Grandfather Kuzya was critical of those people; he called them urody, which means ‘freaks’: he used to say they were a disgrace to the modern criminal world, and we had the culture that came from America and Europe to thank for the fact that people like them existed.
The second block was intended for the chronically ill. They slept six to a room; no television, no fridge, only the canteen and a bed. Lights out at nine o’clock in the evening, wake-up call at eight in the morning. They couldn’t leave their room without the permission of the authorized staff – not even to go to the toilet. In case of need, outside the prescribed hours they could use an old mobile latrine which was emptied every evening. The food was reasonable and was delivered three times a day. This was the block where the genuinely sick were kept – criminals and non-criminals, and also many homeless people and vagabonds. The medical treatment was the same for everybody: pills and the occasional injection, inhalations of steam twice a week. The wards were cleaned by the nurses with a powerful disinfectant, creolin, the same one as was used for cleaning stables: it had such a strong smell that if you breathed it in for more than half an hour you got a terrible headache. In this block even the food smelled of creolin.
The third block was for patients suffering from tuberculosis in the acute phase, those who were infectious. The block was entirely in the shade, facing the trees of the park, with small windows which were always misted over; it was so damp that the water dripped from the ceiling. There were three floors, with fifty rooms to a floor and about thirty people to a room. For sleeping there were wooden bunks like those of the prisons, small mattresses, sheets that were changed once a month and rough blankets made of synthetic wool. Not everyone had a pillow. In these over-crowded rooms people were constantly dying. It was disgusting in there. Many couldn’t even get to the toilet on their own, and since nobody helped them they did everything over themselves. What’s more, many of them spat blood when they coughed; they spat it continually, straight on the floor. They had no television, radio or any other form of entertainment. They received no treatment, because it was deemed to be pointless. And they were given little or nothing to eat, on the grounds that since they were going to die, food would have been wasted on them.
The nurses’ market, of course, didn’t reach the patients of the third block, so they had invented an ingenious system for getting hold of cigarettes. They used young boys, people like us, in the street. The patients would throw out of the windows a heavy bolt with a double fishing line tied to it. When the bolt landed over the wall, the boys would hook a little bag containing the cigarettes onto the thread, and the patients would fix on another bag containing the money. By pulling the thread you propelled the two little bags, which thus began their journeys in opposite directions – the money towards the boys and the cigarettes towards the patients.
The boys sold the cigarettes more or less at market price, but they made a profit anyway because the cigarettes were stolen and hadn’t cost them anything.
The patients were always hungry for cigarettes, always. The hospital administration, in an attempt to stop this kind of trade, had spread a story to scare the street boys, giving them to believe that they might fall ill and die if they touched the patients’ money. But the boys, as always, had found a solution: they quickly ran the flame of a cigarette lighter around the banknotes to ‘kill’ the mortal bacterium. And besides, the idea of doing something forbidden and dangerous attracted them even more.
The hospital guards were under orders to intervene. Many turned a blind eye, but some bastards took pleasure in thwarting the exchange at the very last minute: they waited for the moment when the patient stretched out his hand to take the packet and – snip! – they cut the string. The cigarettes fell to the ground, accompanied by the despairing cries of the patient. The guards had a good laugh: they were scum that deserved to be slaughtered like pigs, in my opinion.
By now Mel and I had crossed the park. Mel continued to apologize to me, and I continued to ignore him and walk on as if I were alone.
Suddenly, as we were skirting the wall of the block, a bolt fell between my feet. I stopped and picked it up: it had the fishing line tied round it. I looked up: leaning out of a window on the third floor was a middle-aged man with a long beard and unkempt hair. He was staring at me with wide-open eyes, making the gesture of smoking, as if he held a cigarette between his fingers.
I made a sign to him that I would see to it at once. I turned towards Mel, who hadn’t even realized why I’d stopped, and asked him to give me all the cigarettes he had.
Mel eyed me suspiciously, but I said to him disgustedly:
‘Oh come on! These people haven’t got anything to smoke. You’ll be able to buy yourself another packet in a minute.’
‘But I haven’t got any money on me!’
I felt a terrible anger rising within me, but anger didn’t get you anywhere with Mel, so I calmed myself down and told him:
‘If you give me your cigarettes, I’ll forgive you and I won’t tell the others.’
Without a word, Mel took two packets of Temp – the Soviet Marlboro – out of his pocket.
I pointed to the area of his jacket where he kept his cigarette lighter.
‘But you gave it to me, don’t you remember?’ he said, trying to save at least that much, but even as he spoke, he was already putting his hand into his inside pocket to get it.
‘I stole it from a kiosk at Tiraspol. I’ll steal you another one – a better one, with a naked woman on it…’
‘Oh, all right, all right…’ The ploy of the naked woman had worked, and Mel thought he had made a great bargain. ‘But remember, Kolima, it’s got to have a naked woman on it, you’ve promised!’
‘I always keep my promises,’ I told him, taking the lighter from his large but gullible hand.
One of the packets had already been opened and a couple of cigarettes were missing. I slipped the lighter into it and then wound the string all round the bundle, tying it up with a bow like a gift. Finally I added the only thing I had on me, my clean cotton handkerchief, slipping it in between the two packets. Then I started pulling the string. When my bundle reached the window, the man’s hand stretched out through the bars and the shouts of joy carried right down to us.
I was left with the patients’ little bag in my hands. I opened it: inside was a banknote, torn, dirty and wet. One rouble. Next to it, a scrap of paper with a message: ‘Sorry, we can’t afford any more.’
I didn’t even touch the rouble; I closed the little bag again and moved the two strings, to alert the patients. The man at the window pulled the string towards him, took back his rouble and shouted to me:
‘Thanks for everything!’
‘God bless you, guys!’ I replied, shouting as loud as I could.
At once a guard materialized to the right, waving his Kalashnikov and shouting:
‘Get away from the wall! Get away or I’ll fire!’
‘Shut your mouth, you fucking cop!’ Mel and I replied simultaneously, though each in slightly different words.
Completely unruffled, we walked on. Then we turned around. The cop was standing there silently, glaring at us with such malice he seemed on the point of exploding. From the window the patient was still watching us: he was smiling and smoking a cigarette.