Riding Icarus (10 page)

“I’d almost given you up for lost,” he bellowed. “Why, if you knew what was waiting for you you’d come running, not minching down here like a cow with worms.”

The nurse bristled, but before she could speak another head bobbed up beside Nechipor. This head was covered in wispy brown hair and wore a wondering expression in its bleary eyes. It was the hospital doorman.

“Amazing,” said the head thickly. “Amazing what they still make in the village.” It disappeared again with a slight hiccup.

The nurse leant over the desk and brought it back into view by heaving on the doorman’s collar.

“Sergey Sergeyich, what is going on here?” she snapped.

“Lucky grandmother on your ward,” Sergey Sergeyich said, with a dreamy smile. “They’ve brought her such wonderful things. Expect you’ll get to have some too. Lucky.”

Nechipor knocked on a door in the wall behind the desk. “All the best from the village,” he boomed. “Poppy seed cakes, tender hams, sausages, the best
salo
you ever tasted.”

“They said there was caviar,” the nurse said stolidly.

“There might be caviar,” Nechipor agreed airily. “I’m not saying there isn’t. There are even better things than caviar.”

“Better…” echoed the doorman, blinking and swaying.

The nurse looked at them both suspiciously. “So where is all this stuff you’ve brought? I suppose I can take it up to the old woman, although it’s a lot of trouble for me.”

Nechipor knocked on the door again. “Sergey Sergeyich told me to put it in here, out of the way.” He opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Yes, still here. Hasn’t run off anywhere, although I’ll tell you, there’s a roast duck that’s so fresh and tender I’m surprised it hasn’t flown away. Please come and take it, madam. I’m worried that if I carry it myself I won’t be able to resist the smell and I’ll have to start eating.”

The nurse came round the desk and put her head through the doorway. Nechipor gave her a smart push inside, closed the door and turned the key in the lock.

“Off we go!” he boomed, swinging a big sack out from under the desk. “Won’t you come too, Sergey Sergeyich? I’m sure the grandmother will invite you to partake of something.”

A muffled banging came from behind the door.

Sergey Sergeyich upended a little glass tumbler so it stood on his nose. “Where’s the nurse gone? She was right here. Nurse?” He shook his head vaguely. “Strange banging noise…”

Masha started to kick one heel loudly against the wall. “It’s me,” she said quickly. “I’m bored waiting here; I want to take all these presents to Granny. Let’s go.”

Gena drummed on the desktop. “Me too. So bored. Come on.”

Nechipor heaved the sack over his shoulder and picked up a nearly empty bottle and a second glass. He handed the bottle to the doorman.

“Sergey Sergeyich,” he said. “Another toast awaits when we give Granny her presents. Lead the way.”

Sergey Sergeyich’s face brightened. He took the bottle and set off waveringly up the hallway.

The hospital corridors were quiet and empty; Masha supposed everyone was having lunch. But Sergey Sergeyich and Nechipor didn’t seem to want to keep quiet. “There is another bottle, isn’t there?” the doorman kept asking, and, “The grandmother will invite me to drink something, won’t she?”

“Bottles and bottles and bottles,” carolled Nechipor. His face was even rosier and shinier than usual and his moustache had a ferocious curl. “Nectar!” he shouted with a kind of reverent exuberance, slapping the doorman on the back. “Drink of the gods!”

“Shh!” said Masha nervously, but there was no hushing the Cossack, who strode along with the sack over his shoulder, singing. Several disapproving heads looked out of the wards as they passed, but whether intimidated by the sight of the huge Cossack or reassured to see Sergey Sergeyich, none of them said anything.

When they reached Granny’s ward at the top of the stairs, the door was locked.

“Oh no!” Masha cried. “The nurse must have the key. What shall we do?”

“Call that a lock?” snorted Nechipor. He picked up the spoon from the nurse’s abandoned teacup and jiggled it around in the keyhole. The door opened.

“What have we here?” Nechipor roared, swaggering into the ward. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

The room was full of grandmothers. Most of them were lying in narrow, sagging iron beds, the thin sheets pulled up to their chins. Two were sitting up playing chess on the mattress with pieces made ingeniously out of cigarette packets, and one was knitting a long brown stocking. At the end of the room, another was smoking furtively by the window.

“Who have you come to visit, dear?” the knitting old woman said eagerly to Masha.

“My granny.” Masha looked in vain around the long room. “I can’t see her.”

“Take your pick,” said the one by the window. “Lots of grannies here.”

Masha walked uncertainly down the ward, past all the faded blue eyes watching her hungrily. Only the two chess players never looked up.

“Granddaughter!” cried one old woman in a grubby cotton wrap. “Come here, my love.” But it wasn’t Masha’s grandmother and she hurried past.

Granny was lying in a bed near the end. Her feet made a little bump at the bottom of the sheet, and her snowy white hair made a ruffle at the top. She was lying quite still with her eyes closed.

“Granny,” said Masha uncertainly. “Granny, it’s me.”

Granny’s eyes popped open, dark and twinkling. “Mashenka, there you are,” she said. “What took you so long?”

“I came as soon as I could.” Masha gave her a hug. How small and frail she felt! But Granny gave her a strong, hard kiss on her forehead.

“Better late than never,” she said. “Come to get me out, have you?”

“Of course. We brought Nechipor to save you.”

The Cossack advanced down the ward, and Granny regarded him without surprise. “Hello,” she greeted him. “Thank you for your help.”

“Lord save us, I’m happy to be of service,” said Nechipor. “Excuse my asking, Babka Praskovia. Can you walk, or shall I carry you?”

“It’s my leg. Getting better, but I can’t be quick.” Granny sat up and patted her hair. “Don’t suppose you brought my headscarf, did you, child? They took it away, the greedy grabbing creatures. Took everything. Would have had my soul if they could.” She felt around under the bed for her slippers – old hospital slippers, not the pair they had brought for her earlier, Masha noticed – and put on the cardigan that Masha held out.

The rest of the grandmothers watched these preparations with astonishment and envy. In the next bed, a little, pale old lady beckoned to Gena.

“Where’s she going?” she quavered in a tiny voice.

“Home, of course,” Gena answered.

“Home…” Tears came into her dim blue eyes. “Won’t you take me home too?”

“But I don’t know where your home is,” said Gena uncomfortably.

“Don’t take any notice,” interrupted the woman by the window. “Don’t listen, or they’ll all want to go with you, and you’ll have fifty grannies to deal with instead of one. Why, I might even come with you myself.” She had smoked her cigarette right down to the end, and now she threw it outside regretfully.

“Granddaughter!” That was the old woman who had called out to Masha before. “Come here, come over to me.”

“Let’s go.” Masha took her grandmother’s arm to help her up. “Quick as we can, before the nurse comes back, or the doctor.”

They set off up the ward. Granny’s left leg was stiff and she could only walk very slowly, leaning on Masha.

Sergey Sergeyich was standing in front of the door, holding the empty bottle and glass accusingly. “Where’s the drink? Celebration drink. You promised.”

“So we did.” To Masha’s dismay, Nechipor swung the bag down from his shoulder.

“We should run while no one’s here,” said Masha anxiously.

“Always time for a drink,” was all Nechipor said, sticking his head inside the sack. “Isn’t that right, Sergey Sergeyich?”

“Exactly,” the doorman concurred with greedy emphasis.

Nechipor emerged brandishing a bottle of pale golden liquid, from which he poured a generous measure for the doorman and another for himself. “Real Cossack
samogon
. Your health, Sergey Sergeyich.”

The two men downed their glassfuls with much gasping and smacking of lips.

“Hits the spot,” said Sergey Sergeyich, his eyes watering. “Just one more, eh?”

“Oh, let’s go,” pleaded Masha. But there was no budging the Cossack.

“No hurry, no hurry,” he said, pouring out more drink. “Fire in the stomach, iron in the soul, that’s what this is.” He raised his glass. “The second toast,” he announced, “is for the ladies. Ladies, we salute you! Your beauty, your charms! May your fingers be always nimble, your cooking pots full and your husbands faithful!”

Down the ward, the rows of old women gazed at him with sad vacancy. Granny gave a loud snort.

“May your husbands never be drinkers, if you’re cursed with them at all,” commented the woman by the window. “Give us a fag, and stop blethering your nonsense.”

“
Now
let’s go,” Masha urged as Nechipor tossed back the glassful.

At that moment, the door flew open.

“There they are!” shrieked the nurse. With her was a doctor, a beefy orderly and two security guards in combat fatigues who advanced purposefully, rolling up their sleeves.

“Hooligans! Terrorists! That’s the thug who locked me up,” shouted the dishevelled nurse, pointing at Nechipor.

“I’ll call the police,” the doctor said, “as soon as we get our troublesome old woman back in bed where she belongs.”

“I don’t belong there and never did, and you’re nothing but a jailer,” Granny retorted.

“We’re taking her home; that’s where she belongs,” Masha said defiantly. But the nurse grabbed her ear and began to pull her away from Granny. It was so painful that Masha screamed.

“What’s all this? Over my dead body!” roared Nechipor as the guards closed in. He gave the sack on the ground a kick, and a small, hard, round green object rolled out.

There was a sudden silence. The grandmothers stared from their beds. The guards stopped dead in their tracks and Masha saw their eyes go wide with fear.

“No, it can’t be…” breathed one.

“Hand grenade!” shouted the other.

As if the shout had broken a spell, they both turned tail and ran out of the room.

Another small green ball rolled out of the sack.

“Take cover!” yelled one of the guards as he scrambled back down the stairs. The doctor and the orderly suddenly dashed for the door and disappeared after them. The nurse, bewildered, peered closer at the objects on the floor.

“Come along, quickly!” Nechipor scooped Granny up into his arms and strode towards the door. Gena followed, grabbing the sack.

“Hand grenade?” said the nurse. Then she shouted, “Come back, you fools! Call yourself guards? Call yourself Afghan veterans? Idiots!” She tightened her grip on Masha’s ear, panting, “I’ll keep you here at least, you little minx.”

The doorman had watched the whole affair in a daze. “What are you standing there for?” the nurse bawled at him. “Help me!”

Sergey Sergeyich obligingly took hold of Masha’s arm. Nechipor was already halfway down the stairs with Granny, but Gena looked round and saw what was happening. Almost without thinking, he ran back and upended the sack he had picked up. A dozen more of the hard green ovals tumbled out and went bowling along the floor.

As they rolled around their ankles, the nurse and the doorman stumbled helplessly. Sergey Sergeyich sat down with a bump. “Never drink again,” Masha heard him say plaintively as she pulled free and ran after the others. The nurse tried to follow but her feet were hopelessly tangled up in the rolling objects. She was left behind as Gena and Masha tore down the corridors and out into the sunshine, following Nechipor still carrying Granny like a child in his arms.

T
hey were out of the gates and trying to hail a taxi when they realized they were not alone. Nechipor had set Granny down and was attempting to dust her off. There at his elbow Masha and Gena suddenly noticed the old woman who had been smoking by the window in the ward.

Granny regarded her with disfavour. “Oh, you’re here, are you, you baggage,” she greeted her.

“No need to be rude,” replied the old woman, amiably enough. “We’re on different sides, but all the same I’m grateful to you for getting me out of there.” She bent down and fished under the hedge that surrounded the hospital grounds, pulling out a little old wooden cart on pram wheels. “Stole my bottles, curse ’em,” she muttered, looking inside. “Well, I’ll be off. Might do you a good turn one day, you never know. Owe you one.” She grinned at Gena and Masha and pinched Nechipor’s bottom.

Just then a taxi drew to a stop, and in the flurry of climbing in they didn’t see where she went.

“Who was she and why don’t you like her?” asked Masha as they drove away.

“Old witch,” Granny replied, preoccupied with trying to tie Nechipor’s handkerchief over her head.

“But you’re a witch!” Gena burst out in astonishment before he could help himself.

Masha glared at him. But Granny only replied, “Well, like she said then, we’re on different sides. The impudent besom, hitching a ride on our escape.” She sniffed disgustedly, then leant back and closed her eyes. “Well, it’s a breath of fresh air to be out of there. I feel better already. Now, take me home.”