk in the park bordering the athletic field. The shiatsu, Wei-shan, seemed out of sorts, sitting listlessly on her haunches with a befuddled expression as he strapped on the harness. Fifteen minutes later as they passed a slender birch tree near the Little League diamond, the dog's front legs buckled. Wei-shan lurched forward on her chest and rolled over. The hindquarter shuddered spastically - once, twice - and the body went limp. The bulgy, dark brown eyes remained open, while the pink tongue drooped perversely coming to rest on the fresh-cut grass.

Mr. Chen crouched down beside the stricken animal and laid a hand on the dog's turgid belly. Nothing. There was no movement, no sign of life whatsoever. The fur was still relatively warm but then, it was late summer with the temperature edging up on eighty degrees. The dog was gone.

By now a crowd had gathered. "What’s happened here?" An off-duty policeman, who was umpiring second base, pushed through the crowd. "Do we need an ambulance?"

Mr. Chen was slumped over the dog with his hands pressed to his eyes crying softly. "That won't be necessary," a woman said in a hushed voice. "His dog died."

The home plate umpire, who had temporarily suspended play when the commotion occurred, blew a sharp blast from his whistle and resumed the game.

Mr. Chen pulled himself together. He washed his face at the water bubbler and a sympathetic bystander gave him a wad of Kleenex so he could blow his nose. "The attack,,, it seemed so sudden." It was the same woman who spoke to the off-duty police officer.

"The dog was always so healthy and full of fun." Mr. Chen felt his composure cracking and paused until he could speak again. "I'll have to make arrangements to dispose of the body."

"There's a lovely pet cemetery overlooking Narragansett Bay in Tiverton. Each grave has its own tombstone or marker. Needless to say, some or more elaborate than others." The woman's overly solicitous tone only compounded Mr. Chen's misery. She took a step closer and placed a hand on his shoulder. "My brother-in-law had his collie, Rusty, cremated; he keeps the remains in a place of honor on a fireplace mantle."

"I appreciate your kind words." Given his rather limited financial resources, Mr. Chen would probably opt for mass burial - whatever arrangement proved cheapest.

"Hey, mister. About your dead dog…" A freckle-faced boy wearing a Tedesco's Supermarket T-shirt was slouching near the home plate backstop. The youth, who had a catcher's mitt wedged under his armpit, was gesturing frantically. "He ain't dead no more."

Sure enough, Wei-shan was sitting upright with her head on the ground. The pinkish tongue had retreated back behind the crooked front teeth. The animal, which still wasn't moving or doing much of anything, was very much among the living. Placing a hand under the dog's stomach he lifted her. Wei-shan hardly flinched. She lay nestled on his forearm like an inanimate object. They went home and Mr. Chen plopped himself down on a throw rug in the living for three hours rubbing the dog behind the ear and feeding her sips of tap water until the stricken animal, like some ill-fated character in a Greek tragedy, finally drifted off to sleep. Maybe it was the late-summer heat that caused the unfortunate episode. Pets were just as vulnerable to bad weather as humans. But the way Wei-shan keeled over, like an over-the hill, punch-drunk prize fighter kayoed by a crunching uppercut, didn't suggest heat stroke or any fleeting ailment.

  

Ida Goldfarb called her son at the animal hospital. "I met an oriental man, Mr. Chen, in the park. He has a sick dog but can’t take the animal for treatment because he’s living on a fixed income and is hard up for cash."

"What breed?"

"A shiatsu - jet black with a wispy gray goatee. Very cute." There was a slight pause. "Aren't you going to ask the dog's name?"

"I was getting to that."

"Wei-shan, which means ‘great and benevolent’ in Mandarin. It's a male name but Mrs. Chen, who passed away a few years back, never confirmed gender before choosing."

"What exactly is the matter with the dog?"

Mrs. Goldfarb told her son what had happened. "Have your friend bring the dog by the office tomorrow in the late afternoon."

"He's not my friend. I don't even know the guy." She hung up the phone.

  

The following day, Mr. Chen arrived at the Brandenberg Animal Hospital in the late afternoon. Robert placed a stethoscope on Wei-shan’s narrow chest. "Dog's got a heart murmur... about a three."

"Three what?"

"Three out of six … a moderately-severe heart murmur." He handed the instrument to Mr. Chen, while continuing to hold the metal disc in place.

Kathunkish. Kathunkish. Kathunkish. Kathunkish.

Yes, sure enough, tailing away from the diastole was an ominous, raspy sound that didn't belong. "Three out of six," Mr. Chen handed the stethoscope back. "How bad is that?"

"The condition is manageable with medication." Robert placed the dog on a digital scale and waited until the numbers settle. "Dog's got to lose at least eighteen ounces, and I'm going to give you some medication. We will need to see Wei-shan back here in two weeks for blood tests to check chemistries and bilirubin." Robert scribbled notes in a manila folder and then brought medication from an adjoining room.

"This pill," he held a pale yellow tablet not much bigger than the head of a pin in the palm of his hand, "is Salix, a diuretic to drain excess fluid. A half hour after you give her the pill, the dog will need to go outside to pee, so plan accordingly."

"And the other?" Mr. Chen took the plastic container from the doctor's hand and held it up to the light.

"Enacard – it's an ACE inhibitor to regulate the dog’s pulse.” The older man seemed muddled by the technical jargon. “It lessens the workload on the heart and also decreases fluid retention. The dog gets a half tablet of both twice daily." Rummaging about in the supply cabinet, he located a surgical scalpel fitted with a rounded, number fifteen blade. Robert shook one of the pills out onto the counter. Placing the blade across the score line on the tiny pill, he pressed down gently and the chalky tablet spilt apart into equal portions. “There’s a two-month supply - a hundred and twenty pills.”

Mr. Chen scooped up Wei-shan in his arms. “I don’t receive my social security check until the beginning of the month.”

“I’ll send a bill,” Robert lied.

“And the pills?”

“The cost will be included in the statement.” He would forewarn the receptionist to dead file Mr. Chen’s billing invoice and write the expense off as a tax loss. “For now, the dog can stroll about the yard as best she can. When her strength returned, Wei-shan might become more adventuresome but no more trips to the park.” He ran his fingertips over the dog’s abdomen and around the hips kneading the roll of excess flesh. “Two tablespoons of moist food twice a day - that's all she gets until the weight comes off.

“How much is she now?”

“Eight pounds four ounces,” Robert replied. “The dog needs to slim down to seven-two."

"Over a pound … that's almost a tenth of the dog's body weight."

Robert shrugged and glanced away. “Until we reduce the workload on the heart, there’s always the chance of another attack like the episode the other day.” Hypoxia - that was the textbook term used to describe what happened to Wei-shan at the athletic field. The dog's stressed-out heart couldn't pump sufficient oxygen to the vital body tissues and the pet collapsed, fell momentarily unconscious until the condition stabilized. “One more thing: every time you feed her table scraps, you’re just killing her with kindness.”

“No. I won’t do that anymore,” Mr. Chen said remorsefully.

  

A week later Robert's sister, Naomi, showed up unannounced on a Wednesday evening. He had just showered and was getting ready for bed. A brown-haired woman with bowling pin calves, Naomi had been reasonably pretty once. Just barely. Sandblasted with a profusion of freckles, her fleshy face had lost its earthy appeal, and, in its place was a callow harshness that set Robert's nerves on edge. “I stopped by Mom’s apartment earlier.” Naomi’s tone was acidic. “She was in the living room when I arrived sipping that Bigelow English breakfast tea she favors.

“That’s nice.”

“A Chinaman, Mr. Chen, was sitting on the sofa also drinking tea with his ratty little dog curled up on the Persian carpet.”

“Wei-shan.”

“What’s that?”

“The dog’s name. It’s Chinese. He didn't offer the English translation.”

“It seems Mother ran into Mr. Chen in the park and invited him back to her condo.” Naomi glanced distractedly about the apartment her hazel eyes never coming to rest on any particular object. “The Oriental didn’t feel comfortable leaving the decrepit beast cooped up alone in his muggy apartment with no air conditioning, so mother graciously suggested that he bring the pet.”

“The dog’s quite sick.”

Ignoring the remark, she scowled with her head tilted at an angle. Robert noted that, over the years, Naomi's freckles had grown more pronounced, resembling an epidemic of chocolaty liver spots. “The Chinaman said you wouldn’t take any money for either the examination or pills. I wasn’t aware you took charity cases.”

In the kitchen the dishwasher shifted from the wash to rinse cycle. Robert wanted desperately to go to bed, to be fresh for morning surgery. He had an operation - a beagle bitch riddled with mastitis - scheduled for eight o’clock. The biopsy had come back benign, nothing more than a massive invasion of fatty lipomas. He would open her up from the pelvic area to the top of the sternum and clear away everything on the left side, wait a few months and repeat the process on the right. It was a gamble. Even though oncology was negative, the root problem could be hormonal, since the dog had never been spayed. That sticky issue would also need to be addressed.

The previous week he sliced a cauliflower-like papilloma from the left leg of an eighty pound mastiff. The tumor was situated just below the skin. The dog would be sore for a week or two. The bulldog with aggressive rhabdomyosarcoma on Monday wasn’t so lucky. A hopeless case, the animal had to be put down only hours after the exploratory surgery.

"I just read a biography of the English writer, William Somerset Maugham," Robert deflected the conversation. “Are you familiar with Maugham's novels?”

Naomi, who taught ninth grade English, stared at her brother dully, trying to decipher his intent. "Of Human Bondage, The Razor's Edge… I don’t see what that’s got to do with the Don Juan Chinaman."

Robert sat down on the bottom riser of the stairs leading to the upper level. "Mother's morbidly shy. Even when we were children, she could never hold her own in social situations. Before Dad died she had few close friends outside his social circle." Robert spoke in a plodding, unhurried manner, and it was unclear if he was addressing his sister or carrying on a private monologue. “W.S. Maugham was socially inept. He stuttered and felt inadequate in public. His homosexual lover, Frederick Haxton was an extrovert, a glib and witty conversationalist. Without Haxton's clever tongue, Maugham probably would have ended up a social recluse."

“I certainly hope you’re not suggesting...”

“When an agoraphobic, eighty year old woman invites a poor widower for tea, it’s a mitzvah, a worthy deed, not reason for sordid speculation.” He could have said more, but Robert's sister looked like she might deposit her supper on the living room rug.

Naomi winced violently. Her blotchy, bloated face morphed through a series of unflattering grimaces. “He’s after her money. You read about these things in the tabloids every day. Some emotionally vulnerable widow fritters her life savings away on some silver-haired Romeo.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“Put an end to this bathetic farce before it ends in tragedy.”

Retreating to the front door, Naomi flashed him a dirty look. “And for the record, that W.S. Maugham remark was a cheap shot.”

The following Tuesday Mr. Chen returned with Wei-shan. The dog had dropped a half pound and was stronger but only marginally so. “She gets out of breath easily." He held the pet against his chest protectively. "And every morning has coughing fits, but other than that...”

Robert listened to the heart. The murmur hadn’t gotten any worse. “You’re giving her the pills twice daily?” The older man nodded. “I’ll be back in a moment.” He took the dog into an adjacent examining room and drew two vials of blood.

“I didn’t receive a bill for the first visit,” Mr. Chen said when he returned with Wei-shan.
“Statements will be going out in a week or so,” he parried the question. “Are you familiar with acupuncture?”

Mr. Chen ran his fingers through a limp mass of thinning hair. “Not really.”

“I recently treated a Saint Bernard with epilepsy. The dog suffered crippling seizures on a daily basis. Nothing we tried worked.” He reached out and scratched Wei-shan behind the ear. “A colleague just down the road was using acupuncture in his practice. I thought he was a crackpot, but out of desperation referred them there."

“And?”

Robert smiled sheepishly. “By the second acupuncture treatment, the grand mal seizures disappeared, and the dog hasn't suffered an attack since.”

“Can he cure heart murmurs?”

“Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.” Robert held the door open. "As long as Wei-shan’s blood work comes back normal and her condition doesn't worsen, there's no need to return until the late fall. When you run low on medication, call the office and we'll have the pills ready next business day."

The summer petered out in a final blast of bone-wearying humidity and scorching heat. One Sunday in mid-September, Robert stopped by his mother's apartment. Mrs. Goldfarb was watching the evening news. "Did you get the invitation?"

The question caught him momentarily off guard. "Oh, yes. Joel's bar mitzvah. The third week in October." Naomi's youngest son, decked out in prayer shawl and yarmulke, would be reciting the ceremonial Hebrew verses and reading from the torah.

"Hungry?"

Robert shook his head in the negative.

Mrs. Goldfarb lowered the volume on the TV several decibels, rose and went to the kitchen. A minute later she returned with a glass of black raspberry soda and plate of coconut macaroons. "If you had come a half hour earlier, you could have visited with one of your former patients." She handed him a sticky cookie and napkin. "Mr. Chen and Wei-shan were here."

Strange! Robert had been to visit his mother on at least a dozen occasions since running Wei-shan's blood work, and she never mentioned either the Oriental or his hairy companion. "And how's the dog doing?"

Mrs. Goldfarb shrugged noncommittally. "No better or worse than the rest of us. The dog coughs her fool head off whenever she gets overly excited and still has to be carried up and down stairs."

"That's to be expected," Robert replied. The thorax was an anatomically claustrophobic space, no better than a one-bedroom, efficiency apartment for the body's most precious organs. Wei-shan's swollen heart was pressing on the lungs. As she slept, fluid built up, leading to the coughing-retching episodes. Sometimes, in worse case scenarios, the delicate trachea collapsed from physical duress. But Robert had no intention sharing that morbid bit of incidental trivia with either his mother or Wei-shan's master.

"He's a retired school teacher," Mrs. Goldfarb said.

"I didn't know that."

"Still teaches creative writing and poetry to inner city kids in an after school program."

"Mr. Chen?"

"He doesn't get paid. It's just volunteer work." His mother left the room a second time and returned with a slip of paper. "The man's rather partial to Haiku." She handed him the slip. Robert read the verse that was fashioned in a flowery calligraphy:

My heart that was rapt away
by the wild cherry blossoms --
will it return to my body
when they scatter?
Kotomichi

"Haiku is a Japanese form," he noted laying the paper down on an end table.

"Yes, well, his literary tastes are rather eclectic."

Robert couldn't linger. He had to get home. His daughter was taking skating lessons and he needed to shuttle her to the rink."The dog is doing reasonably well, then?"

Mrs. Goldfarb did not reply immediately. "She hasn't had any more fainting fits, if that's what you mean." The woman fidgeted with her stubby hands, glanced at her son briefly and looked away. "Regarding Joel's bar mitzvah, Mr. Chen will be accompanying me."

"Okay." Robert was having trouble visualizing the scene. There would be the traditional ice sculptures, a chopped liver pâté, a sea of Semitic faces, the bearded, ultra-conservative Rabbi Jacob Goldstein decked out in an ornate robe, and the widower, Mr. Chen."

"What about Wei-shan… is she on the guest list?"

"I already told your sister," Mrs. Goldfarb ignored the silly banter, "and, needless-to-say she didn't take the news very well."

"When did you speak with her?"

"A half hour ago."

Robert did some mental calculations. Either there would be a shrill message waiting for him on the answering machine or, more likely, Naomi would show up unannounced as he was preparing for bed and harangue him for the better part of an hour with her paranoid conspiracy theories.

"Bringing Mr. Chen… it's non-negotiable," Mrs. Goldfarb picked up the thread of her previous remark. "At my delicate age, I do as I please."

Robert lifted up the slip of paper and read the verse a second time. "Who is Kotomichi?"

"A seventeenth century poet. Quite famous among his own kind."

"Naomi seems to think Mr. Chen has ulterior, pecuniary motives."

"Yes, I know. She told me so in rather graphic terms."

Robert could picture his sister haranguing the mother with scandalous accusations. "And what do you think?"

"Mr. Chen is an old man with a sick dog."

An old man with a sick dog…

Wei-shan's' breathing was labored, too shallow, too rapid - the flailing heart too weak for the extravagant, insatiable demands of the flesh. Studying the animal's rheumy eyes, Robert witnessed physical distress, weariness and fear. He also sensed an abiding love for the frail Chinaman who carried her into the examining room.
When Robert finished the medical workup and the visit was over, the elderly widower lifted his dog in a scrupulously efficient manner. It was the sort of thing only a savvy animal breeder or vet would ever notice. He grabbed the animal rather forcefully by the scruff of the neck, curled the free hand around the dog's hind quarters slipping the splayed fingers beneath the belly. Lifting with both hands in a deft, choreograph motion, he cradled the torso across the length of his left forearm. The other arm immediately engaged the rib cage forming a perfect cradle - a warm and comforting bed of flesh. The dog was an invalid; any awkward or jarring motion was an affront to the infirmed. Only a man who had rehearsed that move a hundred - no, a thousand - times could pull it off with such effortless aplomb. The animal's suffering congealed in a solid lump of heartache that played itself out in the corners of Mr. Chen's thin lips along with the lingering moistness in the corners of his eyes.

Robert's sister called Mr. Chen a conniving lothario, a gold-digging, slant-eyed charlatan. She never saw how he lifted his best friend, never witnessed the intimacy, the commonality, between the Chinaman and his damaged dog.

On the landing Robert waited for the elevator.

Ding! A bell rang softly and the lift arrived just as the door to Mrs. Goldfarb’s apartment creaked open. “Mr. Chen will be accompanying me to Joel's bar mitzvah,” the older woman stated in a no-nonsense tone.

“Yes, I heard you the first time.”

“If Naomi continues to make a hullabaloo over it, I simply won’t attend.”

Robert stepped into the elevator but leaned back out just as the door began to close. “And neither will I, Mother.”