The hospital consultancy room is falsely cheery—overly bright colours,
touches of home that are to be found in nobody's home. Lana is nervous,
feeling the strong, vertiginous pull of inevitability when the consultant
comes in. She stands jerkily, her hands smoothing her hair in a gesture she
thought had been buried by years of frantically acquired poise.
'Well, your initial blood work report is back, and I have to say that it is... unusual.'
The consultant is gray-haired and sharp looking, her thin, straight frame bearing the responsibility of untold fates. Lana remembers the advertisement of Cancer Research UK that she saw on the endless tube journey to Heathrow, when her funds were low, and all she wanted was to return to the familiar harshness of Metropolis. She recalls the happy smiles of people who have been given the "All Clear", frozen on tin plates over empty seats in the grim train, and that memory has coloured her understanding of cancer. This sharp-featured woman now sitting down and scanning reports could be a benign angel of forgiveness, of fresh chances and new beginnings, or she could pronounce the harsh sentence of chemotherapy and pain. She wonders if her thinking these thoughts has jinxed her own chances of being given the all clear, because her bitterness at not having someone to greet her with a happy smile, to form her personal montage of gleeful escape from fate, has swayed the Fates to turn away and pronounce a different sentence...
She suddenly hears her own heart beating and the consultant is speaking with the accelerated rub-dub-lub-dub of her lifeblood in the foreground.
'Yes, very unusual white blood cell activity. Now that in itself is not an indication of cancerous growths, and your biopsy of breast tissue was clear...'
She looked at Lana and spoke slowly, easily, in a manner cultivated so as not to create alarm. All Lana can hear is the blood, now with the increased WBC's, pumping in her ears and all she sees are the wrinkles that radiate from the withered mouth of the woman before her. Her lipstick has bled in a grotesque parody of a mouth and Lana has this trick with water-based concealer that prevents just such...
'unusual readings that we need to study further. '
Her attention snaps back to the words rather than just the movement of the mouth before her.
'all clear, but we need more tests. I recommend you make a series of appointments today. The nurses outside will advice you. Now perhaps you could answer some questions that will help me in the case.'
Lana answers the questions that follow, her nails digging into her palm with frustration and resignation churning like rabies in her system .Yes, she smokes-- a lot. Yes, she uses her cell phone a lot. No, she has never lived in close proximity to a power plant. Her parents died when she was three, so she has no idea of a family history of the disease. She has already filled out the questionnaire and is about to burst out in indignation when a word catches and snares her complete being.
'radioactivity?'
'I'm sorry, what was that?'
The consultant is trained to be endlessly patient. 'Could you have been exposed to high instances of radioactivity in the recent past?
'I don't know... I do not think so. I've been here for the past month. Before that, I was in my ex-boyfriend's summer residence in Nevanya, in Russia. There were no nuclear power plants there, if that's what you mean... only mountains and lakes.'
At last, she is free to go and she wanders slowly through the corridors of the hospital to the busy street outside, her fears unresolved, her unease heightened.
In a daze, she negotiates the scramble of people rushing to lunch or strolling past the shops, and after an eternity of jostling and murmured apologies, finds herself outside a bookstore.
She finds a detailed atlas and looks up Nevanya. She calmly looks up the index and opens the desired page, and tracks up the desired coordinates and finds the small town in the mountains. Then her eyes scan the pink, green, and brown of the page around, hoping not to spot the dreaded name, but there it is, in beguilingly innocent small print...
Chernobyl.
'Well, your initial blood work report is back, and I have to say that it is... unusual.'
The consultant is gray-haired and sharp looking, her thin, straight frame bearing the responsibility of untold fates. Lana remembers the advertisement of Cancer Research UK that she saw on the endless tube journey to Heathrow, when her funds were low, and all she wanted was to return to the familiar harshness of Metropolis. She recalls the happy smiles of people who have been given the "All Clear", frozen on tin plates over empty seats in the grim train, and that memory has coloured her understanding of cancer. This sharp-featured woman now sitting down and scanning reports could be a benign angel of forgiveness, of fresh chances and new beginnings, or she could pronounce the harsh sentence of chemotherapy and pain. She wonders if her thinking these thoughts has jinxed her own chances of being given the all clear, because her bitterness at not having someone to greet her with a happy smile, to form her personal montage of gleeful escape from fate, has swayed the Fates to turn away and pronounce a different sentence...
She suddenly hears her own heart beating and the consultant is speaking with the accelerated rub-dub-lub-dub of her lifeblood in the foreground.
'Yes, very unusual white blood cell activity. Now that in itself is not an indication of cancerous growths, and your biopsy of breast tissue was clear...'
She looked at Lana and spoke slowly, easily, in a manner cultivated so as not to create alarm. All Lana can hear is the blood, now with the increased WBC's, pumping in her ears and all she sees are the wrinkles that radiate from the withered mouth of the woman before her. Her lipstick has bled in a grotesque parody of a mouth and Lana has this trick with water-based concealer that prevents just such...
'unusual readings that we need to study further. '
Her attention snaps back to the words rather than just the movement of the mouth before her.
'all clear, but we need more tests. I recommend you make a series of appointments today. The nurses outside will advice you. Now perhaps you could answer some questions that will help me in the case.'
Lana answers the questions that follow, her nails digging into her palm with frustration and resignation churning like rabies in her system .Yes, she smokes-- a lot. Yes, she uses her cell phone a lot. No, she has never lived in close proximity to a power plant. Her parents died when she was three, so she has no idea of a family history of the disease. She has already filled out the questionnaire and is about to burst out in indignation when a word catches and snares her complete being.
'radioactivity?'
'I'm sorry, what was that?'
The consultant is trained to be endlessly patient. 'Could you have been exposed to high instances of radioactivity in the recent past?
'I don't know... I do not think so. I've been here for the past month. Before that, I was in my ex-boyfriend's summer residence in Nevanya, in Russia. There were no nuclear power plants there, if that's what you mean... only mountains and lakes.'
At last, she is free to go and she wanders slowly through the corridors of the hospital to the busy street outside, her fears unresolved, her unease heightened.
In a daze, she negotiates the scramble of people rushing to lunch or strolling past the shops, and after an eternity of jostling and murmured apologies, finds herself outside a bookstore.
She finds a detailed atlas and looks up Nevanya. She calmly looks up the index and opens the desired page, and tracks up the desired coordinates and finds the small town in the mountains. Then her eyes scan the pink, green, and brown of the page around, hoping not to spot the dreaded name, but there it is, in beguilingly innocent small print...
Chernobyl.