Читать книгу Impuls - Aster - Страница 3

these people think that doctors live somewhere

for them: I wish I could get through, I wish I could shout;

Who will take the responsibility of collecting

those moaning with phantom pain in their shoulders?

Emily turns around.

The woman in front of her must be like a thousand other women; except that the world around them doesn't shrink, doesn't chew itself up, doesn't beat a cold, bright light in her face. And, of course, these other women do not look as if they are not human, but expendable. A pebble stuck in a pointy-toed shoe; a tiny crease on a perfectly pressed blouse from a new-fangled designer.

Her gaze catches Emily's, pauses a little, puts a branding – an annoying, nagging factor that it is not customary to talk about out loud; an unnecessary element of decor in the office; a formally donated statuette for the next anniversary of the company.

Of course she was mistaken, Emily keeps telling herself, just mistaken, saying the wrong name, just mixed up, well, it happens to everyone, yes, she repeats, trying to stare at the floor, but sees only her reflection in the lacquer of the black pumps.

– Ah, Dr. Clark! We've got another mystery here," the one who was praising Emily a few minutes ago announces all too happily.

– Send her to the diagnosticians.

– How did you know it was a girl?

– I meant the riddle. – Clark puts a Kraft bag and two cups with R&H logos on the table. – It's 8:00 in the morning, Donald. What's with the gathering in my office?

Emily, standing slightly behind the woman, steps away from the desk as inconspicuously as possible; bumping into the owner of the office, her supervisor, and apparently a colleague is in no way part of her plans for the day.

Neuroscience, in fact, is.

Standing behind a small cabinet – very, very flat, Rebecca would be sure to let off some unfunny joke – Emily feels panicky.

More than anything, she wants to be invisible: in all the time she has worked here, she has never found herself alone with such people in an office, and now she has no idea what to do: answer an earlier question, repeat her directions, or run away, forgetting to close the door behind her.

But it's as if she's no longer noticed – after some quiet negotiation, all three of them lean over the scattered pieces of paper, and then stare into the wall-mounted negatoscope: six projections of the brain catch their attention more than Johnson, who languishes waiting for the right papers.

Emily looks at the back of the neurosurgeon's head – almost white, short-cropped hair, a sort of pixie haircut that crosses all boundaries: torn strands and real chaos instead of styling.

The nurses also wore the same kind of hair, only it was more flashy and provocative: pink, blue, green, with the addition of dreadlocks, long bangs, or shaved temples, but it looked like they were trying to get attention. Clark, on the other hand, seems to find a breeze in every second, allowing that hair to be styled in any way .

– …patch it up right here," her slightly husky voice made the air vibrate, "see if anything comes of it. It won't be completely repaired, of course.

– Can you do that?

Clark shrugs, and the outline of lace underwear becomes visible through the thin fabric of her gray blouse.

– I'll try," she answers evasively. – But I need more tests.

– Speaking of tests. Miss Johnson is still waiting for her referrals. – Donald turns to Emily. – Moss is going to write it all out, wait for him outside, please.

– Dr. Moss," Andrew whispers, "is too busy for paperwork.

Emily doesn't know why, but she flares up like a Christmas tree, as if she'd been rudely answered, or rejected altogether; she blushes so red her cheeks are hotter than a fire; and Moss stares at her with an angry look in his eyes.

She has to get out of the office; a step, a second, a third – a soft footstep on the parquet, the barely perceptible creaking of the door, the sudden stuffiness and the strange, almost black sky in the windows.

Emily leans her back against the cool brick wall, and the air around her crumples like old dry paper. Scary words flash in her head: panic attack, anxiety disorder, nervous breakdown; but her pulse quickly evens out, and the decrepit paper air crumbles to ashes, allowing her to take a breath of pure oxygen.

She remembers: she is seventeen, a dusty path to the tops of medicine, dozens of books and bitten pencils ahead of her. Becoming a doctor, Emily dreams, saving people, deftly wielding a scalpel, saying "dry" to the head nurse, and having dinner with her colleagues in some quiet place in the evening, pouting cheekily, and stretching the words, "Let's not talk about work?"

Bites her lip: the tuition bills, the failed exams, her mother's sneers, "Daddy's very unhappy," George's dark red uniform: equality, they said, is the foundation of the basics.

Emily remembers the numbers: ten thousand dollars a year; one loan; two jobs; three hours of sleep. Pathetic attempts at self-indulgence: this is not the worst thing that could happen to a dream.

And the realization: no, it's much scarier than that.

She doesn't even have a pass like everyone else – you can't use it to get benefits, to brag about it in front of her family, to put it in a nice cover or wear it proudly with a ribbon around your neck. St. George is not a place to be proud of, and four years is too little for a doctor and too much for a nurse; just as the next forty thousand is another stepping stone on the way to quite the wrong place to be.

Sigh.

Emily knows: this is going to be one hell of a fall.

* * *

When she returns with her cherished papers back to neurology, the door to room three hundred and thirteen is unlocked and the bed itself is empty, with only the sheets carelessly wrinkled and the recliner somehow pushed back in.

She should have handled it without leaving the girl unattended, but failed here, too. Now there's no use looking all over the hospital for the patient: she could be anywhere from the treatment room to the exam room. So Johnson sits back in his chair, tucks his legs under him, and taps his fingers on the table – he has to pull himself together and do something.

Fear should have possessed her by now, but Emily feels only endless fatigue weighing on her shoulders. Her own burden, as it turns out, weighs and presses her to the ground worse than someone else's.

My thoughts do not leap, do not rush, they stand still, frozen in space; and somewhere in the margins of consciousness a simple thought emerges: there are so many staff in the hospital that a blind and probably panicked patient would not be left without attention. So she is either in another room, or indeed taken to…

Dr. Higgins enters the room just as Emily prepares to fly out of it in search of him – sandy jacket, crumpled shirt, silver-tinted hair. They'd seen each other once before, Emily recalls, perhaps in the emergency room or in the lower therapy rooms.

– Good afternoon!" Mark salutes in greeting. – I took your Miss Anonymous to the next ward. Glad one of us thought to do the paperwork. – A nod to the pile of directions and a smile. – I don't like all that… By the way," he doesn't wait for an answer, "the angiography showed no vascular lesions. Now she's on an EEG and an Echo. Just give it to me, don't be shaky. – He reaches for the papers.

Emily obediently hands over the forms, filled in Moss's fine, cursive handwriting, and looks expectantly at Mark: the general practitioner, in his sixties, looks forty-something thanks to his light clothes and some inner, radiant smile.

– She likes you. – He takes a pen out of his breast pocket and signs. – Our Jane Doe*.

– Where did she come from? – Emily mechanically unfolds the bedspread. – I mean," she corrects herself, "how was she found?

– Oh," Mark sits back in his chair, "it's a very interesting story, Miss Johnson. All she remembers is that she was found by the paramedics. They themselves say someone called 911 anonymously to report the girl.

– But the police…? – Emily frowns.

– What about the police? – Higgins splashes his hands. – They came, talked to someone from the emergency room, and left, didn't even take her chart. Don't you think they've got enough of Jane's kind? Though maybe Donald or his secretary will fax them all the data, but that's when it's-" He shrugs. – You know, Miss Johnson, there may be something you can do for this young lady…

– What?

The ringing of an old gray Nokia interrupts the professor. The standard message tune cuts to the ear, then abruptly cuts off by the incoming call. Higgins frowns as he listens to the caller, nods without asking anything, and then just tosses the phone back into his jacket pocket.

– Change of plans, Miss Johnson. Forget about Jane, her namesake is waiting for us. – Mark stands up abruptly. – The other doe has a complication and needs to be prepped for surgery. A cyst.

– The other doe? – Emily's looking blankly into the void. – Professor, wait!

* * *

– What the fuck?! – Moss is furious as hell, and the air around him is saturated with electricity, threatening to turn into a storm. – We looked at his labs this morning, they were clean, did that crap come out in two hours?

– We looked at his head, not his back," Mark corrected him gently. – And we thought the pain was from hitting the pavement.

– There's a sack of shit for half the picture! – Andrew turns around so sharply that the flaps of his robe fly into the air. – How can you not see it?!

Higgins only shrugs his shoulders:

– It's been too little time, Andrew. We haven't even finished the general tests yet, and a new pain has arisen. It's no use blaming the poor orderlies.

– I'll get Neal to pump out the fluid and put in his miracle patches. – Moss signs the papers one by one and almost throws them at Emily, who is standing next to her. – Take this to Ray later. Where the hell did she come from?" The neurologist puts the scans back in the envelope. – Give this to our surgeons. And take care of the patient… – he yells again and storms out of the room before Emily can say okay. Mark follows, not even glancing at Johnson, holding a pile of unstitched files.

The other Doe, in Emily's opinion, needs no preparation: he sits perfectly still and doesn't take his gaze off her. His chart was almost blank-no test results, no allergies, no-whatever, as if they'd forgotten to fill it out, and there was no time to gather a medical history. Especially since he'd already been to some kind of procedure-the nurse sees a couple of cotton lumps glued on with a Band-Aid, a fresh IV line, a fresh bandage on his head, too.

Emily knows: it's just under an hour to surgery, which means that now we have to figure out what he's been doing and eating before; and when you consider that this is another memoryless man, the level of difficulty doubles.

Well, at least he can see her.

– Hello," she says. – I'm Emily. I will work with you.

Silence.

– The anesthesia doesn't hurt," she continues. – But first I need to remove all your jewelry, braces, and piercings. If you have lenses or hearing aids, they also need to be removed for the operation. But I'll get them all back to you afterwards, don't worry. – The smile on duty.

Silence.

Emily begins to get nervous: dark green eyes of the young man closely watching her every movement, as if analyzing.

He repeats:

– Are you wearing any of the things I have listed?

And looks expectantly: maybe he will at least reach out to her, or show her his ears, or nod; nervousness is quickly replaced by irritation: let him already do something, as long as he gives signs of life.

Emily scrutinizes his face: barely noticeable wrinkles in the corners of the lips, a scattering of freckles, high cheekbones, circles under his eyes. If you meet him on the street, you think he's a high-school student, lacking only a backpack or a laptop bag. His head is bandaged tightly, so you can't see any hair at all, but one or two strands of red at his ear are dishevelled and tugging ridiculously.

* * *

– What the fuck?! – Moss is pissed as hell, and the air around him is electrifying, threatening to turn into a storm. – We looked at his labs this morning and they were clean, did that crap come out in two hours?

– We looked at his head, not his back," Mark corrected him gently. – And we thought the pain was from hitting the pavement.

– There's a sack of shit for half the picture! – Andrew turns around so sharply that the flaps of his robe fly into the air. – How can you not see it?!

Higgins only shrugs his shoulders:

– It's been too little time, Andrew. We haven't even finished the general tests yet, and a new pain has arisen. It's no use blaming the poor orderlies.

– I'll get Neal to pump out the fluid and put in his miracle patches. – Moss signs the papers one by one and almost throws them at Emily, who is standing next to her. – Take this to Ray later. Where the hell did she come from?" The neurologist puts the scans back in the envelope. – Give this to our surgeons. And take care of the patient… – he yells again and storms out of the room before Emily can say okay. Mark follows, not even glancing at Johnson, holding a pile of unstitched files.

The other Doe, in Emily's opinion, needs no preparation: he sits perfectly still and doesn't take his gaze off her. His chart was almost blank-no test results, no allergies, no-whatever, as if they'd forgotten to fill it out, and there was no time to gather a medical history. Especially since he'd already been to some kind of procedure-the nurse sees a couple of cotton lumps glued on with a Band-Aid, a fresh IV line, a fresh bandage on his head, too.

Emily knows: it's just under an hour to surgery, which means we now have to figure out what he's been doing and eating before; and when you consider that this is another memoryless man, the level of difficulty doubles.

Well, at least he can see her.

– Hello," she says. – I'm Emily. I will work with you.

Silence.

– The anesthesia doesn't hurt," she continues. – But first I need to remove all your jewelry, braces, and piercings. If you have lenses or hearing aids, they also need to be removed for the operation. But I'll get them all back to you afterwards, don't worry. – The smile on duty.

Silence.

Emily begins to get nervous: dark green eyes of the young man closely watching her every movement, as if analyzing.

He repeats:

– Are you wearing any of the things I have listed?

And looks expectantly: maybe he will at least reach out to her, or show her his ears, or nod; nervousness is quickly replaced by irritation: let him already do something, as long as he gives signs of life.

Emily scrutinizes his face: barely noticeable wrinkles in the corners of the lips, a scattering of freckles, high cheekbones, circles under his eyes. If you meet him on the street, you think he's a high-school student, lacking only a backpack or a laptop bag. His head is bandaged tightly, so you can't see any hair at all, but one or two strands of red at his ear are dishevelled and tugging ridiculously.

Emily patiently repeats:

– Are you wearing any…

– I can't hear you," the young man says suddenly, licking his dry lips. – I am deaf.

If Emily could, she would shriek in surprise and some ridiculous horror of the situation, but she just smiles and nods; and then takes out a pen and writes the words on the back of the blank form: piercings, braces, rings, hearing aid?

He shakes his head.

Then Emily deduces: put a score on overall pain – and hands him the pen.

7/10, the answer follows.

The next part of the conversation resembles a comic sketch: Emily takes turns drawing a glass of water, coffee, a sandwich, and for some reason a slice of watermelon; then she draws a clock face – and after ten minutes she finds out that the patient had eaten nothing since morning and drank only water an hour ago after another blood sampling.

She points again to her name on the nametag, waits for the nod, and puts on her gloves; four ampoules, apparently brought by Moss, lie on the table, waiting to be filled: the anesthetic enhancer midazolam, the respiratory reflex inhibitor atropine, the stomach-soothing metoclopramide and the anti-allergenic Benadryl. Emily knows this sequence by heart.

The patient's hands are cold and scrunched up; Emily searches for a vein that hasn't been used before giving the injection, and then barely stops the blood spurting out of the blue. There is no doubt that she administered the injection correctly, but the young man shows no emotion – no pain, no panic, nothing. A perfect, absolute emptiness.

Emily writes nothing more, only sits down heavily beside him, feeling the fullness of the day's woolen shawl cover her shoulders. Now she should be saying comforting, soothing words: everything will be all right, our doctors are professionals in their field, and that-that-someone-Neil is just a luminary of modern surgery.

But she won't say.

And he just looks at her with his dark green eyes and speaks a little in a chant, as if addressing someone invisible behind her back:

– And he who knew no sin made him a sacrifice for sin.

Emily is silent: the overcrowded mind does not immediately identify the biblical quote – and afterwards the patient's eyelashes tremble as he leans back on the pillows and closes his eyes, and Johnson puts a pulse oximeter on his finger in fear, but the perfectly even numbers glow green.

He's just asleep – the nuclear mixture of drugs must have had an effect, or he, too, may have had a hard day, or maybe his whole life; Emily gazes into his young but tired face and tries to imagine his life before the hospital: maybe he was a wandering musician, or a secretary, or a simple student; or, like her, a medical student, too.

And then, picturing clear, colorful images, she whispers quietly, a little hesitantly:

– That in sin we may be made righteous before God.

Emily picks up the file again – the rest of the lines need to be filled in, and then she takes everything to the rooms; and soon the patient must be taken away for anesthesia – here her work ends, the operating nurse comes into play.

The glass door swings open and strikes the stopper so loudly that Johnson jumps up – and then owes a sharp edge of paper that cuts his skin.

A disheveled, panting kid in a white overcoat, with his nametag miraculously held in his pocket, stops in front of Emily, trying to lick off a drop of blood.

She almost succeeds, and only the long, thin scratch on the back of her hand is a reminder of what happened.

Something clicks in her head.

– Emily Johnson? – The student tries to catch his breath. – Let's go see Miss Clark.