Cilka's Journey(90)

“Oh, Alexandr, what did you do to deserve such a beating?”

She pulls back the blanket covering him and examines his chest. Dark purple bruises cover his entire abdomen. She softly runs her hands over his ribs. None feel broken. She examines his legs. Multiple bruises and a badly swollen, twisted left knee. No obvious broken bones.

“Why isn’t Bed 13 being actively treated?” she asks Lyuba. “I’m seeing lots of bruises and swelling and his face is smashed up, but no major broken bones.”

“I’m not sure,” Lyuba answers. “But…” she lowers her voice, “I heard he was caught smuggling written material out of the camp, and they think he had been doing it for some time.”

“Who said that?”

“An officer was here earlier this morning, asking about him. He left when he was told he wasn’t going to make it.”

Cilka remembers the scribbles on the edges of the paper at his desk in the administration building. Did the doctor assign her this man because he knew she wouldn’t just let him expire, while the official notes would make the authorities think they didn’t have to do anything further?

“I’m going to clean his face up a bit and see if I can find a head wound.”

“He’s your patient,” Lyuba says. “Just be careful.”

Cilka tends to her other patients before returning to Alexandr. She is trying not to be too obvious about her attentions. As she cleans away dried blood and removes splinters of timber from his scalp, she talks to him softly. She continues washing his chest and looking closely at the injuries there. She straightens his twisted left leg and thinks she feels a tremor of resistance, a reflex to the pain that a conscious person would make.

She goes outside with a bowl and returns with packed snow from a spring flurry. Placing a towel under his knee, she packs the area with snow, holding it in place with another towel. She records all his vital signs, none of which tell her he is currently losing his battle to live.

Throughout the day she monitors Alexandr, replacing the icy snow when it melts into a pan. She notes the swelling around his knee has subsided a little.

That evening she hands his care over to the night nurse who, on looking at Alexandr’s file, asks Cilka what she’s been doing. The patient is not for active care. Cilka tells her she has been doing basic nursing care only, has administered no medication or done anything contrary to what she has been taught.

“Well don’t expect me to do the same,” the nurse responds.

“I don’t,” Cilka says, knowing she has to be careful.

She finds it hard to leave the hospital. She will come back as early as she can in the morning.

Alexandr remains unconscious for the next four days. During the day Cilka washes him, talks to him, packs snow around his injured left knee, checks for reflexes. There aren’t any. At night he is ignored.

“How much longer are you going to continue caring for Bed 13?” Yelena asks on the fifth day.

“Until he wakes up or dies,” Cilka answers.

“We weren’t sure he’d live this long; what’s your secret with him?”

“Nothing, I just clean him and talk to him. The swelling around his face and head is going down. There’s this gentle face under there,” Cilka says. Knowing she can be open with Yelena, she says, “I’ve met him before, you know. There’s just something about him.”

“Cilka, how many times have we told you not to get attached to your patients?” Yelena scolds.

“I just want to give him the best chance to live. Isn’t that what we’re here to do?”

“Only when there is hope of survival. You know that. I bet you can’t count the number of patients you have cared for who have died.”

“Whatever the number is, I don’t want there to be another,” Cilka says with more anger than she intends.

“All right. Let me know if you want me to look at him, or if anything changes with him.”

Cilka goes back over to Bed 13.

“Well, Alexandr, you’re getting me into trouble. Now I need you to do one of two things. Wake up or … No. Just the one thing: wake up. I want to hear your voice again.”

“Ambulance going out.”

Cilka returns with two patients from an accident—a truck has skidded in the mud and overturned. She is kept busy for the rest of the day. She leaves the ward exhausted. Nothing has changed with Alexandr.

The next morning Alexandr is where she left him. As she begins her morning ritual of washing his face, he says quietly to her, “I thought you’d given up on me.”

Cilka jumps up, gasping.

“Yelena Georgiyevna!”

Yelena is at the bedside in an instant. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s awake; he spoke to me.”

Yelena leans over Alexandr. Lighting a match, she flicks it back and forth in front of his eyes. He blinks several times. The only other person Cilka has ever known to have eyes of such a dark brown they appear almost black was her friend Gita. Gita’s face flashes before her.

Cilka leans over Alexandr, peering into his eyes.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she says.

“Cilka. I believe we have met before.”

Yelena looks at Cilka with a half-grin. “Cilka, will you continue caring for this patient? I think you know what is needed.”