Step Out, Maestro!
Solodovnikov the play-actor was late again for work. He came late nearly every day. The head doctor, fat Anna Afanasievna, would say:
"I'll write to your mother, Solodovnikov!"
Then Solodovnikov acted embarrassed: Anna Afanasievna (or Anfas, as Solodovnikov referred to her in letters to his ex-fellow students whom fate had also banished to remote spots such as this and who still wrote to one another complaining and making witticisms) would begin to show slight signs of movement. She was laughing. Silently. She enjoyed being the mentor and protector of this young doctor, this young Don Juan. Solodovnikov, however, while pretending to be embarrassed, would regret that his rare talent for pleasing people was being used to no effect. Anfas could not play an even remotely significant part in his destiny. Long may she keep the hospital well-stocked with spirit, camphor, sheet iron and radiators for the central heating. She was good at that, bless her heart. And at winkling out the odd appendix. Solodovnikov had performed more complicated operations and again regretted that no one had seen them. "I was terribly tempted to do an auto-transplant," he wrote to a friend. "I'd just been reading about modern advances and remembered the old man. But ... then I got cold feet. 'No, I can't,' I thought, 'there's no one to watch, so what's the point?' Strike me dead, but I'm an actor. And my precious Anfas is not a fitting audience. No, sir."
Solodovnikov was in a hurry. In his mind he had already rehearsed the morning scene with Anna Afanasievna: he would frown and look at his watch... In fact, after scenes like that he sometimes felt rather mean. "I'm a rotter," he would think. "And why do I do it? It doesn't even help me, it's quite pointless!" Yet at the same time he experienced a pleasant sort of sensation, a nice reassuring feeling that everything was alright, everything was as it should be for an eligible young bachelor.
Solodovnikov ran up to the porch, pushed open the heavy door on a spring and held it so that it wouldn't bang. Removing his coat and hat as he went, he hurried to the clothes rack in the corridor. While he was taking off his things, he suddenly saw a square of yellow, the size of a window, on the white wall opposite the window. Sunlight... Suddenly this square of yellow fire blazed up in his mind. Spring! The lovely, long-awaited spring was outside. He'd rushed along the street, crunching the ice underfoot and thinking about goodness knows what, and hadn't noticed the spring. But now ... he froze, clutching his coat and staring at the square of yellow. And a rush of joy, a special joy, also nice and reassuring with the promise of warmth and joy ahead too, filled Solodovnikov's breast. That very breast within which beat a young heart hungry for joy. Solodovnikov was surprised and wanted to collect his thoughts quickly, to concentrate them on a single thing: now that it was spring, he must sit down and solve something important. A feeling that something nice lay ahead washed over him. I must pull myself together and do some hard thinking, he thought. I'm only twenty-four. I've got my whole life ahead of me, and I must decide now that I've still got the strength, plenty of it, and feel so good. It's spring. I must begin to live big."
Solodovnikov went into his tiny office (thanks to the efforts of the self-same solicitous Anna Afanasievna he even had an office of his own), sat down at his desk and began to meditate. He did not go to see Anna Afanasievna She would come herself.
He wasn't thinking about anything definite, but he still had the same happy feeling that had come over him just now, with the spring and the light, and he kept probing it, that nice feeling, kept listening to himself... He couldn't help listening to the sounds outside as well: icicles warmed by the sun were dripping onto the tin window-sill, and the wet splashing sound, so strange and unexpected on this clear sunny morning with a light frost, produced a joyful echo in his heart with each loud splash. Yes, I must make a fresh start, Solodovnikov thought. No more dithering. Thank goodness I managed to graduate from the institute, while I was still messing around. Other people aren't so lucky. He believed that now he would begin to live big. This was just the right moment. Spring is the beginning of all beginnings. From now on he would take charge of everything and no nonsense. Twenty-five plus twenty-five is fifty. By the time he was fifty he must have a professorship in Moscow, a flock of students and a long list of publications. No, by forty-five, not fifty.
He'd have to put his nose to the grindstone but why not!
Solodovnikov got up and walked round the tiny office. He stopped by the window. The happy feeling was still there. The world was so vast... And life was so vast... But step out, maestro, step out! You've got a long way to go. And your triumphant campaign begins right here, with this spring.
Solodovnikov sat down at the desk again, got out a pen, looked for some paper in the desk, couldn't find any, then took his address book out of his pocket and wrote'on a blank page:
Henceforth I shall act so:
The cold flash of the mind
Like the ruthless flash of a dagger:
A thrust is the law,
A thrust is an end,
A thrust is a new beginning.
He read it through, flung down the pen and began pacing the tiny office again. He lit a cigarette. He was amazed to have written a poem. He'd never written one before. Never dreamed he could write one. How about that!
He went up to the desk and read the poem again. Hmm.
Of course, it may be a bit ... conceited. Actually it wasn't really a poem at all, it was a kind of programme of action expressed in poetic form. He paced the office again... Suddenly he laughed out loud. It was a surgeon's poem: "A thrust is an end, a thrust is a new beginning". What was the new beginning? Another ulcer case? Never mind... He was glad to find that writing a poem hadn't gone to his head, he could still laugh at its weak points. But he must keep it: amusing and naive though it was, this marked the beginning of living big. Solodovnikov put the address book away. If he wasn't dead tired by the age of fifty and still had a sense of humour, he would recall this poem then.
The splashes on the window-sill outside continued. And the window was getting noticeably warmer. Spring was doing its job. Solodovnikov felt a sudden need for action.
He went into the corridor, walked past the yellow patch on the wall again, winked at it and said to himself:
"Step out, maestro! "
Anna Afanasievna was on the phone, of course, talking about sheet iron, of course. They exchanged nods.
"I understand, Nikolai Vassilievich," Anna Afanasievna cooed sweetly into the receiver. "I understand perfectly. Yes, yes. Fifteen sheets."
"We understand everything perfectly, Nikolai Vassilievich," Solodovnikov smirked to himself sarcastically, squatting on a white stool. The sarcasm wasn't spiteful, just due to an excess of high spirits... He couldn't wait to have a talk to Anna Afanasievna.
"I understand perfectly, Nikolai Vassilievich! Yes. Will do!" Anna Afanasievna exhibited signs of slight movement-laughing silently. "One good turn deserves another. Goodbye then! Oh, no, not here. Why are you always so afraid of us, as if ... goodness only knows. See you then-on neutral ground. At the restaurant?" Anfas began shaking all over again. "We'll see about that. Okey-dokey! Bye."
"How witty can you get? Will do' and 'okey-dokey'!" Solodovnikov marvelled. "Fancy wasting time like that, nattering away, when each minute here is precious now."
"Yes, Georgy Nikolayevich..." Anna Afanasievna gave Solodovnikov a playful, meaningful look.
"Long live sheet iron'" said Solodovnikov also playfully, without the slightest embarrassment, feigned or otherwise. He looked Anna Afanasievna straight in the eye.
"Meaning what?" she asked.
"Meaning we'll have a home-made refrigerator." Solodovnikov got up, walked over to the window, stood there for a bit, hands in pockets, sensing the head doctor's surprised stare behind him... He rocked from his toes onto his heels. And told a lie. A big one. Quite unexpectedly.
"I've started to write a book, Anna Afanasievna. It's called Letters from the Depths. A Doctor's Notebook."
It seemed to happen on its own, the Letters from the Depths. And again Solodovnikov was amazed at how right it sounded. That's how he must start. Had the unconscious act of creation really begun? Unless it was "a thrust is the law", of course. No, this was real, intelligent, to the point: it would be a description of interesting operations performed in the conditions of a country hospital. In the form of letters to a friend called N. There was some light irony about the conditions, a description of a home-made refrigerator, a hole in the ground lined with sheets of iron, and, running lightly through it-the theme of spring... But mostly, of course, it was about hard work, hard work and more hard work. Exhausting, exhilarating, risky and selfless. The love and respect of the locals... The night visits. Auto-transplants. A perforation in a field hospital. The old woman's gratitude, her funny, heartfelt prayers for the young atheist doctor... He saw it all happily in a split second, suddenly and clearly. Solodovnikov turned to Anna Afanasievna... And there was the head doctor, of course, Anna Afanasievna, a bit limited, but very good at getting hold of things in short supply. Anfas, who had read the Notebook in manuscript and exclaimed in surprise: "It's just like a novel!" "Yes, but as a physician do you find it interesting?" "I should say so! There are some quite unique cases in it'" "And you're not offended by the passages about you?" "No, why should I be? It's all quite true."
"What was that, Anna Afanasievna?"
"Have you already started writing it?" Anna Afanasievna asked. "Your Notebook. Is that why you were late?"
"Yes, that's why." Solodovnikov was annoyed with the head doctor. A sergeant-major in a skirt, she was, with a head full of sheet iron. "I'm sorry," he said curtly. "It won't happen again." He didn't look at his watch or pretend to be upset. "That's enough," he thought. "Finite. No more grimacing and curtseying." He remembered his poem.
"You're rather strange today."
"What about the tractor-driver, the ulcer case?" Solodovnikov asked. "Are we going to operate?"
Anna Afanasievna looked even more surprised.
"Zubov? Good heavens, what are you talking about? I sent him to the district hospital two days ago."
"Why?"
"Because you asked me to, that's why. What is the matter with you?"
"Oh, yes," Solodovnikov remembered. "And the girl with the meniscus?"
"She's still here. Do you want to operate?"
"Yes," said Solodovnikov firmly. "Today."
Anna Afanasievna gave her assistant a long look. Solodovnikov looked at her too, somewhat pensively, screwing up his eyes.
"I see," murmured Anna Afanasievna. "Alright then... Only not today, Georgy Nikolayevich. Today I need you to help me, Georgy Nikolayevich. I've been called over to the district health office, but I'd already arranged with the state farm director about the sheet iron... And he's not the sort of person you can dilly-dally with: he may not have any left in a day or two. We must fetch it while the iron's hot, so to speak. So I'd like you to go and collect it today. Our head of supplies is on holiday, as you know."
Solodovnikov was about to get upset, but thought better of it and agreed without a fuss.
"Very well."
The first chapter of the Notebook would be about ... sheet iron. This would immediately give the reader a clear idea of the circumstances and conditions in which the young doctor had to work.
"But what is the matter with you?" Anna Afanasievna could not help asking again. Her female curiosity was itching to know what could change young people like that overnight. "Have you fallen in love?"
Solodovnikov in his turn gave the head doctor a curious stare.
"Haven't you noticed anything? What's happening in the world outside..."
Anna Afanasievna even looked out of the window.
"What's happening? I don't understand..."
"Not in the yard, but in the world in general..."
"The war in Vietnam..."
"No, that's not what I mean. Okey-dokey, Anna Afanasievna, I'll collect your sheet iron! Where do I have to go?"
"To Obraztsovka, to the farm director, Nikolai Vassilievich Nenarokov. But first you must get a sledge and a workman from the village council. I've arranged for that. Tell Nenarokov we'll give an anti-alcohol lecture at the farm club, you or me. We really must do that. I promised him ages ago. I do like the look of you today, Georgy Nikolayevich. So you're in love, are you?"
"May I take my leave?" Solodovnikov clicked his heels and smiled his confidential smile, as he called it.
"You may."
Solodovnikov went into the corridor. The patch of light had half slid from the wall onto the floor. Solodovnikov trod on it deliberately and stood there for a moment. "Tempus fugit," he thought. Without regret, however, but with a certain delight, as if it meant: "My time has come. Things have started moving!"
Back in his tiny office he got out his address book again and wrote:
"This morning I asked my esteemed Anfas: 'What's happening in the world outside?' Anfas looked conscientiously out of the window, thought for a moment and replied: 'The war in Vietnam.' 'And what else?' She did not know. But Spring had come."
This was the beginning of Chapter One of the Notebook. Solodovnikov liked it. Prose was obviously his forte. Yes, from today, from this very morning, time was on his side. The presentation copy of his book to Anna Afanasievna would contain the following inscription:
"To doubting Thomas for your kindness and learning from the author."
And that would be all. Now for the sheet iron.
They gave him the sledge at the village Soviet, but the workman who was supposed to accompany him hadn't turned up.
"Go and pick him up at home. He lives up there ... where the road turns up the hill after the village shop, see, you just go..."
Solodovnikov drove off to Obraztsovka alone. "Never mind him, I can load it on my own."
It was not far to Obraztsovka, but they'd given him a somewhat dispirited horse who went at a slow pace, and Solodovnikov himself was not in a hurry. The sledge slid along easily until they reached the main road, where the snow was melting. It was harder to pull there and they slowed down to a snail's pace. The sound of the runners grating on the gravel set your teeth on edge; whenever the horse tried to break into a trot, its hooves sent up sprays of dirty melting sludge. The inside of the sledge was bare. Solodovnikov had not thought to ask for an armful of hay to spread out and sprawl on, as he'd seen the peasants do.
As he was leaving the village, Solodovnikov caught sight of a haystack by the houses on the edge. It was fenced off, but a well-trod path led up to it. Solodovnikov stopped the horse and hurried up to the haystack. He climbed through the rough fence and thrust his arms into its sweet- smelling abundance, when an angry shout rang out behind him:
"What the blazes are ye doing? Leave that hay alone!"
Solodovnikov jumped with fright and pulled his arms out of the hay. A strapping young man in a blue shirt, with nothing on his head, was striding towards him along the path. He had a birch stick in his hand.
"I wanted something to sit on..." said Solodovnikov hastily, aware that he sounded cowardly and scared.
"Ye won't feel like sittin' after a taste of this! Summat to sit on! I'll show you..."
"But I'm the doctor here!" Solodovnikov exclaimed in fright. "I only wanted a handful... What's all the fuss about, for heaven's sake!"
"The doctor..." The young man took a closer look at Solodovnikov and seemed to recognise him. "Ye should ask first. If everyone took a handful to sit on, there'd be nowt left to feed my cow. Ye should ask first. We get all sorts drivin' along here."
The man had clearly recognised the doctor now, but he went on ticking him off like a naughty schoolboy, and this made Solodovnikov see red.
"You can keep your wretched hay, for heaven's sake! I only needed a handful ...to sit on. But I don't want any now!"
Solodovnikov turned round and started walking straight back, not along the path. He sank into the hard, porous snow up to his knees, scratching his ankles and realising how ridiculous it must look to a bystander. Why walk over the snow, when there was a well-trod path? But the young man was standing on the path, and Solodovnikov had to get round him.
"Take some hay!" shouted the man. "Why go away empty-handed?"
"You can keep your old hay!" Solodovnikov shouted back, almost in tears, turning his head abruptly. "You'd kill a man over a bundle of hay, given half the chance!"
The man stared at him in silence.
Solodovnikov reached the sledge, lashed the mare painfully with the reins and drove off. He had read in an article somewhere that the "idiocy of country life" had never existed and, of course, did not exist now. "Idiot himself to write a thing like that," he thought spitefully about the writer.
Solodovnikov's tegs were badly scratched and smarting painfully. He decided to go back to the hospital and put some disinfectant on them. But then he stopped and thought better of it. He would ask for some spirit at the farm and rub them with that.
Driving on slowly, he gradually calmed down. Actually that wouldn't be a bad continuation for Chapter One of the Notebook. Only he'd better watch out ... go easy on the humour. This wasn't the place for humour and irony. It must sound level- headed and business-like, no playing around. He wasn't planning to amuse people, just to tell them about the tough, everyday, normal if you like, life of a country doctor. Solodovnikov had calmed down completely by now. Only it was very uncomfortable in the hard, cold sledge.
Nikolai Vassilievich Nenarokov was not very old, in his forties, but rather slow (on purpose, it seemed to Solodovnikov) and deliberate. He talked to Solodovnikov for a long time, sizing him up. He found out where the young man had studied, why he had come to these parts (he had been sent there) and whether he planned to stay on when his compulsory three years came to an end... Solodovnikov took an instant dislike to the director. Towards the end he asked rudely:
"What about the iron?"
"You'll get it alright. Don't you like me asking all these questions? I'm just interested. Got a son who'd like to go to medical school too, so I was just testing the ground like. Is it hard to get in?"
"Yes, gets harder each year."
"Then that settles it," said the director. "It's not worth the trouble. Agricultural college would be plain sailing, wouldn't it? And they're crying out for specialists. He'd not be short of work."
Solodovnikov shrugged.
"But if he'd like to..."
"Liking to isn't all that matters. I might like to..."
The director looked at the young doctor and did not elaborate on what he "might like to" do. He scribbled a message for the storeman on a piece of paper and handed it to Solodovnikov.
"Here, give this to Morozov in the storeroom. The goggle-eyed one, you'll recognise him. He's probably got a hangover."
"About the lecture... Anna Afanasievna asked me to tell you..."
The director waved a hand.
"Waste of time, those lectures! Come and talk, and I'll order some interesting film."
"What" for?" Solodovnikov didn't understand.
"For the lecture."
"But what's the film for?"
"How else could I get an audience? You can give the lecture before we show the film. Otherwise no one'll turn up. What's that?"
"Nothing. I thought they'd come just for the lecture."
"No, they won't," said the director simply and flatly.
"Ask for Morozov, head of stores."
Morozov read the director's message carefully and suddenly protested.
"Fifteen sheets? Where from? I ain't got them!" He handed back the piece of paper and looked at the doctor expectantly. "Where from?"
"But you must have!" Solodovnikov cried in dismay. "They arranged it."
"Who?"
"The head doctor and your director."
"Well, if they arranged it, let them give it to ye. I've got no iron." Morozov stuck his hands into his pockets and turned away. He obviously expected something from the doctor, but precisely what Solodovnikov couldn't think for the life of him. "It's all very well for everyone to say 'Give it to him, Morozov,' 'Hand it over, Morozov.' But Morozov's storeroom was full of sweet nothing. How about that?"
"What are we going to do?" asked Solodovnikov.
"I don't know, dear comrade, I don't know. I've got some iron sheets here waiting for Red Dawn farm to collect them." Morozov wheezed into his fist. "Caught me death of cold," he said confidentially, without a trace of anger.
"Runnin' round outside all day... 1 bet the doctor could make me better."
Only then did it dawn upon Solodovnikov that Morozov was after the hair of the dog.
"So there isn't any iron, eh?"
"Yes, there is. For other folk. Not for you."
"Is there a telephone here?"
"What for?"
"I'm going to ring the director. This is disgraceful! I leave my patients to come all this way, and then some character starts messing me about. Where's the telephone?"
Morozov took his hands out of his pockets, narrowed his eyes and gave the green young doctor a nasty look.
"Take it easy, lad, watch it. Not so much of the high-and-mighty talk, if you don't mind."
"Where's the telephone?" Solodovnikov shouted, amazed at his own cheek. "I'll give you high-and-mighty. With knobs on. We'll find those sheets, never fear... I'm going to ring up the district party committee, not the director.
Where's the phone?"
Morozov went under an awning and pulled off some roofing paper. There lay the sheets of iron.
"Count off fifteen," he said calmly, "and tell us what yer name is."
"Solodovnikov, Georgy Nikolayevich."
"Ye'I I have to answer for the character, as ye put it."
"I will."
"If any young whipper-snapper thinks he can come along and cail people names..."
"And you'll have to pay for the whipper-snapper. What are you hinting at? That the state entrusts the lives of its subjects to young whipper-snappers?"
"Alright, alright," said Morozov. But he clearly didn't like the turn things were taking.
Solodovnikov drove the sledge up to the stacks and began throwing sheets of iron into the sledge.
Morozov stood next to him, counting.
"Cheery-bye," said Solodovnikov, when he had counted off fifteen. And away he drove.
Morozov was covering the stacks with the roofing paper and did not look round at him.
Solodovnikov drove off in fine spirits. Only he was still very uncomfortable in the sledge. Particularly now that it was full of iron. He decided to sit on the edge, but it was freezing cold.
On the way back it was all melting by now, and the horse had a hard time pulling the heavy sledge over the squelching mass of snow, earth and stones.
"That'll teach him!" thought Solodovnikov, pleased with himself. "That's the way I'll do things in future." He had an unpleasant memory of the man with the stick, but tried to put that out of his mind.
But, alas, either because the sledge was dragging along so slowly or from the pettiness of the day's events and stupid clashes, Solodovnikov's high spirits and satisfaction gradually seeped away. He began to feel indifferent to the lovely sunny day and the vast expanses where the wet spring stretched out in all its splendour, indifferent to the smells and sounds and patches of light. Alright it was spring, but so what? Was he supposed to go prancing about like a goat? It would be much more fun that evening, though. Five or six of them had agreed to get together and play forfeits for kisses. There'd be music and rinks. And that snub-nosed giggly girl who taught German would be there. She may giggle a lot, but she was a clever lass. Read lots of books and had left some interesting friends in the town. At the thought of her the young doctor's heart leapt. It really did leap and no mistake. Of course, she was a bit vulgar, with an upturned nose like that. By the time she was thirty it would be up on her forehead. And snub- nosed girls often get broad in the beam later on. But she still had a long way to go to thirty!
Solodovnikov whipped on the horse.
It took him some time to unload the iron at the hospital, take the horse back to the village Soviet and then return to the hospital again. Solodovnikov could feel how tired he was. His hands were shaking. He washed them in his tiny office and was about to visit the girl with the meniscus, then decided to go in the morning. The cleaner came in and said that the phone kept ringing and Anna
Afanasievna wasn't back yet.
"Never mind. Just say she's out."
"P'raps ye'd go and listen to 'em. They keep askin' for the doctor."
Solodovnikov went into the head doctor's office, sat down by the telephone waiting for it to ring, then picked up the receiver.
"Hospital, Solodovnikov here. She's at the district. Oh, it's you, is it? Yes, I got it. Fifteen sheets, just as you said. Thank you... The lecture? No, today's no good. No. I can't... I'm busy, and I don't know when Anna Afanasievna will be back. No, I'm busy. I'll leave her a message... What time is the film? I'll make a note of that. Goodbye."
Solodovnikov put down the receiver and sat there for a bit. Then he actually did go into the ward to see the girl with the meniscus. He looked at her foot, had a word with her, gave her a jolly pat on her flushed cheek and joked with her. Then he had a word with the other patients, listened to their just, tedious remarks, told them it was spring outside and went away. Returning to his tiny office, he looked at his watch and saw that it was a quarter to three. He could push off now. He took off his white coat and adjusted his tie in front of the mirror... Then he lit a cigarette. Fingering the address book in his pocket, he grinned as he remembered the poem, but did not read it through again, and put the diary into a drawer, right at the back. Then he left the hospital.
He returned the same way he had come in the morning, carefully avoiding the puddles and greeting people he met in a polite and dignified manner (it was amazing how quickly he had learnt to be dignified, almost without realising it), but did not stop to talk to anyone."
"Yes, the snub-nosed one has got something," Solodovnikov thought. "That's for sure. But perhaps she takes herself a bit too seriously for someone who giggles all the time. She's saving herself up... So she'll let you play around, but no more. No, no more."
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