Cancer Ward (45 page)

“Seedlings have to sprout by themselves.” Dyomka hurried to get his word in. “If you plow seedlings over, they won't grow.”

“Yes, I know, but we're not talking about agriculture, my boy, are we? Telling the people the truth doesn't mean telling them the bad things, harping on our shortcomings. On the other hand, one may describe the good things quite fearlessly, so as to make them even better. Where does this false demand for so-called harsh truth come from? Why does truth suddenly have to be harsh? Why can't it be radiant, uplifting, optimistic? Our literature ought to be wholly festive. When you think about it, it's an insult to people to write gloomily about their life. They want life to be decorated and embellished.”

“I agree with that, generally speaking,” came a pleasant, clear voice from behind her. “True, why spread depression?”

Of course, the last thing Aviette needed was an ally. But she was confident of her luck—if anyone spoke up, it was always on her side. She turned toward the window, and the white zigzag flashed in the sunbeam. A young man of her own age with an expressive face was tapping the end of a black, fluted mechanical pencil against his teeth.

“What exactly is literature for?” He was thinking aloud, perhaps for Dyomka's benefit, or perhaps for Alla's. “Literature is to divert us when we're in a bad mood.”

“Literature is the teacher of life,” muttered Dyomka, blushing at the awkwardness of his remark.

Vadim tilted his head right back. “Teacher, my foot!” he said. “We manage somehow to sort our lives out all right without it. You're not implying that writers are any cleverer than us practical workers, are you?”

He and Alla exchanged glances: they recognized that they were two of a kind. Although they were the same age and could not help liking each other's looks, each was too firmly set on a definite path to see in a chance exchange of glances the beginning of an adventure.

“The role of literature in life is generally greatly exaggerated,” Vadim was arguing. “Books are sometimes praised to the skies when they don't deserve it. Take
Gargantua and Pantagruel
—if you hadn't read it you'd think it was something tremendous. But read it, and it turns out to be nothing but an obscenity and a waste of time.”

“Eroticism has its place in literature, even in books by contemporary writers,” said Aviette, objecting strongly. “It's not necessarily superfluous. Combined with really progressive ideological thinking, it adds a certain richness of flavor. For example, in…”

“It
is
superfluous,” Vadim retorted with conviction. “It's not the function of the printed word to tickle the passions. Stimulants can be bought at the pharmacist's.”

Without giving the Amazon in the claret-colored sweater another glance or waiting for her to convince him to the contrary, he lowered his eyes to his book.

It always upset Aviette when people's ideas failed to fall into one of two clear-cut categories: the soundly argued and the unsoundly argued. She hated it when they ranged vaguely through all the shades of the spectrum. It only led to ideological confusion. Right now she couldn't make out whether this young man was for her or against her. Ought she to argue with him or let it go at that?

She let it go. “Now, my boy,” she said, turning back to Dyomka to finish with him. “You must understand this. Describing something that exists is much easier than describing something that doesn't exist, even though you know it's going to exist. What we see today with the unaided human eye is not necessarily the truth. The truth is what we
must
be, what is going to happen tomorrow. Our wonderful tomorrow is what writers ought to be describing today.”

“But what will they describe tomorrow, then?” The slow-witted Dyomka frowned.

“Tomorrow?… Well, tomorrow they'll describe the day after tomorrow.”

The young man must be a bit weak in the head. It wasn't worth wasting her arguments on him. However, Aviette wound up:

“That article was extremely harmful. It groundlessly and insultingly accused writers of insincerity. Only a philistine could treat writers with such disrespect. What matters is that writers should be appreciated for what they are—honest toilers. It's only Western writers who can be accused of insincerity, because they are mercenary. If they weren't, nobody would buy their books. Everything depends on money over there.”

She had got up and was standing in the aisle now—the strong, sturdy, good-looking daughter of Rusanov. Pavel Nikolayevich had been listening with pleasure throughout the lecture she'd just given Dyomka.

She had kissed her father and now she raised her hand, fingers spread, to give him a cheerful wave. “Fight for your health, Daddy,” she said. “Fight hard, go on with the treatment, get rid of your tumor, and don't worry about
anything.
” She emphasized the word. “Everything's going to be all right,
everything.
”

PART TWO

22. The River that Flows into the Sands

March 3, 1956.

Dear Elena Alexandrovna and Nikolai Ivanovich,

Here's a puzzle picture for you: what is it and where am I? Bars on the windows (only on the first floor, it is true, to keep the burglars out, and they are in a geometric pattern like rays of light coming out of one corner, and there are no shields to bar the view either). The rooms are full of bunks, complete with bedding, and on each bunk lies a little man terrified out of his wits.

In the morning you get a bread roll, sugar and tea (this is a breach of regulations because they give you breakfast later on). All through the morning people are gloomy and silent, no one talks to anyone else, but in the evenings there is a constant hum and lively discussion: about opening and closing windows, about who can hope for the best and who can expect the worst, and about how many bricks there are in the mosque at Samarkand.

During the day they pull you in, one by one, for talks with officials, “processing,” and for visits from relatives. We play chess and read books. Parcels are allowed and those who get them nurse them carefully. Some people even get extra food, and not only the “squealers” (I can tell you that for sure because I've had some myself).

Sometimes they come in and search the place. They take away personal belongings, so we have to hide them and fight for our right to go out and exercise. Bath time is a major event, but also an ordeal. Will it be warm? Is there enough water? What sort of underclothes will you get? The funniest thing is when they bring in someone “new” and he starts asking the most absurd questions, having no idea what he is in for …

Well, have you guessed? Of course you'll say I must be lying: if it's a transit prison, why the bedclothes? And if it's a prison, why are there no night-time interrogations?

I am assuming this letter will be checked by our “protectors” in the Post Office, so I shall not embark on any other analogies.

So this is the life I've lived for five weeks in the cancer ward. There are moments when it seems I am back again in my former life. And there is no end to it. The most depressing thing is that I have no fixed term, I am in “at the pleasure of the state.” (And the
komendatura,
*
you remember, gave me permission for only three weeks, so strictly speaking I am already overdue and they could put me on trial for trying to escape.)

They don't say a thing about when they are going to discharge me, they make no promises. Of course their medical instructions make them squeeze the patient of everything that can be squeezed, and they will not let him go till his blood can't take any more.

So here are the results: that wonderful improved state, “euphoric” you called it in your last letter, which I was in after two weeks of treatment when I was so simply and joyfully returning to life, has all disappeared, there's not a trace of it left. It's a great pity I didn't insist on being discharged then. The useful part of my treatment has come to an end, now the harmful part's beginning.

They're battering me with X-ray treatments, two sessions a day, twenty minutes each session at 300 rads, and although the pain I had when I left Ush-Terek is long forgotten, I have now come to know what nausea is. My friends, X-ray nausea (or maybe it comes from the injections, everything here gets mixed), you have no idea how loathsome it is. It gets you right in the chest and it goes on for hours. Of course I gave up smoking, that happened by itself. It's such a disgusting state to be in, I can't go for walks, I can't sit down, there's only one comfortable position I can find (I am in it now as I write to you, which is why it is with a pencil and not very even): no pillow, flat on my back, legs slightly raised and head hanging a bit over the end of the bed. When they call you for your next session and you go into the apparatus room with that thick X-ray smell, you're afraid you're going to spew your guts out. The only things that help the nausea are pickled cucumbers and pickled cabbage, but of course they're unobtainable either in the hospital or in the Medical Center and patients aren't allowed out of the gates. “Your relatives can bring you some,” they say. Relatives! Our relatives are all running about the Krasnoyarsk
taiga
on all fours, as is well known.
*

What can a poor prisoner do? I put on my boots, fasten my woman's dressing gown round me with an army belt, and creep to the place where the Medical Center wall is half destroyed. I get through the wall, cross the road, and in five minutes I'm in the bazaar. My appearance causes no surprise or laughter either in the alleyways near the bazaar or in the bazaar itself. I see this as a sign of the spiritual health of our nation, which has become accustomed to everything. I walk round the bazaar grimly bargaining, as only old prisoners know how. (They look at some fat, yellow-white hen and say, “All right, Granny, how much do you want for that tubercular chicken?”) But how many roubles have
I
got? And how do I get them? My grandfather used to say, “A kopeck will save a rouble, and a rouble will save you worry.” He was clever, my grandfather.

Cucumbers are the one thing that gives a kind of respite. At the start of the treatment my appetite suddenly came back to me. But now it's gone again. I was even putting on weight under the X rays, but now I am losing it. My head feels heavy and once I had a real dizzy spell. Still, it is true that half my tumor has gone, the edges have softened so I can hardly feel it myself. But meanwhile my blood is being destroyed. They're giving me special medicines that are supposed to increase the white corpuscles (and presumably destroy something else at the same time) and they want to give me milk injections “to provoke white-corpuscle augmentation” (that's what they call it in their jargon). Sheer barbarity, isn't it? Why not just give me a jug of fresh milk straight from the cow in the usual way? I won't let myself be injected, come what may.

On top of that, they're threatening to give me blood transfusions. I am fighting that one too. What's saving me is the fact that my blood is Group A, which they rarely bring here.

Generally speaking, my relations with the doctor in charge of the radiation department are rather strained. Whenever I see her, we have an argument. She is a very strict woman. Last time she started probing my chest and declaring there was “no reaction to the Sinestrol,” implying that I was avoiding the injections and deceiving her. Naturally I was indignant. (In fact, of course, I
am
deceiving her.)

I find it much harder to be firm with the doctor in charge of treatment. You know why? Because she is so soft and gentle. (You once started to explain to me, Nikolai Ivanovich, the origin of the expression “Soft words will break your bones.” Try and remind me of it, please.) Not only does she never raise her voice, she can't even get her eyebrows to frown properly. When she prescribes something I don't want, she lowers her eyes and for some reason I give in to her. There are details, too, we find it difficult to discuss together. She's still a young woman, younger than I am, and there are some things she tries not to call by their proper names and somehow I feel too embarrassed to press her for an answer.

By the way, she's a good-looking, attractive woman. She introduced herself to me as married, I remember quite well, and then it suddenly transpired she had no husband at all. It seems she regards her unmarried state as a humiliation, and this is why she lied.

She seems to have a schoolgirlish belief in book learning left in her. Like the rest of them she believes unquestioningly in their established methods and treatments and I can't implant the tiniest doubt in her mind. Generally speaking, no one will condescend to discuss such methods with me. There's no one willing to take me on as a reasonable ally. I have to listen in on the doctors' conversations, make guesses, fill in the guessed parts, get hold of medical books—this is how I try to establish the situation.

Still, it is hard for me to make up my mind. What should I do? What is the best way of behaving? For instance, they often probe under my collarbones, but how true is it what they say, that this is where secondaries are to be found? Why is it they bombard me with these thousands and thousands of X-ray units? Is it really to stop the tumor growing again? Or is it just to make sure, to build a fivefold or tenfold reserve of strength like they do when they build bridges? Or is it just carrying out senseless, pointless instructions which they can't ignore on pain of losing their jobs? But I could ignore them! I am the one who could smash this vicious circle if only they would tell me the truth—but they don't.

After all, I am not asking for a long life. Why should I want to peer deep into the future? First I lived under guard, then I lived in pain, and now I want to live just a little while without guards and without pain, simultaneously without one or the other. This is the limit of my ambition.