Free Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

rays were to be instead of an operation, that that was what Dontsova had meant. (What she had really meant was that before operating on bone sarcoma, its activity has to be suppressed by irradiation to prevent the formation of secondaries.)
    Egenberdiev had been getting himself ready for some time. He kept a sharp lookout, and as soon as Ludmila Afanasyevna got up from the next bed he stood bolt upright in the passageway, puffed up his chest and towered soldier-like above her.
    Dontsova gave him a smile, leaned toward his lip and inspected the scab. Gangart was quietly reading out figures to her.
    â€œYes, very good!” she said encouragingly, louder than necessary, as people do when speaking to someone whose native tongue is different from their own. “You’re making good progress, Egenberdiev! You’ll soon be going home.”
    Ahmadjan knew what he was supposed to do. He had to translate what she said into Uzbek. (He and Egenberdiev understood one another, although each thought the other was murdering the language.) *
    Egenberdiev gazed at Ludmila Afanasyevna. His eyes showed hope and trust, delight even, the delight with which simple souls regard genuinely educated, genuinely useful people. Nevertheless he raised his hand to the scab and said something. “But it’s becoming larger? It’s grown?” Ahmadjan translated.
    â€œIt will all fall off. That’s what’s meant to happen.” Dontsova was articulating the words particularly loudly. “It will all fall away! Three months’ rest at home, and then you’ll come back to us!”
    She went across to the old man Mursalimov, who was already sitting with his feet hanging down. He tried to get up to meet her, but she stopped him and sat down next to him. The emaciated, bronze-skinned old man looked at her with the same faith in her omnipotence. Through Ahmadjan she asked about his cough and told him to lift up his shirt. She felt his chest lightly where it hurt and knocked on it with her fingers over her other hand, meanwhile listening to Vera Kornilyevna telling her about the number of sessions, the blood count and the injections. Then she silently examined the case history herself. Once upon a time every organ had been necessary, everything in its place inside a healthy body. But now it all seemed to be superfluous, knots of muscle and angles of bone protruding from under the skin.
    Dontsova prescribed some new injections. Then she asked him to point out among the bottles on his bedside table which pills he was taking. Mursalimov picked up an empty bottle of multi-vitamins.
    â€œWhen did you buy these?” Dontsova inquired.
    Ahmadjan translated: two days ago.
    â€œWell, where are the pills?”
    He’d taken them all.
    â€œWhat do you mean, you’ve taken them all?” Dontsova was flabbergasted. “All at once?”
    â€œNo. Two different times,” Ahmadjan relayed to her.
    The doctors, the nurses, the Russian patients and Ahmadjan all burst out laughing. Mursalimov bared his teeth—he had not yet understood.
    Only Pavel Nikolayevich was filled with indignation at their senseless, untimely, criminal laughter. Well, he’d soon sober them up! He had been debating which pose to use to confront the doctors, and had decided his point could be best made in a semi-reclining position, with his legs drawn up under him.
    â€œIt’s all right. It doesn’t matter!” Dontsova reassured Mursalimov. She prescribed some more vitamin C, wiped her hands on the towel so fervently proffered to her by one of the nurses and turned with a look of concern on her face toward the next bed. Now, as she stood close to the window and facing it, one could see her unhealthy, grayish complexion. There was a very tired, almost sickly, expression on her face.
    Sitting up sternly in bed, bald, in his skullcap and glasses, Pavel Nikolayevich looked rather like a schoolteacher, not any old schoolteacher but