“Well, bye, beast and beauty, have a good time,” the lengthy fellow dropped as a good-bye to us, deftly jumped into the car and drove off with a sound of squeaking suspension. He must have been very anxious to see his Stakhanovite.
We slowly shuffled off through squelching slurry; our boots kept getting stuck. As we approached the building, in the windows I saw the faces of children who were attentively watching our every movement. The rain had almost stopped, but the dirty sheet was necessary for us to feel safe. It seemed to be capable of protecting us not only from bad weather but also from all kinds of trouble. Soon we stepped across the threshold and went up to the third floor. On our way we met two girls aged nearly fifteen; they looked at us with undisguised curiosity. One of them, a poor thing, was moving with evident difficulty, leaning her entire body on her friend’s shoulder. For a moment I believed that we had come into a place where we were going to meet people similar in some way to ourselves and start a new, happy life. But… it lasted only a moment. Right ahead, a door with an inscription saying “Principal” told us where we were going. We timidly entered the room and saw a strikingly good-looking lady of about thirty-five sitting in state at a table. I have never seen such a beautiful woman before. I can still see her accurately picking sweets from a box with her graceful long fingers and, with her little finger sticking out, putting them into her mouth and sipping tea from her cup. She had a high forehead and huge blue eyes, bright, “shrilly”, as if they were drawn in ink with a marker-pen. Her black hair coiled, set in a gorgeous, meticulous hairdo, her perfume smelled especially pleasant, but most amazing of all was exactly the same fold between her eyebrows as Lizzie had.
“Here are their documents from the boarding-school,” a woman accompanying us reported, “a clinical record and a birth certificate.”
The good-looking lady stared at us for some seconds in an accusatory and inquisitive fashion, flipping through our records at the same time, and then said:
“Well, well, Marfa Ilyinichna, what shall we do with them?”
Marfa shrugged her shoulders.
“Probably, treat and teach them, Inga Petrovna, just like everyone else.”
“A zoo would be a better place for them, not this institution. That’s where they could be of some use.”
Her voice sounded quite icy, expressing disgust and hostility. Frowning, she ran her hand over her eyes several times as though getting used to the sight and finally added:
“What a repelling picture, indeed.”
We felt very unwanted in her office, and Marfa also got confused and looked away.
“What garments am I supposed to give them? Ordinary clothes won’t do. Shall I hire a special tailor for them? Does this marvel happen to have a name?”
All of a sudden you grew bolder and blurted out:
“Good afternoon, Inga Petrovna. My name is Hope, and she is Faith.”
The principal gave us a sharp look that immediately accused us of all our past wrongdoings and of our future ones, too, including, first and foremost, the fact that we had had the audacity to be born, and chillily summarized:
“That’s too long to keep in mind. You will be One, and you,” she pointed at me, “you will be Two.”
One, Two! Those were not even nicknames; those were just order-numbers or a count-off in military service. Somehow it reminded me of Lizzie once calling us Grace and Mystery. A lump came into my throat and I hardly restrained myself from bursting into tears there and then, right in the middle of her office.
“Well, all right, Marfa, take them to Pyotr Ilyich for initial examination, and then to the shower,” the principal announced, “and after doing all that, get rid of this dirty rag they are covered with.”
“Let’s move out,” Marfa ordered us with uncertainty.
Obviously, that Inga Petrovna didn’t like us at all. I wished that nice lengthy fellow who had given us a lift was still with us. He had explained relativity with such vivid passion that now he would probably find the right words too. He might even start arguing with Inga Petrovna and convince her not to believe everything she saw and not to make hasty judgements on people she didn’t know. But he was already far away, and we felt abandoned again.
Accompanied by Marfa Ilyinichna, we went down a long corridor, having no idea what was going to happen next, and our hearts bounced with uncertainty. Several times on our way we met boys and girls lingering between one room and the next without any point; some of them were completely grown-up. An absurd thought struck me: “What if gloomy Inga Petrovna and these kids in the corridor who seemed to imitate our awkward movements, as if on purpose, are just a dream?” But we were not sleeping. Many of the poor kids we met were diagnosed with terrible diseases like cerebral palsy. Some of them were getting about on crutches, others were carried in wheelchairs, but the majority were walking by themselves, dragging their disobedient feet. However, there were almost healthy children, too, who didn’t have any noticeable disability and walked normally.
Pyotr Ilyich turned out to be a wrinkled, round-shouldered and very skinny old man. The dandruff on his shoulders resembled the traces of torn-off shoulder straps. Later we found out that he took part in the Great Patriotic War and was even given the Title of Hero. At the time of our arrival in the foster home, Pyotr Ilyich was over seventy years old but he didn’t want to retire, claiming that his service to motherland was not over yet. He lived alone: his wife had died and his only daughter had moved to the capital city years ago.
Having shown a genuine interest in the surprising phenomenon before him, us, he walked three circles around us, crackling his knees, once clockwise and twice anticlockwise. He called us an “interesting case”. And this was no fresh news – just words we had already heard before. Then he put us on weighing scales and cried out loud as if he was commanding a whole battalion advancing at the outset: “Oh my dear motherland! Together, you weigh exactly as much as my wife did; a very interesting case, indeed!” Saying this, he shook his head so energetically that his glasses slid down to the tip of his nose and the remains of his gray hair became shaggy and tumbled.
“Listen to my command!” he shouted again. “You will visit me once a week for control check-ups. Any questions?”
We nodded indecisively which meant yes and no at the same time. What if he was planning to dip us in cold water, or in boiling water which might be even worse? At the very thought of it I felt uneasy. I stared at the floor and blushed with anxiety.
“I understand that it will be no picnic for you here,” said Pyotr Ilyich in a calmer voice. “Firstly, you are newbies, secondly, twins, and thirdly, conjoined — not merely something new but also something arrogant or mystical that strikes deep in the heart with irresistible force; it’s likely to bother many people, but pluck up your spirits and you will be able to stand up for yourselves.”
Suddenly something seemed to dawn on him and he started reminiscing, having nestled himself on the pressed-through chair.
“I have to tell you, things I’ve done in my past make me feel so ashamed and embarrassed, but there was one I am proud of. It happened not long after the war. I used to work in a hospital; that was lovely work for the benefit of our country. At that time our head physician died and a new one was put in charge. What a hang-by he was, not to say worse. He took all possible liberties: cracked dirty jokes, made passes at women who actually didn’t mind at all. But when he started stretching his filthy paws to our kids, — just think about it: kids! — I couldn’t stand it any longer. I got terribly mad and hit him in the belly, and then again and again until he began coiling on the floor like a grass snake. Oh, dear, it ended with real trouble. The Investigation Committee filed a case. I thought my life was over, but a wonderful thing happened. Was it somebody coming to my defense or was it a miracle? I can’t say for sure, but I received good news: a higher authority was transferring me to this place. And here, life turned out to be not so bad. Things are tolerable, and, above all, I am needed and my work is of some use.”