Free The Summer Guest by Alison Anderson Page A

would have a novel to translate.

May 25, 1888
    Elena asked Anton Pavlovich and me to go with her to the village clinic to examine the young woman from Velikaya Chernechina who has the tumor. Her name is Nadya. According to Elena, she has lost a great deal of weight and is terribly pale, in a fair amount of pain. Elena diagnosed a cancer; it would seem far more virulent than my own at this point. And yet because there are no visible symptoms other than her weight loss and discomfort, Nadya retains a terrible hope.
    The tumor on her neck, however, can be felt. For a moment I placed my fingers where Elena’s hand led me, as if between the two of us we hoped a touch might discover a change, something to grasp at. Her skin was warm; I could hear her quiet breathing. How she trusted us! I had to lift her long, heavy hair out of the way; I imagined it a russet color. Her hand grazed mine as she helped move her hair to one side.
    Anton Pavlovich joined us at that moment and placed his fingers on the spot I had indicated. Our fingertips touched. We examined Nadya, then sent her into the other room while we discussed the diagnosis. Elena hoped that Anton Pavlovich might have a miracle cure to propose, something he had learned at the university in Moscow, or at least a more favorable prognosis, but he could only agree with what she had said.
    And suddenly, Elena—calm, level, good Elena—was overcome. She reached out for my arm and grasped it, hard, and I could tell she must be crying from the trembling in her voice, and while her words were for Nadya and for her inability to offer any hope, I knew she must be thinking of me as well,and letting some of her sadness find its way out under the guise of her concern for Nadya. (We have agreed never to talk of my illness, only to deal with it as needs arise.) Yet it was astonishing that she did this in Anton Pavlovich’s presence. As doctors, we learn to separate our human reactions from the task at hand: the understanding of the pathology, the diagnosis, the prognosis, the prescription, the treatment—science, all of it, rational.
    Why must she die, cried Elena softly, when I go on living and can’t help her! Oh, I’m no good at this, no good at all! God in heaven! Who do I think I am, Doctor Lintvaryova!
    There was a moment of strained silence, then Anton Pavlovich said gently, You must increase the dose. That’s all you can do. Make her comfortable. Do you agree, Zinaida Mikhailovna?
    Yes, I murmured, touched that he had consulted me. I squeezed Elena’s hand; she withdrew at once.
    Later, Anton Pavlovich walked me back to the main house. We were subdued; he told me that he had seen Nadya’s family—they were all there waiting outside—father, mother, husband. I thought he was going to say something about how sad it was or what a difficult profession we have sometimes, but instead he took a deep breath and said, Your sister is an excellent physician—an excellent person—but in our profession, it doesn’t do well to take things to heart as she does. Don’t you agree?
    I suppose you’re right. She’s young still and . . . she cares about people. That is why she became a doctor.
    That’s all well and good, but she must find a way to detach her emotions from her consulting, or she’ll have a miserable time of it. And perhaps not be as effective. Does she often react like that?
    Oh, no, I assure you.
    This was not true. I remember when I was still practicing, she often came in on an evening after a long day of house calls, and she would sit down and ask Grigory Petrovich to pour her adram of vodka. Just a small one, mind, she’d say, and then with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands, she would allow her tension to dissipate in the gloom. Once or twice she wept; often she asked me what I would do in her shoes. I was the older sister, the first physician in the family. I must have said things not