Soviet Milk by Nora Ikstena

Author:Nora Ikstena [Ikstena, Nora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908670427
Publisher: Peirene Press
Published: 2018-03-08T06:00:00+00:00

The usual hamster’s wheel of the ambulatory centre began again. The hot summer had done its work. They came and came, mainly wanting to get rid of their foetuses. I thanked my exile for ridding me of the means to do this for them. I just confirmed that they were pregnant. I didn’t try to tell them how the tiny foetus can evade the instrument attempting to scrape it out of the mother’s womb. Or that this is effected knowingly by both of us, my patient and me. Or that the man often knows nothing and prefers to know nothing about it, for these are women’s concerns in a woman’s world.

I often thought of the woman who’d been chanting in the church. Finally she came to see me. As I had anticipated, her right breast had been removed. But she radiated determination and vitality. The doctor in the city had told her that for the time being she had no reason to worry. The malignancy had been cut out and she was free of it for now.

I told her that I had gone up to the church several times but had found it empty.

Well yes, no one except her ever went there. But now she would go again and more often. Because she had to thank the Giver of Life, for the malignancy had been stopped. The one who had given birth to the Healer had healed her.

She left me a tiny picture: the same icon to which she had been chanting. And she gave me a slim wax taper to light when I felt sad.

On the point of leaving, she turned around and asked how I had been able to diagnose her malady.

‘That’s just from experience,’ I said. ‘Medical experience.’

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I see that you can see more clearly.’

She said goodbye and left.

I opened the window to air the room. The September wind whipped up a maelstrom of yellow leaves which flew into the room, scattering the papers on my desk. The picture of the Virgin had fallen face down. ‘Pokhozha na vas’ – ‘Just like you’ – was written on the back.

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