Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (38 page)

It
was
Schmarya.

Disregarding the filthy frozen floor, she dropped to her
knees beside him and, cupping his face in her hands, gently
turned him to face her. His eyes looked faraway, withdrawn,
and glazed over in unseeing pain. 'N-no more h-hurt,' he
mumbled thickly through swollen lips.

Somewhere deep inside her, a fire kindled and began to
roar. He didn't recognize her! What had they done to cause
this! What kind of monsters were in charge of this place?

She tried to smooth back his filthy, blood-matted hair with
reassuring fingers, and leaned closer to his face. This was not the Schmarya she knew and loved. Instead of the familiar,
youthfully healthy face of the man she had loved, the face
which stared uncomprehendingly back at her was that of an
aged man, lifeless and swollen and beaten. His usually clean-
shaven cheeks bristled with the stubble of a beard, and his
jutting, proud cleft chin had somehow receded in pain and
misery.

She squeezed her eyes shut against the horror. 'Schmarya, Schmarya,' she whispered as she wept, 'what have they done
to you?'

But he only continued to stare at her blankly.

Recovering herself, she dried her eyes. Bending low over
him, she embraced him ever so lightly, just enough to comfort
him, let him know she cared, but not enough to cause him
pain. She wrinkled her nose at the sickening, offensively
putrid odour emanating from his body.

'I'll get you cleaned up as best I can,' she began chattering
in a low voice, as much to keep her own tortured mind occu
pied as to soothe him if he could hear. She swiftly lifted her
skirt, and without hesitating, tore at her petticoat, shredding
off a large piece of it, and deftly began dabbing at his face with
it. She tried to smile bravely. 'And I've started working on
your release. I'll see if I can bring some food and blankets in
the meantime, maybe even get you transferred to . . .'

She lifted the thin, moth-eaten tatters serving as his blanket
to fold it double, and then she let it slip suddenly through her fingers. 'God!' she screamed, squeezing her eyes shut against what she thought she had just glimpsed. 'God, don't let it be true!' And then she took a deep, foul breath of air and began
gabbling to herself in a frenzy. 'No, no, it isn't possible. It's a
trick of the lighting. Yes, that's all it is. It's so dark in here it's
no wonder I didn't see right.'

Shaking, she knelt by his side, unable to look again and double-check to see if her eyes had somehow tricked her.
Then, after a long moment, she gathered up her courage,
forcing herself to lift the blanket with infinite care from his leg
again to investigate the wound more closely. But even as she sat back on her legs and forced herself to shoot a swift anguished look at his left leg, she wanted to scream, and scream,
and never stop screaming. She knew then that what she was seeing was no trick, no hallucination. It was a very real night
mare come to haunt the waking hours.

Her mind screamed in protest. His foot! His left foot was
gone!

For all that remained of Schmarya's left leg was his thigh,
knee, and a small portion of his calf that ended in a stump
wrapped in dreadfully filthy rags. From there emanated the
festering sweet smell of decay.

She thought of how he had always walked, so proudly, so
swiftly, each footstep a stride. She recalled that terrible after
noon of the pogrom, when he had raced to the village, trying
to warn everyone of the impending slaughter. He had always
treasured his freedom and his health so, and now fate had
conspired to deprive him of both. If he did not die, he was
surely badly crippled for life.

'I have to help him,' she thought slowly, regaining her wits.
'It's up to me to see that he doesn't die.'

Carefully she began unwrapping the wounded leg, holding
her breath as she released a horrible miasma of decay. She
quickly turned her head away and vomited. Maggots crawled in the wound. The flesh and bone were not neatly severed and
cauterized. The wound was green and black, and even to her
untrained eye, definitely gangrenous. Whoever had wrapped
the tourniquet around his leg would have done him a greater
favour by letting him bleed to death.

Tears flowed silently from her eyes. Schmarya was barely
conscious, barely alive. With trembling fingers she lovingly
smoothed his head and murmured soft words of comfort.
Sweat stood out on his forehead in bold relief, his temperature
raging from the infection, although he could surely freeze to
death in his cell. As it was, he wouldn't have long to live.
Suddenly she caught her breath. He was no longer deliriously
moaning, but completely silent.

Then with immense relief she heard his wheezing breath
and saw the faint rise and fall of his chest. He hadn't died yet,
at least. He had gone back into shock.

Her eyes now totally accustomed to the darkness, she
glanced around in a desperate search for anything with which
to make him more comfortable, but the cell was barren. There
wasn't a stick of wood, an extra rag, a lumpy pallet. The food
bowl on the floor had been overturned, its contents in all
likelihood devoured by the rats. The water in the tin pitcher
had long since frozen into a block of unyielding ice.

Nothing, she thought in disgusted despair. There was
nothing with which to even cover him other than that thin rag
of a blanket. On impulse, she slipped out of her coat and
spread it over him. The smelly, icy air instantly hit her full force, chilling her to the bone, but he needed the warmth it
provided far more than she.

What he must have, she knew, was immediate medical
attention. And that was something she was helpless to pro
vide.

She felt frustrated, useless.

It was then that she heard the soft skittering sound beside
her. Without moving her body she ever so slightly turned her
head. The audacious rat which had confronted her upon enter
ing had crept up beside her. With horror, she saw that it had
begun gnawing through the tourniquet of Schmarya's ruined
leg.

It was eating him!

A shiver ran through her and for a moment she froze. Then
she screamed as she threw herself at the rat. The rodent eluded
her and snapped its jaw at her, backing up a few steps, watch
ing intently, its eyes glittering.

Senda drew a deep, shuddering breath. Where was that damned guard? How long had she been in this godforsaken freezing and festering hellhole anyway? She had to leave this
instant and get Vaslav Danilov to arrange for having Schmarya
immediately moved to a hospital. Rage and worry alchemized
into action. She flung herself up and on flying feet attacked
the iron door, beating on it until her clenched fists ran bloody.

Where was that guard?

Why wasn't he waiting outside for her signal?

Then she remembered. I specifically told him that I wanted
more than ten minutes with Schmarya, she thought miserably. Now each extra minute he's giving me has become Schmarya's
enemy, precious wasted minutes during which his life is run
ning out.

At last she heard distant footsteps. She pounded on the
door with renewed fury. When the guard finally got the door
open, she pushed past him and raced up the stairs, oblivious
of the precarious ice and the cold assaulting her now that she no longer had her warm coat. Schmarya's impending death
gave her impetus, terror somehow gave her strength.

The following days were sheer torture. Even after the Prince miraculously arranged for Schmarya's transfer to a hospital,
it was only the beginning of Senda's sleepless, nerve-racking vigil. Only by spending every waking hour near Schmarya
could she keep her sanity intact and self-recriminations at bay.

She realized that she was laying the blame for what had
happened to him at her own doorstep, but she felt she
deserved to blame herself. If I had done as he wanted, she
rationalized, and joined him in producing socially significant
plays, then I could have watched over him more closely. Seen
to it that he didn't get involved with the wrong people and
come to any harm. He would have his leg. Tamara would have
a father.

Here she was now, a physical and emotional wreck, camping
out in the hospital's chilly waiting room. Schmarya's leg had
been amputated far above the gangrene, halfway up his thigh.
She was missing her lessons, her rehearsals and performances.
But of what consequence were those?

Schmarya would never walk like a man again.

Chapter 16

Senda jumped up from the waiting-room bench as the nurse
approached. 'How is he?' she asked anxiously.

'Why don't you go see for yourself? You may visit him now.'
The nurse's voice was cold and professional, but her grey eyes
crinkled warmly. 'Five minutes, not a second more.'

Senda was unable to contain the flood of excitement. 'Thank
you!' she blurted so fervently that the nurse scowled, said '
Ssssh!'
sharply, and placed a warning finger on her lips.

But nothing could dampen Senda's rising spirits. She had
the sudden devilish urge to laugh and sing. As she rushed to
the ward, it seemed her feet never touched the floor.

Schmarya was out of danger! He would make it!

Miracles did indeed happen.

When she got to the ward, she suppressed her excitement,
opened the door slowly, and peered inside. Her heart sank
when she didn't see him immediately. A sea of enamelled iron
beds, each squeezed as close to the nightstand of the next one
as possible, fifty along each wall, one hundred in all, with an
icon above each headboard, met her confused gaze. Her eyes
scanned the many faces from afar, her ears assaulted by
moans, whimpers, and occasional cries. All the beds were
filled, and she could almost feel the roiling, invisible cloud of
pain which hung over the ward. The patients looked so
pathetic, she thought, so helplessly vulnerable, not so much
like grown men as like . . . like frightened children.