Andrea Bennett - Two Cousins of Azov

‘That’s not true—’

‘I’ll find a way. I’m clever! I don’t need you!’ She staggered up from the seat, bags seething around her, and ran for the door.

‘Polly! Wait!’

The door slammed. Heads turned.

The blonde leant on the counter and waited for him to turn.

‘Everything OK?’

He puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She’s… there’s something wrong with her, I think.’ He made a screwy motion with his finger at his temple. ‘But I…’

‘Ah. And she’s your girlfriend?’

His cheeks burnt. ‘Well, uh, yes. At least, I thought so. I’m not sure.’ He scratched his head. ‘We had an argument. We study together. I’m a doctor.’

‘Ah? Do you want to talk about it?’ The girl fluttered her eyelids. ‘I could give you another tea – on the house?’

‘Well, uh, thanks.’ He picked up the watch from the table and sauntered over to the counter.

‘Are you looking to sell that?’ she whispered, her teeth biting into the softness of her lip as she glanced over her shoulder.

He looked into the glum face of the watch, and nodded.

Sveta lay in her bed on Tereshkova wing, the white sheets crinkled underneath her like starched waves. She lowered her book – a Soviet-realist tale of concrete production – to peek over its top. She needed to see, but the book gave her privacy: the space between her nose and its pristine, unread pages was her own.

There was something out of place at the Vim & Vigour. Her instinct for institution, finely tuned through many years’ service, told her so. It wasn’t her room-mates: they were both perfectly charming, in their own way. Tatiana Astafievna, the tiny, shrew-like one on the left, had once been a lawyer. She ran a sharp eye over every word that bounced around her, tasting phrases on her tongue, feeling the weight of snatches of conversation in her frail hands, but uttering not one syllable herself. The other one, long, bony and referred to by all the staff only as Klara, had once run a municipal bakery, producing over 5,000 loaves per day. Picture that! The daily responsibility of 5,000 loaves, come rain or shine, rye or spelt. Sveta admired the woman who baked 5,000 loaves each day. Klara coughed, and muttered into her hands, occasionally dropping them to issue commands to an unseen workforce.

Both ladies were regularly propped up to take tit-bits of food, but most of the time they lay curled and ragged, thin as old lace, disappearing against the white oceans of their beds. Each was connected by a tube and two wires to a machine stationed between them which, in turn, appeared to lead directly to the other old lady. It occasionally made a pinging noise, to which nobody paid attention. Sveta comforted herself: at least she was not also attached.

‘So, how are your hands today?’

She held out white-bandaged hands, and concentrated on looking like they did not hurt. She moved her fingers, wriggling them as if playing the piano, and suppressed a grimace. It was lucky her burns were only minor, they said. How sad it must be to have only stumps.

And it wasn’t Spatchkin, the doctor, who made her feel strange. She’d got over his appearance very quickly, hardly noticing the way his face hung from an out-sized head perched above a childlike, bent body. She could hear him coming: he wheezed as he walked. He sat on the edge of her bed, eyes intent on her face, and asked in gentle tones:

‘How are your bowel movements?’

Sveta sought to express total satisfaction without going into detail.

‘And the dressings have been changed? There is no sign of infection?’

‘No doctor. I think I am ready to go home.’ She said it each time they met.

‘Ah, but it’s not up to you, is it?’ He smiled sadly.

She felt like a school girl and shook her head.

‘Are you quite rested?’

‘Yes, I feel… marvellous! The best I’ve ever felt.’ Her pale lips stretched into a smile.

‘The best ever? Well, perhaps we should have you stay a few more days, we might turn you into Superwoman?’

He patted her leg with his tiny, fine-fingered hand.

‘A ha-ha-ha!’

‘I shouldn’t joke,’ he said, coughing softly. ‘Health is a serious business. How are your bowels, did you say?’ He leant forward.

‘Excellent.’

His eyebrows twitched.

‘Can I go home now, please?’

He patted her leg with one hand as he jotted a note with the other. ‘We’ll see what Matron says. In principle, I think maybe, yes.’

‘Hurrah!’ The cry escaped her and she giggled.

‘But the human organism is complex…’

Klara muttered something about rye, and Tatiana weighed the word, rubbing it between her fingers like dough. Spatchkin remained on Sveta’s bed, silently regarding the two elderly patients from the slits of his eyes. The machine let out a ping.

‘Good!’ he exclaimed loudly. ‘Carry on!’ He stood, nodded to each of the women in turn, and shuffled away.

Vlad had not paid a visit. Maybe he only worked in the men’s section. Maybe he had a guilty conscience about the séance. Or maybe he didn’t care how she was: after all, there was no reason why he should. But he had said he would pop in. Those were his exact words. And they still needed to ask him about Madame’s table. Fire had been the warning, and fire there had been.

It wasn’t the orderlies, who were all the same but different, their tabards made of the same material as the bedsheets, their hair back-combed into red and yellow beehives and stuffed into tall white cotton hats. Neither the hats nor the hair moved. They served meals in the day room, cleared up spillages, propelled patients back to bed and stood in the corridor, eyes shifting, waiting for instructions. They were all normal people, as ready to laugh, cry or argue as the next person: nothing untoward there.

When the daylight faded, however, and the lights were lowered, the buzz of the hive died away. The last round of checks and discussions was had and the steps in the corridor faded. Then they were left alone, the door propped open with a chair, the only sounds the vague throbbing of the boiler system, and their own breathing. The older women struggled for air. Sveta could hear them: the delicate branches of their lungs weighed down with traces of yeast, books and dust: the relics of a lifetime of toil. A fear began to work its way through her veins, bringing a cold sweat to her skin. Not a fear of ageing, so much, as a fear of ill-health: the slow decline, the gradual indisposition, the loss of vigour. Had it started already?

The first night she woke before dawn, eyes focusing on the glow of the doorway. She had heard a step in the corridor, on the edge of her sleep. There it was again: slow, soft, coming towards her room. There was no reason for it to be menacing, but… She turned over carefully, bunching the sheets under her chin as she tried to snuggle down. As her eyes closed she heard it again, closer this time. She yawned into her pillow, but her eyes would not stay shut.

She felt it in the room a second later, and tried to turn her head to get a clear view. It was at this point she realised she was paralysed. A figure slid towards her, on the periphery of her vision. She willed her arms to thrash out and her legs to throw her body to the floor. Breath filled her throat with a scream. But only her eyes moved. Panic gripped her: perhaps she couldn’t breathe. She was wheezing like the other ladies, bronchioles filling with fear, submerging her as if she were drowning in the bed. Her spirit leapt in the useless body.

As the oxygen ran out she woke with a muffled ‘nugh!’, sweat slicking her body, the sheet in her mouth. All was peace. But a feeling remained, a sense of something un-seen: waiting in the corridors after dark; under the bed in the dead of night; at the bottom of the cup at the end of the drink.