Excellency? Are you all right in there?” called the nurse, tapping.
“Of course I’m all right,” he snapped. “Get me marking pens.”
“Marking pens?”
“As many different colors as you can find. Red, blue, green, black. Quickly!”
“I’m not sure we have—”
Oh, great. We don’t have a nuclear bomb, and we don’t have marking pens. He remembered his wallet photo of Uncle Joe. “Do you happen to know where Siberia is, Nurse Fafoola?”
“Siberia?”
“Yes, you know: frozen tundra, man-eating wolves, eleven-month nights? If you don’t give me red, blue, green, and black marking pens within five minutes, I am going to send you there on an extended holiday—say, the rest of your life—but only after boiling you in camel spit.”
“I’m on it.”
“Purple, too, if you can manage. That one is optional.”
In a couple of minutes, red, blue, green, and black felt-tipped pens came rolling under the dressing room door. He had done Uncle Joe proud. He took off the gown and got to work, stretching it over the bench and tattooing it with multicolored designs—curlicues and fleurs-de-lis and butterflies and bluebirds and swirls and spirals and miscellaneous amorphous flights of graphic fancies. “There, that’s better,” he declared, holding the robe at arm’s length and feeling glad for his people that they were blessed with such a creative despot.
When, finally, he emerged from the cubicle, six or seven of the hospital staff were semicircled around the dressing area waiting for him with grave expressions. But as soon as they laid eyeballs on his handcrafted design, they broke into spontaneous and heartfelt applause.
After having the X-rays taken and being given a Tootsie Roll Pop, the president, dressed again and with his folded gown on his lap, waited in a private lounge for an internist to discuss the results. Since his matzo ball soup, he hadn’t experienced any of the sharp duodenal pain that had made him call the physician in the first place, so he felt pretty upbeat. Maybe Hazeem was right; maybe he wasn’t going to croak.
But the instant the doctor entered, and Akhmed spotted that look on his face, he knew something was very wrong. His throat thickened, and his Tootsie Pop drooped. The doctor looked around to make sure they were alone. He closed the door behind him and, holding the X-rays, sat next to the president.
“I’m going to die, aren’t I doctor? It’s all right, you can level with me. I’ve lived a good life. My only regret is never having hooked up with Rosie O’Donnell, but it’s too late for that now.”
The doctor held up an X-ray. Akhmed’s eye immediately spotted the problem.There, smack dab in his stomach were three half-roundish black spots.
“It is like no cancer pathology I have ever seen,” the M.D. said glumly. “It must be very grave. But we want another opinion before losing hope. I suggest we send the films to the best clinic in the world. Unfortunately”—the doctor braced himself—“it happens to be in Tel Aviv.”
The president broke out in robust laughter.
“Your Excellency,” consoled the doctor, perhaps assuming his patient had gone berserk from the shock, “we need not become hysterical with fear yet.”
Akhmed shoved his Tootsie Roll Pop back into his cheek. “That’s not pathology, you blithering idiot.”
“Your Supremeness, calm yourself. It need not mean the worst and—”
“Where the hell did you get your medical degree—Greece?!” He shook his head. “No wonder we can’t make a stinking bomb!” His laugh sputtered. “I’m telling you that’s not cancer. Sheesh!”
“It’s not?”
“Of course not, you bloody quack. It’s matzo balls.”
The doctor cast a glance at the door, in case he had to make a quick getaway.
“It’s matzo balls, I’m telling you. Nuked on high setting for six minutes.”
“Nuked?”
“Microwaved, you knucklenuts. Get with the twenty-first century.”
“Microwaved,” repeated the internist, holding the film up to the light. “Yes, yes, I see it now. Matzo balls.” He tittered, “How could I have missed it before?”
“Don’t patronize me, you butcher. I’m telling you, I ate a bowl of soup before fasting last night. Ask Hazeem—he’s the one who brought it for me. I was so hungry I swallowed without much chewing. Please don’t lecture me about chewing before swallowing. I’m not in the mood. And, pssst, if you ever tell anyone I ate Jew food, you’ll be sucking Siberian tubers with Nurse Fafoola.”
“But if it’s true—”
The tyrant cut him a death glare.
“What I mean is, why are the…matzo balls, you say?...”
“Go on,” Akhmed growled.
“Why did the matzo balls absorb all this radiation?”
The president peered at the X-ray again. “What do you mean?”
“They shouldn’t be black like this, Excellency. Not unless they were made of base-mineral ore.And even then…”
Akhmed filliped the sucker stick with his pinky.
“There is simply no way any food would show up on this X-ray,” insisted the doctor. “None.”
“The explanation is simple.”
“It is, Great One?”
“Of course. It’s obvious your X-ray machine was made in Iran by Iranian scientists. They can’t do anything else right, may as well make defective diagnostic equipment.”
“The machine was made by Mitsubishi, I believe.”
“Say ‘honest.’”
The doctor semicircled his smock. “Crescent my heart.”
“Japanese, you say?”The president scratched his stubble. He snatched back the X-ray film and held it up once more. “Then what does it mean? Is it ominous? Did they try to poison me? I must say, I feel fine. Ore, you say?”
“Have you any more of these matzo balls, Supreme One?”
“I never let myself run out.”
“I suggest lab testing at once. We should get to the bottom of it without delay.”
Akhmed was concerned. “All right. I’ll have Hazeem bring you a jar. Would you like it frozen or thawed?”
“You say you
