“Is she going to die?” Nurse Verochka asked me.
“She is,” I replied with an unconcealed anger. Why was she so nosy? What did she have to do with it? She saw the patient only once. The drips were put by Tatiana Sergeyevna, the head nurse. I had her do it… There was no chance. The illness had deteriorated too much…
Today, everything annoyed me. Verochka, with her silly round face, made-up pink and blue all over. The sluggish Tatiana Sergeyevna, with her old blotchy hands. The white ceiling, the walls, the syringes, the scalpels – all the metal instruments that clattered in their cases. And most of all, I hated this girl, who was dying in my ward…
From the very first moment she had been arousing quite weird, ambiguous feelings in me – a desire to slap this naïve child-like face and snuggle it, at the same time. I was a surgeon oncologist, and I had never experienced anything like that for the eight years of my work in the clinic. I was used to death, so I was not surprised that a twenty-six-year-old girl had uterus cancer. A lot of people died young nowadays. We would all die one day.
The operation was useless, as well as the chemotherapy. But I didn’t discharge her; I left her in my ward for some reason instead. I wanted her to live – a ridiculous thought – but I was haunted by the idea that it was here, under my supervision, that she had a chance to survive. I did’t believe in mysticism or the miracle of healing. They were so rare that we, doctors, were inclined to attribute them to the initially wrong diagnosis. But for the first time in my life, the inner voice whispered, rustled in me like the wind in the leaves – you… you will save her… saaave… heeeerrr…
I knew the subconscious could play tricks on us. We often couldn’t understand our own motives. I was ready to accept any supposition – my patient was beautiful. It was exactly my kind of beauty – the pure naivety and helplessness of her being. It occurred so seldom. One couldn’t act out. Only once had I seen a girl so surprisingly similar to her…
My friend and I had dropped in at a restaurant for a glass of wine. I had had a long operation, my head was clogged, but somehow I had recently developed distaste for vodka. What a pleasant surprise had been awaiting us – the owner of the restaurant had made a special treat for his customers – a striptease act. The previously sleepy banquet hall, with drinking lonesome women and bunches of cheerlessly chewing men, had come to life strangely. Back then, striptease had been a new wonder. The deafening music had begun to boom all of a sudden. They had been sharp, tearing sounds, resembling the drum beat. To the centre of the small stage, a pretty little thing had flitted out, a graceful young girl in white micro-panties. Her breasts had been covered with two small feathery rounds, joined together with a silvery chain. Never had I seen a slimmer or a more graceful body. Despite her young age, she had danced quite professionally; the audience had held their breath, mesmerized. Her only setting had been an ordinary chair. But what only had she not done with it! Her slender white legs had flung high into the air; oh man, hadn’t she been delightful! I couldn’t take my eyes off her perfect spine-line, her hips… Everyone had given a gasp as the last feathery shred had fallen down. I had wondered how much effort it had taken to the angels in heaven to create such an incredible perfection! There had seemed nothing to marvel at – she had been so small-shaped, but so petite, so pleasantly rounded, so softly curved, ideally proportioned, with childlike charm and shameless naivety! My heart had been craving for her, yet anxious about her disgrace, her intangibly revealing the probable sinfulness through some vulgar gesture or countenance… But it had almost been a miracle – sitting on the chair right in front of me, with her lovely legs high above her head, she had been opening them astride, quickly and gracefully, like the wings of a butterfly – one, two, three… My heart had been pounding, my forehead had been filmed with perspiration… How wonderful this creamy-pink shameful burgeon had been, with its light bloom, the flutter of her long eyelashes, the small parted lips, as if whispering to me, “Yes, I do know I’m charming. So what? What shall I do? I have to dance, so I’m dancing naked in front of you…”
She had been twisting like a pearly snake, slipping through the back of the chair, all the parts of her fragile body exposed to me every moment, I could see even the two tiny birthmarks on her wonderfully molded buttocks… this young beauty had aroused so much feeling – passion, admiration, a wish to protect her, to subdue her, to hide from everyone, to keep for oneself… There had been no end to that wonderful vision, but the thousands of the shameful movement could not saturate my eyes! She had been an image from a different world, or some childhood reminiscence, in which fairies had been flying in their transparent pink frocks among fragrant roses…
Through the window, I had watched her leaving the restaurant. Now she had seemed tall and almost adult – in her white fox coat, with her two bodyguards. The last glimpse had been that of her chiseled leg in a tight-fitting glossy leather boot, vanishing in the expensive car…
Examining my patient, Olya, feeling every bone and curve of her fragile body, I was surprised at her similarity to that long forgotten image of the striptease dancer – they might as well be of the same age. Forgetting where and what I was, I made her turn onto her stomach, as if it was necessary for further examination, and devouringly slid my hand over the perfect colour of her satiny skin, looking for the birthmarks… Olya was probably embarrassed and ashamed, but she silently endured it…
What did I have to do with her? She had only three more months to go, at most. At night, I was sitting in the staff lounge wide awake. How could I help her? It was sheer lunacy… “You know…” whispered some unctuous voice inside me. “Go to her… go…” Might I really be able to do something for her? But what? I had read a lot on this disease; it was mentioned somewhere that it was caused by an implicit aggression, an unexpressed fury – but I was incredulous about it. I was an ordinary surgeon, who cut out unwanted tissue.
I behaved quite weirdly for a calm and even phlegmatic person I used to be – I hadn’t discharged Olya, I hadn’t told her the diagnosis, I hadn’t informed the relatives. I had discharged two women from the ward, who I might have kept for another week or two. I had become quick-tempered and irritable, I had lost my sleep. A few times, I had lectured my patients unreasonably – I had been losing my balance. I kept being nasty to Verochka because of some trifles, straining my voice to an ugly shrill, revolting even to myself, which I would repent immediately; but nothing could stop me, from now onwards I was turning into a raging bull, blind with wrath. Even a whiff of recollection of that lithe, chiseled body, made my hands itch as if they were growing bristles, blood boiled in my veins, making them bulge angrily, my eyes turned horrifyingly blood-shot as if made ablaze with scarlet fire. I seemed to myself to be a severed and bleeding bundle of nerves, which kept twitching and leaving a bloody smear… I was afraid of myself. I dreaded that during one of such feats of mine I would go for someone’s jugular, I imagined my hands, covered with ginger bristles, clasped over a long pale throat…
All my senses sharpened and attacked me together – during the operation I suddenly began to suffocate from the warm and salty odour of blood, which was everywhere around, it exuded from under the ominously sparkling scalpel, it splashed the mask of my assistant, the gauze in the basin, the rubber gloves, it even seemed to ooze from my heart… Everything that was sacred to me – the love for my mother and my sister; my childhood, filled with silvery radiance and affection, with golden fairy-tales and dreams – faded away irrevocably like a flake of snow that flew into the red-hot magma…
If this passion had been nestling in the essence of my being all along, what on earth made it break out now?
Making my everyday rounds, I had to touch her willy-nilly, my hot fingers barely brushing her pale nipples – when I listened to her heartbeat – and freely wandering – when I felt her abdomen and lower, where hid the tumour, which was wasting her life. I felt giddy as, with almost condescendingly cold countenance, I would pull the tight elastic of her white panties with my inflamed fingers, touching her soft dark pubic hair. Her thighs would tighten and quiver because of my resolute and audacious intrusion, she would cover her naked breasts with her thin hands…
Once I passed by her room at two a.m., persuading myself that I needed to stretch my legs. Her door was ajar and some irresistible force drew me inside. Olya was either awake or just dozing, because she started to life like a startled bird as she saw me.
“Not sleeping?” I asked in a husky voice that threatened to turn into a strangled whisper. She nodded, more frightened than affirmatively.
“I’ll put you a drip, you’ll fall asleep right away…” My heart pounded violently in the night like a horrifying inhuman church bell. She sighed in response, pulling her blanket up almost to her lips…
I tried to inject the escaping blue vein with my icy fingers – I didn’t remember when and where I had sent the nurse on duty. I probably snuck noiselessly like an animal, with that clumsy iron stick and a bottle of sedative…
I watched greedily her spirit plunge into dusky sleep, anxious lest my trap should be reliable enough. Her breathing became more regular, her soft lips parted a little… she sighed faintly… Trembling with impatience, ignoring the sweat that was dripping from my forehead, containing myself with a demoniac effort, I pulled the sheet off her…
I slipped back to my hole like a despicable slithery worm, but I was not afraid. Now the gates of Heaven were shut for me forever, my last thin hope was smoking, scorched; but my lust didn’t lessen at all, I was burning in hell. I didn’t seek for salvation any longer. Wasn’t I a lion craving for its prey? The only concern of my feral mind was to cling to her breast as soon as possible…
I became sly and watchful. My whole life narrowed down to the twilight of the sleepy hall, along which a lonely figure was sneaking quietly, my own figure, which seemed to me exposed from every angle. My flesh seemed to shrivel up and turn into a taut string of insatiable fire, my tongue clung to the larynx… she was mine, mine, mine…
I enslaved her, tamed her to submit to my uncontrollable lust; biting her parched lips, she quivered under me like a bird with broken wings. Her wide-open eyes brimmed with terror – they seemed to continuously flash black sparks of horror at me, which were flooding the room… Her breathing was almost imperceptible, she seemed dead at times. Terror-stricken, I sometimes saw her tear-stained face, distorted with torment. But compassion didn’t have time to reach my heart as I cast a glance at her secluded nest of moist hair, her obedient knees, her long dove-like neck – I was losing my mind… I shuddered in wild convulsions of joy that pierced my body! I couldn’t tear myself away from her until dawn, when the first sunrays began to plead for her release. Like a rejected dog, I drank icy water, which failed to quench my vile lust…
One night I returned barefoot from her, and this was the first time I got frightened for my fate. But even then, I wasn’t afraid of losing my position or of my insanity – I dreaded to part with her. I became even more cautious, but I also became aware of the fact that the more prudent I was in my external life without Olya, the more licentious I was with her, in that enclosed space, in which I was her lord and master. I would enter her room, close the door, and immediately expose myself with my hands, which trembled with excitement. She would shudder, get herself into a fetus position, trying to hide in the corner of the bed, but my heart would thrill with heavenly delight as I tore the blanket away from her… I pounded my chest with my enormous hairy paws and threw them up as I roared victoriously… More and more, I longed for making her completely humiliated and horrified. Why did I want that? I didn’t know why, but this feeling kept haunting me. I wanted her to become rebellious, to display her rage, to hit me, to scratch my face with her nails!
Not at all did my lust subside because of her natural tendency to please, her excessive obedience or her awe of me – on the contrary, together with her dazzling beauty, this was the fuel for my overwhelming lust and the need of her. Suppressed by my power and my hard maleness, tears streaming down her cheeks, she almost instinctively knew what I wanted and made herself a martyr to my raving desires…
Like a hungry child, who had eaten all the ripe cherries from the tree, but suddenly spotting a couple of berries on the top of it, wanted to pick them up, even at the expense of the scratched and bleeding arms, I made her – though she was weeping and begging on her knees – do all those shameful and sinful things, making true my every vicious fantasy, regardless of her sobs and despair…
I wanted her to hit me, for her own sake. Hugging her tightly, crashing her fragile bones and soul, concentrating all my power in my whisper, looking into her thrown back face, again and again, in vain, I tortured her with the question – Who do you hate in me? Who?
I asked myself other questions though, but I equally failed to get the answers to them. When would I be handcuffed and arrested? What would I be sentenced to – imprisonment or mental asylum?
But despite my insanity, the inner observer, who had been controlling my every move, weak and emaciated as he was now, was still there. Otherwise, how I would have known that I had bought two pairs of glasses – one of them was dark sunshades, the other was with lenses for short-sightedness. I had bought myself some clothes which I would have never ever bought before – a cap with a large peak and an anorak with a comfortably disguising hood… Though I used to welcome chilly weather, I had acquired a habit of carefully wrapping myself up in various fluffy scarves and had even got myself an overcoat with a fur collar. Strange as it might seem, my hand didn’t tremble even during the most delicate operations; on the contrary, it became firm like steel. I was sure that everyone in hospital was in the know of the affair and was conspiring against me, waiting for a more convenient chance to capture and neutralize me.
I was aware that I avoided asking her questions about her family or why nobody visited her. It seemed to me that those questions might blow up the door into her unknown world, from which some alien and hostile people would gush out and take her away from me.
I wish I could erase that day from my mind, cut it out like a piece of decaying tissue. And in the teeth of death, I would cry for and rejoice at it until my last breath!
Her terrifying cry, her wail pealed along the empty hall, and all the flowers in the hospital withered. I caused too much of ordeal to her slimsy pride. What only hadn’t my frenzied mind made her do! Did my soul really find pleasure and satisfaction of her quivering body? When would my body sate and sooth at last? The lines of words would scorch and reduce to ashes if I ever take up the pen to write them down! I almost killed her; she lay at my feet like a withered flower, saturated with death. She seemed to be enveloped in sepulchral mist, my nostrils felt the sweetish putrid smell of her grief.
Without any hope of an answer, I asked her in a small voice:
“Who do you hate in me? Tell me! You are going to die soon, you know!”
And she began to rise like a tattered lily, closer and closer, as if tearing through the dense air – this was like a miracle – I didn’t help her a bit. There she stood, in front of me, as if resurrected, her cheeks crimson, her eyes ablaze with hatred. Never had she been as marvelously beautiful as in this glow of rage! Her eyes were glittering and shimmering with greenish-blue sparks, like gems in the setting of her black lashes! Her hair was tousled over her shoulders in dark waves… With an unfamiliar smirk, she slapped me hard in the face – there was so much force in this outburst! My lips burnt, I could tasted blood in my mouth, but no sooner had I breathed out than she pounced on me like a kite, lashing me with her wings, tearing into my flesh with her talons, digging her teeth into me. I offered just as much resistance as not to harm her, marveling at her unexpected strength. There passed quite a long time before she finally subsided, I caught her in my arms and cuddled and soothed her like mother. And believe me, she coerced me into taking her again – or did it only seem to me? I could clearly hear the voluptuous moan in the impenetrable jungle of her desire – or did it only seem to me? Her feminine body blossomed with new verdure, her intoxicating fragrance clouded the room – or did it only seem to me?
Never in my entire life – neither before nor afterwards – had I cried so hard as I did then, alone, tête-à-tête with myself. I couldn’t even understand the nature of my tears – but this was not the point. Something was happening to me, turning my whole life upside down, ruining all my values… I was getting rid of my hatred towards my father, which had been incinerating my heart for many years, of the haunting nightmares of my early childhood when he used to instill my masculinity by suddenly knocking out a stool from under me…
Some time later, I suddenly switched back to life on hearing her surname. I raised my head and looked around – there was a staff concilium going on, everyone present were examining her X-rays in surprise, her tumour reduced considerably, the metastasis resolved. Everyone was confused, I myself was thunderstruck. My poor reasoning was surging back, and only now did I realize how the proximity of her loss tortured my heart.
But I hoped in vain after all. I failed to rescue her. She was almost recovering. She was bound to survive! Her young body fiercely struggled for life, squeezing out the lethal tentacles of cancer. Every day heralded a breakthrough to salvation, my Olya was resuscitating step by step like an eager sprout out of the dry soil! Now her every day shined like precious pearls, while every sunset cancelled the sepulcher dampness of my despair. But the kidneys failed to cope with the chemo poisoning of her organism. She died in my arms.
I would give anything to know what she felt at the moment. What was she thinking about when leaving this world? Had I been doing all this for her sake? Or was it only an illusion? We’re usually concerned only about ourselves. Why was I doing this? If there was the other world, in case I found myself there, the first thing would be to ask her. But what about?
Passion equally destroys everyone – the guilty and the innocent. I found myself in its claws, so did it really matter why it had happened? I needed to break away from its grip – but how? Maybe it didn’t matter how… the point was to break away…
This passion tormented and tortured me even in my sleep, burning me from the inside. It was she – with her white legs looming in the dark, with her mournful curls of dark hair – who aroused my desire… What incredible strength there was in her weakness!
And even if I kneeled down to appeal to all the saints in the world, they could hardly be able to help me.
Wasn’t she a mere shadow, a mournful shell of cold marble, which I had filled with my ardour, with my ruby embers from the hearth of my passion?
Didn’t I cover her icy feet with my hot kisses? Didn’t I cuddle her dependent body after the unbridled lust? Didn’t I recognize the unspent tenderness in her involuntary gestures, which revived my ability to love? Weren’t my words, bursting out because of my inconsolable grief and rising against me, truthful?
/translated by Elena Sturova/
