Instead of lengthy evocations of the human spectacle, his current output was characterized by instantaneous sketches, a couple of stanzas about a misunderstanding at a bus stop, lines that distilled several weeks’ work. His poetry described the people of Moscow, not so much their utopian dream as their actual present; his verse shined a light on their everyday lives, captured certain moments, dedicated itself to a feeling of disappointed hope for the unattainable. Yes, Anna loved her father through his poems.
“How’s your husband?” the plasterer asked, tearing her from her thoughts.
“He’s good. He likes it where he is.” To all who knew of it, the fact that Leonid had been transferred without explanation necessarily seemed like a punishment, and as for the real reason, Anna couldn’t reveal it to anyone. She screwed the cup back onto her thermos bottle and climbed up her scaffolding.
The following morning, Petya’s fever had increased. Anna swapped shifts with a colleague, dressed the boy so heavily that only his eyes and nose were visible between his scarf and his fur cap, and set out with him for the polyclinic. Along the way, she gave Petya some white lozenges to suck—they didn’t help, but he liked them. When he announced that he was feeling better, she knew that he was scared of the treatment that lay in store for him. Not even six months had passed since they’d been to see the doctor about his earaches. The doctor, a woman, had pulled his earlobes, and when Petya cried out loudly, she’d diagnosed an infection. She’d prescribed drops, which indeed deadened the pain, but the inflammation grew worse. Petya had whimpered for an entire night and fallen asleep at dawn. When he woke up, Anna had discovered a yellow stain on his pillow; his eardrum had burst and pus had run out of his ear while he slept. From then on, the boy had felt better, even though he was deaf in that ear for weeks. At the follow-up examination, the doctor had proudly announced that the membrane was going to heal.
The freshly painted outpatients’ clinic impressed Anna; the work on the window frames and ledges had been skillfully carried out. Inside the clinic, the gray, oil-based paint remained unchanged. Petya was breathing in brief gasps and could hardly keep himself upright. In order to reach the children’s department more quickly, Anna carried him piggyback up two floors, only to find a disappointingly long line of people waiting to see a doctor. The queue stretched all the way out to the stairwell. Automatically, she asked who the last person was, and when told, she said, “Then I come after you.” The other mother nodded. She was handsomely dressed, with a tailored jacket and a black cap. The little girl she was holding by the hand turned toward Petya. At this distance from the treatment rooms, there were no chairs or benches, and so Anna spread her coat in a corner of the stairs to give Petya something to sit on. A nurse hurried past them, muttering something about a “Gypsy camp.”
The morning was almost gone when they were called. The lady doctor sounded Petya’s chest and back, determined that he was suffering from a catarrh, and said that such a condition was standard in wintertime. Anna described his leaping fevers and his breathing difficulties, his frequent coughing and streaming eyes; the doctor assumed that they were all connected. She stuck to her diagnosis—a feverish cold—and prescribed a dose of ultraviolet therapy and an inhalant. “It’s winter, that’s all,” she said, waving the next patient in. “When spring comes, you’ll see …” She returned to her desk.
In spite of the transfer form she’d been given, Anna and Petya had to wait another forty-five minutes before he was summoned to the radiation room. While the boy was inside, Anna went over the course of the next few hours in her mind. She visualized the trip back home, the shopping she’d do on the way, the ride to her worksite. Because she’d swapped shifts, she had some unexpected free time, several hours’ worth. She wanted to get something out of the day, to wrest a little enjoyment from it while she still could. She called Rosa Khleb from the nearest telephone.
“I’m taking my lunch break at twelve noon,” said the pleasant voice at the other end of the line.
“The thing is, I’m not dressed for going out to eat,” Anna answered. “And at three o’clock, I have to catch the