Oddly enough Andrei felt easier once he was naked than when he was undressing in front of the four of them. One of the guards took up a position by the door. He stared ahead, his face blank. He was only a young lad. Andrei knew from his accent that he was a country boy, not a Leningrader. The other guard, who was stout and asthmatic, had more to do.
‘Clothes on the chair. Shoes under the chair,’ he ordered. As Andrei obeyed, he glanced quickly at the medical instruments on the table by the wall. Stethoscope, otoscope, penlight, swabs, blood-pressure cuff. Speculum.
‘Open your mouth. Wider,’ said the man in the white coat. Andrei opened his mouth, but still not wide enough for the guard, who suddenly seized Andrei’s lower jaw and yanked it down hard. The temporomandibular joint clicked and pain shot through Andrei’s ear. The man in the white coat shone his penlight into Andrei’s mouth. Andrei smelled the two men’s breath and heard the wheeze in the guard’s lungs. The guard seemed almost more interested in Andrei’s mouth than the doctor was.
‘Move your tongue to the left. To the right.’
They thought he had hidden something under his tongue, perhaps. A message, or a poison capsule. But that was ridiculous, like something out of a story for overeager Pioneers. The guard released his grip, but did not step back.
They looked into his ears. They came too close, both of them. The guard’s heavy uniform brushed Andrei’s naked flesh. It was cold in the room, and the lights were cold too. The other guard shifted his boots. Andrei could not see him but he could hear the creak of the leather.
‘Turn around. Legs apart. Bend over. Not like that. Right over. Touch your toes.’ Hands took hold of his buttocks, and parted them. He knew what was coming, but even so his body flooded with outrage as the speculum was pushed into his anus, twisted around, opened.
Andrei had performed anal examinations many times. The thing was to reassure the patient. ‘Lie on your side. Yes, that’s right, like that, with your knees drawn up.’ You had to make sure their entire body was decently covered by the gown, leaving just an opening for the examination. Even children have that fierce instinct for physical privacy. And then you proceeded slowly, gently, all the while telling them what was going on. You were two human beings in this together, trying to find out what was wrong. You had to be sure that the patient was relaxed. Some doctors were more brusque, but usually, Andrei thought, that was because they were not at ease with the procedure.
Thinking these thoughts, he made himself safe. He was back in his own world. If this man were a medical student he’d have had him thrown off the course.
His body throbbed with pain and anger. The white-coat – Andrei wasn’t going to call him a doctor – closed the speculum and pulled it out.
‘Stand up. Legs together. Turn around.’
God knows what they thought he might have hidden up his backside. But of course that had nothing to do with it.
The examination went on. They took his blood pressure, timed his pulse, sounded his heart and lungs, weighed him, measured his height. The man was a doctor, there was no getting away from it. At the very least, he had medical training. The young clerk was there to record the figures that were droned out to him. Those figures would join the photographs, the arrest forms and the list of the personal possessions that had been taken from him. Surely it must mean something, that they’d bothered to make a list? If they documented his possessions, it must mean that at some point these would be given back to him.
But his heart knew it had no further meaning. Lists and questionnaires signified nothing beyond themselves. If he looked for logic he would go crazy.
He was not ill, but since they already had the outer, public information of name, age, date and place of birth, parental occupation and class status and so on and so forth, they’d moved on to the inner man. They needed to know how his heart beat. If they could have sawn off the top of his skull and peered into the workings of his brain they’d have done so gladly. But then they would have lost him.
The examination dragged on. They didn’t tell him when it was over, but the doctor went to the sink, ran the water and began to wash his hands thoroughly. Andrei heard the scrubbing of a nail brush against fingernails. He was still standing in the middle of the room, naked.
‘Shall I get dressed?’ he asked, but no one replied. It was as if he hadn’t spoken. The doctor continued scrubbing his hands. The clerk wrote a final, careful sentence. The light directly above Andrei’s head began to buzz like an angry fly. That bulb is about to go, he thought. He was cold now. He felt shrivelled and his eyes stung with fatigue.
But this is not really cold, he reminded himself. He brought to mind the room where he and Anna and Kolya and Marina had slept night after night, huddled together, dressed in their winter coats, in hats and scarves, under every layer of bedclothes they possessed. And still the frost ate its way to their flesh, easily. Anna had the child in her arms. She was sure that if Kolya slept alone he would be dead of cold and hunger by morning. She was probably right.
Those days, when he walked so slowly to the hospital, leaning on his stick, the wind had time to flay the few centimetres of skin that were exposed. None of them was ever warm, not for a second.
Where was this man then? he wondered. This doctor.
He’d finished washing his hands. He was turning. His face was busy with its own preoccupations. What had just happened was not very important at all. Just another examination of another newly arrested prisoner. He was probably well on his way to fulfilling his norm for the week.
‘Your speculum,’ said Andrei aloud. ‘Don’t forget to sterilize it.’
The doctor was not as practised in blankness as the guards. He glanced across at Andrei and his face showed a trace of surprise that Andrei had used the correct name for the instrument.
‘Yes, I’m a doctor,’ said Andrei. ‘What about you?’
The man stopped dead. He wanted to show no reaction but he had not quite learned the art of it yet. He tightened his lips.
‘Colleague to colleague,’ said Andrei, ‘I must tell you that the way in which you performed that rectal examination was a disgrace. It should be done with the patient lying in the left lateral position. You used too much force. You might have caused injury. Didn’t they teach you anything in medical school?’
The stout guard stepped forward, to the doctor’s side. ‘Is he giving you lip?’
The doctor looked at the guard, then at Andrei, and finally at the door, where the second guard was taking an interest at last. He sniffed hard, and jerked his head. The guard took it for assent.
‘Give me your revolver a moment, Petya,’ he said to the boy by the door.
Andrei saw it happen very slowly. The boy detached his revolver from its holster. The stout guard held out his hand, received the weapon and seemed to weigh it.
I’m going to die. Not in a while but now. He saw snow, piled high. He saw Anna coming down the street, very slowly, a black dot in all that whiteness, towards him. At the same time his mind said, Why doesn’t that guard use his own revolver?
The guard finished weighing the revolver. His arm whipped back. There was a blur as the revolver butt cracked into the side of Andrei’s head.
He fell. He was at the doctor’s feet, looking at his shoes. Brown, cracked leather. That was very important. Now he could not see them because they were going into a mist. He was making a noise, a grunting sound. Above him someone was shouting, ‘Get up! Get up!’
But it was impossible. He was fighting too hard to stay conscious. If he gave way they could do anything to him. He rolled sideways, shielding the soft underpart of his body. He was sure that now he was down they would kick him. He watched for their boots. There was a rabble of voices, accusations, shouting. ‘What the hell have you done? You’ve killed him!’
And even the guard’s voice was frightened. ‘He was trying to have a go at you, doctor.’ He knew he’d gone too far. ‘He was trying to escape, you’ll back me up, won’t you, Pe
tya?’ He had just wanted to do it, smash that revolver into the side of Andrei’s head, and he’d tasted the power of the moment so strongly that he’d given in to it. Now he was afraid.
‘Give me a bucket, I’m going to be sick,’ Andrei groaned. There was a flurry and then the doctor was kneeling beside him, holding out a kidney dish. Far too small. Andrei vomited, over the dish, over the doctor’s hands, over the floor.
Let him wash his hands, he thought. Let him wash his hands now.
After a while the doctor was feeling Andrei’s head. Blood was running down over Andrei’s mouth, and he tasted it, hot and salty. It looked like a lot of blood, but for a head wound it wasn’t too bad. He didn’t think he was concussed. A bad place to be hit, at the temple. The guard had been lucky.
Slowly, Andrei got to his knees, and looked up, shaking his head to clear the blood away from his eyes. He raised his right hand and pushed it across his forehead. It brushed against a hanging flap of skin, and came away bright and sticky. His eyes were fine; no double vision. He could not stand without taking the doctor’s arm, and he wasn’t going to do that. The guards were conferring, the clerk was putting his papers together with small, scared movements.
‘He doesn’t look too bad,’ said the stout guard.
‘You could have killed him,’ said the doctor.
They were all afraid. It had happened against orders. There was a time and a place for everything. Now the prisoner was a mess. The blood was still flowing fast. The doctor went to the table, picked up a pad of lint and pressed it to the wound.
Blood and vomit were mixed on the floor.
‘Don’t move my head,’ said Andrei aloud. He was going to be sick again. No, it was passing. Just then everything thickened in front of his eyes. He could no longer see the doctor or the clerk beyond him. A feeling he had never experienced before was growing distinct. It was rising, ready to overwhelm him. Doom, he said to himself. He had never spoken that word before, but here it was and he recognized it. He must not let go. He must not fall into it. Whatever happened, he must remain conscious. Andrei took a deep breath, and lowered his head, but even so the blackness behind him swept forward and overcame him.
Now he is in the cell. Blood has caked and crusted on his shirt. The pullover is stiff with it. Anna would know how to get it out. The doctor has fastened the pad of lint to his head with sticking plaster. Andrei doesn’t remember putting on his clothes.
Suddenly something above his head rattles sharply. It’s the cover of the flap on the door. A voice shouts, ‘Stand up! It is not permitted to sit!’
Slowly, Andrei gets to his feet. Dizziness returns, but it’s not so bad this time. He will lean against the wall.
‘Stand up! It is not permitted to lean against the wall!’
Andrei stands in the middle of the cell, facing away from the door. He lowers his head, so he won’t feel faint again. There is the bucket, stewing in the corner. Fortunately, he can’t smell it any more. There’s no plaster on the stone walls. Three quarters of the way up the wall there are two large hooks, set about a metre apart. The floor is also stone. There is a smell of damp and he feels very cold, but that may be shock. Perhaps they are underground. He tries to remember leaving the brightly lit room, and what happened next, but his memory won’t give back anything except that last walk down the corridor. Perhaps they came down a flight of steps; perhaps not.
He listens. There is a very faint sound of dripping, far away. Water perhaps. From the corridor outside he hears footsteps, slow and regular. It must be one of the guards, patrolling. There is a pause, a cough and then the footsteps move on. He strains his ears, trying to catch any other trace of human presence. They passed doors all the way down the corridor, on both sides. There must be other newly arrested prisoners behind them.
They can’t be going to leave him here for long. Andrei supposes that it’s deliberate to keep the prisoner ignorant of what’s going on. Some doctors do that. The patient is reduced to a meek cipher, who doesn’t know what’s about to happen to his body, or why. Andrei has always fought against that approach.
But it works. Of course it works: that’s why they do it and have done it for centuries. That dripping sound again. He wonders where it’s coming from. For a while he seems to sleep, standing, then he comes back to full awareness. There is wetness on his face. The blood is flowing again, leaking out from under the lint. The wound needs stitching, but that’s beside the point. That idiot didn’t even know how to bandage it correctly. He should have applied pressure for longer. And of course the patient should lie down.
Andrei looks down at the stone floor. The dripping sound comes again and he realizes that it’s his own blood. He watches it pattering down.
The flow isn’t dangerous, but it will weaken him eventually. It needs to be stopped. Very slowly, so as not to attract the attention of the guard if he’s looking through the peephole, he wriggles his left hand back inside the sleeve of his pullover. Fortunately, Anna knitted the sleeves just a little too long. Now the cuff is free. He raises his hand and presses the cuff hard against the saturated pad of lint. The sleeve brushes his face. It smells of home, and also of blood.
Anna takes a tram directly from work to the Maslov apartment. The tram is packed but she pushes her way through and finds a seat. She closes her eyes and sinks into the darkness. What luxury, to sit down and be carried along in the dark. The tram sways and rattles. A man standing beside her lurches across her and puts his hand down on her shoulder to keep his balance. She looks up, straight into his eyes. He is about sixty, worn and seamed with work.
‘Excuse me,’ he says.
‘That’s all right.’
She closes her eyes again. For ten minutes there is nothing she need do except make sure she doesn’t fall asleep and go past the stop. Her body yields to the motion of the tram. Inside her the baby swims in its own darkness. She feels it move. The fluttering grows stronger each day. Perhaps soon she’ll be able to say that the baby is kicking. People always say ‘kicking’ – it’s obviously the only correct word.
She has thought through exactly what she’s going to say to Maslov. It’s pointless to ask him to intervene directly on Andrei’s behalf. She might as well suggest he sign his own arrest warrant. He hasn’t been involved in the Volkov case. But if a man of Maslov’s standing were willing to act as a character witness, that might count for something. She won’t plead. She knows that only embarrasses people and makes them more determined to refuse. Her father taught her that when she was very young.
‘Why don’t you make more of an effort to keep in touch with your old friends?’ she demanded once, with all the callowness of a girl who had been managing a household and bringing up her baby brother for a full year already. ‘All those people who used to come to the house when I was little. Some of them are really famous now. Surely they’d be able to help you get published?’
He’d frowned sternly. ‘You understand nothing, Anna. I am like a man who has a dangerous and highly contagious disease. I am lucky to be alive. Naturally they are all terrified of catching it. Please don’t speak about such matters any more.’
She remembers the slow, shamed tide of colour that rose in her face as she realized that she had known this all along. She’d just chosen to ignore her own knowledge, because her father’s acceptance of his fate was unbearable to her. And so she’d hurt him, even more than he was already hurt. She said nothing more that day, but the following evening, when she brought his tea to where he was sitting in his usual chair, she put it down on his little table with more than usual care. As he reached out to take the glass, she intercepted his hand, and gave it a quick, light pressure. She would have liked to kiss it, but she knew that would only embarrass him.
The tram’s brakes screech, and Anna’s eyes fly open. Not her stop, thank God. She gathers her things together, and buttons up her coat under her chin. The man who leaned on her shoulder is gone, but the tram is still packed. Where do they all come from, she
wonders, and where do they go? We know nothing of one another’s lives.
The Maslovs have a spacious first-floor apartment. There is a lift, but she doesn’t take it. The stairs are clean and there is no smell of cabbage. Perhaps, in apartments like these, they never eat it. Their front door is as she remembered it, beautifully painted and with the Maslov name engraved in flowing letters on a brass plate. Such confidence and permanence!
Anna rings the bell. After a few moments it is opened by a young woman in a white blouse and black skirt. Anna recalls that it was this same young woman who took their coats when she and Andrei visited, and who later served them drinks. She must work for the Maslovs full time.
‘Good evening,’ says Anna. ‘Is Professor Maslov at home? I’d like to speak to him.’
The woman frowns slightly. ‘Are they expecting you?’
‘No, it’s just – just an informal visit.’
‘What name shall I give?’
‘Anna Levina. Professor Maslov knows me from the hospital.’
‘Excuse me a moment.’
Anna waits in the hall. She can hear voices from the living room. Perhaps the Maslovs have guests. That would be awkward; she’d have to leave immediately. But a moment later the young woman comes back, followed by Professor Maslov, who wears an expression of genial readiness mingled with slight annoyance at the interruption. As soon as he sees Anna, his face changes. The young woman nods, and disappears through a door into the back of the apartment.
‘But – but you are Alekseyev’s wife!’
‘Yes.’
‘You gave a different name.’
‘I kept my own name.’
‘I see. I see. I was confused, that’s all.’ He rubs his hands together. ‘So what can I do for you?’
She looks at him in amazement. Surely he must have heard about Andrei’s arrest? She is sure the whole hospital will know about it by now. But perhaps Maslov didn’t go to work today, for some reason. ‘Andrei was arrested this morning,’ she says.
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