Rock, Paper, Scissors

by Maxim Osipov

Alya almost never cries—she doesn’t really have much to cry about—but when she does, her forehead breaks out in red blotches. And even so she is beautiful, with her slender figure and long fingers, everything about her—her mouth, her eyes—elongated. Her hair is light, golden; her friends envy her her hair. Tamerlan says it’s a shame there isn’t a single photo of her as a child in the house; all they have are school photos, official ones, and in those, no one looks like themselves.

  Their home (or half home—it has only two rooms), her school, the snatches of countryside that form the backdrop to the local tarmac and chimney stacks: as a schoolgirl Alya has never seen any other landscape. Not far from her school, there is a lone, abandoned monument: Karl Liebknecht, Knight of the World Revolution. His statue is stooping, with round glasses and a small head, and Alya finds it appealing, somehow. She sometimes comes out here just to stand beside it for a while. But then she discovers that Knecht doesn’t mean knight, but slave, servant—and not even one of the revolution. She tells her friends about her discovery; they laugh: God, what rubbish her head is filled with! They already have admirers, suitors—boys, in a word—whereas Alya goes straight home after school, or, if she takes a detour along the way, she does it alone: she has no close friends. The girls tease her, tell her to wait for her Karl. So be it: she’s bored of her peers. All they know is drinking beer and swearing.

  How did she end up in the police force? A vacancy came up, and Uncle Zhenya had stopped earning by then—they were both living solely off the benefits Alya received as an orphan, and even those were to end when she turned eighteen. Besides, the uniform—a dark blue skirt and a light blue blouse—had caught Alya’s eye. The police clerk’s tasks are limited: just sit and type out some columns of figures, then you can carry on reading. Her desk is by the window, the sun is shining, a hair falls down onto the page; she picks it up, pulls at it . . .

  Why didn’t she leave town after finishing school, Tamerlan asks—was it the money? No—how could she have left Uncle Zhenya? Besides, she had never been anywhere else, other than into the city, and there everything’s just the same as it is in their town, only bigger, with lots of cars. Plus: If she’d left, how would she have met Tamerlan? Alya knows this is why he asked the question.

  •

  Tall, thin, and stooping, he had appeared at the police station during the May holidays, his arm wrapped in a bandage. It was clearly causing him a lot of pain: he kept wincing, touching his bandage, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He said that he wanted to file a complaint; he had a hospital certificate to support his case.

  “Who did that?”

  “Oberemok,” Tamerlan replied, “Alexander Yurievich Oberemok.”

  By this point he was no longer speaking to just the officer on duty: the others had overheard and sidled over, and Alya had snapped her book shut. Everyone knew who Alexander Yurievich was.

  “But why?”

  It emerged that Tamerlan had refused to take Oberemok’s cash and destroy the mill’s machines—not only that; he had tried to prevent others from doing so too. He asked the officers to initiate proceedings, on whichever article they saw most fit.

  The police were not aware of the particulars of the vandalism at the mill, but a complaint against Alexander Yurievich? That, of course, was something quite out of the ordinary. The young man had, presumably, been drinking over the holidays? There was normally a spike in accidents then. No, Tamerlan didn’t drink. He had expected such questions, so he had had the doctors test him for that, too. Another certificate. His trousers were torn, grubby. He was a pitiful sight.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to rethink this? This is the director of the mill—your boss. After something like this . . .”

  “Just take my statement—it’s your job.”

  “Fine, if that’s what you want. Go on, write.”

  But Tamerlan couldn’t write: his arm was either dislocated or broken. He was left-handed.

  “Come here,” Alya said, “I’ll write for you.”

  And that’s how they met. Then Alya took him home and mended his trousers. Uncle Zhenya came home late that night, and he was in no state to be asking questions. By the end of the May holidays, they had given notice at the local registry office; Alya did the writing this time too. As they waited for the wedding, Tamerlan’s arm healed, and, for reasons already explained, no one was able to pursue the first complaint Alya had made on his behalf. Their wedding was a modest one, quiet; Tamerlan had no relatives in town. Everyone shouted “Gorko!” and Tamerlan kissed the bride.

  What surprised Alya the most: Tamerlan had no tattoos. Alya had seen very few men undressed, but Uncle Zhenya, for example, had an eagle on his chest, his blood type, various other things.

  “What, did you think we’re born with tattoos?” Tamerlan mocks her.

  Also: he doesn’t drink vodka—no vodka, no wine, no nothing. Not that he’s a particularly religious man; that’s just how he was raised. He confesses: there was one time when he did drink—a lot—but the morning after was terrible. His neighbor had been selling his car, a Volga Universal, a pickup (Alya doesn’t know about cars). The car had caught Tamerlan’s eye, but he had no money, so the neighbor made a proposal: “Have a drink with me, and I’ll give it to you half price.” He was desperate to get a Tatar drunk. But he also kept his word. Having the car has been a big help to them, especially now that there’s no work at the mill. Tamerlan uses it as a taxi, and to transport various goods to shops. He transports whatever he’s given; he never turns down a thing.

  They live with Uncle Zhenya, have done so for the past year and a half. He has started getting money from the job center—more, even, than what he was earning towards the end of his time at the mill. Every evening Tamerlan meets Alya at the police station. They have plans: to build something; buy soft furnishings; go away somewhere. Neither of them has ever seen the sea, and they want things—all sorts of things, things Alya hadn’t even thought to dream of. But neither soft furnishings nor the Black Sea preoccupy her a great deal: everything will come in its own time. After all, she’s met her Liebknecht, without even having to seek him out, or wait so very long. And then she gets pregnant.

  Alya, strangely, never gave this possibility much thought, while for his part Tamerlan had probably started to want children—he was already thirty. In any case, this isn’t something they had discussed. But watching Alya’s stomach transform, touching it—that turns out to be even more exciting than dreaming of any old sea. The same goes for choosing names. They haven’t sought any advice from the hospital; Alya went there once, for an ultrasound, but they told her something she didn’t understand. So she asked them not to say whether it was a girl or a boy—she didn’t want to find out yet. Pregnant women often have their own little quirks. And so time passes, right up until around the sixth month, when Alya’s arms, legs, and face start to swell, and Tamerlan takes her into the city to see a doctor, and she is hospitalized to protect the pregnancy. Alya speaks of it as the worst experience of her life.

  First of all, they riddled her arms with needles—to insert the drip—which is fine, Alya would have been able to bear that, but for some reason they took her clothes and, more importantly, her phone: the chief physician was against pregnant women using mobile phones—something to do with signals, some sort of waves—whatever it was, Alya didn’t understand. And no visitors were allowed, either: they were all concerned about infections. Alya sat on her bed and cried; she had never cried so much in all her life, and then she decided to speak to the chief physician. The old man was sitting in his office, scary, bald, tanned . . .

  As Alya tells him her story, Tamerlan hugs her, kisses her forehead and her eyes.

  . . . tanned, like completely brown. And all around her, his whole office was plastered in huge religious icons, red and gold—she had never seen so many in one place before. Not to mention certificates, gold and silver as well. She speaks to the guy in a normal voice, so that he can see she’s not crazy, that
she just wants to go home, that she needs her things and her phone. And he tells her she won’t get anything; she’ll have to lie there for twelve to fourteen days. That’s their system. And when she does eventually cry, he laughs and tells her to take it up with the police. But then she remembers that she is the police, and then they give her her things and her phone, and they promise to send her her medical certificate and discharge notes, and she takes the bus home because she doesn’t want to wait the hour and a half that it’ll take for Tamerlan to come and collect her. Besides, he probably has his own things to do.

  There are many other things that she doesn’t tell Tamerlan, things that happened to her when he wasn’t there. Life goes on for another five or six weeks, and these aren’t bad times, but she has already started to feel quite unwell. And then she suddenly goes into labor, which is also unexpected; they thought she still had one month to go.

  And so an ambulance takes Alya on ahead, and Tamerlan follows behind in the Volga, and when they wheel her out of the vehicle he’s able to catch a glimpse of her. She is looking at him—the look of a shortsighted person who has suddenly dropped her glasses. But Alya has never been shortsighted.

  • • •

  We already know what follows. A girl is born. Alya Ovsiannikova’s condition is critical, but stable. Viktor Mikhailovich has calculated that this is how she will remain for five more weeks, although he himself has his doubts: it’s difficult to keep a person alive on a ventilator, and it’s also impossible for over a month to go by without a single power cut hitting the hospital.

  So life, for the moment, goes on. Uncle Zhenya wanders around, pestering his boys: “Buddy, got smokes?”

  They never refuse him.

  “Uncle Zhenya, tell us about those missiles you set up in Poland . . .” But most of them know the situation he’s in, and simply hand over the cigarettes.

  In the evenings Tamerlan cooks food for himself and for Zhenya, and every morning he sets off on his one-and-a-half-hour journey into the city, to the children’s ward (they don’t take inquiries over the phone). By three or four p.m. he heads back to Alya, or, more precisely, to the doctor: Doesn’t she need any medicine? How’s she doing?

  Viktor Mikhailovich is hurt by Tamerlan’s constant questions. Hasn’t he already explained it all? Nothing is needed. And even if it were, there are directives: relatives cannot buy medicines or care products for patients. Her condition is stable.

  Today is a short day, a Friday. When Viktor Mikhailovich heads home at the end of the working day, Tamerlan is waiting for him in the street.

  “How’s Alya? Is there any hope?”

  Viktor Mikhailovich gets into his car, sits sideways, shakes the snow off his boots, and then turns to face forwards in the seat: “There’s always hope,” he says. “As long as one’s living, there’s always hope.”

  September 2013

  Translated by Alex Fleming

  AFTER ETERNITY

  The Notes of a Literary Director

  MY RECALL for faces is dreadful, and I have a difficult time committing my patients to memory. I can hardly remember anyone after their first visit, especially if they just came in for a checkup or, worse, to get my name on some paperwork: a referral to a health resort, say, or a letter to the Medical-Labor Expert Commission recommending disability benefits. The latter I refuse ruthlessly: show any sign of yielding and you’ll get a stack of requests under the door. Medicine is serious work; we aren’t in the hospitality trade, thank you very much. As for all your Expert Commissions, they’re rotten to the core. Don’t you know how to pay a bribe? And anyway, that’s none of my business.

  That said, I didn’t chase away Alexander Ivanovich Ivlev, the author of the notes you’ll soon be reading. He made an impression on me from the start. He approached me in the corridor and addressed me either as “Doctor” or by my first name and patronymic, but there was so much dignity in his tone, and so little insolence—an exceedingly rare combination in our neck of the woods. I asked him into my office.

  There was something out of the ordinary in the old man’s appearance, in his frame, his bearing, the way he walked—something birdlike. A straight back, fine, long fingers, light eyes—almost colorless, not watery but transparent—and a large, pointed nose. But no, there wasn’t anything remotely demonic about Alexander Ivanovich. On the contrary, he seemed boyish and cheerful, quick to smile, capable of having a pleasant conversation that didn’t devolve into hysterics, as so often happens in hospitals—my colleagues will know what I mean. And he was dressed well, better than the average patient, with, as it turned out, artistic taste. But I won’t go into who was wearing what; that’s well beyond my powers of recall.

  I sat him down in front of me and leafed through his paperwork.

  “How are you holding up, Alexander Ivanovich?”

  “In keeping with my age and social status.” Quite a response.

  He had once been the literary director of a theater. Our town had no theater (“thank God,” he said), besides which, Alexander Ivanovich had retired long ago. He was compelled to turn to me for a sad reason: to fill out an application to a home for the elderly and disabled.

  “For veterans. We call ourselves veterans—I’m not sure of what, exactly. Do forgive my distracting you.”

  What kind of counterindications can there be for what is really a poorhouse, however you choose to call it? Just sign the paper, stamp it, and send him on his way. But I decided to examine him first. I wanted to do something nice for this charming man, and what’s the nicest thing a doctor can do?

  The nurse helped him onto the examination table. It was only then that I noticed that physical exertion was difficult for Alexander Ivanovich.

  I’ll let you in on a secret: we experience a thrill, almost a pleasure, upon encountering a serious, rare illness, especially if we’re the first to diagnose it, if it’s curable, or if it’s not directly related to our speciality. This affords us a chance to demonstrate our powers of observation, the breadth of our knowledge. In the case of poor Alexander Ivanovich, however, I experienced no thrill. It’s not that he was in perfect health (he wasn’t, not at all), but that, during our brief acquaintance, I had come to like the old man. And to diagnose someone you know and like with an illness, even a curable one—no, that’s no source of pleasure. And how was a lonely, elderly pensioner to cope with our system of so-called high-tech care? After all, it wasn’t a happy family life and prosperity that had inspired him to move into a home for the elderly, whom he so kindly calls veterans.

  Needless to say, I’ll skip over the medical particulars of the story.

  “An operation. Well, if that’s what the doctor orders . . .” Alexander Ivanovich took the news of his diagnosis with unusual equanimity. “How long do you think I’ve got left without it?”

  A year, I told him. A year. And not a good year. We need air more than we need food and water.

  I know how to persuade people. Some even consider me a tyrant. That’s putting it a bit strongly—it all depends on one’s motives, doesn’t it? But Alexander Ivanovich wasn’t hard to persuade. And so: it’s off to Moscow (here’s the address), having phoned ahead of time (I’ll give him the number), to obtain an opinion from the professor who’ll perform the operation, then back to the regional office for a fee waiver, and if they don’t give it straightaway, call me immediately—the number is right here, on the paperwork. “You’ll find the word prosecutor is very helpful at the regional office. Will you remember?” A hesitant nod. Then, in a month or a month and a half, two at most, he’ll receive a summons. When the surgery’s done, come back and I’ll take care of you.

  To be frank, this process doesn’t always work, especially for the elderly, but we’ve also had some success. We have to try. We bid each other a rushed, awkward farewell. I don’t believe I even held out my hand: there was another patient waiting.

  In the evening, as I was tidying up, I found a notebook wrapped in plastic. It had Alexander Ivanovich’s
name on it. Appeared to be something personal. Should I call? The nurse says he doesn’t have a phone, neither a landline nor a cell. Oh, well—he’s bound to remember, and when he does, he’ll come for it. I slipped it into the desk drawer where I keep all sorts of odds and ends.

  •

  It may well be that I’m now investing my impressions of Alexander Ivanovich’s manners and appearance with what I learned from his—whatever you want to call it—narrative, notes. I may be filling things in, fleshing them out, but back then, he was a patient like any other. Pleasant enough. Our business is to cure illnesses, earn a living, worry about our families. Let’s not idealize the profession: yes, it’s a good one, possibly the best, but it’s still a profession—it has its boundaries. We must play as small a role as possible in the lives of our patients. Still, some weeks later I remembered: How’s Alexander Ivanovich getting on? Was he admitted? Operated on? I telephoned Moscow: How’s our old man doing? Apparently he never showed up. Or maybe he had, but they simply didn’t notice, maybe neither the seriousness of his condition nor his personality had made an impression.

  “A shabby old fellow?”

  No, neat, well preserved. And not all that old, either.

  “We had someone come up from your parts. A woman.”

  They seem to keep no records, no notes. It’s true, I had sent a woman up. I might as well find out how she’s doing.

  “All right then,” they say, “send us your old man.”

  Calling the regional office is pointless, not to mention unpleasant. I asked the nurse to do it. “We can’t be of help”—QED Alexander Ivanovich wasn’t at the home for the elderly. No one had called him an ambulance. He hadn’t passed through our morgue.

  All right, he didn’t have a phone, but we had his address. Ours is a small town. It may seem a bit extravagant to turn up at a patient’s door unbidden, but I drove out to see him anyway.

  •

  He didn’t have the house to himself; he shared it. There’s a man in the doorway. A typical local fellow, unmemorable. I say something quickly, not very distinctly, but with force, confidence. No one listens to the words you say. What matters is the tone.