The grandfather meekly knocks and enters without waiting for an answer. It’s cool and quiet in this spacious building with scrubbed floors, where identical white pillowcases shine softly on empty beds, stern instruments flash metallically on a neatly tidied table, and the breeze rustles at a large ledger that’s lying next to the instruments, its browned pages covered in small handwriting.
“Anybody here?”
There’s nobody. The grandfather goes outside and slowly circles the building, his grandson following with small steps. And there’s the back yard with a tiny gate, a meager woodpile, a broad and utterly dried-out block of wood with a half-rusted axe driven into it, and a couple of faded rags flapping on the clothes lines.
“Good afternoon,” the old man says, carefully opening the door a little.
After detecting the sound of motion, he steps inside and peers into the darkness of the room. A small, aging woman is placing things on a large checked headscarf with a long fringe. She has a pale face covered in fine flourishes of wrinkles, tired eyes under steeply arched brows, and broad white streaks in her long, black braids.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” says the man. He pulls off his floppy cap and nods low, with dignity. “Does the famous healer live here?”
“He lived here” – Zuleikha is stacking linens and clothes together – “up until yesterday.”
“He met his maker?”
“They hired him in town, down in Maklakovo.” Her tiny, unexpectedly strong hands tie up the bundle. “Apparently there was nobody to run the regional hospital there.”
“Oh no, how ’bout that…” The grandfather shakes his beard in disappointment, places a hand on the boy’s head, and clasps him against himself. “It took a week to get here. My grandson needs treatment.”
“They promised to send someone new in the next few days. Stay, you can live here for now while you wait.”
The flow of callers for the famous healer has grown each year. Zuleikha has gotten used to patients’ relatives staying at the infirmary.
“It’s him we need to see. We’ll go to him. Listen, ma’am…” The grandfather lowers his voice. “The doctor himself, he’s not overly strict? What do you think, will he see us? Won’t chase us out? That’s the town, after all, a proper hospital.”
“He won’t chase you out.” Zuleikha gazes at him for a long time. “And if you want to run off, he won’t let you go until the treatment’s done.”
“I heard, I heard…” The old man immediately breaks into a smile. He sighs with joy and relief as he hurries to the door, pulling on his cap. “Are you his wife?”
“No,” she says, becoming pensive, her fingers tugging at the knots on the headscarf. “I just helped with housekeeping. And now I’m to move out, too.”
The grandfather nods understandingly and hurries out after hastily saying goodbye, pushing his grandson before him. They nearly run back through the settlement to rush for the mail boat, which hasn’t cast off yet. The drawling, caressing sounds of an accordion drift after them through a wide-open window, along with sweet words about the prime of youth, never-ending joy, and inseparable love.
The grandfather and his grandson reach Maklakovo two days later, find the regional hospital and, in it, a small, lively person with a silvery halo of hair around his smooth skull. Another two days later, he operates on the boy and keeps him in the hospital for a month, for observation.
When the treatment is coming to an end, the grandfather begins pressing the nurse about how best to show gratitude to the famous healer, with money or some sort of gift. “He won’t take money,” she announces authoritatively, “but that coffee, now there’s a safe bet. He’s always swilling it down.”
Shaking his head distrustfully in a local food shop, the old man exchanges all the yellow coins sewn into the hem of his shirt for a sack of strange, oily beans with a sharp smell. He brings it to the hospital, petrified that he’s bought the wrong thing. To the old man’s tremendous relief, however, the healer accepts the tribute and smiles gratefully, his nostrils reveling in the bitter aroma coming from the sack. Who doesn’t love good coffee?
Gorelov doesn’t hurry as he walks through Semruk, right down the middle of Tsentralnaya Street, in his gleaming boots. He carries his puffed-up chest with dignity, and a round yellow medal casts a reflection on his brownish uniform jacket. His right hand holds the little suitcase a short distance away from his body, as if he’s exhibiting it for the hens and chicks running past, while his left hand keeps touching his smoothly shaven temple, using a cautious circular motion to smooth the short hair under his dark blue service cap’s raspberry-colored band.
Curtains in the windows on Tsentralnaya are trembling as if they’re alive and surprised faces flash behind them. People come out of their houses and talk among themselves, their gazes following the new arrival. Acting as if he hasn’t noticed the stir his appearance has caused, Gorelov parades leisurely to the main square, where the political information board, once small, sprawls lengthwise. It now looks like a long fence.
He places the little suitcase neatly on the ground. He watches Zaseka’s thin, scoliotic back as he pastes up a fresh sheet of Soviet Siberia, which flutters in the breeze. The sheet settles over a poster that’s faded and brown from rain and snow, where there’s a black-browed major leading a buxom white-toothed peasant woman in a dance, straight toward the joyful inscription, “Their happiness was restored!”
“You’re putting it up crooked, you clod,” Gorelov lazily says through clenched teeth, turning his calm, maybe even slightly sleepy, face toward the Angara.
“It looks perfectly straight to me,” says Zaseka, not turning around as his thin fingers carefully smooth the newspaper’s upper edge and small drops of white paste come out from under it. “How about that?”
A rough hand grabs him by the nape of the neck and thrusts his face into the sheet, which smells sharply of typographical ink.
“Is that how you talk to a security officer, you scum?” Gorelov whispers softly in Zaseka’s ear.
Zaseka’s scared, hare-like eyes look to the side.
“Comrade Gorelov…” he wheezes in surprise.
“What kind of comrade am I to you, you louse? Well?”
“Citizen – Citizen Gorelov…”
The iron grip weakens on Zaseka’s neck and releases him.
“As I said, you’re putting it up crooked,” says Gorelov, painstakingly straightening the newspaper, which is now creased from Zaseka’s bony head. “Get outta here, you useless dolt.”
Gorelov brushes off his hands and watches Zaseka clumsily smear paste on his cheeks and bolt down the street, where curious people immediately surround him. Then Gorelov places one boot on the suitcase, leans an elbow into his raised knee and freezes, directing his gaze at the Angara stretching below.
A female figure moves away from the crowd. Aglaya slowly walks toward Gorelov, pressing the ends of her faded headscarf to her chin, and stops a few steps away, undecided about approaching closer.
“Vasya, is that you?”
He doesn’t answer. He takes a hefty pendant-like gold watch from his right pocket and clicks the cover. A sheaf of fiery sparks falls on his tanned face. The melody of “Oh du lieber Augustin” thrums plaintively inside. He anxiously scrutinizes the watch face then slams the cover shut.
“You waiting for someone?” Aglaya takes a timid step forward.
Gorelov finally meets her gaze. She’s aged and grown unattractive; her face is pockmarked, her cheeks slightly droopy, as if they’ve deflated, and her hands are wrinkled, with broken nails. She’s not saucy Aglaya now; she’s jaded Glashka.