Igor Eliseev - One-Two

Sometimes it seems that my recollections are full of omissions and inaccuracies. Suddenly my memory goes, leaving blank spaces up above. Reality distorts everything but still remains reality. Life resembles a continuous dream.

Several months before our graduation I got a bad fever. I had never experienced anything like it before: there was a splendid, luminous, vivid feeling glowing in my chest. I still can’t explain my condition, no, not even today. Ready to hover like a butterfly, full of bubbling energy, I could sing silly tunes, laugh at anything, be forgetful and absent-minded, dreaming of our future separation surgery and even our full recovery. I forced you to follow the same route he used to walk on, visit the library more seldom, and have long walks in the garden. You couldn’t keep ignoring the way I felt, and one day you poured out your “truth” to me; it hit me like a bucket of cold water:

“You have fallen in love, Faith. Very strange choice, I must say, for he’s just a cripple. So what are you going to do now?”

“I have not fallen in love!” I replied indignantly, offended by your words because they were my very own thoughts. “And how can you call him a cripple when he can do fifteen press-ups in a row?”

“Nevertheless, you’ve understood who I’m talking about,” you grinned. It was true, I couldn’t object.

“I am lost,” popped out of me. “What shall I do?”

“You’re funny; now you are asking me the same question. Keep it to yourself, hide your feelings, and watch from the sidelines. You know everything pretty well: you have no chance. And even if you had, what would you do with the cripple? Don’t even think of it.”

You killed me with your words. I could understand and agree with you in my mind, but my heart had a will of its own. I burst into tears; you watched dispassionately, and then said in a conciliatory tone:

“Well, maybe, we will be lucky and find good doctors; they will study our case and separate us in no time at all. You will come back here on two legs, confess your feelings to Sasha, and the two of you will move far, far away from here.”

Thank you, sister, and thank you a thousand times more. Despite being a realist, you never deprived me of the ultimate hope.

In the winter, when the cold got really cold, mischief imprisoned the foster home – a severe flu epidemic came. All the children who had parents were promptly sent home. But some of them got sick so badly that their parents couldn’t manage to provide them with proper treatment and the kids were brought back to the foster home. The school was temporarily closed. Pyotr Ilyich treated us for some time, but soon got ill himself. Practically all personnel ceased to show up for work, excusing themselves, being afraid of catching flu. Only Adoter sat solemnly in her unheated office, wearing a long fur coat, like the Snow Queen, and seemed absolutely immune to every kind of germ.

I was the first to get sick and soon infected you. We coughed, sneezed, dripping with snot, but at least we were able to walk; the others couldn’t even get up. The worst was our bed neighbor Half-Jane, who for several days couldn’t even lift her head up off the pillow and complained of nausea and stomach aches. She looked awful: pale, drawn face, clotted hair. Looking at her was breaking my heart. We forced ourselves to go to the medical unit for help, but there was nobody in there. Illness had turned the foster home into an empty beehive. In the corridor we accidentally bumped into the only living soul around, a duty therapist who was about to leave. Having explained the situation, we only just managed to drag her into the room. She examined Half-Jane and concluded:

“It’s an ordinary cold. Now I’ll give you an injection, and by Monday you’re going to be all right.”

She gave Half-Jane a shot, kindly patted her on the cheek and left till Monday. Half-Jane fell asleep but after a while she woke up and continued complaining of severe pain, then became silent again; occasionally, we could hear her subdued sobbing. However, later, she started howling with a vengeance; obviously, the attack had started again. Despite their own sickness, girls complained and got angry with her when she made a loud, drawling groan. By the evening her groans deepened and became non-human, and we went to call for help again. We didn’t find anybody in the medical unit, so we went to the reception desk in the hopes of finding someone. The concierge, in wonderful, robust, good health, sat at the reception desk knitting a sock. You said hello and tried to explain everything, but the old woman pretended not to understand anything and kept on knitting. You couldn’t restrain yourself and demanded that she let you use the phone.

“Give me Adoter’s phone number.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“It’s urgent. One girl feels really bad.”

“I shouldn’t,” the old woman repeated stubbornly. “What’s on your mind? Go back to your room!”

“We won’t leave. Let us make the call,” you insisted.

But the concierge only closed the window in our faces and turned off the light.

We stood thinking for a while; you still felt feverish; we had to return to the room. Half-Jane was sleeping and it seemed that the most terrible time had already passed. We sighed with relief but later she started moaning again, asking for a bedpan several times, tossing and turning in the bed; even half-asleep I heard her crying, and for the first time I felt a strong compassion for a stranger. My heart fell when I looked at her, and I reproached myself for not being able to help her.

“My God, I can’t bear it. She’s keeping everybody awake!” Godly Girl yelled, getting out of the bed. “I’m going to the guys’ room to ask for a pill for her so that she will shut up.”

“You’d do better to bring her some poison,” Snot hissed.

On her return Godly Girl declared:

“The men’s room is half empty; there are only the sick ones, all of them bed-ridden.”

“Is Sasha there?” I asked, trying to make it sound casual.

“Disaster,” you specified unconcernedly.

“I don’t know, it was dark there,” Godly Girl muttered and went to bed again.

And Half-Jane lay in agony, alone, till dawn, never stopping sobbing and tossing her head on the bed. At daybreak she woke everybody up with loud vomiting. After spitting hard, she fell back on her pillow, and I, being half asleep, could hear her quiet, meek voice. All the others in the room strained their ears to hear her words:

“All of us are lumped together here like kittens in a bag; and no matter how hard you kick or scratch, it’s all in vain, nobody’s going to hear you,” she croaked and, apparently, laughed. “This is my last year in this damned hole,” (ours too!), “and I won’t get into a technical school; they’ll send me to some bloody nursing home. I am going to lie there, young, among the old shit, and decay alive. But I don’t want, oh dear, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to !”

She started waving her hands like an insane person, and then she covered her face with a pillow.

Nobody felt better. Our stomachs ached, our heads were splitting, our legs seemed to be made of raw iron, our arms did not obey. But we put ourselves together to get up, shuffled off to the empty dining room and brought her back some breakfast. She only had tea, and then threw up again. Holding on to her stomach, she muttered something deliriously, from time to time howling from the pain. We dared approach her and I touched her forehead which turned out to be very hot; she evidently had a fever. There was nothing for it but to go to the guys’ room for advice. Inside we found only several sick boys on their beds; Sasha was among them. Despite shivering with fever, he was sitting on the edge of his bed and reading a book; at the sight of us he brightened up. As for myself, I just can’t describe the joy I felt at seeing him; I had missed him so much. Without wasting time, you took the initiative and started telling him how bad Half-Jane’s condition was and how we had tried to seek help but found only locked doors. I stood quietly by and almost couldn’t hear anything, just gazed about. Your voice reached me as though from far away, but before my eyes was only him; I couldn’t take notice of anyone else in the room, even though I looked at everyone except him.