Cancer Ward (76 page)

The trolley car dragged him back along the same route into the town center, only this time it was jammed with passengers. Oleg recognized Zoya's stop and let two more go by. He didn't know which stop was best for him. Suddenly a woman appeared selling newspapers through the trolley-car window. Oleg decided to have a good look and see what was happening; he hadn't seen people selling newspapers in the street since he was a child. (The last time was when Mayakovsky
*
shot himself and little boys ran about selling a late-extra edition.) But on this occasion it was an aging Russian woman selling them, not at all briskly, taking her time over finding the right change. Still, her enterprise stood her in good stead and as each new trolley came along she managed to get rid of a few copies. Oleg stood there just to see how she was doing.

“Don't the police chase you away?” he asked her.

“They haven't got round to it yet,” the newspaper woman replied.

He hadn't been able to get a look at himself for a long time and he'd forgotten what he looked like. Any policeman who looked closely at them both would have demanded his documents before bothering about the woman's.

The electric clock in the street showed only nine, but the day was already so hot that Oleg began to unbutton the top loops of his greatcoat. Unhurriedly, letting himself be overtaken and pushed, he walked along the sunny side of the street near the square, screwing up his eyes and smiling into the sun.

There were many more joys in store for him today!

It was the sun of a spring he had not reckoned on living to see. And although there was no one around to rejoice after his return to life—in fact, no one knew about it—still, somehow the sun knew, and Oleg smiled at him. Even if there were never another spring, even if this were the last, nevertheless it was like a surprise gift, and he was grateful.

None of the passers-by was particularly pleased to see Oleg, but he was happy to see them all. He was delighted to have come back to them, to everything there was in the streets. He could find nothing in this newly made world of his that was uninteresting, unpleasant, or ugly. Whole months, years of life could not compare with today, this one supreme day.

They were selling ice cream in paper cups. Oleg could not remember the last time he'd seen those little cups. Goodbye to another one and a half roubles, off you go! His duffel bag, scorched and bullet-riddled, hung from his back leaving both hands free to skim the freezing layers off the top with the little wooden spoon.

Walking even more slowly, he came across a photographer's shop-window in the shade. He leaned against the iron railings and stood there for a time stock still, gazing at the purified life and the idealized faces arranged in the window, especially the girls of course—they were in a majority. Originally, each girl had been dressed in her best clothes, then the photographer had twisted her head and adjusted the light ten times, then taken several shots and chosen the best one and retouched it, and then selected one shot each of ten such girls. That was how the window had been composed, and Oleg knew it, but still he found it pleasant to look in and believe that life actually was composed of girls like these. To make up for all the years he had lost, for all the years he would not live to see, and for all he was now deprived of, he gazed and gazed quite shamelessly.

The ice cream was finished and it was time to throw away the little cup. But it was so neat and clean and smooth that it occurred to Oleg it might be useful for drinking out of on the way. So he put it in his duffel bag. He put the little spoon in, too. That might come in handy as well.

Further on, he came across a pharmacist's. A pharmacist's is also a very interesting institution. Kostoglotov went inside immediately.

The counters were very clean—one right angle after another. He could have spent all day examining them. The goods on display looked bizarre to his camp-trained eye. He had never come across such things during the decades he had spent in the other world, while the objects he had seen as a free man he now found difficult to name. He could hardly remember what they were in. Overawed like a savage, he gazed at the nickel-plated glass and plastic shapes. There were herbs, too, in little packets with explanations of their properties. Oleg was a great believer in herbs—but where was the herb he wanted?

Next, there was a long display of pills. There were so many new names on them, names he had never heard before. All in all, the pharmacist's shop was opening up a complete new universe of observation and reflection. But all he did was walk from counter to counter, then ask for a thermometer, some soda, and some manganate, as the Kadmins had asked him to. There was no thermometer and no soda, but they sent him to the cashier, to pay three kopecks for the manganate. Afterward, Kostoglotov joined the line at the dispensary and stood there about twenty minutes. He had taken his bag off his back; he was still oppressed by a feeling of stuffiness. He was undecided—should he take the medicine? He pushed one of the three identical prescriptions Vega had given him the previous day through the little window. He hoped they would not have the medicine, in which case there would be no problem, but they did. They counted up on the other side of the window and wrote him out a bill for fifty-eight roubles and a few kopecks.

Oleg was so relieved he actually laughed as he left the window. The fact that at every stage in his life he was pursued by the figure 58 did not surprise him one jot.
*
But the idea of paying a hundred and seventy-five roubles for three prescriptions—that really was too much! He could feed himself for a month on money like that. He felt like tearing up the prescriptions and throwing them into the spittoon there and then, but it occurred to him that Vega might ask him about them, so he put them away.

He was sorry to leave the pharmacist's shop with its mirrored surfaces, but the day was already far advanced and calling him. It was his day of joy.

There were even more joys in store for him today!

He trudged on unhurriedly, moving from one shopwindow to the next, clinging like a burr to everything he saw. He knew he would meet something unexpected at every step.

Sure enough, there was a post office, and in the window an advertisement: “Use our photo-telegraph!” Fantastic! It was something people had written about ten years ago in science-fiction stories, and here it was being offered to passers-by in the street. Oleg went in. There was a list hanging up of about thirty towns where photo-telegrams could be sent. Oleg started to work out where he could send one to and to whom, but among all those big towns scattered over one sixth of the world's land surface he could not think of a single person who would be glad to see his handwriting.

He wanted to find out more, so he walked up to the window and asked them to show him a form and tell him what length the letters had to be.

“It's broken,” the woman answered; “it doesn't work.”

Aha, it doesn't work! Well, to hell with them! That's more like what we're used to. That's reassuring somehow.

He walked on a bit further and read some billboard posters. There was a circus advertised and a few cinemas. There were matinees in all of them, but he couldn't waste the day he had been given to observe the universe on something like that. Of course, if he had plenty of time to spend in town, then it would do him no harm to go to the circus. After all, he was like a child, he had only just been born.

It was getting near the time when it would be all right to go and see Vega.

If he was going at all …

Well, why on earth shouldn't he go? She was his friend. Her invitation had been sincere. She'd even felt embarrassed about giving it. She was the only soul close to him in the town, so why shouldn't he go?

To go and see her was, secretly, the one thing in the world he most wanted to do. He wanted to go to her before he went on to inspect the universe of the town. But something held him back and kept producing counterarguments: Wasn't it a bit early? She might not be back yet, or she might not have had time to tidy the place up.

All right, a bit later …

At every street corner he stopped and pondered. How could he avoid taking the wrong turning? Which was the best way to go? He did not ask anyone, but chose his streets by whim.

And so he ran across a wineshop, not a modern store with bottles but an old-fashioned vintner's with barrels. It was half dark, half damp, with a peculiar sourish atmosphere. They were pouring the wine out of the barrels straight into glasses. And a glass of the cheap stuff cost two roubles. After the
shashlik
this was cheap indeed! Kostoglotov pulled one more ten-rouble note out of the depths of his pocket and handed it over to be changed.

The taste turned out to be nothing special, but his head was so weak the wine made it turn even as he was finishing the glass. He left the shop and walked on. Life seemed even better, even though it had been good to him ever since morning. It was so easy and pleasant that he felt nothing could possibly upset him. For he had already experienced and left behind all the bad things of life, as many as there are, and he was left with the better part.

There were still more joys in store for him today.

For instance, he might run across another wineshop and be able to drink another glass.

But he did not see one.

Instead, there was a dense crowd occupying the whole sidewalk, making passers-by step into the road to go round. Oleg decided it must be a street incident. But no, they were all standing facing a broad flight of steps and some big doors, just waiting. Kostoglotov craned his neck and read: “Central Department Store.”

He understood now. They must be giving out something important. But what exactly was it? He asked one man, then a woman, then another woman, but they were all very vague. No one would give him a straight answer. The only thing Oleg found out was that it was due to open very soon. Oh well, if that's the way it is … Oleg pushed his way into the crowd.

A few minutes later two men opened the wide doors. With timid gestures they tried to restrain the first row of people, but then leaped aside as though avoiding a cavalry charge. The front rows of waiting men and women were all young; they galloped in through the doors and up the straight staircase to the second floor at the same speed as they would have left the building if it had been on fire. The rest of the crowd pushed their way in too, each running up the steps as fast as his age or strength allowed. One tributary flowed off across the ground floor, but the main stream was up on the second. As part of this attacking surge it was impossible to walk up the stairs quietly. Dark and ragged-looking, Oleg ran up with them, his duffel bag hanging from his back.

“Damn soldier!” the crowd kept swearing at him.

At the top of the stairs the flood separated at once. People were running in three different directions, but turning carefully on the slippery parquet floor, Oleg had a moment to choose in, but how could he decide? He ran blindly on, following the most confident of the racing streams.

He found himself in a growing line near the knitwear department. The assistants, however, in their light-blue uniforms were yawning and talking calmly, apparently quite unaware of the crush. To them it was just another boring, empty day.

As he regained his breath, Oleg discovered they were lining up for women's cardigans or sweaters. He whispered an obscenity and walked away.

Where the other two streams had run off to he could not discover. There was movement on all sides and people crowding at every counter. In one place the crowd was thicker and he decided it must be here. They were waiting for cheap blue soup plates. There they were unpacking boxes of them. Now that was something! There were no soup plates in Ush-Terek. The Kadmins ate off chipped ones. It would be quite something to bring a dozen plates like that to Ush-Terek. But he'd never manage to get them there, they'd all get broken on the way.

Oleg began to walk at random across the two floors of the department store. He looked at the photography department. Cameras, quite unobtainable before the war, were piled all over the shelves, together with all their accessories, teasing him and demanding money. It was another unfulfilled childhood dream of his, to take up photography.

He liked the men's raincoats very much. After the war he had dreamed about buying a civilian raincoat; he reckoned that was what a man looked his best in. But now he would have to lay out three hundred and fifty roubles, a month's wages. He walked on.

He did not buy anything anywhere, but in this mood he felt he had a wallet full of money and no needs. The wine inside him was evaporating, making him merry.

They were selling staple-fiber shirts. Oleg knew the words “staple-fiber.” All the housewives in Ush-Terek would run off to the district store whenever they heard them. Oleg looked at the shirts, felt them and fancied them. Mentally he decided to buy one of them, a green one with a white stripe. But it cost sixty roubles; he couldn't afford it.

While he was thinking about the shirts a man in a fine overcoat came up to the counter. He was not after these shirts, but the silk ones. He politely asked the assistant, “Excuse me, do you have size 40, collar size 16?”

Oleg winced. It was as if he were being scraped with iron files on both sides of his body. He started and turned round to look at this cleanshaven man, skin completely unscarred, wearing a fine felt hat with a tie hanging down his white shirt front. He looked at him as if the other had hit him across the ear, and one of them would soon be sent flying down the stairs.

What was this? There were men rotting in trenches, men being thrown into mass graves, into shallow pits in the perma frost, men being taken into the camps for the first, second and third times, men being jolted from station to station in prison trucks, wearing themselves out with picks, slaving away to be able to buy a patched-up quilt jacket—and here was this neat little man who could remember the size not only of his shirt but of his collar too!