whether his suspicions have been aroused. A sound from the living room indicated that the urge to urinate was about to awaken her father. Anna turned off the burner and groped her way through the dark apartment to the sleeping alcove. As she pushed the curtain aside, she realized that she had never, in the year and a half since her affair with the Deputy Minister began, contacted him on her own initiative. He’d always gotten in touch with her, either in writing or through Anton; but this time, she would have to break the ritual order of things. She lay down next to Petya and drew the curtain closed. Immediately afterward, her father got up and shuffled sleepily toward the bathroom.
If the building hadn’t stood opposite the Lenin Library, she would have overlooked the address. There was no nameplate, nor the smallest sign to reveal to the uninitiated that one of the special institutes was housed behind this smooth facade. Anna looked up the front of the multiple-story building. She exhorted Petya to behave particularly well and pushed open the iron door.
The policeman looked up from his papers. He wasn’t the usual badly barbered kid with the carelessly knotted tie and worn shirt sleeves; his uniform was meticulously turned out and the sides of his head completely shaved. “Wrong door, Comrade,” he said, not in an unfriendly way, but as if no one had ever contested that sentence.
“I’m coming from …” Anna unfolded Kamarovsky’s note and approached the policeman’s table.
“Step back.” With an outstretched finger, he motioned her to stay behind the line painted on the floor. She obeyed, pulling the confused Petya with her. The policeman bent over a document. Then he said, “What do you have there, Comrade?”
She hesitated again, until he invited her closer with a patronizing wave. She carefully laid the piece of paper on the edge of his table. The policeman picked it up as though it were one of hundreds like it he received daily, most of which failed to pass his inspection.
“This isn’t an admission certificate,” he said without looking at it. Anna hunched her shoulders, as though expressing sorrow for troubling him with her request. The policeman held the writing up to his eyes. She watched as the fingers gripping the paper stiffened and slowly lowered it to the desk. “Why didn’t you say so at once, Comrade?” His smile uncovered a golden tooth. “You have to understand, many people try to get in without authorization, and it’s my duty …” He returned the paper to her, stood up, and showed her the way to the stairs. While Anna held her boy’s hand, the policeman pushed open the swinging door and let mother and son pass through it.
In the next moment, her surroundings were transformed. No more flaking paint, no more diffuse light from weak bulbs; here everything gleamed. A line of halogen torchères extended along the corridor, and the comforting green walls shimmered; the synthetic floor covering appeared to have been wiped clean minutes before. A nurse seated behind a semicircular window raised her head.
Anna presented her piece of paper. “Is there any chance of seeing Doctor Shchedrin?”
Under any other circumstances, she would have had to reckon with an unfriendly, condescending, or in any case negative reply. The nurse checked the authenticity of Anna’s note of recommendation, picked up the telephone, and informed someone that a patient was on her way to consult Doctor Shchedrin.
Anna corrected her: “I’m not the one who’s sick—it’s my son.”
“The doctor has time for you.” The nurse directed her to the third door in the adjacent corridor.
“Is that the waiting room?” Anna asked, taking Petya by the arm.
“That’s Doctor Shchedrin’s office.” The nurse waited until she was sure the visitor had entered the right door.
It was a friendly room, with a medicine cabinet, plants in stone planters, and a large assortment of children’s toys. There was a door in the opposite wall, and through it came a physician out of a picture book. His coat was fitted at the waist, and under it he wore a woolen suit and a bow tie. He looked comparatively young—there was only a little gray at his temples. A red fleck in the corner of his mouth indicated that the doctor had just been eating. He greeted Anna, bent down to Petya, and gave him his hand.
“How can I help you, Comrade?”
Encouraged by all the unusual friendliness, Anna told the story of Petya’s affliction: the early shortness of breath,