“Comrade inspector,” Karpo whispered painfully, “I have neither a sense of humor nor a morbid curiosity about the humiliation of others.”
“See?” said Rostnikov, turning to the man with the glasses. “Didn’t I tell you he would steal his way into your heart, Alex?”
“You told me he would steal his way into my heart,” Alex agreed, moving forward to Emil Karpo’s side and looking down at him intently.
“She jumped,” Karpo said, his eyes on those of Rostnikov’s companion. “I will detail it in my report. Did she injure anyone in her fall?”
“No, no one, though the street had to be closed off for almost half an hour, I understand. The rifle she had with her went through the window of a clothing shop.”
Karpo took in the six other patients in the ward room. None had a visitor; three were displaying mild curiosity about Karpo and his guests, and three were in no condition to respond to their environment.
The man named Alex put his hand on Karpo’s forehead, leaned down to look into his eyes, and then reached for the numb right arm.
“Comrade inspector, I take it this man is some kind of health professional and not a morbid lunatic you encountered in the hall,” Karpo said, watching his arm being lifted, seeing the dingy gray sleeve of his gown slide back, feeling a tingling in the fingers as the man examined.
“See, Alex, I told you he had a sense of humor. He can deny it all he likes, but Emil Karpo could make a living as a comedian.”
“He is very funny,” Alex agreed blankly as he ran his hand over the limp arm and bent it at the elbow.
“Alex is a doctor,” Rostnikov whispered, “but we will keep that a secret. The woman who is supposed to be your physician would not take consultation with exuberance. Alex is my wife’s cousin. Remember? He went to a real doctor’s school in Poland.”
Alex prodded away, ignoring Rostnikov, who continued, “On the way in we stopped at the X-ray department and told a slight lie which enabled Alex to examine your X rays.”
“They were botched.” Alex sighed, working ahead. “But I could see enough. I just want to be sure …” He rolled Karpo’s shoulder firmly and caused a pain that brought a minor grimace to Karpo’s pale face.
“You are supposed to give vent to some feeling when you have pain,” Alex said, looking at Karpo’s pale face. “How am I supposed to know I’m hurting you if you do not cooperate?”
“I will scream the next time,” Karpo said.
“Would you like some water? They stuck a tube down your nose, but I don’t know what the hell for,” Alex said, shaking his head and reaching for the water glass on the small table. “These sheets aren’t even properly cleaned.”
Karpo took a drink of water, a small sip that burned as it rolled over inflamed and tender nodules at the base of his tongue.
“I’m going to tell you what you should do,” Alex said, adjusting his little black tie professionally. The room was warm, but a breeze did flow through the open windows. A spot of sweat showed, clearly etched like the outline of an amoeba on Alex’s white shirt. “You should get out of here as fast as you can. Tell them you feel fine before they operate on you and maim you for life or, worse, infect you in an unsterile environment. They are controlling your fever with drugs. Who knows what drugs. Do you know why you have a fever?”
“I-” began Karpo, but Alex ignored him.
“You have a fever because you have an infection in your shoulder resulting from an improperly reset dislocation. You also have a severe cold. You can recover from the cold at home after I reset your arm in my office.”
“Listen to him, Emil Karpo,” Rostnikov whispered.
“Here you get treated free,” Alex said, adjusting his glasses. “A service of the state. I’ll treat you for two hundred rubles. That’s a month’s salary for the doctors who work in this hospital, and as you probably know, it is less than a factory worker makes, which explains something about the quality of care you get here.”
“The system will eventually operate if corruption is controlled and the people accept the sacrifices necessary,” Karpo croaked.
Alex turned to Rostnikov with a shrug. “You ask me to see the man, and I get quotes from Lenin and insults. When I was in medical school in Poland, we had a regular underground railroad of your Soviet sacrificers in high places shipping themselves and their families West for real medical treatment. The head of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Keldysh, got an American doctor when he had heart trouble.”
“I’m sorry, doctor,” Karpo said. “Then why do you stay in the Soviet Union if you feel this way?”
Alex shook his head at the density of some people and leaned over to breathe on Karpo and examine his face through the thick glasses.
“They won’t let me go,” he said. “No more quotas for Jews. No more doctors getting out. But you know what I really think. They want to keep us around for when they really need competence. There are little rooms full of Jewish doctors, Catholic writers, Mongol craftsmen, all of whom will be plucked out in emergencies or rot until one comes. Meanwhile, two hundred rubles is a small price to pay for the use of your arm.”
“Pay him, Emil,” Rostnikov said.
A man two beds away shouted, “Don’t be a fool. You have two hundred rubles; pay him. If he could cure rotted lungs, I’d pay him five hundred rubles.”
“See,” said Rostnikov, “even the proletariat support this exception. You will violate no law, Emil, and you’d be doing me a favor. I’m getting tired of visiting you in hospitals every time you catch a criminal. There is something in you that seeks destruction.”
“Not so loud,” said Alex, pouring himself a drink of water from the nearby pitcher, examining it, and then deciding that it was too suspicious to drink. “The state frowns on any suggestion of neurosis. Everything is organic. Neurosis is decadent, something for the West Germans, French, English, and Canadians. Don’t drink any more of this water.”
“I think he should be treated in the hospital,” cried a man in the corner. “We have to stay here. The state takes care of us. He should stay here.”
“Shut up, you old nakhlebnik, you parasite,” said the man with the rotted lungs. “You’d pay a thousand rubles if you could get a new pair of balls.”
“Gentlemen,” Rostnikov said, standing because his leg would no longer permit him to sit. “There is merit to what you both say, but if you don’t stop shouting, a doctor will come in.”
“A doctor,” said the man with the lung problem. “That would be a novelty.”
“Capitalist traitor,” coughed the man with no balls.
“Eunuch,” countered the man with no lungs.
And then both fell silent.
“I’m going,” said Alex. “I can hear this kind of talk at home. Porfiry Petrovich, tell him how to get to me if he decides he prefers going through life with two arms instead of one.”
And off went Alex, leaving the two policemen alone.
“You’ll do it?”
“I will see what the doctors here say,” whispered Karpo. From the bed Karpo could not see the woman who had entered the ward as Alex was leaving, but Rostnikov watched her enter, look around, see them, and head in their direction. She was tall, perhaps in the late thirties, with billowing brown hair. Her face was not pretty in any conventional way, but it was handsome, strong. She strode with confidence, her green dress slightly tight, very Western.
“You are Chief Inspector Rostnikov?” she said, holding out her hand.
Rostnikov took it and nodded.
“I am Mathilde Verson,” she said.
Karpo looked at her as. did all the other patients in the room who were awake or capable, but Karpo was the only one who had seen her before. In fact, for seven years he had seen her regularly, every two weeks on Thursday afternoons for about an hour. He had also seen her occasionally to get information about other prostitutes who might be involved in or have information about some crime he was investigating. Karpo looked at her without betraying surprise but with a question.