Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
While Chris waited outside, I went into the building with Mikhail. My first
mission was to find a toilet. Inside the hospital, a series of dingy corridors were
cramped with queues. We approached a woman in a white coat, but she didn't seem
to be aware of what a toilet was and just shrugged her shoulders. Then we asked a
tall man with a moustache that sprouted as thickly as a hedge from below his nose.
'Excuse me, can you tell me where is a toilet?' Mikhail asked.
The tall man broke into a high-pitched cackle before pulling one of the nurses
aside. 'Beautiful woman, hey! Just damn beautiful!' he said, looking her up and
down.
Soon the journey from office to office was underway. From the chemist we were
sent to the head doctor, then to the registrar and back again. Eventually, we wound
up in the office of the Infectionist.
The woman behind the desk was stunned by my presence. 'Are you really Aus-
tralian?' she asked, over and over again. She prescribed some 'gamma gobulin,'
which was to be injected immediately. I was then rushed to the front of a queue
and into the Injection Office. 'We have a guest from Australia!' my entourage an-
nounced. A nurse in a mask looked up with glee. Her legs rose from the floor like
two giant spruce logs, and her elbows rested comfortably on the broad shelf that
jutted out from her chest. She was halfway into injecting the withered bum cheek
of a babushka.
'Take your pants down!' she demanded, as I lay face down on a bench. Without
warning she thrust the needle into my bum. By the time I pulled up my pants she
was already injecting an old man who was standing by the bench. 'Are you really
from Australia? Good luck to you and getting to China!' she bellowed, as the man
winced in pain.
Armed with the knowledge that there was a twenty-day critical period during
which I needed to check carefully for symptoms, I thanked her and hobbled out.
When we finally disengaged ourselves from the hospital, Chris was pale with
hunger. Mikhail said that he would invite us to his house, except that he no longer
had one; he now lived in a rusty garage. Apparently he was a devout Christian who
had resigned from his position as a doctor, left his wife and somehow lost all his
possessions. The least we could do was buy him a meal.
We should have asked Mikhail to guide us out of Glazov, because it took two
hours of circling around the maze of streets to find the road east again. By that time
we were irritable and desperate to find the first possible camp site. We knew not to
speak before dinner.
