“Any improvement?” Sandra asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“Oh, yeah,” the nurse said optimistically. “He’s doing okay. A few minutes ago he sneezed.”
Good grief, Sandra thought but didn’t say. The patient’s having a sneeze was such a pathetic indication that Carl was doing okay. At the same time she understood that a sneeze was a positive sign, as it meant that at least the brain stem was functioning. She glanced up at the monitor. The temperature was elevated, as it had been that morning, but everything else was normal. She then left the cubicle and headed over to the central desk. En route she noticed that Scarlett Morrison, Mark’s coma case, was gone, as her cubicle was occupied by a man named Charles Humphries.
The previous afternoon she had had a short conversation with the head nurse, Gwen Murphy, about Carl, and again Sandra sought her out. “Any change with Vandermeer?” she asked, a bit of hope against hope.
“Nope,” Gwen said. “But on the bright side he is very stable. And the infectious disease consult hasn’t found any infection to explain his elevated temperature. And the fever has come down a bit.”
Sandra looked over at the cubicle where Mark Pearlman’s case had been. “I see Scarlett Morrison is gone. Did she go out to the neuro floor?”
“Nope!” Gwen repeated. “They took her directly to the Shapiro Institute. To be honest, they don’t really have the equipment or the manpower out on the neuro floor to handle a long-term comatose patient. At the Shapiro they are specifically set up to do it.”
“Seems awfully quick,” Sandra said. “She was here only three days.”
“As stable as she was, she didn’t need to be here in the ICU,” Gwen said. “And it’s better for everyone, the patient included, and the hospital bean counters also like it. Keeping someone here in the neuro ICU is ten times more expensive than it is over there.”
“Ten times! Wow! I knew there was a difference but not that much. That’s quite a stimulus.”
“It sure is. We’re hoping Vandermeer goes, too.”
“Really?” Sandra said with dismay. “But he just got here. Maybe he is going to improve.” In her mind, sending a patient over to the Shapiro Institute meant “pulling the plug” on hope, even if hope was unrealistic.
Gwen shrugged. “Not according to the neuro residents. It’s their feeling that getting him over to the Shapiro sooner rather than later is indicated, and we surely could use the bed.”
Feeling more depressed leaving the neuro ICU than she had when she had arrived, Sandra went back to the main elevators. She squeezed into the next down car as she had run out of excuses for postponing a visit to Clinical Engineering. Although the elevator was jammed when she boarded, descending from the first floor to the basement she was the only person left. When the elevator doors opened, she paused for a moment. Then she shook her head, feeling embarrassed at her timidity. If she ran into Zotov, she would just ignore him. She thought she was acting like a teenager.
Sandra first passed the Pathology Department and the morgue, and then the Informational Technology Department, where the hospital’s servers could be seen in their air-conditioned isolation. Next to IT was the central security office, and Sandra caught a glimpse of the banks of monitors fed by cameras sprinkled all over the medical center.
As she walked, Sandra reflected on why Misha Zotov bothered her so much. He reminded her of her ex-husband, Adam Radic, in both looks and mannerisms. Both were darkly complected, tall, muscular but slender with intense, lidded eyes and heavy beards. Both were also fawning to the point of overdoing it. With Adam, time had proved it had been an elaborate act. Somehow she was certain it would be the same with Misha.
Initially, when Sandra had first met Adam at the very beginning of her residency, she had been quite taken by his flattery and attention. She also had found him exotically attractive and much more sophisticated than she, having traveled and studied around Europe. He had come to America from Serbia to do a surgical fellowship. Believing his declarations of love were sincere, Sandra had fallen in love with him. For a highly motivated doctor like herself, it helped that he was a recognized and talented surgeon.
Within less than a year after they had started dating, she and Adam were married. But after the marriage things quickly changed, especially once Adam got his green card. He became a tyrant and had beaten her severely several times. Thanks to her father’s intercession, Sandra got divorced, but not without suffering considerable trauma. For her, the issue of domestic violence had become a distinct reality.
Sandra pushed through the door into Clinical Engineering. It was a large room with service benches piled with a mixture of all manner of hospital apparatuses, from anesthesia machines to respirators. It was all neat and orderly, with tools on Peg-Boards. The noise level was moderate, with various power tools competing with a background of classical music. At a table against the back wall two men played chess.
As Sandra’s eyes swept the room she estimated that there were about fifteen people at work, all dressed in white coveralls. Most continued doing what they were doing. A few looked up. Most of them resembled Misha Zotov. There were a few blond men, but they were a distinct minority. There were no women.
To Sandra’s mild dismay, Misha Zotov was one of those who looked up, as he was at the closest service bench, working on an anesthesia machine. She caught an expression of recognition on his face, and to her chagrin he immediately put down the tool he was using, stood, and started toward her.
Sandra’s eyes quickly scanned the room again, this time looking for Fyodor Rozovsky, the department supervisor. She had met him on her previous visit. It had been he who had answered her service-related question. Unfortunately he was nowhere to be seen.
“Ah, Dr. Wykoff,” Misha said, crowding her space. It sounded as if his English had improved, but he still spoke with a distinctive Russian accent. “You look beautiful. How can I help you?”
“Where is Fyodor Rozovsky?” Sandra asked. She took a step back, avoiding eye contact with the man. By inappropriately and presumably insincerely referring to her appearance, she could tell he had not mended his ways. She wanted nothing to do with the man. She glanced around the room yet again.
“He is in his office,” Misha said. “Please! I could get him for you. No trouble at all.”
“Thank you, but I’ll find him myself,” Sandra said curtly, and headed off. The office was in the back. Unfortunately Misha did not get the message and tagged along, continuing to try to engage her in conversation. Whether she answered or not didn’t make a difference. He was carrying on about the weather and how beautiful it was in Charleston with all the flowers and how bad it was in his hometown in Russia this time of the year. His English vocabulary had definitely expanded.
Sandra didn’t respond. It was amazing how much the man reminded her of Adam Radic, and the memory made her skin crawl. When she got to the door to the office, Misha was still behind her. The fact that she was ignoring him had no effect on him whatsoever. He was again suggesting they have a drink together at his favorite bar on the rooftop of the Vendue Inn, saying it was a great place to watch the sunset over the Charleston skyline. Sandra knew of the bar. It had been one of Adam’s favorite hangouts, but without her.
Sandra went into Rozovsky’s office. Without breaking a step, Misha accompanied her. Inside the office were a small service bench and several desks. One was occupied by the Clinical Engineering supervisor, and the others were empty.