All Russians Love Birch Trees by Olga Grjasnowa Page A

until tomorrow.”
    “No.”
    “It’s only cramps. That happens. Tomorrow we’ll go back. I’m sure they couldn’t do much in the ER now anyway. I might just as well stay here. Get me some water, please.”
    I went into the kitchen and filled a glass with water. Up to the brim. Then I washed my hands, took two clean towels and poured cold water over one and boiling hot water over the other. Back in the bedroom, I tried to appear calm, to smile at Elias, but I didn’t succeed. I placed the cold compress on Elias’s forehead, and then with the disinfected towel went on to dab the pus from the wound. As soon as I touched the wound Elias screamed, jerked up, back bent, and then fell back with a groan. I dialed the number for the ambulance and wiped Elias’s face with the wet towel. The windows of the house across the street slowly lit up, one by one.
    His entire body was shivering. I tried holding on to him, hugged him, but one cramp chased the other in increasingly short intervals. The wound dripped. I lay down next to him. Elias hit the headboard full force, cursed and whimpered. An eternity passed before Iheard the siren in front of our house. From the window I yelled down the floor number and begged them to hurry up. Finally I heard the heavy steps of the emergency doctor and the paramedic on the stairs. I led them into the bedroom, where Elias was writhing in the sheets. I rattled off Elias’s medical history. The doctor nodded and put on white rubber gloves.
    “Calm down,” he said to me while taking Elias’s pulse and patting down the wound. Elias screamed in agony. I tried to soothe him, put my hand in his. Nothing worked. The doctor took a syringe from his case and gave Elias the injection. Then he continued the examination. He studied the wound pensively and started patting it again.
    Elias broke out in a cold sweat. “Stop!” he yelled. His hand clawed into mine and he turned his head away. At first I assumed he didn’t want to watch, but it turned out to be a cramp in his neck. For a couple of minutes, Elias convulsed in pain, hardly able to breathe.
    “How long has there been pus in the wound?” the physician asked.
    “Maybe a couple of hours. I don’t know. I slept through it. Can’t you give him something?”
    “I already did.”
    When the seizure ended, the doctor gave the paramedic a signal. Without a word the paramedic wentdown to the ambulance and a few minutes later came back with another colleague and a stretcher. Elias had calmed down a bit. His groans were quieter and he could breathe again. The neighbors peered out of their windows curiously.
    As soon as we arrived at the hospital a nurse asked me when Elias had last eaten.

part two

1
    I knew it as soon I saw the doctor approaching. He was tired and pale and took me by the elbow and guided me into a separate room, where he had me sit down on an examination table. I only understood bits and pieces: emergency surgery, complications, outflow of bone marrow, complications, fat embolism, not rare, complications, drop in blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, cardiac arrest.
    He took off his glasses and wiped his forehead.
    “He couldn’t be revived. Do you want to see his body?”
    Elisha lay on the bed. His body was cold, but not yet stiff. His eyes were shut. They had dressed him in ahospital gown. I opened it. The surgery wound on his thigh had been carelessly stitched. His chest had been closed in the same coarse fashion. I sat down on the edge of the bed. A nurse opened the door a crack, apologized, and came in. I waited until she had left, then locked the door. He couldn’t die. Only a few meters away. He should have waited for me. We could have died together. I wouldn’t have minded. I sang nursery rhymes for him, as if I wanted to cradle him to sleep. I sang badly and hoped something would move in his face, a brief twitch at the corners of his mouth, a flared nostril, a blink, a flick of his hand, but I knew that he was dead.