‘Take it off. It’s good her granddaughter started buying those things: at first we got by with cloth diapers.’
I unfasten the diaper. I separate it from her flesh with a peeling sound. Smell. To be blunt, it is a strong stench. Well, and so what if there’s a stench? I inhaled and touched just about everything on Solovki. The only person close to me is lying in front of me and if that person’s condition is like this, it must be taken for what it is. It is happiness that the person is here and held on until my return to life. I ball up the diaper and place it neatly on the floor.
‘Now take the bedpan out from under the bed and put it on the oilcloth. Lift the old woman by her lower back and put her rear end on the bedpan.’ Katya stands and shuffles as she fumbles for her slippers. ‘Her granddaughter deals with it on her own. You’ll learn, too.’
Katya leaves the room for a minute and returns with a sponge and pitcher. The water in the pitcher is warm and – judging from the color – has manganese crystals in it. Oddly enough, Katya’s officer-like tone helps me: it does not allow me to ease up. I pour a little water with my left hand and wash Anastasia’s groin with my right. I cautiously guide the sponge.
‘Spread her legs wider, otherwise it won’t all get washed!’
Do not be silent, Katya, do not be silent: this would be impossible to do in quiet. A piece of feces floats into the bedpan under the flow of the water.
I wipe Anastasia with a towel. I wipe the oilcloth. I take out a disposable diaper and wash the bedpan. I am ordered to rub everything with lotion so there is no irritation. I press lotion out of the tube on my fingers and touch her groin. I feel my hand shaking. I so desired this flower at one time.
MONDAY
It is the last day of May; tomorrow will be summer. I am writing just after midnight: strictly speaking, it is already summer. I remembered something summery when I was going to see Anastasia in the afternoon.
I run into her by chance on the corner of Kamennoostrovsky and Bolshoy. Where are you going? Home. So am I. She and I walk along Bolshoy Prospect, the sun in our eyes. The clattering wooden soles of her shoes echoing. She is trying to step carefully: they clatter no matter what, they are those kind of shoes. At the corner of Ordinarnaya Street a droshky comes out of nowhere. At the last instant, I extend my arm and hold Anastasia back. Her bosom touches my arm. Something within me explodes: from the contact but even more from fear that she could fall under the droshky. On a sunny day. In a warm Baltic breeze. She would be lying on the pavement and the wind would rustle her dress. Legs awkwardly twisted, the worn wood of her soles visible. I had always been afraid for her: what if something suddenly happened to her, she being so ethereal and fragile? She turned out to be more unbreakable than I thought. Life had made her that way.
I ran into her granddaughter as I approached the door to the hospital room. I had noticed her on the stairs and realized who she was. I walked two paces behind her, my heart pounding like yesterday. Before I had got a good look at her I already knew there was a resemblance: the hair, the gait, it was all like Anastasia’s. I probably expected that, perhaps even hoped for it, it is just that she truly did resemble her when she turned around. By the door. After noticing me.
Are you Innokenty?’
I nodded. I was afraid my voice would fail me.
And I’m Anastasia, too, but I go by Nastya.’ She offered her hand to me. ‘As soon as I saw you on television, I knew right away that you’d come.’
She smiled. I realised I was still holding her hand. A cool hand. Thin, each bone making itself felt.
‘My doctor told me about Anastasia…’
‘I know. I’m the one who told your doctor.’ Her hand slipped out of mine. ‘I thought it would be important for you.’
Important… Her smile is like Anastasia’s. They say children become like their grandmothers and grandfathers, not their parents.
The stench in the room no longer hit the nose like yesterday. It had not lessened, it simply stopped making itself felt. As before, Anastasia was unconscious but even so, it seemed to me that she was better today than yesterday. Her eyes were open. There was no focus in her gaze – it moved aimlessly around the room – but it moved.
Nastya and I washed Anastasia’s hair. To begin, we took away the pillows and wrapped a towel around her neck so the water wouldn’t trickle. Then I brought a basin with warm water. We carefully placed it where the pillows had been and began washing. I held Anastasia’s head and Nastya squeezed shampoo on her hand and lathered the hair with massaging motions. Anastasia’s hair was short, almost like a buzz cut. This, along with the unblinking gaze, lent her a look of complete madness. When I poured water from the pitcher to wash off the rest of the shampoo, Anastasia blinked a few times but nothing in her gaze changed.
‘I remember her hair long,’ I said to Nastya for some reason.
‘They cut it at the hospital so it would be easier to wash.’
Then we washed her body with a sponge, placing the oilcloth and towels under her. Nastya cut her nails. Anastasia neither resisted nor participated.
‘My grandmother was basically fine just a few days ago,’ said Nastya. ‘Even here at the hospital. She managed to refuse to see you. But now, you can see yourself how…’
Nastya and I ran across some journalists as we left the room. I squinted from the many camera flashes.
‘What did you feel when you saw your sweetheart after so many decades?’
I squeezed my eyelids even tighter and did not unsqueeze them. That’s what I sometimes did as a child; that saved me from a lot. That is how I saw myself on the evening news.
TUESDAY
It rained this morning. The rain pelted against the panes, as if someone were pounding them with a directed stream. My apartment is on the corner and the wind came from one side, then the other. Lying in bed, I watched as the water flowed along the glass in thin, translucent waves. I rose out of curiosity when the waves began blinking in many colors. Down below were a police car and an accident. Right then I recalled another accident: two truck drivers, on this very spot, also in the rain. And I was standing by the window just like this – what year was that? Everything on this earth has already happened… I pressed my forehead to the glass. Two cars had bumped into each other. Not exactly hard: only the headlights were knocked out. And there were two people standing in the rain: wearing suits and neckties, all in one piece after the accident, cursing away to one another. Like the truck drivers, incidentally.
Geiger stopped by briefly, brought money. This was not the first time he brought me money and I keep not asking where it comes from. I would like to hope it is from the government, by way of compensation, or from the Duma there, from the president. I wonder, do they have a budget for thawing out the population? And the banknotes are just hilarious, small by comparison with before. Of course I will need to ask where they are from.
Nurse Angela came over: she washed the floors and gave me an injection. At my request, she no longer comes over every day, so it was good timing with the floors. The injection, though (so it seems to me), was made from pure meanness, because what is the sense of injections that are not made regularly? She simply jabbed me in the rear so I won’t get too arrogant. In the beginning, after all, I preferred that she not spend the nights here and then I asked that she come by less often: needless to say, she is offended. In what capacity did Geiger bring her to me? I wonder. She irritates me tremendously.
At one in the afternoon I called for a taxi. Nastya and I had agreed to meet at the hospital entrance today. At two, right after her classes end at the university. Nastya is a student in the economics department. In my view, that’s an unusual choice for a young woman, but life has changed, completely changed. How much do I know about this life to speak of what is unusual?