Cancer Ward (43 page)

But there were people in Ush-Terek, as there are everywhere, who liked to shoot living creatures. Finding no better game, they used to walk the streets drunk, killing dogs. Beetle had been shot twice, and was now afraid of every aperture that was aimed at him, even a camera lens. He would never let himself be photographed.

The Kadmins kept cats too—spoiled, capricious and art-loving cats. But it was Beetle that Oleg would see in his mind's eye as he strolled along the pathways of the Medical Center, Beetle's huge, benevolent head. Not Beetle out in the street but Beetle looming in his window. Suddenly his head would appear, and there he was, standing on his hind legs, peering in just like a human being. Tobik was sure to be jumping up and down beside him, and Nikolai Ivanovich would soon be arriving.

Deeply moved, Oleg knew now that he was completely content with his lot, quite resigned to his exile. Health was all he asked of the heavens. He wasn't asking for any miracle.

He would like to live as the Kadmins lived, happy with what they had. The wise man is content with little.

What is an optimist? The man who says, “It's worse everywhere else. We're better off here than the rest of the world. We've been lucky.” He is happy with things as they are and he doesn't torment himself.

What is a pessimist? The man who says, “Things are fine everywhere but here. Everyone else is better off than we are. We're the only ones who've had a bad break.” He torments himself continually.

If only Oleg could somehow see the treatment through, escape the clutches of radiotherapy and hormone therapy, and avoid ending up as a cripple. If only he could somehow preserve his libido and all it meant. Without that …

Oh, to get back to Ush-Terek, to stop living as a bachelor, to get married! It wasn't likely that Zoya would come out there. Even if she did it wouldn't be for eighteen months. More waiting, more waiting, the whole of his life spent waiting! No, it was impossible.

He could marry Ksana. Her character was firm and her figure rolypoly. Her head was too round, though. But what a wonderful housewife she'd make! Even wiping dishes, with a towel flung over her shoulder, she looked like an empress; you couldn't take your eyes off her. You'd have security with her; you'd have a wonderful home and there'd always be children around.

Or he could marry Inna Ström. She was only eighteen; it was rather a scary thought, but that was precisely the allure. Her smile was pensively abstracted, but with an impudent, provocative quality. That was part of the attraction.

He mustn't trust the tremors, the Beethoven chords. They were nothing but iridescent soap bubbles. He must control his unruly heart and believe nothing, expect nothing from the future, no improvement.

Be happy with what you've got.

In perpetuity? Why not? In perpetuity!

21. The Shadows Go Their Way

Oleg was lucky enough to bump into her right in the doorway of the clinic. Moving to one side, he held the door open for her. She was walking so vigorously, her body bent slightly forward, that if he hadn't moved aside she might well have knocked him down.

He took in the whole picture at a glance: the blue beret on her dark-brown hair, her head bowed as if she were walking against the wind, and her coat with its very individual cut. It had a fantastic, long scarflike collar, buttoned to the throat.

Had he known she was Rusanov's daughter he'd probably have turned back, but as it was he walked on to take his usual stroll along the unfrequented paths.

Aviette had no trouble in getting permission to go upstairs to the ward. Her father was very weak, and in any case Thursday was visiting day. Taking off her overcoat, she threw over her claret-colored sweater the white coat they gave her, which was so small that she would only have been able to get her arms into the sleeves if she had been a child.

After his third injection the day before, Pavel Nikolayevich had grown much weaker and no longer felt like taking his legs from under the blankets unless he had to. He moved about in bed very little, ate with reluctance, and didn't put on his glasses or butt in on conversations. The life around him, to which he normally reacted decisively with approval or censure, had faded. He had become indifferent to it. His customary strength of will had been shaken and he had surrendered to his weakness with a kind of pleasure. It was the wrong kind of pleasure—such as is felt by a man who is freezing to death and powerless to move. The tumor, which had begun by annoying him, then frightening him, had now acquired rights of its own. It was no longer he but the tumor that was in charge.

Knowing that Aviette had flown in from Moscow, Pavel Nikolayevich was expecting her. As always he was waiting for her with joy, but this morning the joy was mixed with alarm. It had been decided that Kapa should tell her about Minai's letter and the whole truth about Rodichev and Guzun. There'd been no point in her knowing before, but now her brains and her advice were needed. Aviette was a very clever girl, whose views on things were at least as bright as her parents', usually brighter. Still, it was rather alarming. How would she react? Would she be able to put herself back in time into their position and understand? Mightn't she condemn them thoughtlessly, out of hand?

In spite of the heavy bag she was carrying in one hand and the white coat she was holding around her shoulders with the other, Aviette strode energetically into the ward, her head still bent as if against the wind. Her fresh, young face was glowing. It registered none of the pious compassion with which people usually approached the beds of the gravely ill, an expression Pavel Nikolayevich would have been hurt to see on his daughter's face.

“Well, Father, how are things, eh, How are things?” She greeted him brightly, sitting down beside him on the bed. Without forcing herself, she kissed him sincerely, first on one stale, stubbly cheek, then on the other. “Well, how are you this morning? Tell me exactly how you feel. Come on, tell me.”

Pavel Nikolayevich's strength seemed to revive at her glowing appearance and her cheerful questioning. He rallied a little.

“Well, how shall I put it?” His voice was weak and measured, as if he were explaining it to himself. “I don't really think it's gone down, no, but I do get the impression I can move my head a little more freely, a little more freely. There's less pressure, if you know what I mean.”

Without asking her father's permission, she opened his collar without causing him the least pain and peered at the tumor on his neck as if she were a doctor making a daily inspection.

“There's nothing terrible about that,” she declared. “It's a swollen gland, that's all. The way Mother wrote I thought Goodness! You say you can move your head more freely, do you? That means the injections are working, it definitely does. Later on, it'll get smaller. Once it's half the size it is now, it won't bother you so much. You'll be able to leave hospital.”

“Yes, you're right.” Pavel Nikolayevich sighed. “If it was only half the size, I could live with it, couldn't I?”

“You could be treated at home.”

“Do you think I could have the injections at home?”

“I don't see why not. You'll get used to them, you'll get into the way of them, and I'm sure you'll be able to continue them at home. We'll talk about it, we'll work something out.”

Pavel Nikolayevich felt more cheerful. Whether or not they let him have his injections at home, his daughter's determination to move into the attack and get what she wanted filled him with pride. Aviette was leaning over him, and even without his glasses he could see her honest, open face, ardent with energy and life, the quivering nostrils and the mobile eyebrows that trembled sensitively at every injustice. Was it Gorky who had said, “If your children are no better than you are, you have fathered them in vain, indeed you have lived in vain”? Pavel Nikolayevich had not lived in vain.

All the same he was worried. Did she know about
it?
What would she say?

In no hurry to bring the conversation around to the subject, she questioned him further about his treatment, asked what the doctors were like, checked his bedside table to see what he'd eaten and replaced the food that had gone bad with fresh supplies.

“I've brought you some tonic wine,” she said. “Drink one liqueur glass at a time. And some nice red caviar—you like that, don't you? And some lovely oranges from Moscow.”

“That's nice.”

Meanwhile she had been looking around the ward and its inmates. The upward jerk of her eyebrows showed how intolerably squalid she found it. Still, he thought, one ought to look at it from the humorous point of view.

Although no one else seemed to be listening, she leaned forward closer to her father, and they began to speak so that only the two of them could hear.

“Yes, I know, Father, it's terrible.” Aviette went straight to the point. “It's common knowledge by now, everyone in Moscow's talking about it. It can only be described as a massive review of legal proceedings.”

“Massive?”

“Massive is the word for it. It's like an epidemic. The pendulum's swung right the other way. As if the wheel of history can ever be turned back! Who could do it? Who'd dare? All right, granted it was a long time ago they convicted those people, rightly or wrongly, and sent them far away into exile—but why bring them back now? Why transplant them back to their former lives? It's a painful, agonizing process. Above all it's cruel to the exiles themselves. Some of them are dead—why disturb their ghosts? Why raise groundless hopes among their relatives and perhaps a desire for revenge? Again, what does rehabilitated actually mean? It can't mean the man was completely innocent! He must have done
something,
however trivial.”

Ah, she was such a clever girl! She had spoken with a passionate assurance that she was right. Although they hadn't yet mentioned his problem, Pavel Nikolayevich could see that his daughter would stand solidly behind him. Alla would never abandon him.

“But do you know of actual cases where people have come back? Even to Moscow?”

“Yes, even to Moscow. That's the point. They're all creeping back there like ants looking for sugar. And there are some terrible, tragic cases! Think of it, there was a man who'd been living in peace and quiet for years and suddenly he was summoned to … you know where, to a confrontation! Can you imagine it?”

Pavel Nikolayevich grimaced as if he'd swallowed a lemon. Alla noticed but she couldn't stop herself now; she always carried her train of thought to the finish.

“They told him to repeat what he'd said twenty years ago. Just think! Who could possibly remember? What good would it do anyone? All right, if you've got a sudden urge to rehabilitate them, by all means do so, but don't bring in confrontations! I mean, why shatter people's nerves? The man went home and very nearly hanged himself!”

Pavel Nikolayevich lay there in a hot sweat. That they might confront him face to face with Rodichev or Yelchanski or some other person was one possibility that had never occurred to him.

“Silly fools! Who made them sign those trumped-up confessions about themselves in the first place? They should have refused.” Alla's flexible mind sized up the question from every angle. “How
can
they stir up this hell? They should spare a thought for the people who were doing a job of work for society. How are
they
going to come out of all these upheavals?”

“Did Mother tell you … about…?”

“Yes, Father, she told me. But there's nothing for you to worry about.” Her strong fingers gripped his shoulders. “All right, I'll tell you what I think, if you like. A man who ‘sends a signal' is being politically conscious and progressive, he's motivated by the best intentions toward society. The People appreciates this and understands. There are cases where he may make a mistake, but the only people who never make mistakes are the ones who never do anything. Normally a man is guided by his class instinct, and that never lets him down.”

“Thank you, Alla, thank you!” Pavel Nikolayevich felt tears welling up inside him, cleansing tears of release. “You've put it well: the People appreciates, the People understands. It's just this stupid habit we've developed of regarding only those at the bottom of society as the People.” His sweating hand stroked his daughter's cool one. “It's very important for young people to understand us and not condemn. But tell me, what do you think…? Can they find a clause in the law by which we could be … I mean, by which I could be
got
for … well, for giving incorrect evidence?”

“Listen,” Alla replied animatedly, “I happened to be present at a conversation in Moscow where they were discussing … well, just this kind of unpleasant contingency. There was a lawyer present who explained that the law against so-called false evidence used to carry a penalty of only two years, but that since then there have been two amnesties. It's out of the question to get someone on a charge of giving false evidence now. Rodichev won't utter a squeak, you can be sure of that.”

Pavel Nikolayevich felt as if even his tumor had eased a little.

“That's my clever little girl!” he said, happily relieved. “You've always got the answer. You're always there at the right moment. You have given me back a lot of my strength.”

Taking one of his daughter's hands in both his own, he kissed it reverently. Pavel Nikolayevich was an unselfish man: he always put his children's interests before his own. He knew he had no outstanding qualities except devotion to duty, thoroughness and perseverance, but his daughter was his true achievement, and he basked in her light.

Tired of holding the symbolic white coat which kept slipping off her shoulders, she threw it with a laugh over the foot of the bed across her father's temperature chart. It wasn't the time of day when doctors or nurses came in.