Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

“All is normal. It just hurt, that’s all,” I replied through my clenched teeth.

“I will give you some tablets for the pain. But you should rest for the next three days. No more running for buses!” she commented sarcastically.

“No more buses…,” I repeated with a bit of relief in my voice.

“Did they steal something important from you?” she asked with sympathy as she wrapped the wound with clean bandages.

“Yes, but it wasn’t mine to keep. So, I don’t have to worry about getting it back. I just made them very angry that I had it,” I commented.

“Oh, so they knew you had it and wanted it returned?” she asked further.

“Well, it was never theirs to begin with, but they didn’t want me to have it,” I confirmed.

“And how did they know you had it?” she was a bit confused.

“It’s a long story. Maybe I could tell you another time,” and I stood up and put my shirt back on.

“Sure. Another time then.” And with that she handed me a box of pain killers and held up two fingers, tapped her wrist watch and held up four fingers.

“Two, every four hours,” I confirmed my understanding.

She nodded yes and motioned for me to back up toward the cabin door with her sweet dark hazel almond shaped eyes and perfectly arched eye brows. I extended my right hand to thank her for her care. As she took my hand to shake it I felt her pale soft slender fingers in mine and a zing of electricity up my neck.

“And your name is?” I left the question hanging.

“Lara. My name is Lara,” she affirmed and opened the door and waved me out with a smile.

Being on board the Zhukov again was like being on a different planet. The news of the outside world didn’t reach the cabins and decks of the ship. The days spent on board were a blissful journey over a plane of ignorance. Only when one was able to turn on a television in a hotel suite was there a connection to the outside world. The world could go to war and for six and half days those on the Volga could sail on, not knowing who had been shot or bombed. I kept a low profile for my first evening on board not wanting to get into too many involved conversations. I felt still that I would be safer if I could keep my misadventures to myself. No need to raise suspicions and questions where they didn’t already exist. It was for me the perfect place to hide for a week until I could formulate a new plan for getting to Moscow and on board a departing air plane.

I sat with Nikolai in a corner of the dining room gingerly spooning a delicious borscht into my mouth with my right hand while holding a chunk of black bread in my left hand. Nikolai sat across the table from me drinking a steaming cup of coffee after his dinner. We were speaking in low voices when the ship’s nurse, Lara, took a seat across the table next to Nikolai and looked me up and down.

“I am happy to see you have an appetite. That means you are resting well,” Lara said with a serious face.

“Yes, thank you. The tablets,” I held up two fingers, followed by four fingers, “have helped me very much. Thank you for your care.” I smiled as charmingly as possible.

“So, Kolya here told me that you have been to Kazan before…?” she insinuated.

“Oh, Kolya has been telling you stories has he?” I glared at Nikolai with accusative eyes. He just shrugged back at me and sipped his coffee casually.

“He says that you seem to have a habit of getting very injured. Should we be watching out for you with extra care to make sure you don’t fall again?” Lara was poking a bit of fun and her eyes told me she was enjoying it.

“So, what exactly did Kolya-cuddly-bear here tell you about what happened last year?” I said in a mocking voice directed at my good friend who still showed no embarrassment or discomfort as he sat relaxed in his dining chair, “because I never fell down.”

“What he told me was that you were taken away in an ambulance one morning in Kazan and that you weren’t quite the same after that,” she said in a curious but serious manner.

I had resumed eating my soup and bread and was chewing a bite when she mentioned the medics in Kazan. I stopped chewing and looked at Nikolai again with an annoyed look. I swallowed my bite and put my spoon down on the saucer under the bowl and folded my hands, resting my forearms and elbows flat on the edge of the table and leaned into the table a bit.

“Yes, it’s true. I was taken to the hospital in Kazan due to complications from a head injury,” I stated officially. Lara gasped and sat up a bit straighter in her chair.

“That must have been horrible!” she peeped.

“Which part? The head injury, the hospital or the fact that it all happened in Kazan?” I asked with some impertinence in my questioning.

“What happened?” Lara asked again.

I told her the harrowing story as the dining room slowly emptied of passengers

“On the second night of a ten-day voyage to Volgograd, much like this one, I hit my head on the staircase on the low overhang that leads up to the auditorium where they hold concerts and lectures.”

Lara nodded, “Yes I know it.”

I continued. “I didn’t lose consciousness, and luckily I did NOT fall down the stairs after I hit my head. In fact, I was carrying a large speaker in my arms for that night’s entertainment and was still able to finish climbing to the top and set it down. About fifteen minutes later I was a bit sleepy and dizzy and went to lay down in my cabin and I guess I slept the whole night.”

“That is so dangerous!” Lara declared knowing from her training the signs of a concussion.

“The next morning, I felt like I had a sack of rice or flour on my head. It felt like it would push my neck down. I couldn’t wake up and I couldn’t remember clearly what had happened. It was rather scary not to be able to remember. So, I asked somebody to ask the ship’s nurse to come to my cabin and she was immediately very worried. She scolded me for not having called her the night before. She said I had a huge welt on the top of my head, larger than she was comfortable to treat and she told me I should be in the hospital for observation for a few days.” I continued.

“How horrible!” Lara remarked again, but very eager for me to continue.

“As it turned out every time I would fall asleep, and I guess with a bad concussion it’s hard to even stay awake, that I couldn’t remember anything that happened thirty or forty-five minutes before I fell asleep. As the boat was always sailing down river, each morning I would have to work to help myself remember things.” I paused for a dramatic effect. “Many mornings I would find hand written notes to myself reminding me of where I had been when I went to sleep and where the boat should be when I woke up. The notes would help remember where I was and what was happening, but I could never remember writing the notes the next morning.”

“This was a very serious injury!” Lara covered her mouth with her hands in fright.

“Yes, we had figured that point out, but the thought of spending two weeks alone in a Russian hospital without my short-term memory frightened me more than anything else. I insisted that there was nothing more that the doctors of a hospital could do for me than what the ship’s doctor was already doing. The doctor was very nervous and checked on me every few hours to make sure that I was still lucid. She told me that any digression would men that she would have me removed by Captain’s orders and hospitalised.” I looked to Nikolai for corroboration.

“One hundred percent right! Why were you so stubborn? You were in real danger!” Lara seemed more worried a year later than the treating doctor at the time.

“So, by the time we reached Nizhniy Novgorod I had begun feeling much better and the doctor had said that the bruising on the top of my head looked better and the swelling had decreased.” I rubbed the top of my head for effect, “She allowed me to leave the boat for fresh air and thought that being on shore would help me get my sense of equilibrium back. I spent that afternoon strolling the riverfront at Nizhniy Novgorod. The afternoon onshore had improved my mood and my stamina and as the doctor had thought it might. We decided that I could return to work after another day or two when we reached Kazan. So when we arrived in Kazan I went ashore in the early morning to shake hands with the local guides and drivers that were already waiting for us at the docks. While I was discussing schedules and procedures with the drivers I began to get real dizzy and felt my left knee buckle. My right leg began to tremble too. One of the bus drivers reached out and caught me and helped me to sit down on the pier before I collapsed,” I felt out of breath telling so her so much.