“What money! For God’s sake, go.”
The Count crossed the curb and rushed toward the hospital, but even as he passed through its doors, he knew that he had made a terrible mistake. In the entry hall, there were grown men sleeping on benches, like refugees in a railway station. Hallway lights flickered as if powered by a faulty generator, and in the air was the smell of ammonia and cigarette smoke. When the Count had been a young man, St. Anselm’s had been among the finest hospitals in the city. But that was thirty years ago. By now, the Bolsheviks had presumably built new hospitals—modern, bright, and clean—and this old facility had been left behind as some sort of clinic for veterans, the homeless, and the otherwise forsaken.
Sidestepping a man who appeared to be asleep on his feet, the Count approached a desk where a young nurse was reading.
“It is my daughter,” he said. “She has been injured.”
Looking up, the nurse dropped her magazine. She disappeared through a door. After what seemed like an eternity, she returned with a young man in the white jacket of an internist. The Count held Sofia out while pulling back the blood-soaked handkerchief to show the wound. The internist ran his hand across his mouth.
“This girl should be seen by a surgeon,” he said.
“Is there one here?”
“What? No, of course not.” He looked at a clock on the wall. “At six, perhaps.”
“At six? Surely, she needs attention now. You must do something.”
The internist rubbed his hand across his mouth again and then turned to the nurse.
“Find Dr. Kraznakov. Have him report to Surgery Four.”
As the nurse disappeared again, the internist wheeled over a gurney.
“Lay her here and come with me.”
With the Count at his side, the internist pushed Sofia down a hall and into an elevator. Once on the third floor, they passed through a pair of swinging doors into a long hallway in which there were two other gurneys, each with a sleeping patient.
“In there.”
The Count pushed open the door and the internist wheeled Sofia into Surgery Four. It was a cold room, tiled from floor to ceiling. In one corner, the tiles had begun falling from the plaster. There was a surgical table, craning lights, and a standing tray. After some minutes, the door opened and an ill-shaven physician entered with the young nurse. He looked as if he had just been wakened.
“What is it?” he said in a weary voice.
“A young girl with a head injury, Dr. Kraznakov.”
“All right, all right,” he said. Then waving a hand at the Count, he added: “No visitors in the surgery.”
The internist took the Count by the elbow.
“Wait a second,” the Count said. “Is this man capable?”
Looking at the Count, Kraznakov grew red in the face. “What did he say?”
The Count continued to address the young internist.
“You said she needed to be seen by a surgeon. Is this man a surgeon?”
“Get him out of here, I tell you!” shouted Kraznakov.
But the door to the surgery swung open again and a tall man in his late forties entered in the company of a primly dressed associate.
“Who is in charge here?” he asked.
“I am in charge,” said Kraznakov. “Who are you? What is this?”
Brushing Kraznakov aside, the newcomer approached the table and leaned over Sofia. He gingerly parted her hair to examine the wound. He raised one of her eyelids with a thumb and then took her pulse by holding her wrist and glancing at his watch. Only then did he turn to Kraznakov.
“I’m Lazovsky, chief of surgery at First Municipal. I will be seeing to this patient.”
“What’s that? Now listen here!”
Lazovsky turned to the Count.
“Are you Rostov?”
“Yes,” said the Count, astounded.
“Tell me when and how this happened. Be as precise as you can.”
“She fell while running up a staircase. I think she hit her head on the edge of the landing. It was at the Metropol Hotel. It couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes ago.”
“Had she been drinking?”
“What? No. She’s a child.”
“How old?”
“Thirteen.”
“Her name?”
“Sofia.”
“All right. Very good.”
Ignoring Kraznakov’s ongoing protests, Lazovsky turned his attention to the primly dressed associate and began giving her instructions: that she find scrubs for the team and a suitable place to wash; that she gather the necessary surgical tools; that she sterilize everything.
The door swung open and a young man appeared, wearing the cavalier expression of one who has just come from a ball.
“Good evening, comrade Lazovsky,” he said with a smile. “What a charming place you have here.”
“All right, Antonovich. That’ll be enough of that. It’s a fracture at the front of the left parietal bone with a likely risk of subdural hematoma. Suit up. And see if you can do something about this lighting.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But first, get them out of here.”
As Antonovich began corralling the two resident physicians out of the surgery with his carefree smile, Lazovsky pointed at the young nurse who had been manning the desk downstairs.
“Not you. Get yourself ready to assist.”
Then he turned to the Count.
“Your daughter has taken quite a crack, Rostov, but she hasn’t fallen headfirst from a plane. The skull was designed to withstand a certain amount of rough treatment. In these sorts of cases, the greatest risk is from swelling rather than direct damage. But that’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before. We’re going to attend to your daughter immediately. In the meantime, you will need to sit outside. I will come and report to you as soon as I can.”
The Count was led to a bench right outside the surgery. It took him a few moments to realize that in the preceding minutes the hallway had been cleared: the two gurneys with their sleeping patients were gone. The door at the end of the hallway suddenly swung open to admit Antonovich, who was now in scrubs and whistling. As the door swung closed, the Count could see that a man in a black suit had held the door open for him. When Antonovich went back into Surgery Four, the Count was alone in the empty hallway.
How did he spend the ensuing minutes? How would any man spend them.
He prayed for the first time since childhood. He allowed himself to imagine the worst, then assured himself that everything would be all right, reviewing the surgeon’s few remarks over and over.
“The skull was designed for rough treatment,” he repeated to himself.
Yet against his will, he was visited by contrary examples. He recalled a genial woodsman from the village of Petrovskoye, for instance, who had been hit in the head in the prime of his life by a falling limb. When he regained consciousness, he was as strong as ever, but sullen; on occasion he failed to recognize his friends; and without the slightest provocation he could explode in anger toward his own sisters—as if he’d been put to bed one man and had risen from bed another.
The Count began to chastise himself: How could he have let Sofia play such a reckless game? How could he while away an hour in a bar fretting over history paintings and statues—while Fate was preparing to hold his daughter’s life in the balance?
For all the varied concerns attendant to the raising of a child—over schoolwork, dress, and manners—in the end, a parent’s responsibility could not be more simple: To bring a child safely into adulthood so that she could have a chance to experience a life of purpose and, God willing, contentment.
Untold minutes passed.
The door to the surgery opened and Dr. Lazovsky appeared. He had his mask pulled below his chin. His hands were bare but there was blood on his smock.
The Count leapt up.
“Please, Rostov,” said the surgeon. “Have a seat.”
The Count sat back on the bench.