Cancer Ward Read Online Free PDF Page A

“There’s a telephone in the registrar’s office. But you can’t go there now, it’s the other entrance.”
    â€œForgive me, young lady”—Pavel Nikolayevich raised himself a little and his voice became slightly severe—“but how can the clinic be without a telephone? Suppose something happened now? To me, for instance?”
    â€œWe’d run over there and telephone for you.” Zoya stood her ground.
    â€œWell, suppose there was a storm, or heavy rain?”
    Zoya had already moved on to his neighbor, the old Uzbek, and was filling in his chart.
    â€œIn the daytime we go over there straightway, but it’s locked now.”
    All right, she was a sweet girl, but she could also be fresh. She’d refused to hear him out, and even now was moving on to the Kazakh. Raising his voice involuntarily, Pavel Nikolayevich called out after her, “There must be another telephone! It’s impossible for there not to be!”
    â€œThere is,” answered Zoya. She was already squatting by the Kazakh’s bed. “But it’s in the head doctor’s office.”
    â€œWell, what’s the problem?”
    â€œDyomka … ninety-eight point four.… The office is locked. Nizamutdin Bahramovich doesn’t like…”
    And she walked out of the room.
    It was logical. Of course, it’s not very pleasant to have people going into your office when you’re not there. All the same, in a hospital proper arrangements should be made.
    For an instant a tiny wire linking him with the outside world had dangled before him—and it had snapped. Once again the tumor under his jaw, the size of a fist, had shut off the entire world.
    Pavel Nikolayevich reached out for his little mirror and looked at himself. How the tumor was spreading! Seen through the eyes of a complete stranger it would be frightening enough, but seen through his own…! No, this thing could not be real. No one else around him had anything like it. In all his forty-five years Pavel Nikolayevich had never seen such a deformity …
    He did not try to work out whether it had grown any more or not. He just put the mirror away, took some food from his bedside table and started chewing.
    The two roughest types, Yefrem and Bone-chewer, were not in the ward. They had gone out. By the window Azovkin had twisted himself into a new position, but he was not groaning. The rest were quiet. He could hear the sound of pages being turned. And some of them had gone off to sleep. All Rusanov, too, had to do was get to sleep, while away the night, think of nothing, and then tomorrow give the doctors a dressing down.
    So he took off his pajamas, lay down under the blankets in his underclothes, covered his head with the towel he had brought from home and tried to sleep.
    But through the silence there came a particularly audible and irritating sound of somebody whispering somewhere. It seemed to be going straight into Pavel Nikolayevich’s ear. He could not bear it, tore the towel away from his face, raised himself slightly, trying to avoid hurting his neck, and discovered it was his neighbor, the Uzbek. He was all shriveled up and thin, an old man, almost brown skinned, with a little black pointed beard, and wearing a shabby skullcap as brown as himself.
    He lay on his back with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling and whispering—prayers or something, probably, the old fool.
    â€œHey you! Aksakal! ” * Rusanov wagged his finger at him. “Stop it. You’re disturbing me.”
    The aksakal fell silent. Rusanov lay down again and covered his face with the towel. But still he could not get to sleep. Now he realized that the reason he could not settle down was the penetrating light from the two ceiling lamps. The shades were not made of frosted glass and did not cover the bulbs properly. He could sense the light even through the towel. Pavel Nikolayevich grunted and