Igor Eliseev - One-Two

“You’d better stick with me,” you whispered. Holding on to the walls, we moved down with extreme caution, literally by touch. Our eyes had adjusted by the time I found the switch and turned it sharply. A dim, unsmiling light illuminated a long corridor with a row of doors on each side, a concrete floor and a scattering of cats.

“Turn it off!” you hissed. “Someone may notice us.”

I turned it off obediently, and the blinding darkness mantled us once again.

“Let’s bring some boxes here and make a bed out of them,” you commanded in a muffled voice.

I nodded and tried to do it to the best of my ability.

We spent the whole night in a half-dream. We turned around, lay down on our backs, and then rose to lie down on our stomachs. Wooden boxes squeaked plaintively and seemed to try to defend themselves from us, sticking iron parts into our bodies. Our night was miserable and dreary. Awakened by the morning light filtering through small windows under the ceiling, I lay on our improvised bed thinking how weirdly this life works, after all. We are sleeping on harsh boxes in a damp and musty basement, and meanwhile somewhere far away from here, people like us, conjoined people, may be living too; they have parents, study at a university, and fall in love, get married or even act in movies. They live a full life and we are fighting for our dishonorable existence, unwanted and rejected by everyone.

After getting up we had a substantial breakfast and immediately left the basement almost running, committed to never coming back. We wanted to forget this place as soon as possible. “It is a pity we didn’t try to ask the champion where we could find a hospital to go to,” I regretted while we were wandering about the well-trodden streets. Despite the cold weather, in many yards, elderly people were sitting on chipped benches or in sloping pavilions and were playing dominoes. With the accuracy of a measuring device, they poured port into glasses and drank it off, turning away as if in embarrassment. Their frozen faces got brighter and brighter pink, and their reputable game was gradually acquiring an ardent tone. We adjusted our blanket and approached an old woman hanging around a low, lopsided bench like a pigeon.

“Excuse me,” you started as politely as possible while I secretly examined her wrinkled face, “could you please tell us where the nearest hospital is?”

“Why, what happened?” she responded, and others nearby looked at us with undisguised curiosity.

“No big deal, my sister’s got a thorn in her hand,” you lied determinedly.

“Oh, you should try to pick it out with a needle; let us take a look.”

“Well, we’ve already tried to do it,” I lied, hoping to save the situation, “but it’s got stuck deep inside. I think we need to see a doctor.”

“Oh, well, as you wish,” the old woman drawled unsympathetically, seeming extremely annoyed at not having the chance to look at the “injury”. “There is a polyclinic nearby. Go out of the yard, then turn left, walk about two hundred meters and you are right there. Do you need somebody to walk with you?”

“No, thank you a lot. There’s no need to bother. We’ll find a way,” I apologized, guiltily staring at the tips of my felt boots. Awkwardly turning around, we went in search of this hospital, providing the old women with a hot topic for conversation.

Once we got out of the backstreet, on the first try we came across the white, three-storied building, a district polyclinic. Everything seemed to be going as well as it could, and all our wishes and dreams soared up in our imaginations once again just like a while ago. We were going to succeed.

We entered the glass door and at that very same second we bumped into the tail of a very long line consisting mainly of elderly people reminiscent rather of delinquent schoolchildren than of patients. They were moving with enthusiasm and passion like young lovebirds doing a slow dance, then stiffening themselves against a small window – for some reason located at waist height – with an inscription which read “Reception Desk”, and finally vanishing into the narrow gut of an ordinary corridor for good. A colorless female voice brought me back to my senses:

“Hey, I’m talking to you! Your first and last names?”

We named ourselves.

The receptionist turned around and started looking for a medical history sheet among numerous racks.

“I can’t find any. Are you sure you have registered?”

“We don’t have a medical record,” I said uncertainly; “we’re here for the first time.”

“Then why are you playing with my head? Give me your passport,” the same voice replied without any intonation.

We had to bend our knees and cave our backs in order to be able to see her, to hear the owner of such an emotionless voice.

“The passport… I’ve lost the passport,” you lied.

“No passport – no record. As soon as you get the passport, you are welcome. Next.” The last word was addressed to the queue standing behind us.

I couldn’t believe what was happening. It seemed to be absolute high-handedness. Was there anybody to stand up for us? Would anybody help us? As time went by, nothing happened. People in the line shuffled forward, paying us no attention whatsoever. Dim, senseless, resigned. Is it so hard to offer your help and sympathy to somebody in grief? It takes a little to take one step, but, in an inexplicable manner, it stretches into thousands of kilometers. All of us are full of empathy and consolation but always prefer to express it from a distance.

“We will go to another hospital,” you declared without hesitation, seizing me by the hand, forcefully bringing me to the bulletin board, pointing your finger at it.

“Do not panic. Here are the addresses of other hospitals; we will visit them all until we find one which will help us.”

Despite all the difficulties we had encountered, the subway turned out to be the most invincible obstacle. I recollect it with irony. Ticket gates, like greedy gatekeepers, restlessly collecting fares, looked at us severely and formidably. We decided to take them by storm, but no such luck: metal hands clapped and closed on your hip. We didn’t dare to ram the gates another time and just shuffled about beside them, disturbing the passers-by. At last the subway duty-officer, seeing our desperate attempts, kindly let us through an armless pass saying: “It’s ok, but next time you should buy a ticket.” We thanked her and stepped forward, but slowed down at once near the swung-open jaws of an immeasurable stone giant. People pressing from all directions instantly caught us up and dragged us down through the concrete arches of a gullet. Before we knew it, we were digested, satiating the stomach of the monster with a wild roar.

In the next hospital, no one would even listen to us. They requested our clinical record and waved us off once they heard that we didn’t have any. People! Please. Listen. Our life, our bodies, are the most authentic clinical record ever! Why do you have to ask for any other, alien, fake, distorted by illegible handwriting, belonging to someone else who has never been us and has never tried to understand us? Do you think that is right?

I wanted to argue, shout, prove something, but I didn’t get the chance. You firmly grasped me by the elbow and hastily said:

“Never mind, still, we’re going to make it. Do you believe me?”

Of course I did. But, nevertheless, I had certain doubts about the possibility of such a surgery being performed, at least, not in the very first hospital we might address. We needed to find a genuine medical star, a brilliant scientist inclined to examine us and perform the separation. But memories of all the hardships we’d been through kept us from doing the right thing – going for the new, perhaps longer and more exhausting, course of action. We were eager to get separated at once, quickly and imperceptibly.