Doctor Zhivago (33 page)

In addition to his normal duties, the medical chief had put him in charge of general statistics. Endless questionnaires and forms went through his hands. Death rate, sickness rate, the earnings of the staff, the degree of their political consciousness and of their participation in the elections, the perpetual shortage of fuel, food, medicines, everything had to be checked and reported.

Zhivago worked at his old table by the staff-room window, stacked with charts and forms of every size and shape. He had pushed them to one side; occasionally, in addition to taking notes for his medical works, he wrote in snatches his
"
Playing at People, a Gloomy Diary or Journal Consisting of Prose, Verse, and What-have-you, Inspired by the Realization that Half the People Have Stopped Being Themselves and Are Acting Unknown Parts.
"

The light, sunny room with its white painted walls were filled with the creamy light of the golden autumn days that follow the Feast of the Assumption, when the mornings begin to be frosty and titmice and magpies dart into the bright-leaved, thinning woods. On such days the sky is incredibly high, and through the transparent pillar of air between it and the earth there moves an icy, dark-blue radiance coming from the north. Everything in the world becomes more visible and more audible. Distant sounds reach us in a state of frozen resonance, separately and clearly. The horizons open, as if to show the whole of life for years ahead. This rarefied light would be unbearable if it were not so short-lived, coming at the end of the brief autumn day just before the early dusk.

Such was now the light in the staff room, the light of an early autumn sunset, as succulent, glassy, juicy as a certain variety of Russian apple.

The doctor sat at his desk writing, pausing to think and to dip his pen while some unusually quiet birds flew silently past the tall windows, throwing shadows on his moving hands, on the table with its forms, and on the floor and the walls, and just as silently vanished from sight.

The prosector came in; he was a stout man who had lost so much weight that his skin hung on him in bags.
"
The maple leaves are nearly all gone,
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he said.
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When you think how they stood up to all the rain and wind, and now a single morning frost has done it.
"

The doctor looked up. The mysterious birds darting past the window had in fact been wine-red maple leaves. They flew away from the trees, gliding through the air, and covered the hospital lawn, looking like bent orange stars.

"
Have the windows been puttied up?
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the prosector asked.

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No,
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Yurii Andreievich said, and went on writing.

"
Isn
'
t it time they were?
"

Yurii Andreievich, absorbed in his work, did not answer.

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Pity Taraska
'
s gone,
"
went on the prosector.
"
He was worth his weight in gold. Patch your boots or repair your watch—he
'
d do anything. And he could get you anything in the world. Now we
'
ll have to do the windows ourselves.
"

"
There
'
s no putty.
"

"
You can make some. I
'
ll give you the recipe.
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He explained how you made putty with linseed oil and chalk.
"
Well, I
'
ll leave you now. I suppose you want to get on with your work.
"

He went off to the other window and busied himself with his bottles and specimens.
"
You
'
ll ruin your eyes,
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he said a minute later.
"
It
'
s getting dark. And they won
'
t give you any light. Let
'
s go home.
"

"
I
'
ll work another twenty minutes or so.
"

"
His wife is a nurse here.
"

"
Whose wife?
"

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Taraska
'
s.
"

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I know.
"

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Nobody knows where he is himself. He prowls about all over the country. Last summer he came twice to see his wife, now he
'
s in some village. He
'
s building the new life. He
'
s one of those soldier-Bolsheviks, you see them everywhere, walking about in the streets, travelling in trains. And do you know what makes them tick? Take Taraska. He can turn his hand to anything. Whatever he does, he has to do it well. That
'
s what happened to him in the army—he learned to fight, just like any other trade. He became a crack rifleman. His eyes and hands—first-class! All his decorations were awarded him, not for courage, but for always hitting the mark. Well, anything he takes up becomes a passion with him, so he took to fighting in a big way. He could see what a rifle does for a man—it gives him power, it brings him distinction. He wanted to be a power himself. An armed man isn
'
t just a man like any other. In the old days such men turned from soldiers into brigands. You just try to take Taraska
'
s rifle away from him now! Well, then came the slogan
'
Turn your bayonets against your masters,
'
so Taraska turned. That
'
s the whole story. There
'
s Marxism for you.
"

"
That
'
s the most genuine kind—straight from life. Didn
'
t you know?
"

The prosector went back to his test tubes.

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How did you make out with the stove specialist?
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he asked after a while.

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I
'
m most grateful to you for sending him. A most interesting man. We spent hours talking about Hegel and Croce.
"

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Naturally! Took his doctorate in philosophy at Heidelberg. What about the stove?
"

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That
'
s not so good.
"

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Still smoking?
"

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Never stops.
"

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He can
'
t have fixed the stovepipe right. It ought to be connected with a flue. Did he let it out through the window?
"

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No, the flue, but it still smokes.
"

"
Then he can
'
t have found the right air vent. If only we had Taraska! But you
'
ll get it right in the end. Moscow wasn
'
t built in a day. Getting a stove to work isn
'
t like playing the piano, it takes skill. Have you laid in your firewood?
"

"
Where am I to get it from?
"

"
I
'
ll send you the church janitor. He
'
s an expert at stealing wood. Takes fences to pieces and turns them into firewood. But you
'
ll have to bargain with him. No, better get the exterminator.
"

They went down to the cloakroom, put their coats on, and went out.

"
Why the exterminator? We don
'
t have bedbugs.
"

"
That
'
s got nothing to do with it. I
'
m talking about wood. The exterminator is an old woman who is doing a big business in wood. She
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s got it all set up on a proper business footing—buys up whole houses for fuel. It
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s dark, watch your step. In the old days I could have taken you blindfold anywhere in this district. I knew every stone. I was born near here. But since they
'
ve started pulling down the fences I can hardly find my way about, even by day. It
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s like being in a strange town. On the other hand, some extraordinary places have come to light. Little Empire houses you never knew were there, with round garden tables and half-rotten benches. The other day I passed a place like that, a sort of little wilderness at an intersection of three streets, and there was an old lady poking about with a stick—she must have been about a hundred.
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Hello, Granny,
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I said,
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are you looking for worms to go fishing?
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I was joking, of course, but she took it quite seriously.
'
No, not worms,
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she said,
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mushrooms.
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And it
'
s true, you know, the town is getting to be like the woods. There
'
s a smell of decaying leaves and mushrooms.
"

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I think I know where you mean—between Serebriany and Molchanovka, isn
'
t it? The strangest things are always happening to me there—either I meet someone I haven
'
t seen in twenty years, or I find something. They say it
'
s dangerous, and no wonder, there
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s a whole network of alleys leading to the old thieves
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dens near Smolensky. Before you know where you are, they
'
ve stripped you to the skin and vanished.
"

"
And look at those street lamps—they don
'
t shine at all. No wonder they call bruises shiners. Be careful you don
'
t bump yourself.
"

All sorts of things did indeed happen to the doctor at that place. One cold dark night, shortly before the October fighting, he came across a man lying unconscious on the sidewalk, his arms flung out, his head against a curbstone, and his feet in the gutter. Occasionally he uttered weak groans. When the doctor tried to rouse him he muttered a few words, something about a wallet. He had been attacked and robbed. His head was battered and covered with blood, but a casual examination revealed that the skull was intact.

Zhivago went to the pharmacy in the Arbat, telephoned for the cab that the hospital used in emergencies, and took the patient to the emergency ward.

The wounded man proved to be a prominent political leader. The doctor treated him till he recovered, and for years afterwards this man acted as his protector, getting him out of trouble several times in those days that were so heavy with suspicion.

Antonina Alexandrovna
'
s plan had been adopted and the family had settled for the winter in three rooms on the top floor.

It was a cold, windy Sunday, dark with heavy snow clouds. The doctor was off duty.

The fire was lit in the morning, and the stove began to smoke. Niusha struggled with the damp wood. Antonina Alexandrovna, who knew nothing about stoves, kept giving her absurd and bad advice. The doctor, who did know, tried to interfere, but his wife took him gently by the shoulders and pushed him out of the room, saying:
"
Don
'
t you meddle in this. You
'
ll only pour oil on the fire.
"

"
Oil wouldn
'
t be so bad, Toniechka, the stove would be ablaze at once! The trouble is, there is neither oil nor fire.
"

"
This is no time for jokes. There are moments when they are out of place.
"

The trouble with the stove upset everyone
'
s plans. They had all hoped to get their chores done before dark and have a free evening, but now dinner would be late, there was no hot water, and various other plans might have to be dropped.

The fire smoked more and more. The strong wind blew the smoke back into the room. A cloud of black soot stood in it like a fairy-tale monster in a thick wood.

Finally Yurii Andreievich drove everyone out into the two other rooms, and opened the top pane of the window. He removed half the wood from the stove, and spaced out the rest with chips and birchwood shavings between them.

Fresh air rushed in through the window. The curtain swayed and flew up. Papers blew off the desk. A door banged somewhere down the hall, and the wind began a cat-and-mouse game with what was left of the smoke.