All right, one thing at a time. Long,
long time ago in another galaxy I was a young, silly single mother of
a boy of four. It was summer, and I was imprisoned in the country
because it was the duty of a good parent to give their children three
months of summer holiday in the country. I let him play in the
daytime while I tried to work (I was a free-lance translator at the
time). I would take him for swims, but not let him make mud pies at
the beach because he had a very bad eczema. I read bedtime stories
for him. I cooked his meals over a little petrol stove, again very
carefully because he was allergic to more or less everything. There
was no grocery store in the village, and I had to take him on long
walks to another village. There were no pushchairs so I had to be
patient or carry him. I had enough to carry from the store. This is
just to paint a pale background.
One Saturday morning he had fever, and
half of his face was swollen. There were several options of getting
to Moscow where the closest children's clinic was, but most were not
operating on Saturdays. We had to walk for about forty minutes to the
nearest bus stop, take an hour ride by bus, then another bus to the
surgery. I didn't have enough money for a taxi. We had to wait for
quite a long time, and when it was our turn, they said we were in the
wrong place, we had to go to A&E. Another bus, another wait, and
then they took him away, saying: “You are lucky you brought him
now, two hours more, and it would have been too late... Good bye, we
have phone inquiries on Thursdays between two and three, you can ask
about his temperature”. “Wait!”, I cried, “He is just four
years old, he has never been away from his family! He is allergic to
everything! He has eczema and must have treatment every night!”
Well, Russia is a country where
everything is prohibited and everything is possible. Within a couple
of hours I found a friend of a friend of a friend who knew the nurse
who knew the doctor, and at least I had first-hand information,
although I still wasn't allowed to see my child, and the fruit I sent
him, bought for my very last money, was most probably stolen by the
nurses. Since he could not read it was pointless sending letters.
Just as pointless sending toys. When I got him back after a week he
wasn't much worse for it and told me with awe that the boys in the
ward used bad words.
I couldn't help recalling this episode
when my youngest son had to be operated for hernia at the age of two,
in a Swedish hospital. I had to hold him while they fixed the tubes; I was allowed to follow in the ante-surgery room. They
warned me that he would go to sleep much quicker than I expected, and
I am glad they did, because he just went limp in my arms. Then they
took him in and told me to go and get a cup of coffee. When they
brought him out, still asleep, they said: “You must not leave him
for a second, because when he wakes up, the first thing he sees must
be your face”.
