Tatyana Tolstaya - White Walls - Collected Stories

I wonder if the doctor had it done, too? Should I ask? Why not? I’ll ask. No, I’m afraid. I’m afraid and it’s impolite and maybe I’ll spoil everything. If you ask, your dry tongue moving meekly; smiling tensely, gazing beseechingly into the nightmarish dark gaping like a black hole between his upper and lower lids, vainly trying to meet his gaze, to find a saving human point, find something, some sort of—well, maybe not a welcome, not a smile, no no, I understand—but even scorn, fastidiousness, even revulsion, some answer, some glimmer, some sign, somebody stir, wave your hand, do you hear me? Is anyone in there? I feel around in the dark, I feel the dark, it’s thick; I see nothing, I’m afraid I’ll slip and fall, but where can I fall if there’s no path beneath my feet? I am alone here. I am afraid. Life, are you here?… Doctor, excuse me please, sorry to bother you, but just one question: tell me, is Life there?

As if in foreboding, something in his chest cringed, scurried, crouched, eyes shut, arms over its head. Be patient. It will be better for everyone.

The Assyrian let him look into his deep starless pits once more.

“Sit in the chair, please.”

And I will, so what, it’s no big deal, I’ll just go sit, casuallike. Ignatiev settled in the leather reclining chair. Rubber straps on his arms and legs. On the side, a hose, tanks, a manometer.

“General anesthesia?”

The professor was doing something at his desk, with his back to Ignatiev, and he replied reluctantly, after a pause.

“Yes, general anesthesia. We’ll remove it, clean it out, fill the canal.”

“Like a tooth,” thought Ignatiev. He felt a cowardly chill. What unpleasant words. Easy, easy. Be a man. What’s the problem. Easy. It’s not a tooth. No blood. Nothing.

The doctor selected the proper tray. Something jingled on it. With tweezers he selected and placed on a low table, onto a glass medical slide, a long, thin, disgustingly thin needle, thinner than a mosquito’s whine. Ignatiev squinted at it nervously. Knowing what those things were for was horrible, but not knowing was worse.

“What’s that?”

“The extractor.”

“So small? I wouldn’t have thought.”

“Do you think yours is big?” the Assyrian said irritatedly. And he stuck the X ray under his nose, but he could make out nothing but foggy spots. The doctor was already wearing rubber gloves fitted tightly over his hands and wrists, and with a bent tweezers he rummaged among the shiny bent needles and vilely narrowing probes and pulled something out: a parody of scissors with a pike’s jaws. The Assyrian scratched his beard with a rubber finger. Ignatiev thought that the doctor was ruining the sterility and meekly mentioned it aloud.

“What sterility?” The professor raised his eyelids. “I wear gloves to protect my hands.”

Ignatiev smiled weakly, understandingly. Of course, you never know, there are people with diseases—He suddenly realized that he didn’t know how they would drag it out: Through his mouth? His nose? Maybe they make an incision on the chest? Or in the hole between collarbones, where day and night the soft throb continues: sometimes hurrying, sometimes slowing its endless run?

“Doctor, how…”

“Quiet!” The Assyrian exclaimed. “Silence! Shut your mouth. Just listen to me. Look at the bridge of my nose. Count to twenty to yourself: one, two…”

His nose, mouth, and blue beard were firmly wrapped in white. Between the white mask and the striped tiara the abyss stared from his eyes. Between the two sockets, openings into nowhere, was the bridge of his nose: a tuft of blue hairs on a crumbling mountain range. Ignatiev began looking, turning to ice. The anesthesia hose was moving toward him from the side. A trunk; and from it, the sweet, sweet smell of death. It hung over his face; Ignatiev struggled, but gave up, tied down by rubber straps, stifled his last, too-late doubts—and they splashed in all directions. Out of the corner of his eye he saw depression, his loyal girlfriend, pressed against the window, bidding him farewell, weeping, blocking the white light, and almost voluntarily inhaled the piercing, sweet smell of blossoming nonexistence, once, twice, and more, without moving his eyes from the Assyrian emptiness.

And there, in the depths of the sockets, in the otherworldly crevasses, a light went on, a path appeared, stumps of black, charred branches grew, and with a soft jolt Ignatiev was sucked from the chair, forward and up, and was tossed there, on the path, and hurrying—seven, eight, nine, ten, I’m lost—he ran along the stones with his almost nonexistent legs. And Life gasped behind him, and the bars clanged, and Anastasia wailed bitterly, wildly…

And I’m sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry for those left behind and I can’t stop and I’m running upward, and huddled low the dacha station flew past, and with Mama and me—a little boy, no, it’s Valerik—and they turn, mouths open, shouting; but I can’t hear them, Valerik raises his little hand, something in his fist, the wind ruffles their hair….

Ringing in the ears, darkness, ringing, oblivion.

Ignatiev—Ignatiev?—slowly floated up from the bottom, his head pushing aside the soft, dark rags—a lake of cloth.

He lay in the chair, the straps undone, his mouth dry, his head spinning. In his chest, a pleasant, calm warmth. It felt good.

The bearded man in the white coat was writing something on a medical chart. Ignatiev remembered why he was there— just a simple outpatient operation, he had to have the whatsit removed; what was that word. The hell with it. General anesthesia—that took pull. Not bad.

“Well, doc, can I split?” Ignatiev asked.

“Stay five minutes,” the bearded one said dryly. “So pushy all of a sudden.”

“Did you do it all, no tricks?”

“All.”

“Watch it, if you welshed on the deal, I’ll shake my bucks out of you real fast,” Ignatiev joked.

The doctor looked up from the papers. Well, that was the living end, a real knockout. Holes instead of eyes.

“What’s the matter, pal, lose your eyeballs?” Ignatiev laughed. He liked his new laugh—sort of a squealing bark. Fastlike. “Well, you’re really something, pal! I’m knocked out. Just don’t trip when you go pick up babes.”

He liked the dull spot in his solar plexus. It was boss.

“Hey, man, I’m off. Gimme five. Ciao.”

He slapped the doctor on the back. He bounded down the worn stairs with sturdy, springy steps, with whiplash turns on the landings. So much to do! And everything would work out. Ignatiev laughed. The sun was shining. Loads of babes on the street. Terrif. First off to Anastasia. Show her what’s what! But first, a few jokes, of course. He had made up a few jokes already, his brain was whizzing. “Gotta keep your shotgun clean,” he’d say. He thought that up. And when he left, he’d say, “Stay cool, suck ice.” He was so funny now: no joke, seriously, the life of the party.

Should I go home first or what? Home later, now I have to write to the right place and tell the right people that a doctor calling himself Ivanov takes bribes. Write it in full detail, with a lacing of humor: he has no eyes, but all he sees is money. Who’s keeping an eye on things, anyway?

And then home. I’ve had it keeping that preemie home. It’s not sanitary, you know. Arrange a bed in a home for him. If they give me trouble, I’ll have to slip them something. That’s the way the game is played. It’s normal.

Ignatiev pushed the post office door.

“What would you like?” the curly-haired girl asked.

“A clean sheet of paper,” Ignatiev said. “Just a clean sheet.”