The Pit. Nadezhda Nelidova

carpets as if walking on a cloud.

      But what was it really? A dark gloomy vestibule with cracked tiles underfoot. Dismayingly long queues, lots of country people. In the buffets, greasy pies as hard as rock, awful even to look at. Enough to send a healthy patient to the next world.

      A cleaner in cut-down galoshes brushing pools over the gray floor, hitting your feet with a mop. The cloakroom attendant dipping a boiled egg in salt, drinking tea from a thermos flask. A bespectacled nurse short of sleep saying “No admittance today”.

      Even someone dying has a last wish. Heads should involuntarily bow before him, people should look away and voices become muffled of their own accord. All around should be a suite of security guards, doctors, priests, lawyers – abashed, recognizing the terrible grandeur of the moment. In the deadened air itself there should be hushed whispers. respect, superstitious fear of the mystery about to happen…

      Nothing of the sort! Life mockingly shows its ugly contorted mug and kicks you with a varicose foot in a filthy galosh. The universe will not collapse, finding your departure unbearable, that’s not hard to imagine, is it? Your disease is strictly your own business, so just behave accordingly.

      ***

      So Katya was sent home as a terminal patient. Then came the extrasensory sessions.

      From my interview with the doctor in charge:

      When she was told the chemotherapy was not effective, she went in for extrasensory treatment. On the quiet, we condemned her for it. How could such a clever woman believe in all that macabre nonsense? Mind you, we can all be clever about it till we ourselves are affected… You can wash your hands of someone else’s problem. And anyway, after she’d been with the face healers, her eyes brightened up a bit, if only for a few hours.

      “When you came here yourself, did you read the advertisements on the pillars about the sale of ‘miracle’ herbs?” asked the doctor, answering one question with another. “Did you see the herb sellers with their sacks of hay? Those charlatans ought to be cleared out regularly, by the police if necessary. To sell their trash, they passionately assure you that they cure everything in the world.”