"How did it go?" I don’t know whether I actually said it or just moved my lips.
"She was great. She fell asleep right away. I completely removed her breast."
I waited for him to continue. I had to know. Even in my mind I tried to avoid the hated word. He understood. He was a doctor. He had to tell me the whole truth, pure and unvarnished.
"At the base of her breast I removed 36 lymph nodes. Unfortunately, almost all of them were… somewhat hard and paler than usual."
Everything was clear. I would receive the official results after the lab tests, but I had no doubts about the diagnosis of the experienced surgeon.
"Valera," I could feel him tensing up. Poor man, what a difficult profession. "It’s up to you to decide about future treatment. Your mother will live another two to three years without chemo. There are three types of breast cancer. The one your mother has is the most aggressive. It’s incurable."
Those numbing words pierced my brain. I wanted to hide my heavy head somewhere.
"Sometimes, a bone marrow transplant can be done. But that…" Dr. Pace hesitated and finished with difficulty, "would be like bringing a dead person back to life. It’s a very difficult procedure."
The lab results were ready in a week. Thirty-four of the 36 lymph nodes contained cancerous cells. Her cancer had metastasized.
Chapter 4. Uzbekistan – So Far Away and So Close
"You need to walk more, Mama, another lap, there and back."
I was holding her by the arm. She shuffled slowly, with difficulty, followed by her rolling IV-drip. She was so weak, so tired and slowed down by the anesthesia. I tried to talk for both of us.
"The doctor is confident that he had removed everything, down to the roots, Mama. Now it will be all right," I lied, avoiding her eyes. I was constantly afraid that she had already guessed.
"You’re by my side, Son," she said leaning on my arm. "That’s the most important thing."
Dr. Pace tried to get his patients out of bed on the third day after surgery. “The more you move, the sooner you'll be back to normal,” he liked to repeat. I signaled my agreement with him, but I was worn out with pity for her.
We paced slowly up and down the hospital corridor. Mother and son, we were both glad to be together, to have an opportunity, even under such sad circumstances, to be together. Mother was entirely overwhelmed by it. Her son was by her side; he was with her. Everything else was minor. No illness could spoil that for her. My mood was gloomier. I wasn’t happy. I wanted to have my mother by my side always. None of us ever parts with this childhood certainty, this youthful feeling that Mama will always be there for us. But now that “always” was not so infinite.
We paced the corridor, mother and son. She smiled. I also smiled and acted reassuring, lying, looking straight ahead, down the emptiness of the corridor. I didn’t want to look into the wards.
This was the oncology department. It had many wards, each with three or four beds, and they were almost all occupied. How pale and gray the faces were. The patients lay there, staring indifferently at television sets attached to the ceiling. I had the sensation that they were waiting for something to happen. But what? I didn’t know. Or perhaps I could guess.
In those days, I was wrapped in darkness. We had lost many of our close friends in the last few years – young and old, healthy and sick. Death was merciless. With each loss, I felt our circle of friends becoming smaller, continuously shrinking. The loss was also coming closer to our family. Now it was very close. Had our turn arrived?
I tried to drive such thoughts away, to rid my mind of them. But they didn’t obey me. Strange sensations accompanied them. Blurry white shapes began to appear at the end of the corridor, mysterious apparitions. They were doing something. They were stirring. I found myself trying to get a better look at them – perhaps they wanted to explain something to me? But then I would shake my head and turn away. What lunacy this was! I was simply exhausted.
Mama was back home on the fifth day after the operation. Those were the American hospital regulations. However, it was better, calmer at home, without all those horrible things that go on at a hospital. Besides, the decision had been made. We were not going to wait here, on the other side of the world, for the healer’s return from the hajj. We would go to Uzbekistan and wait for him there. I informed Mama on our first evening at home.
"We’ll make the reservations and leave in a couple of weeks."
She responded calmly, as always, "Whatever you like… Is the healer back?"
"Not yet. He'll return eventually. We’ll wait for him in Tashkent. It’s easier to get to Namangan from there."
Though “to get there” from America, wasn’t that simple. We needed Uzbek entrance visas. No one knew where to get them. Telephone calls to the Uzbek Consulate General in New York went unanswered. That was a mysterious institution. Perhaps it didn’t actually exist. But since our itinerary was via Moscow, we decided that we would get our visas there.
We made preparations for the trip with a strange uneasy feeling. The homeland had remained the homeland. The memory of it, the longing, had a life of its own that wasn't always on my mind or perceptible in my soul. It was as if it always existed in the background, usually subdued, but now and then it revealed itself in painful and acute spurts. Now it felt as if it had left its underground hiding place and burst out into the open. But it also meant real reservations and worries. My ill mother and I were going to our homeland. We hadn’t been there for 15 years, and the impact of immigrating was still as intense as ever. Here in New York, whenever we visited friends or met someone on the street, or talked to someone on the phone, we received information that I couldn’t call pleasant or reassuring.
"Did you know the Niyazovs? A day before their departure, men in masks entered their house, robbed them and beat them up."
"Have you heard about the Yusupovs? He went there to sell cars. He was shot… his poor mother… poor kids."
My mother had also heard such news. She was going there filled with fear, but not for herself, of course.
It was a gloomy day. Moscow. The Sheremetyevo Airport. A big crowd welcoming those who had just arrived, people hurrying somewhere – the usual airport bustle. I tried to concentrate on looking for a person I didn’t know who was supposed to be holding up a piece of paper with my name on it. Or perhaps that paper would be attached to his coat? Oh, maybe he had forgotten to bring it along? What’s the name of the person who was asked to meet us? Anatoly Kolesov. Where was he? What if he had fallen ill?… or… Calm down and look around one more time.
At that moment I heard, "Are you Valera? Yes? Welcome."
"I’ll be damned," I said to myself. "He figured out who I was on his own."
Anatoly tuned out to be friendly and nice – a tall, light-haired fellow with a pleasant face. It immediately took a load off my soul.
First, we went to the Consulate General of Uzbekistan. On the surface it was a very imposing consulate – a wonderful building with granite steps, shiny floors, many red rugs… and empty corridors. But at last someone opened the door, perused our American passports and asked us to wait. We spent over an hour in the cool empty corridor surrounded by silence and crimson rugs.
Finally, we were invited into an office where a representative of the Uzbek state, a tall gloomy man, told us strictly, “In order to enter Uzbekistan, you need visas. There are no visas in your passports. Why? Where are they?"
I explained, “Your Consulate General in America doesn’t work. No one answers telephone calls.”
“That can’t be true,” the official answered gruffly in a measured tone.