‘You won’t remember,’ said Frenkel for a third time, as if weaving a charm.
‘That’s no good you know, I don’t believe in hypnotism,’ I said, as forcefully as my reluctant throat muscles permitted. ‘I remember driving in the car with…’
It came to me.
‘Dora,’ I said, in a voice of dawning wonder. ‘Dora.’
And then, with something like a consummation, or a sense of arrival and rightness, Dora came into my memory. The thought of her, like air filling a gasping lung, made me blush; and blush with sheer pleasure of memory. It all blocked itself in, and then shaded with colour and solidity. I loved her. It was hard to think that I had forgotten that I loved her. But I was not anxious, because it was not that the love had gone away, but only that my mind, with mental grit thrown in its metaphorical eye, had blinked, and blinked, and for the moment not seen it.
The other man was still talking.
‘I am going to come back in a minute,’ he said. ‘And we will continue our little talk. And you will forget all about what has happened here.’ And the torch went out.
I sat in the dark for a long time. There was no further talk. He was not true to his word.
A strange dream.
There was a lump on the back of my neck. I did not forget about that. I had it from before. Or was it new? I wondered if Frenkel had injected some poison, or hallucinogen, or truth serum — but then I thought I could feel a lump, something hard underneath my skin. This did not distress me. Perhaps I told myself that there were many pieces of shrapnel embedded in my flesh. Finally I fell asleep, and as I slid into unconsciousness I thought, quite distinctly, this thought: If I have just been dreaming, then how can I be falling asleep? To be asleep, and dream of falling asleep — does that remove you to a deeper, secondary level of sleep? And what if you dream there of falling asleep… ?
This was all very puzzling. But — Dora! At least I had Dora back. Of course I fell asleep, and in sleep I lost her again. My mind had been mashed about.
I woke in the morning with this peculiar encounter, real or dreamed, in my head.
‘My concern,’ I told the doctor, ‘is that my sanity has been dislodged. I dreamt last night that—’
‘I have no interest in your dreams. You are well enough to continue your convalescence at home. A taxi is here to take you away.’
‘I did not order a taxi,’ I said. But as I said this, the memory flushed through me, like water through a pipe, of my journey from Moscow to Kiev in the back of the cab, and Dora. Saltykov, with his absurd syndrome, and glorious Dora. She had been with me the whole time. How could I have forgotten Dora?
‘Dora,’ I said.
‘Who?’
‘I must find Dora. I must find her.’
‘I’m sure you will, too.’ A male nurse was helping me to get dressed. My actual clothes, it seemed, had been effectively destroyed by the grenade explosion. The hospital had a supply of garments. ‘Donations,’ said the nurse, with a cheery expression on his face. ‘Dead people, and such. You know?’
‘Which dead people?’ I replied, and I fumbled at the buttons of an oversized shirt. Its fabric had the texture of dried, salted beef. It was at least clean, however; and it was certainly better than nothing in the raw Kiev weather.
‘Dead people,’ he chirruped. ‘Lots of dead people, in a hospital, I can tell you.’
He helped me pull a sweater over my head, and fed my arms into a canvas jacket. This process had worn me out so greatly that I had to sit back and catch my breath. ‘Now,’ he told me. ‘You’ve a choice: leather shoes that might be a little on the large side; or other shoes that, I’d say, will fit you perfectly.’
‘Other shoes?’ I panted.
‘I’ll not lie. I say shoes. Another person might say slippers.’
‘I can’t believe I forgot about Dora,’ I said.
‘Pretty is she?’ He was rummaging in a capacious fabric bag, and pulling out slippers, one after the other. He held them up and they wobbled in his hands like live fish.
‘I would say beautiful, rather than pretty,’ I said, the memory of her returning to me. ‘Not pretty, no. But beautiful.’
‘That’s what men say when their girl looks like a horse,’ he told me, cheerfully.
‘She doesn’t look like a horse,’ I said.
‘I’m sure she doesn’t. A man your age, in your condition, any girlfriend is an impressive achievement, I’d say. Wait — I’ve put the right slipper on your left foot.’
‘I’m not sure it matters,’ I said.
There were other papers to be signed, and Dr Bello gave me a twenty-second primer for my post-hospital care. ‘Take it easy for a month,’ she said. ‘And don’t start smoking again. To start smoking again would be very stupid. Very bad for your frail health. Do you hear me?’
‘Yes, Doctor.’
‘Will you go back to Moscow?’
‘Not straight away.’
‘Smoking is very bad for your health.’
‘I understand.’
‘I shall say it three times,’ Dr Bello said, ‘and it will become a charm. I come from a long line of forest witches, and what I tell you three times will become true. Smoking is very bad for your health. Here is your taxi driver.’
And there was Saltykov, with his sandy hair and his serious, pale face. The taxi driver of the doleful countenance. He came into the room like a comet drawing all the great nimbus of my memories of him with him. I was so pleased to see him I felt the urge, which I barely contained, to burst into tears. ‘You were not exploded in Chernobyl!’ I said.
‘It’s more than I can say for you,’ he replied, disapprovingly. He did not look particularly glad to see me. ‘It is true you are alive. But getting exploded in such a place was — reckless.’
‘Mr Skvorecky is still frail,’ said Dr Bello. ‘You may need to assist him down the stairs and into your taxi.’
‘Assist him?’ The tone of Saltykov’s voice — tart with suspicion — brought back another little flurry of memory. He was exactly like himself. I remembered exactly what he was like. There was a curious joy in that fact.
‘Permit him to lean against you,’ said Dr Bello, with a straight face. ‘Perhaps lend him your shoulder.’
‘It is impermissible for me to come into contact with another person,’ said Saltykov, primly, ‘and a man most especially. I suffer from a certain syndrome…’
Bello spoke across him: ‘I thought he was your friend?’
‘He is my friend,’ snapped Saltykov in the least friendly voice imaginable.
‘Perhaps, Doctor,’ I put in, ‘I might have a stick?’
The nurse went off to fetch me a walking stick, and Dr Bello peered intently at Saltykov. He, for his part, ignored her.
‘Saltykov,’ I asked. ‘Dora…’
‘Indeed. I shall drive you directly to her. She is most anxious to see you again.’
A great happiness bloomed inside me.
The nurse returned with a peanut-brown walking stick. It was for me. It was tipped with half-perished rubber. Very gingerly I levered myself off my bed.
It was a long walk down the corridor to the lift, and it was followed by another long walk through the main hall out to where Saltykov had parked his taxicab. But emerging into the chill of early spring, under a bright blue sky, felt like renewal. I was still alive. I was going to see Dora again. The grey of the buildings had a pewter, precious tint; the noise of traffic, distant in the air, chimed a strange symphony and even that noise was delightful. After weeks of hospital air, I breathed in the tainted chill with pleasure.