(Blanket Flowers down the street, a random picture irrelevant to this whole junket.)

Concluding idea: Maybe that scope procedure showed my doctor some things about part of me. But writing down this experience was like a different scope into my own thought process start to finish, and that’s a journey too.

The Big Disclaimer: My day at the clinic was a sea breeze compared to the medical experiences of other patients. In my own case the procedure carried the lowest level of risk. Preparations and results will vary widely depending on a person’s own circumstances (diabetes? anti-coagulant medications? sleep apnea? on and on). For someone else there may be lots of other safety instructions, so this is not medical advice for anybody else.

The Second Big Disclaimer: A colonoscopy, like a flight on a commercial airplane, feels like an insane amount of privilege. Both experiences are carried by the intelligence and dedication and skill of an army of people behind the scenes. To write about it here, when the option isn’t available to the people who may need it most, feels like taking unearned good luck and flaunting it around. At the same time, what if someone needs the same procedure but is worried and wonders what it’s like? Well, maybe these thoughts will help.

A friendly patient representative called in March. Their hospital clinic had re-opened their calendar for new appointments, and they could book me in for June. This is a routine scheduled preventive diagnostic for people of senior age. The last colonoscopy was in mid-winter, and that is not a comfy time for a water fast and cleanse. June sounded ideal. Over the phone there was a long list of questions about medical conditions and history and lifestyle, assessing my risk level for the patient chart. Right after the call, my phone and email lit up with notifications: the update to my patient chart showing the phone interview, prep prescription, instructions, driving directions and maps to the parking lots. 

Step 1. Booked three days off work, to include a day for the prep, then the day after. (Another extreme privilege: a job with leave time, and a studio room to rest in.) My grab-&-go hospital binder got some updates for the occasion: the clinic’s assessment of my risk (low), medically relevant history including a POLST / DNR forms, and contact info for me, my doctor, my responsible adult driving me home after, and my relatives.

Step 2. Called my friend Sandy, to be my friendly grownup to drive with me to the clinic, check in with me at the front desk, give them her phone number, and promise to wait and drive me home and see me safely in the door. Luckily Sandy did all of that. I also called a second friend as backup standby, because on the day what if something came up for Sandy, or her car didn’t start? (It started up fine. Sandy had just bought it.)

Step 3. Ten days beforehand, cleared out any food that might linger in the digestive system and clutter up the doctor’s view through that scope. The chia seeds, flax, hemp, nuts, raisins went in the closet with the air-pop popcorn maker. I finished off any groceries with seeds like tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, even bananas (they have seeds too). For the last few days before the prep, directions say to cut out beans, and items with vivid colors, especially red ones — so no beets, no red cabbage, no pomegranates, no dulse, no dark chocolate. To be on the super safe side I cut out vivid greens and high fiber too.

Step 4. One week in advance, picked up the prescription. The supermarket pharmacy texted when it was ready. At the counter a young pharm tech handed me a gallon-plus sized jug with just some white powder at the bottom. Before handing it over, he had me electronically sign a release form stating that I had received complete counseling on how to take the prescription. I signed, then asked “What counseling would you like to give me?” He said “The counseling is ‘Talk to your doctor.'” But the empty jug with powder puzzled me. In the last two procedures in years past I seem to remember receiving pre-mixed prep, and some additional flavor packets. “Is there anything else I’m supposed to pick up?” I asked him. “Anything else to do while I’m here?” The young man gave me a stricken look. “No no — the prep is at home. You do it at home!”

As opposed to, say, prepping in Aisle 4. That was adorable. And so was the scene a minute later at the cash register, for Step 5.

Step 5. Stocked up on white low-texture food for the three days before the prep: light-colored low-sodium broth, tofu, rice milk, pasta, white baking potatoes (to eat without the peel), plain puffed cereal, a bar of white chocolate, distilled water, and a 12-pack of toilet paper. Our young Christian cashier rang up the items and said “Nice to see you, Mary. Have an amazing blessed day! Any big plans for the weekend?” I said “Yes!” and held up the jug. To the cashier’s bewilderment, on that checkout line everyone over the age of 50 started laughing, saying “Yup, we’ve had those weekends.” One super-fit trim young man with a radiant laugh said “Me too. Go proud! Go proud!”

Step 6: White Food. The standard meal around here is leafy greens with beans, stewed tomatoes, seeds, and red Berbere spice. So a couple days of bland white food was a novel change, like being a little kid in the 1950s again. But even one meal of refined stuff can really tank one’s blood sugar and wellbeing. A person can fill up and still stay hungry. It became harder to concentrate, to prioritize projects, to make sequential-step decisions. One night I felt so gnawing and anxious after supper that I bought a jumbo box of Life cereal and wolfed down the whole thing. That’s a good reminder of how most people feel every day the world over! That includes the millions with little or no food, and some fellow Americans with a higher budget. It gave me more understanding too of the many attention-deficit issues that people can face, for a whole range of reasons.

Step 7: Fasting. After two days of plain carbs, the next two days of fasting on just water was much more comfortable. The trick was remembering to not eat — another good reason to keep those cabinets cleared out. While batch cooking for the week ahead I had to remember not to taste-test anything, and not to lick the spatula.

Step 8, a day in advance: Parking. I took the maps and instructions for both hospital parking lots, tiptoed down the ramps, and interviewed staff at the ticket booths on their procedures. Which ramp was likely to fill up first at 2:00 pm? Did they take cash? The staff were all very nice. I walked through the garages to explore the location of elevators and exits and emergency call boxes, then went home.

Step 9, the night before: Doses and Flavorings

Surprise: YouTube had a prep video, filmed by my own medical team at my own clinic! The presenter insisted that every patient has to ask the pharmacist for the flavor packets that go with the prescription; the tech is supposed to tape them to the jug. Hm. I called the pharmacy. “That formula doesn’t come with flavoring, Hon,” said a strong good-humored reassuring bass voice, clearly someone who had helped many patients through this same rodeo. “Just go buy ya some lemonade powder; you’ll be better off. Or, save ya money: I been there myself. After the first quart of that stuff I don’t taste nothin. Could be gasoline for all I care. Just get it down and over with.” That sounded reasonable at the time.

The prescription called for 4 liters of formula mixed with plain water, 12 cups taken the evening before and 4 cups or so taken early on the day, drunk as 8 oz. every quarter hour. I drew up a spreadsheet with ruled lines and clock times, to checkmark each dose taken. I took some sticky labels, numbered them 1 to 16, and on each one I wrote the clock time for each dose. That night I set my phone alarm to signal every 15 minutes for the 12 evening doses. I applied the labels to the lids of 16 Mason pint jars, and measured out the doses in each jar. There was a stressful moment when the measurements didn’t quite add up. But that makes sense; the doses are in metric, and my kitchen measuring cup and the markings on the jars are in English measurements. That tracking system was a real help for accuracy and peace of mind.

One video suggested drinking this stuff ice cold to dull the taste, but I never drink cold things and was afraid it would upset my stomach. So I just set the doses in a row on the counter. Thinking How hard can this be? Here goes! I slugged down a cup of bitter salty water. But looking ahead to the next 15 doses gave me pause. At some point the body is going to react, as it’s designed to do, and say “Don’t be an idiot. Stop drinking salty water.” Drinking formula is one thing. Keeping it down is another; some folks can’t, and then they have to cancel the whole procedure.

Back to the supermarket. There were many powdered drink brands on the shelf, but they contained daunting innovative sweeteners. Finally, here was this one exception — TRUE lemon original Lemonade Naturally Flavored drink mix, shown below. This 1.06 oz. box came with 10 little packets. Each packet is sweetened with 1 gram of plain cane sugar, with some stevia. Friends, this lemonade powder was a great investment. It helped me drink all those doses in comfort.

Side note: for this experience, it helped to wear comfy surgical scrub trousers with an easy to unfasten drawstring, and to stock the bathroom with edifying and inspirational books.

After all the doses, and in between, we’re instructed to drink water and clear liquids. Gatorade is recommended, but at our supermarket it comes only in large shrink-wrapped plastic lots in vivid blue and green colors. Luckily I was able to find a bottle of untinted no-flavor unsweetened Gatorade sold as individual bottles. (Thank you, dear Mom & Pop Korean grocery!) Unflavored Gatorade is a little odd, with a faint quality like the scent of fabric softener at a laundromat, but my body found it very heartening. The white grape juice and coconut water were a real help too.

For the next procedure, a few years from now, as soon as it’s scheduled I’ll run right out and buy all of these right away.

Step 10: The Big Day

Early in the morning I drank the final doses and lots of water. I shined up the kitchen and bathroom. I prepared a small simple light supper for after the procedure, to avoid knives and stoves while recovering from anesthesia. I made up my bed roll, and laid out sleepwear ready for immediate bedtime. I put away my cell phone and wallet and office keys. I showered and dressed in comfortable clothes.

I took my apartment keys, the empty prep jug, the bin of empty containers from all the clear liquids, an exact food journal from the pre-prep days, and the dosage schedule with all the times checkmarked. That’s in case the medical team asked anything like “So what have you been eating? What is your idea of a ‘clear liquid’? Did you drink your formula?” I added a printout of the parking instructions, plenty of cash and a quarter roll, my hospital binder of medical history, and a heavy blanket.

Dear Sandy showed up early, right as rain. “Blanket??” she asked. I folded up the blanket as a seat cushion, explaining that even when a person is all wrung out by this process, they don’t want to risk an old friendship and a new car. Sandy raised her hands in surrender. She is familiar with my mode of operations by now. She eyed all my gear and data without comment, and listened respectfully to my reassurance that I had interviewed the parking attendants in advance. As we pulled away I said “Oh no! I was going to give you a book by Timothy Snyder at Yale University. Please remind me after the procedure, and I’ll give it to you then.”

Parking was easy, and I was proud of knowing the exact location of the elevator to the clinic. We checked in at the reception desk. As always, I’d stored up maximum anxiety in advance, prepared and fretted at every stage, then was astonished and overjoyed when the day didn’t leave me sitting in hell in a handbasket. That made it a special pleasure to meet the team.

The colonoscopy team is a very high-morale outfit. Unlike the ER, this is not a place where anyone is rushed in with a crisis. Patients are vetted and instructed and scheduled well in advance, and this is not in general an emergency high-risk procedure. (It probably also earns the hospital a fair income; according to the chart notes, from start to finish my colonoscopy took 18 minutes.) The medical team whisked me in, saw no need to inspect my empty juice containers or checklists, and settled me in bed. One kindly medical assistant helped me stow my stuff and to robe up, one started an IV for the fentanyl and midazolam, and the doctor came in for a final final check. (I showed her my hospital binder, and pointed out my POLST form.) The team seemed to sense that this patient appreciates good humor, and they were ready to comply.

A truly wonderful anesthesia nurse came in to explain the program for the day, and they wheeled me to the procedure room. There, the sound system played a 1983 hit by Sting and the Police. “Oh, so is that the Anesthesia Nurse theme song?” I asked her. “‘Every breath you take, I’ll be watching you.’?” She laughed “Yes it is, and yes I will! And what is your favorite music?” I figured she was asking out of courtesy to put at me at ease, so I said “Russian Orthodox chant.” She said “Great! So… like Fleetwood Mac?” I said “Yes, exactly.”

So while they adjusted the equipment and my IV and draping, in the half minute of down time waiting for the doctor, they team broke into an impromptu happy dance while we all sang along with Fleetwood Mac’s “Seven Wonders,” which given the context was a pretty amusing song choice.

The doctor came in all enthusiastic about getting started, and said “Now first I’ll make an initial exam before we insert the camera.” Sure. I was about to give her consent to do just that. But then somehow this was the parking garage again, and there was only a warm instant of memory of the doctor saying with a cheering smile that everything looked normal and fine, and we were done.

   “It’ll be ten dollars,” said Sandy, replying to something I must have said.

I handed her the money and thanked the attendant for our parking experience. “Sandy?” I asked. “Am I stoned right now?”

   “Yes,” she assured me, and we headed home.

Back at home I snipped off my patient ID bracelet, and set the prescription jug in the pantry. (In the event of an adverse reaction the batch number on the jug has to be reported to the pharmacy. There was no reaction, so three days later I peeled off my medical ID label and threw the jug in the recycling.) I settled into bed with my sweet potato and miso soup, and slept deeply for four hours. Waking up, I packed my wallet and office keys and then remembered the Timothy Snyder book that was supposed to go to Sandy. Oh no! I looked at the shelf. The book was gone, leaving a little gap in its place. I must have given it to her, meaning that she must have walked me upstairs, which was very thoughtful of her.

A couple of lessons remain.

One, the days of refined foods and fasting (and then a day or two of medications wearing off) made it more difficult to plan and execute the sequencing of steps in a task. For example, I set up hot soapy water and my scrubbing board in the kitchen, but really should have fetched the handwashing first to save steps. Sequence makes meaning and carries consequences for the result of a project. Well, at times in my life there have been people making choices without thinking ahead to the results, eliciting the question “What were they thinking?” Sometimes people caught those moments in time and/or noticed and repaired the result to do it differently next time, but not always. Well, it was humbling to realize how little it takes for my own sense of sequence and consequence to be thrown off track.

Two, remembrance can be a tremendous gift. We have the potential to commit events to memory, to store and retrieve the memory, then to articulate and create meaning with it and share that meaning with others as part of deep human connection. When people remember important events in my life, it makes me feel connected. When life-altering events are forgotten or unnoticed by people who matter to me, it can feel as if my life either didn’t matter, or just didn’t happen. Well, perhaps there are moments when that knack is out of their hands. After leaving the clinic I didn’t even remember putting my pants back on. But the someone doing it must have been me, because when I got home my lymphedema bandages were all perfectly wrapped and fastened in place. I did thank Sandy later for her company that day, but did I ever say “Thank you” when she dropped me off? No idea. (I did text her that night feeling anxious about the parking. What did I owe her? How much was it? “Ten dollars,” she texted back. “You paid the attendant.”) Remembering is a high-level ability, and is more fragile than it seems. I feel committed now to preserving that ability as much as possible.

There was a lot to be thankful for too, to Sandy and everybody on the team. Later that week I typed up thank you notes for the doctor and the anesthesia nurse, telling them what was especially helpful about their care. I taped the notes to cards, and dropped them at the clinic in observance of our day of Seven Wonders.

Not a real parsnip, and not something to touch or burn or compost. If the plant oil gets on the skin, and if the skin is exposed to natural daylight, the oil causes phytodermatitis — a skin burn. The weed is 5 feet tall or so, with flowers almost the size of a dinner plate.

From our commuter bus a flash of a view was visible out the window every morning for days. It finally concerned me enough that I got off the bus and took a good look.

At first I was afraid it was Giant Hogweed. Hogweed is larger, and hazardously toxic. (While looking up images of Hogweed, I inadvertently populated my viewing screen with a gallery of Hogweed injuries. The burns in those images were very serious.)

But no, my scattershot amateurish citizen-science online research suggested that this was Cow “Parsnip,” a smaller less dangerous cousin. Cow Parsnip is still a burn issue though, and this patch of it was thriving wildly.

Problem is, it was growing outside a school building. It took some tracking down & around, but I found the landscaping team in charge of the grounds, and emailed them pictures and a statement of the problem, and my concern that some student might go outside and start picking jumbo flowers. The facilities office responded right away! Their coordinator emailed that a work order report was now on record. What’s more, later the coordinator emailed again, to say that the grounds crew were going to add this to their day’s inspection.

Professionals were on the case, and could decide what to do. It was reassuring to leave this issue in their hands and gloves.

Every evening before sunset it’s time to head out for purified water, toting a jug and coins and a rosary or my Orthodox prayer book in liturgical Greek, to memorize and chant a few new words along the way. It’s an hour a day for one mile there and back, stopping to meet neighbors and admire plants and sky.

In the bright setting sun, here are some miniature Columbines.

At the little Bible church the pastor’s family comes out to greet me. Their splendid purebred hunting dog warns me loud and clear to stay away from her humans. But then we all chat about neighborhood news and of course liturgical Greek. At that their faithful guardian quiets down and drops back to all fours and resumes following her nose toward bushes and birds. They unclip her leash. She trots peacefully into the house.

Calla Lilies in the shade. In the background those tall vivid popsicle blooms are Kniphofia.

Everything but the tail: a lucky shot of a little ginger lightning streak. Kitty comes zooming out each time to give me a good nuzzle and to roll around for his daily reminder of how beautiful and clever he is, then runs off to look for bunnies and squirrels.

Here’s an Orange Ball tree, full of fragrance and bees.

Common Evening Primrose, among Woolly Yarrow. Thanks, Google Search!

At the store, I fill my jug at the purified water machine. The cashiers are on the lookout for the same customer every day at the same time to buy the same item. Some days I pay for the 59 cent refill with exact change including four pennies. Other days I pay 60 cents and get a penny change. Since pennies are now no longer being made by the US Treasury, our daily running joke is that either their side or mine is going home with a collector’s item coin, which will change hands back again on the next trip tomorrow.

Behind this picket fence there is a lush old-fashioned garden. For weeks, there were fragrant little pale-pink Cécil Brüner roses spilling over both sides of the gate. Now there are yellow loosestrife plants and balloon flowers in blue and white. As I stop to take a picture, the gardener comes running outside with greetings and a chat, filling my water bag with flowers to take home.  

Near our street, a delightful young neighbor of faith stops me with good news. She is moving — in to the vacant studio next to mine! It’s reassuring that such a friendly presence is going to live right on the other side of the wall. We’re going to visit as soon as she moves in. We share some balloon flowers to celebrate.

At twilight the robins are singing all along the way. These days the waxing moon is up, on its way to full, with a few early stars. More stars form a line, rising one by one in a jewel trail from the airport south of town.

In the darkness, those Calla Lilies are sleeping.

Bellflowers, hydrangea, and roses from the gracious and giving new over-the-fence acquaintance. Night night!

1. A young man with long hair had staked out a busy corner. He had many layers of clothing and luggage and a sleeping bag, trying with eager anxiety to catch the eye of people walking by. Making the snap assumption that he was selling our street empowerment newspaper, I took out a couple of dollars. But at closer range it turned out that he was holding up not a sample issue and ID badge, but a cardboard sign that he needed to raise $20 to buy lunch. I gave him the $2 anyway. As is often the case, what he wanted was not just lunch but a conversation. He had a bright-eyed avid look, ready to ask advice and counsel from anyone who decided to stop.

“Thank you!” he greeted me joyfully. “Say, I’m from Florida. I just arrived in town. Tell me — how come people in this city are so unfriendly to the homeless?”

“They probably don’t mean to be,” I told him. “They are just concerned with their obligations and tasks. Head down, powering through the day the best they can. So, Florida? Are folks more friendly there?”

“For living on the street? Whoa!” He raised his hands in a protective gesture. “Florida’s downright dangerous. But say, why is the food here so expensive? Can you guess how much I just paid for a bottle of Kombucha?”

“Ah, no. Can’t afford Kombucha.”

“Oh. I’m sorry! I have to. I can eat only certified organic foods — dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free.”

“Gosh. That makes it complicated for you, for sure.”

“It does. How do you get by, living here? What do you eat?”

“Well, at Christmas the store had a sale shelf of mixed dry beans, 99 cents a pound. I made a couple trips and bought 20 pounds for $19.80. Still eating on them, a big potful every week. And bargain shelf from the B-Grade produce stand, whatever is left on Saturday nights and needs cooking right away; they always have organic greens. And grain from bulk bins.”

“I’d love to buy rice,” he said. “But I can only buy those little instant plastic rice packages from [Local Zen Spendy Store], because they let me use the microwave. See other stores don’t let you do that.”

At that point other older neighbors saw his sign and stopped to chat with him and share dollar bills, so I headed off to mail a birthday card. It made me think. The absolutely harrowing difficulty of living on the street is well beyond my ability to imagine anyway, but it dawned as a new idea that buying food for life outdoors without a kitchen has to be way more costly. One more way that our food supply is all cattywampus.

He was such an eager young man, really hanging on every word that anybody said to him; clearly he wanted lots of company. Five years ago he could have gone to our public kitchen for young people like him, ages 18 to 25. They could come indoors for a hot breakfast and a hot supper and socializing with the staff. Whenever our workplace had catered events, I’d call their kitchen and then we’d drop off trays of food. I volunteered for their kitchen one time, putting supper together and eating with the guests. That night I woke up good & sick with Covid, and then the whole city locked down. That kitchen valiantly stayed in operation, but since the pandemic they have to refuse all fresh or cooked food (at our last visit the kitchen staff apologized profusely, and helped me take our trays of wrapped assorted sandwiches and pitch them in the compost). Now they’re only authorized to hand out sealed packaged snacks and beverage bottles with no more in-house hot meals or shared community. It’s one more thread of social fabric that has unraveled and disappeared.

2. I was kneeling on the ground looking for just the right angle to photograph a glorious rose-red camellia tree growing right through a wooden picket fence, against a pleasantly weathered little house in the old style — high pitched roof, deep set windows and doors, wraparound porch, little gables peering out from dormers and eaves.

To my chagrin, the door popped open. A man strolled out to light a cigarette, looking serene and composed, pondering the sunlight. I jumped up from the other side of the shrubbery and hastily complimented the tree, then asked his permission to take its picture. He gave me a friendly nod and a shrug of assent. Then he told me the history of this century-old house. His family had lived here and worked in the grand old theater downtown, producing musicals, operas, and ballets. He grew up backstage, learning the business from taking tickets and coats to working the popcorn machine, and kept up the whole family legacy — handmade costumes, lighting, backdrops, sound, musicians, staging.

For the next hour it was like a show right there, standing on a carpet of camellia petals in that dooryard, listening to him weave a whole spell of those grand theatrical productions.

I burst out with a lot of ideas to throw at him, things I’ve always wondered or marveled over, the backstories of movies and plays and their technical effects. Like, at one point I said “Now that backdrop you described sounds like…” I named an Orthodox church that I’d seen once, and told him all about its magnificent interior.

He laughed. “When the pandemic cancelled our whole season, for the subscribers we picked that church. I did the staging for the company to film a short feature film there.”

Unlike so many experts, he didn’t just roll his eyes and brush off my ideas. Naturally he’d heard all the stories, lived with those special effects, created many of them himself, made it all happen. But he just smiled in recognition, and added details I’d never dreamed of about just how much work goes in to the kind of production that true fans will remember for the rest of their lives. “For [classical world-famous epic] we had 220 stage hands and 78 tractor trailers of props for the scene changes, all made for that production. And at the end, where do you store 78 trailers? There’s no warehouse here large enough. We had to destroy it all.” He thought it over. “I’ve been very very fortunate. Raised in a career that I truly love, with the chance to work in it for a lifetime. By the way, that necklace you’re wearing is gorgeous.”

“This?” It’s beads on a little leatherette string. “Got it yesterday for a dollar. Church thrift shop.”

He shook his head. “Every bead of that is worth more than a dollar.”

“Oh. Are they glass?”

“Stones. Semi-precious, some of them.”

We wrapped it up when it occurred to me that “With all you have to keep in mind, you must have things to do. And here you just stepped outside for a quiet cigarette! Thank you for talking to me about the bigger plot unfolding back behind the curtain. I’ll bet the hardest part is working with all those personalities — performers, orchestra members, cast and crew, audience. So much. No wonder for his crew’s backstage snacks, David Lee Roth specified the color of the M&Ms.”

“Right,” he laughed.

“Creating those 78 tractor trailers, and letting it all go? That’s like a mandala.”

“Exactly.” We waved goodbye.

3. The Cable Guy was due at 2:00. The day before I moved my bookshelves and everything else well out of the way of the entire cable wire, dusted the baseboard radiator, worked the carpet sweeper, cleared off the computer table and the entry hall, had the new gateway router ready for him and a plastic bag so he could carry off the old router conveniently. I made sure everything was ready an hour early, at 1:00.

He called me at 1:07, a young man with an Arabic name. He’d reached my street, and was it okay to show up early for this call to the fourth floor?

Sure. I met him downstairs. He was just jumping out of his truck with the company name all over it and a tall ladder folded on top.

“Oh, you don’t need to use the ladder,” I assured him. “Let’s just take the stairs.”

He gave me a concerned look, and then had a good laugh.

We exchanged the usual pleasantries on the way upstairs. Taking a guess that he was Muslim I left my door propped open for his comfort. He immediately took off his shoes and left them outside. In about two minutes flat he swapped out the routers. Then he stood in silence at my side for twenty minutes, tapping a whole series of functions on his phone. “Diagnostics. Testing the connection,” he said. “Sorry. Takes a few minutes. So, are you from here?”

“No, New York.”

“What is your heart for New York?”

“My heart?”

“Yes! Like, think ‘New York,’ and what is your childhood thought that your heart is for New York life?”

“My heart remembers people being very religious. Every day at noon it was time for the Angelus prayer, to think about Angel Gabriel appearing to Hezrat Miriam. You’re driving in your car? Pull over and say the prayer. You’re a man wearing a hat? Take it off and say the prayer. The church bells ring for noon? Stop on the street and say the prayer.”

“Really? Unbelievable.” Tactful hesitation. “You know… New York? Not like that any more. Ok, your connection is all good.” He picked up the old router.

“It’s 1:28 now. Well that was fast. And what is your nice accent?”

“My what? Oh! It’s uh…” Pause. “Well, it’s… well, I’m from Africa. North Africa that is.”

“Oh, sure. Okay.”

Pause. “Country called ‘Libya.'”

“So you know Mohamed Bzeek?”

“I do. Do you???”

“Only through the news. I looked him up this morning to check on his health, since he’s had cancer. And no family to care for him.”

“No! Cancer? He brought home and cared for so many of the dying children! So many.”

“Yes, like 80. He takes babies in hospice care. At one point, people started a fund for him and sent him money. What did he do with it? He bought an air conditioner for the babies, so they can rest in comfort. That man will enter Paradise ahead of us all. Our favorite Libyan.”

Downstairs at the front door, we exchanged a handshake.

“Shúkran djídan, thank you for your call. Ma’a salaam.“

“Ma’a salaam. You know… Mohamed Bzeek. It’s kindness like him,” he concluded. “It is our only hope for the life.”

(Still life at dusk, with apple blossoms and tiny moon.)

Cashier Zia is a bright and upbeat young woman, wielding competence and cheer on a seriously multi-tasking job. On Easter Sunday during a break in the action she waves hello from the next aisle, calling “Mary Mary! Happy Easter. How is your holiday going today?”

In America this worthwhile social ritual is all planned out for us. Just color in the lines. All I have to do is wave back and say “Fine! You?” and by then Zia will be whipping through the transaction for the next customer. Simple.

So at self-checkout, pausing while typing in the bar code for my organic Tuscan kale, I smile right back. Then I just stand there speechless.

The real answer is that St. Sophrony the Athonite, later of Essex England, before his repose in 1993 (Bright Memory to him!) recorded ‘Why Some People Feel Empty During Easter (Even Though Christ is Risen.’ It’s on YouTube with English subtitles. (For some reason they use “Easter” in the title, even though the Orthodox are particular about correcting me to call it Paskha instead.) Anyway, in his frail warm little voice and old-school Russian, Father explains that there are Christians who do not feel joy at Paskha. Rather, they experience the feast as a “time of trials, of existential collapse.” These are the people who have still not conquered their fleshly passions. They may even feel “Paskha has come! Christ has risen from the grave. And here am I, still lying in the death of the passions.”

At that point, feeling many notches more discouraged than before, I turned off the computer and did the next constructive thing, heading for the store for leafy greens.

Zia: (smile turns to empathic concern) OH — What, did all your People die? My Gramma said life is just hell when all your People die. She always told me “Zia Dear, enjoy your golden years while you still can. Because ya don’t get many. And they ain’t that golden!”

Me: Thank you, Zia. She sounds like a wise and caring Gramma. Does she live nearby?

Zia: Oh, she died. (With a wave she sprints off to respond to an alert in the overhead paging system, calling for customer service in the frozen food aisle. Yes, they now have to keep the ice cream under lock and key.)

I finished entering bar codes for the greens, paid and packed, and walked home. Things felt better after the kale run. So I braved the rest of St. Sophrony’s talk, and it’s a good thing. He tells these other souls, the rest of us, “Do not give in to the temptation of these thoughts. You must believe that we shall truly rise. Say this, with fervor: “I do not only believe in the resurrection of the dead; No! I also await it.” Let us AWAIT the resurrection of ourselves and our loved ones, as the Holy Fathers expressed so wonderfully in the Creed. Remember that nothing else exists except Christ. Lean on Him and say in the meantime ‘Into your hands I commend my spirit.'”

It was a good thought to keep in mind for the end of the feast day. The kale cooked up nicely with tomato sauce and garlic flakes and crushed almonds and a shot of balsamic vinegar. Sweet potato on the side.

Angel of the Resurrection window, installed in 1898. Artist John La Farge, known for working with superimposed panes of layered glass in opalescent hues. Those peacock feathers in the wings are a glorious sight when the sun rises outside.

The book Angels: God’s Secret Agents by Billy Graham turned up at our Little Free Library. The title did not inspire immediate confidence. And for a staunch Baptist author, isn’t angel talk a bit on the fluffy side? But no, the book was a solid summary of angels throughout Scripture, with citations nicely annotated and organized. What’s more, Dr. Graham patiently defused the various homespun notions such as “Your child died because God needed another angel,” since people do not turn into angels even after they crochet us a doily or bake us a pie, not to mention that no one should ever say that to anyone ever anyway.

As the book points out, angels are not here to be endearing or cute. In the Bible, a “cherub” is not really a plump white boylet, but something intimidating and enigmatic. Angels as a rule dismiss any personal overtures toward themselves. They deliver messages in the fewest words, they get their job done, like changing your flat tire on Thanksgiving, and then vanish without dawdling around to be befriended or thanked. (True, two exceptions come to mind. One unnamed angel spends all night wrestling with Jacob (Genesis 32:26), who says “I will not let you go until you bless me.” In the Book of Tobit there is Azarias, or Angel Raphael in disguise. He stays on for over two weeks as an incognito fellow traveler, fisherman’s friend, matchmaker, marital counselor, diplomat, pursuer of demons into Egypt, collector of inherited silver, healer, and all-round helpmeet and comfort to Tobias and his family and dog. Incidentally, the Billy Graham book mentions other named angels, but not Raphael. Perhaps it’s because Tobit is included in the Bible for only some denominations, but not in others.) So to sum up, angels flash in, say their piece, and are gone before anybody figures out what-all just happened or who that was.

You never know when reminders of angels might come along. One time a whole crowd of fans flowed toward a stadium for a major-league ball game. A mother had her teenage boys and one quiet little fella all jostling at an intersection waiting for the WALK sign. Then, the little guy clutched his collar and cried out “My St. Michael medal! I left it home! Can we go get it? St. Michael protects me from EVIL.” (He pronounced both syllables at full value, é + víl, like the announcer for some thrilling show on old-time radio.) The teenagers hollered with laughter, clutching their collars and wailing in mock lamentation. (We have to be late for the game because Baby Whiny lost his medal, and because ball games are é + víl!) The WALK sign flashed on, the crowds shoved off the curb. But the little one stood weeping, bereft of his medal and now stung by the jeering of the bigger kids. We all missed the WALK sign.

I caught the mother’s eye, giving her a sympathetic nod, then turned to the youngster and said “Medals are important. They remind us that St. Michael is out there to watch and guide us. But YOU thought past that and remembered and had faith in him anyway! And that is all it takes. Go open an atlas of Ireland some time. Not just any map, but a good large atlas at the library. It shows you Irish names like Skellig Michael, Kilmichael, Kirk Michael, on and on. When people there thought about St. Michael and found his comfort and help, or experienced a real miracle, then they marked the place by giving it a Michael name.” Even the older teens got all quiet, listening. “But don’t believe me,” I told them. “The atlas has centuries of proof!” The young’un dried his eyes and raised his head high. Mom flashed me a smile; the light flashed a WALK.

If we-all were acquaintances, I could have entertained him with a factoid that small Catholic children can find it interesting: that there is one saint whose name is a question and a battle cry (Mi-ka-el, Hebrew = “Who Is Like God?” Answer: God alone), a saint who is not even a human being! It’s nice to think that his canonization did not bog down in the Vatican red tape gauntlet with its scrutiny of his personal life, medical documentation of miracles, and the legalistic assaults of the Advocatus Diaboli. He just flew right in, no questions asked.

According to Russian Wikipedia, Michael’s Orthodox title of Arkhistratig means leader of the heavenly hosts of angels. In Orthodox icons he is shown as a beardless youth with wings. The wings represent motion at the speed of thought, to act and perform the will of God. The gold background behind him is a symbol of heavenly radiance. The gem diadem symbolizes all-seeing wisdom. In his left hand, the slender lance symbolizes his role wielding spiritual combat over the forces of malice — fighting not flesh and blood, but the powers of spiritual darkness.

Citation: 13th Century, Monastery of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai.

Catholic depictions take the military angle, showing Michael full length with an athletic body in a Roman short tunic and armor. He’s braced on his right foot, pinning down the head of some massive serpent with his left foot, with right arm about to deliver a death sword blow. Often in his left hand he is holding the scales of the Last Judgment, measuring sins and virtues in an individual’s life and advocating for his soul; this is why there are cemetery chapels dedicated to him.

But those conventional portraits have changed quite a bit since Billy Graham wrote his book. The author might be surprised by results of my internet check just today, and its alterniverse of images generated by artificial intelligence. A modern twist is Michael with bare chest and washboard abs, and hair like young David Lee Roth. This result is definitely one of the most tasteful, though the sword looks about twice as long as a genuinely functional weapon.

Does each of us have our own guardian angel? Not everybody wants one, but I do. His silent wordless inner prompting conveys either one of two possible messages:

1. Go go go! Move! Act! Do it now!

2. Halt! You do not understand the bigger picture. Calm down. Let it go.

Does this prompting care at all what I feel or I prefer? No. Is it always right? Yes.

Have I ever seen an angel? Once. I was young and house-sitting alone in a bitter cold late winter in a small town where I knew absolutely no one, and for three days was too cold and despairing to get out of bed. The third night, I was swept under by an attack of sheer panic. Then, a luminous presence flashed into consciousness for a tenth of a second, and I recognized that this very presence had been interceding for my soul since before time began, a realization which brings me to tears to this day. With a single gesture the presence commanded me to get up on my knees and pray for myself with all my might, and to get out of that house and town and go find people, and do it right now. What came to mind next was the memory of a poster from a bookstore, a flyer for a Gender-Role Free Folk Dance club meeting for a potluck in the city. I rocketed out of bed, washed up and dressed warm, packed a bag, and ran out the door.

I walked out to the road through the wetlands in the wind and waving reeds, caught the town bus, then a commuter train, then another train, then another bus, then more walking, and within two hours I was at Gender-Role Free Folk Dance. The folks there gave me a warm welcome and a plate for their potluck. After a brief business meeting we sat huddled all cozy on the floor with guitars. Everyone had a song to share. I started singing “For the Birds” by Bruce Cockburn: Hummm Hummm Hummm, oh every day / flashes like a spray of blue jays. Oh, a golden crown upon each one / Like an eagle seen against the sun. Every single person at that potluck knew the words. They sang it over and over as a round, in harmonies, sounding just beautiful.

After a walk and two trains and missing the last town bus, I walked back to the house praying through the waving reeds along the water with jets flying right overhead toward the airport runway, all turbulence and scream and flashing lights and wings, and went back to bed for a blessed sleep.

When the folk dancers hugged me and thanked me for coming, they said “It’s great that you found us tonight. Who sent you??”

Bedtime. Take out the compost, or leave it for morning? I ran out to the bin with my bucket, stopped for a night shot of Mrs. Wing’s daffodils, and came back inside.

In the downstairs lobby I gave a courteous nod to a delivery driver in uniform examining a little bubble-wrappy package. He gave a courteous nod back, and punched the elevator button without knowing that our venerable elevator was not working. He had quite a wait ahead of him before Maintenance gets the parts they need and a tech to come fix it.

Decision time: Tell him, or not? When I interfere in other people’s lives by offering unsolicited good-natured commiseration, or factoids about stuff that they can figure out on their own, it is surprising how many can be annoyed by it. (Once I was visiting Boston, and a departing shopper became quite surly when I said “Sir, whoa — your wallet is still here on the counter.”)

Well, what’s to lose? I retraced my steps and went back to talk to the driver. “Out of order,” I sympathized.

But at least with that small overture, he somehow felt encouraged to show me the address label on the package. Let’s call it Apartment 800. “Ziss name for namber eight zeera zeera — is in this building?”

“Sure. I’ll show you. Stairs are right here. Ili ya samá voz’mú. Or I’ll take it myself.”

Double take. “Vy sámi? You will???”

Hey now. He surrendered the package with a smile (“And how did this happen? You are not a Slav!”) and we chatted up a storm. He whipped out his phone to show me his little village on Google maps. He talked about his Ukrainian relatives and his Russian relatives. They had of course a compelling story which does not belong here, so I expressed fragile best wishes for everybody’s safety. He expressed fragile best wishes that some day I can travel there and see the place for myself. I made a point of expressing admiration for that village’s centuries of expertise with artisanal apple tree husbandry and church architecture, and for one priest there doing wonderful charitable work. The driver just lit up. “Yes! I know him!!”

Then he headed out to his truck while we hollered blessings back and forth.

Dropping off the package upstairs, I felt so happy. I asked God to place me in more good connection chances like that one. It took all of seven minutes of time, between a truck and a compost bin. But in a troubling world it felt like a shining wee gossamer strand of peace thrown across a very wide bridge.

Every Possible Disclaimer: This incident is true, and the dispatchers and patient are real. The details are a composite hash of the five (5) sites where I’ve served as a medical interpreter. As always, the characters have pseudonyms. The fictitious name “Nikolai Petrov” is something like a Russian “John Doe”; the world has countless real Nikolai Petrovs, and this character is none of them.

Life as an interpreter was blissfully easy compared to the jobs of so many healthcare workers who face disrespect and harassment at work, some of it dangerous. My wartime-era former-Soviet seniors were the least stressful clientele in the hospital. The interpreter setting has evolved far from the quaint setting described here. Now the service employs telephonic remote personnel, with instant access to many languages. That leaves the question: What about the companionship of the in-person interpreter, someone who might know the whole family for years, someone to accompany the patient from clinic to clinic all day or stay at the bedside all night on what might be the hardest day of their lives? That was a human connection that many hospitals can no longer afford.

This story is not in any way a criticism of our patients, or of any culture group. It is about holding off on judgment until I know a person’s back story, and why he might behave the way he does. This piece was prepared for last Valentine’s Day, and took one year to finish. Chances are, in the next few days other improvements will come to mind. The story might read better a week from now. -mary

7:25 am. I got to Base, dropped my bags, and got my schedule from the mailbox.
Dispatcher Delia hit Pause on the voicemail cassette recorder. She lowered her headset microphone, and tapped Speak/Listen on the telephone console. “Interpreting, what language?” She waved at me to stop. “For Pre-Surgery, and Creole as in…? Well no, Creole is not a language, it’s — No Dr. Marsden, I am not trying to insult anyone’s culture, I only – Look. Your patient arrived from…? Haiti. Haitian then. Not one of our languages. But call…” She checked a Rolodex card “555-1234. Ask for André Etienne in Engineering. Why Engineering? Mr. Etienne is an engineer. Loop him in with the patient and the OR. Best we can do welcome bye.”

   “Mary!” Delia hit Disconnect on the console, and raised her microphone. “Change for your 3:00 Radiology.” She opened the appointment book, an atlas-sized hourly calendar with two foldout double pages for each day. She erased and rewrote a note, then flipped the page to check and make sure the eraser didn’t wear through to notes on the other side. “It’s now Cardiology.”

   “Okay.” I handed her my schedule. “Who’s on for Radiology then? Rodion is off at 1:00.”

   “Zoya’s got it.” Delia hit Speak/Listen and lowered her microphone. “Interpreting, what lang — Oliver? Yes you are marked right here in the book. 7:40 for PT. Didn’t expect you? Lemme call Trixie bye…. Hello Interpreting what language? No Trixie, Oliver is not late. He is waiting for your patient, in your exam room, signed in by your staff. Right.” Disconnect. “Jeez…”

She raised her microphone, corrected my schedule, and handed it to me. “Ah! First day back…”

   “We missed you.” I took back my printout. “Nice vacation? You so deserved it.”

   “Heavenly. Had to take the time. Use it or lose it.” She winked. “Ya know how that goes.”

   “Oh Sure.” I gave her an upbeat smile. “Sure.”

She hit Speak/Listen. “Interpreting, what lang– STOP WHAT LANGUAGE? YES PLEASE WAIT.” She hit Hold and raised her microphone and her voice. “Hannah! Line 3 urgent.”

   “What am I now?” Hannah called from the next room. “Vietnamese again?”

   “Vietnamese was on Line 4; Line 3 incoming is Chinese. Thanks Hon. Transferring.”

   “Guys!” Fernanda from Admissions burst in. “Answer your phones! Everybody’s dialing us instead.” She slapped down a stack of pink memo slips on our message spike.

   “I owe you, Fernanda.” Delia opened the first aid kit for a small bottle. “Cassette tape ran out.”

   “Ran out?” I asked. “That’s a 90 minute tape.”

   “Cody didn’t erase the voicemails. No one told her to delete once they’re done.”

   “Oh dear.” Cody was our smart cheerful high school volunteer. She came to our rescue covering two days of Delia’s vacation. Now the dispatchers had 90 minutes of messages that were either returned or not, confirmations called in or not, appointment requests booked or not, and six phone lines of Monday calls incoming.

   “Interpreting, what — Sí, lo sabemos.” Delia popped open the small bottle and shook out two pills. “Su intérprete será Nina Elena. En cinco minutos. De nada adiós.“

   “Mr. Wang died!!” Hannah looked in. “And due in Surgery followup, 10:00 Tuesday.”

   “Which Wang please?” Delia flipped up the mike and opened the book to Tuesday.

   “Wang Shan. Scotty,” said Hannah. “That was his wife on Line 3.”

   “Not Scotty? Oh Hannah. I’m sorry. Call May Li. Gimme her schedule a sec.” Delia erased Mr. Wang’s Tuesday for Surgery, crossed him out on May Li ‘s timesheet, and gave the printout back to Hannah. “Interpreting, what language? Labor & Delivery? Right. How far along is she? Which dialect? Okay paging Jenna bye.” Delia typed a pager message.

Pleasant chime sounds floated from the ceiling. “Code Red,” said a soothing male voice. “Facilities Level 4. Code Red. Facilities Level 4.”

Delia read through Fernanda’s stack of pink slips, and rearranged their order on the spike. “So Mary. Your 3:00 Cardio is Nikolai Petrov. Have you worked with him before?”

   “No.” I put on my hospital lanyard and ID badge. “What’s he in for?”

   “Routine monthly pacemaker check. Hold on. Interpreting, what language? Hey Cokie. The patient told you what? Well you tell him that Yes Renala is a female, she is our only speaker, she will keep it confidential, and his male provider will keep him safe, chaperoned, and draped behind a curtain.” Delia pointed an imaginary finger gun to her head. “You’re a trooper, Cokie.”

   “Coffee cart.” Hannah popped in. “Here’s your Earl Grey. With milk, right?”

   “Or vodka.” Delia took the two pills with her tea. “Whattaya want, Ross?”

   “Yo!” Ross from Transport waved an envelope at us. “Mindy’s pizza sendoff, 1:00. You in?”

   “Interpreting, what — Jenna! L & D stat! Thanks luv.” Delia handed Ross five dollars and glanced over at me. “So Mary. Your Cardio…”

   “Something about Petrov?” I asked her.

   “Right. Lovely man. Interesting life story, and he’ll tell you all about it. Watch for him at the side door. He and his wife Lilya come from Pineview Manor. They walk uphill from the bus stop hand in hand. When she’s up for it, she comes with him to check on their heart. As they call it.”

   “‘Their’ heart?” I looked up from the schedule. “Joint appointment?”

   “No. Lilya’s not our patient. We don’t follow her care.” Delia gestured a confidentiality zipper at her lips. “‘Their’ heart because they’re inseparable lovebirds. Cardio is their big monthly date. He’ll buy her a red rose in the Gift Shop after. Especially today.”

   “Today.” I checked the date on the schedule. “Fourteenth?”

   “‘Fourteenth,’ she says. It’s Valentine’s Day, hello. Lane’s taking me to the same cafe where we had our first date!” Delia beamed at me. “How ’bout you? Big romantic plans for the holiday?”

   “You bet!” I added more oxygen to my smile, with a little fist sideswipe to convey a can-do spirit. “The big plan is Petrovs in Cardio, and their valentine heart.”

   “Code Red resolved.” More chimes from the ceiling. “Code Red all clear.”

   “They really are the dearest lil’ lovebirds. Nikolai adores his Lilya. And, he will still flirt outrageously with every female on staff. Including you. Enjoy!”

   “Right.” I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and picked up my bags.

_______

2:30 pm. After one audio check, one orthotic fitting, one sed rate blood test, one ultrasound, and one colonoscopy, I signed out with the staff in GI Diseases and dashed through the parking garage, sprinting around the campus to the side drive. At 2:40 (Interpreter Rule: be prompt) I was at my post on the hilltop in good time. I caught my breath, and set down my bags.

Those bags were packed with care. Interpreter Rule: carry proper items for professional readiness in any situation. The large duffle held a tissue box, hand sanitizer, distance eyeglasses, a Russian-Russian medical dictionary, an English-Russian encyclopedia of medical phrases, laminated anatomical charts, bilingual Patient Q&As with drawings for inpatient staff, spiral notebook and pen, clinic phone directory, business cards for the various language voicemail lines back at Base, and my proud new interpreting certificate from the state Department of Health in an acetate page protector. The knapsack had winter boots, a sweatshirt, scarf, high-visibility vest and flashlight for the two-mile walk home, and a rain tarp for an ice storm on the way. The lunch bag was packed with a water jar, lentil patties, apple, banana, and almonds for a lunch that didn’t happen.

2:45. Hm. No couples strolling hand in hand; I ran two blocks downhill to check the bus stop.

2:50. My pager buzzed with a text alert from Base: Pt @ Reception. U? GO! The Petrovs? At Reception? I ran two blocks back up the hill and around to the main drive.

At the entrance, Mr. Levitskii was arriving at the kidney infusion center with his sit-down walker and oxygen tank. He whistled at me, slapping his knee. “Polkán! Idí, Polkán! Fido! C’mere, Fido!” He greeted all of us Russian interpreters that way. That was his light-hearted tribute for how he saw us tossed around with every phone call and pager alert.

   “K vashim uslúgam! At your service,” I called back, giving him a snappy salute. In the hospital lobby I charged up to Reception Dotty at Visitor Information.

   “Interpreter, you’re late!” said Dotty. “Pineview Manor sent your patient in their shuttle. He’s been waiting over a quarter of an hour for you.”

   “A Vy guliát’ poshlí? Gone strolling?” Mr. Nikolai Petrov was eyeing my arrival. He was a distinguished Greatest Generation figure, standing tall and straight in a dress shirt, suit slacks, and a tweed jacket. His vigorous stance, thick silver hair, and blazing blue eyes called to mind Paul Bragg, a health enthusiast born in 1895, whose books had fans in both Russia and America.  

   “Zdrávstvuyte, Hello, Mr. Petrov. Interpreter Mary, for your 3:00 Cardiology.”

   “So I heard. We have been waiting for you.” He looked me up and down.

   “Yes, I’m sorry.” Keenly aware of the contrast between his dapper alert appearance and my perspiring breathless state, I looked around anxiously for Mrs. Lilya Petrova. Was she in the rest room? At the Gift Shop, buying a rose? “Are we waiting for –”

   “Dlia Vas.” He cut me off. “I tól’ko dlia Vas. You, and only for you. It is now 3 minutes before the hour. Shall we adjourn already?” He flicked a hand to whisk me toward the Cardio suite. There Patient Coordinator Stella signed my schedule. “This way, Interpreter.” She rushed us to a room at the very end of the hall, closing the door as she left.

Squeezing past Mr. Petrov’s knees, ducking my head in apology for crowding him, I tiptoed to the door and eased it open again by six inches. Interpreter Rule: keep door open by a hands’ breadth. The open door policy was a standard best practice, a discreet signal that the patient was still in the room; otherwise, overworked staff had been known to forget that my elderly Medicaid patients on routine checkups were waiting, and we could be overlooked entirely.

Mr. Petrov hung a leather shoulder bag behind the door, and reaching in pulled out a plastic box.

   “How are you today, Mr. Petrov?” I sat down.

   “Fine. Never better.”

   “Are we here for your pacemaker check?”

   “Today is the fourteenth. Pacemaker checks are the first of the month.” He smiled. “You could learn that yourself if you looked at the patient chart before showing up.”

   “Well, it’s a good thing we’re in the right place.” Interpreter Rule: Never access patient charts unless ordered to do so. “So we can tell the team all about it right now.”

Medical Assistant Cassie knocked and entered. “Name and date of birth?”

   “Imia, famíliya?” I repeated for Mr. Petrov. “Dáta rozhdéniia?”

   “Ia sam! I myself.” He waved my words away, and in English gave his name and birth date.

   “And how are you feeling today?” Cassie logged in to the computer.

   “Kák vy sebiá…?” I began.

   “FINE!” Our patient sat tall, striking his chest with his fist. Opening the plastic box he took out his pill bottles, lining them up across the desk.

Cassie checked each prescription against his computer medication list. She applied a blood pressure cuff, pumped the bulb, watched the dial, and entered the reading. She locked the screen, left the room, and closed the door behind her. I got up and opened it again.

   “Clogs?” Mr. Petrov put the prescriptions in their box. “For a medical setting?”

   “Clog shoes are useful.” I was loyal to my rubber-grip footwear for running in the rain between clinics and for race-walking over polished floors. “Not the style in Russia, are they?”

   “Oh, they are,” he assured me. “For slopping hogs.”

He sprang up and strode across the room, put the pill case back in its leather bag, and hung the bag back on the door. “Zhal,’ Such a pity. That you had to travel so far to work with me.”

   “Far? Nichevó. No, no trouble,” I assured him. “I live close by.”

   “Not likely.” He sat down again. “In this neighborhood there are no residential homes.”

   “It’s campus housing. Studio room with shared kitchen.” I rather liked letting the patients know that not all Americans were drowning in wealth. My economy housing often led our Russians to reminiscences of life back in their Soviet communal apartments.

Nurse Keller charged into the room and logged in. She measured his blood pressure, measured it again, listened to his heart, then paged through the screens of his chart. “Mr. Petrov.” She swiveled to face him. “Merenice called this morning from Pineview Manor. She said they were sending you in on their shuttle, and that you woke up anxious and agitated. Any reason?”

   “No. I am good,” Mr. Petrov quipped in English. From across the room his keen eyes monitored the green blinking cursor as she checked his record. “I am always good.”

She logged out, left, and firmly closed the door.

   “One studio room.” Mr. Petrov gave me an appraising glance. “For you and your parents?”

   ” No, my parents live on their own. Out of state.”

   “Why not live in their house, and care for them?”

   “Oh, they don’t want or need care. They’re doing quite well.”

   “Buy a house for them here. To live with you.” His bright blue eyes narrowed.

   “They are fond of their own home and town, among their friends and activities.” Behind my smile I wilted a little. The mortgage officer at our bank had already let me know: with an interpreter salary and an on-call job, a mortgage was not in the cards. My lifelong dream of a family and home and a bit of land was receding farther every year. I sidled past Mr. Petrov again to open the door.

   “Interpreting must have called you at short notice,” he commented.

   “No, Delia is very efficient. She told me early, when I arrived at 7:30.”

   “Yet you still showed up late and in a rush. You had trouble finding your own patient.”

   “Thanks to Dotty in Reception,” I said brightly, “It all worked out. And here we are.”

This was a fairly typical first-acquaintance conversation. Interpreters for all the language groups faced personal questions and commentary. After all, most of our patients had lost their homeland, livelihood, professional identity, relatives and friends, social connections and familiar customs. Almost all of my Russian elder patients had depression, anxiety, memory issues, and several metabolic illnesses. They talked with nostalgia about their young days in Soviet times, when their fitness and knowledge were always in demand in war and peace. My patients did not choose America; they were uprooted and brought along by children and grandchildren. For them, exam rooms were a social gathering place. The interpreter was their American cultural informant, one who spoke their language. No wonder our personal appearance, ethnic and religious background, housing, income, relationships, and lifestyles were all a source of interest, entertainment, and gossip with countrymen.

Interpreter Rule: when a conversation takes an awkward turn, excuse yourself and explain that you need to answer a pager message. Fortunately, at that moment my pager buzzed again. Update? Needed ENT.

   “Mr. Petrov, please excuse me a moment. I need to telephone my dispatcher.” I stepped into the hallway. Interpreter Rule: Never discuss an appointment in the patient’s presence. Besides, our small room had no desk phone, and clinics had no flip-phone reception. I headed up the empty hall to the clinic house phone and called Base.

   “Interpreting, what language?” said Delia.

   “Hello, Mary in Cardio.”

   “Still??? Why are you just sitting around there? It’s a routine pacemaker check!”

   “Yes, I was just going to call you.” Interpreter Rule: In any minutes of down time, always call Base; chances are they will send you to a filler appointment at another clinic.

   “Olga and her daughter Sveta just showed up at Ear Nose & Throat. ENT expected them yesterday for Olga’s surgery followup, but they’re here now. How fast will you wrap up there?”

   “They haven’t told me anything.” Olga and Sveta needed double interpreting; we used Russian-English for Sveta, who repeated everything to Olga in Russian Sign Language.

   “Ok, I’ll send Polina. Get over to ENT and spell her as soon as you’re done.”

   “Will do.” With double interpreting taking twice the visit time, ENT would not be happy waiting for me. At the same time, in Cardiology and other high-caliber clinics it was hard to coordinate provider teams and unexpected events. Wait times were much harder to predict. I glanced around the hall, and lowered my voice to almost a whisper. “This doesn’t look like a routine check so far.”

   “Interpreter!” Nurse Keller appeared. “No medical discussion in the hall. Off the phone.”

   “Yes, Ma’am.” I headed back to the room, leaving the door cracked open.

Mr. Petrov sat with folded arms, tapping his foot. “I thought you wandered off and left me.”

   “Oh no,” I smiled at him. “Just talking to the dispatcher. I’m staying right here with you.”

   “You must be new here. You haven’t had time to get a proper badge.”

   “Badge?” Interpreter Rule: ID must always be worn in clinic. Startled, I checked my lanyard. “Why, here is my badge.”

   “That’s not a proper badge with your real name.”

   “The Security office issued this badge. Here is my real name.”

   “It is not,” he insisted. “In English, suffix “-y” forms the diminutive: Micky, Bobby, Betty. Names for schoolchildren and movie gangsters. ‘Mary’ is not your real name.”

   “But… Mary is a traditional Catholic name.” My devout mother often reminisced fondly of her love for the Blessed Mother, and her wish to give the name to me. “For the mother of Jesus.”

   “Really now.” He rolled his eyes. “Her real name was Maria. And so is yours.”

   “Her real name was Mariam.” No one had ever questioned my Mother’s baptismal name for me before My voice came out with the hint of an edge, breaking the Interpreter Rule: Never engage in disputes with a patient. A contractor who answers back will not be called to work again.

   “My my.” His eyes gleamed. “Whatever you say.”

Two new providers hurried in with an EKG equipment cart. There was no curtain in the room, and not enough space for the furniture and equipment and four people. So to Mr. Petrov’s obvious amusement as he unbuttoned his shirt I averted my eyes and finally stood up with my face to the corner, ready to interpret the procedure. But the exam was administered in silence. One provider whisked the cart away while the other entered some chart notes and closed the door behind her. Mr. Petrov straightened out his jacket and shirt.

I stood up and eased the door open. “Mr. Petrov, I’ll be working right here in the doorway,” I explained, opening my vocabulary binder. Interpreter Rule: During down time, check translations of English-Russian patient education materials to make use of billable minutes.

   “Interpreter.” Patient Coordinator Stella stepped in. “We’ll need you here tomorrow, 8:00 to noon for testing.”

   “Tomorrow morning is Rodion,” I told her, “Rodion has seniority for morning slots.” Rodion was permanent, on salary. He had first choice of morning appointments, so he could pick up his wife and children in the afternoons.

   “I asked you, Interpreter! For Mr. Petrov’s continuity of care.”

   “You’re welcome to call Base. They determine the assignments.”

   “Then call Base now and tell them we booked you for tomorrow.”

   “Base won’t accept that second-hand. For billing, Maura needs to hear directly from the clinic.”

   “I’ll tell them you refused, while I’m at it.” She closed the door.

   “Well now.” Mr. Petrov turned to me. “You must have read great works of literature by our many stellar writers — Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov. Which literary work is your favorite?”

   “Rákovyi Kórpus.” I didn’t have to think twice. “Cancer Ward. Aleksandr Sol’zhenitsyn.”

   “Rákovyi Kórpus.” Mr. Petrov raised a brow. “I said ‘literature.’ By an actual writer.”

   “Yes. Rákovyi Kórpus is my very favorite Russian novel.”

   “A story about a ward of hospital patients? Whining about their symptoms! That’s your idea of a literary book?”

   “It’s my idea of a profound book.” I blushed. “One which is personally meaningful to me.”

   “Ha.” He tossed his head. “Na vkus i tsvet továrishchei net. There’s no accounting for taste.”

   “Kázhetsia.” I gave him a placating laugh. “Seems so.”

My pager buzzed: Stay after 5?

   “Mr. Petrov, I’ll need to answer this message,” I apologized. Checking both ways for Nurse Keller, I headed back down to the hall phone.

   “Interpreting what language.” This was now the cool no-nonsense voice of Dispatcher Maura.

   “Mary, Cardio. Yes, can stay after 5:00. Did they tell you how long I’ll be here?”

   “They’ve paged the attending; Schmidt is on his way. Something’s shaking at Cardiology. Some chain of command issue. Charge nurse wants Petrov admitted; but they don’t have the data to back that up. Sit tight there.” Click.

I went back to the little room, leaving the door open. “Mr. Petrov, I hear you have an interesting life story. Perhaps there will be time for you to tell me some of it?”

And at that, we were finally on safe ground. Mr. Petrov needed no further encouragement. He launched into his very own exciting history, well-polished with retelling and rich with long-term memory. After the War he’d been selected for special training that demanded technical expertise, extreme physical endurance, reflexes, and bravery. Now he expanded upon the successes of his team of men on missions that promised glory, patriotic pride, excitement, and inevitable injury or death. Somehow, Mr. Petrov and his close circle of comrades had all survived unharmed.

A gray-haired provider in a suit strode in with no badge, no introduction, and not a glance at us. His distinguished appearance and cut-to-chase manner suggested that this was attending Cardiologist Schmidt himself. He logged in to the computer and reviewed the chart. “A well-appearing white male, X years of age,” he announced. Speaking in a clear projected voice he adjusted a wired attachment clipped to his front pocket. “Referred by care home for uncharacteristic anxious and irritated behavior. Initial workup indicates…” He expounded upon technical details of the patient’s vital statistics and EKG, reached in the pocket to click settings on a recording device, and walked out closing the door.

Mr. Petrov turned to me for an explanation. I didn’t have one.

Despite my training, Schmidt’s rapid-fire narrative was technically incomprehensible; perhaps it was meant to be. At least for this situation we were covered by our Interpreter Rule: interpret only what the provider says directly to the patient, and what the patient says directly to the provider. In this case, there was nothing for me to say.

   “Well. About your story.” I turned the subject back. “It really is remarkable.”

   “I’m the only one of the team left alive. Last time we met was at Leningrad State University.”

   “LSU?” I exclaimed. “I studied there. Summer, 1978.”

   “1978 was the 35th anniversary of our mission.” Mr. Petrov’s eyes flashed brighter. “Our team leader was an LSU administrator.” With fond reminiscence he mentioned the team leader’s name.

   “Administrator??” The name was striking and distinctive, drawn from several Orthodox early desert fathers. “But — he worked with us students! We respected and liked him very much. What a hardworking, quiet, kind, modest man. That whole glorious background! And to think he never told a word of it to us.”

   “To you?” He laughed. “We didn’t breathe a word to anyone at the time. But in ’78 I flew to Leningrad from Moscow to see him in July, and take him to dinner. Little did he guess that I’d called on our whole collective for a reunion; they came in from all over. We surprised him with a festive ambush. He was lecturing that day, and we all burst in to the auditorium and ushered him away.”

   “In the last week of July ’78,” I sat up in my chair. “On our last day of summer term, a whole group of men came in to the lecture hall and swept our administrator out the door. We students just thought it was his birthday. He looked very touched and happy to see his friends. It was an important occasion; one of the men even brought in a splendid tall bouquet.”

   “With 35 flowers.” He smacked his hands together. “One for each year.”

   “Roses in red, white, and gold.”

   “Red, white and gold! The banner colors of our mission!” He beamed at me. “You can’t imagine how much work it was to obtain all those roses and carry them around town.”

   “The one with the roses was you?”

   “Naturally, I was younger then. My hair was red, not gray.”

   “Mine was redder instead of gray too,” I laughed. “And all of us were younger.” Amazing; my companion’s presence in this room was the only remnant of a treasured memory from that week. He and his roses were the incidental backdrop, like black velvet for a gem under glass.

In July 1978, after that last lecture on that last day of class before our return to America I left campus for a social invitation to the historic district of Nevsky Prospekt. There a remarkable Old Petersburg family welcomed me in and talked to me over tea. The young man of the family was off in the corner behind the grand piano, ostensibly studying a Rachmaninoff score. But all during my teatime interactions with the family he watched me in silent wide-eyed intensity, as if he were upset by my visit. As it turned out, he was not upset at all.

   “So what do you say?” Mr. Petrov leaned close. “How about it?”

   “Sorry?” I was still rapt by that lovely reverie. The thought of that young pianist resurrected a long-buried fresh green tendril blooming in my heart, all hope and warmth and remembered kindness.  

   “There are things a woman can do. Your hair, for starters. What age did it turn gray?”

   “My hair?” What in the world…? “Early. Age 17 or so.”

   “High time to do something about it. And some cosmetics while you’re at it. Lipstick at least.”

   “Mm.” My spirits had a long way to fall, back to reality and cramped yellow walls and this man who like many other patients harped about my hair, my shoes, my makeup, my clothes, and the bags that I carried. I stood up and headed to the door. “Would you excuse me a moment? I need to report in.”

   “Interpreting,” said Maura. “What language?”

   “Maura? Mary,” I whispered. “Has Cardio called you with any updates? No one’s around.”

   “Schmidt’s deciding what tests to run. Keller’s behind the scenes saving everybody’s bacon.”

   “Interpreter!” Nurse Keller came up behind me. “Stop discussing cases in the hall.”

   “That’s her now,” said Maura. “When that nurse says Jump, do not stop to ask how high.”

   “Get back to your post.” said Nurse Keller.

   “Yes, Ma’am.” I hung up.

   “And I am not your Ma’am,” she blazed up. “My title is Nurse!”

   “Yes, Nurse Keller.” I headed back to the room, leaving the door open.

Mr. Petrov sat examining my appearance. “Yes, it’s time to do something about that hair. You’re not exactly 17 any more. At your age now, you must be a full Professor.”

   “Full professor?” Anyone in the American work force would find it strange to think that a contract interpreter would have full professor rank. But the question was truly odd coming from the educated elite of the Soviet Union, a system where professors had such prestige that their apartment buildings even bore engraved bronze plaques, to inform passersby that an academic had lived there! “Full professor? Why, no.”

   “You’re not a full professor? But you did complete your doctorate, didn’t you?” he persisted.

   “Doctorate?” This was another offbeat question. A Soviet doctorate meant much more than completion of a course of study and research. The title indicated exceptional innovative achievement in a specialty field. “But the interpreting career is not an academic track,” I explained. “For hospital work, I am fully qualified. We pass written and oral state exams and hiring interviews; we take continuing education courses with constant training and observation on the job, regular assessments, and shadowing opportunities. Our training never ends.”

   “But for Russian language — don’t you have an academic background?”

   “I do, in Russian language and pedagogy. All the coursework needed for a doctorate.”

   “But did you finish?” Mr. Petrov didn’t miss a beat. “The doctoral degree?”

   “Mr. Petrov.” I resorted to a courteous fallback phrase. “Interpreter is here to focus on you and on your health. If you have any questions for the team, or –“

   “Did you finish your doctorate?”

   “I don’t know of any doctorate in medical interpreting. I’m certified with the department of health.”

   “Did you finish your doctorate?”

   “Do you have concerns about our training process? You are welcome to contact my supervisor. Dispatcher Maura, our lead Russian interpreter, can describe the process for you, so that –“

   “Did you finish your doctorate?”

   “No, Mr. Petrov.” That was certainly not a secret. But that academic ordeal in graduate school was still a source of deep regret. It ended the dream of an academic career, and work and research opportunities here and in Russia. “It’s a different path,” I assured him. “I earned a second Masters in teaching English to speakers of other languages. I taught vocational English to newly arrived Russian speakers. It was good meaningful work.”

   “So you’re a letún,” he concluded. The root is letát,’ meaning to fly here and there. To the wartime generation, anyone who changed careers was seen as unfocused, unreliable, lacking in integrity. “And now you’re trying out yet another career! Practicing on us patients.”

   “Mr. Petrov.” I took a deep breath. Interpreter Rule: Focus the patient on the visit. “The team will be here soon. Let’s turn our attention to anything you might like to say to them.”

Cardiologist Schmidt and the EKG technician hurried in for a second EKG exam. Again I squeezed into the corner with my nose to the wall. As they examined the results and left, Dr. closed the door a little harder than necessary.

   “Not a full professor.” Mr. Petrov gripped the arms of his chair. ” No dissertation. Yet you take human lives in your hands and on your conscience every day!”

   “Whatever concerns you would like to report to the team or to anyone else, let me know how I can assist. I’m right here.” I cracked open the door and stood there. Interpreter Rule: When a conversation becomes emotional and off topic, do not remain unchaperoned with the door closed. During an extended wait, part of an interpreter’s job was to moderate the conversational dynamics, to keep the patient calm and in place, ready when the provider showed up.

   “Interpreter.” Nurse Keller summoned me out to the hall. “For HIPAA confidentiality, you are to keep that door closed at all times. You are to stay inside that room and with your patient. If you open the door and wander out here one more time I swear I will write you up.”

I stepped back inside. She closed the door.

Mr. Petrov paced the room. “How many CHILDREN do you have?” he fired off.

   “Excuse me?” Now I was uneasy. There was a real change in his manner and mood.

   “It’s not a complex question.” He sounded anxious and irritable. “Think.”

   “I don’t have any.”

   “Who knows how you arranged that?” He looked me over. “So. If you haven’t raised a child, what makes you think that you can take care of patients?”

To be fair, that was the standard get-acquainted question. Patients across many culture groups believed that female interpreters were better at patient care if they were also wives and mothers. Interpreter Rule: As with any hazing ritual, the key was to remain serene and well-intentioned, letting the comments drift past. If we interpreters showed the slightest sign that we felt hurt or taken aback, our questioners would conclude that they had hit upon some interesting secret. They would probe even harder, then spread their speculations to the other patients.

Now I steeled myself for the central question: marital status. Patients got around to that one sooner or later, usually sooner. Next they would warn me that single women have unbalanced hormones and become emotionally unstable. (Popular stereotypes about this abound. At minute 1 hour 36 of the 1980 rom-com Moskvá slezám ne vérit, or “Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears,” the hero’s very first come-on overture line to the heroine is that she has the glance of an unmarried woman — “Otsénivaiushchii, kak smótriat militsionéry,” searching and appraising, like that of the police.) At one of my other hospitals, a Russian supervisor tried nagging me to go out on the weekends for drinking and a sex life: “If you dry out, you’ll be no use to our patients.” (This Russian vysókhshaia, or out + dried, is the ultimate criticism of a woman perceived as an old maid.) Back at that same hospital, a member of leadership would test the freshness of the female interpreters by lining up the women every Monday to collect from each one “a kiss for Papa.” As the new employee I offered him a handshake instead. The look he gave me signalled that my days in that department were already numbered.

As if on cue Mr. Petrov asked “Are you at least married with a husband?”

   “No.” My eyes tuned out the room, gazing far into the distance past the yellow walls.

   “And why is that, tell me?”

    “Bózh’ia vólia. God’s will.”

   “God’s WILL.” It was a crooning simper, treacle and brimstone. “So you failed at that too.”

Everything went blank. The meaning of everything was suspended: time, space, the little green tendril of hope, the yellow walls, English, Russian. It dawned on me: being alone was not a dark valley to walk through with patience and courage to the other side, not a process of more personal growth and social skills, not just a vocation to marriage ready and waiting if only I prayed long enough and let go and let God, not just some one ingredient lacking in whatever I’d done so far in life. No, being alone came from my own deep identity. The fault was not what I did, but who I was. It was not that life had failed me, but that I had failed God Himself and failed the lifetime population of available solid single men that He created. And I wasn’t good enough for any of them.

Somewhere deep in me a finely tuned mechanism, a biological clock held in perfect readiness and fueled by a lifetime force of faith and hope, snapped its mainspring and died for good. I had no idea how much that clock had kept me going through the years until now when it was gone.

In self-defense, I almost told Mr. Petrov everything: about the Old Petersburg family with their delight in my visit, their ancient monogrammed silver and remaining teacups and their stories of the past, about the Conservatory student behind his grand piano who gazed at me the whole time, simply because he thought I was beautiful and gentle and good, how that young man then spent my last week in town showing me his city, and how at every greeting and goodbye he bowed low and kissed my hand. But my words to Mr. Petrov were stopped by some deep intuition. Tell him nothing; not a word it seemed to say, as if my own guardian angel with a double-edged sword were shielding the silence of my little Eden.

Interpreter Rule: Keep your mind on the job. The summer of ’78 was gone, and no man was going to bow to me and kiss my hand like that again. I sat up straight, gripping to my chest my vocabulary collection binder, with fingers marking tabbed section 7 (Cardiology: anatomy, physiology, testing, medical conditions). The door flew open. The team filed in: Medical Assistant Cassie, the EKG technician, Nurse Keller, Cardiologist Schmidt, and with them a matronly woman with a calming tuneful voice. Their interpreting appointment began in earnest. But the cosmic clockwork that powered the meaning of life had just died. There was no human left sitting in my chair, gripping a binder of vocabulary and packed bags and a head full of rules. The Interpreter had left the room.

Everyone stared at me as I sat stunned and gaping at the yellow walls.

Then, from the depths of auditory recollection, another personality stepped in took over. She was the voice of Radio Leningrad, the Díktor at the microphone, switching on at 6:00 am right after the national anthem, taking charge of airwaves on each radio all over the city. She was poise and style and even-keeled clear diction, declaiming the news from a government that handed down all the answers. She took me over like a fist in a puppet, commanding Russian conjugations, declensions, perfective and imperfective aspect, determinate and indeterminate verbs of motion, the dictionary terms pored over for those state exams, and years of interpreting for everybody else. Every time the care team began an English sentence, The Voice saw the end of that sentence coming. She formulated the Russian simultaneous reply, and muscled it right back.

Hello! Can you tell us your name?
And how are you feeling today, Mr. Petrov?
Can you tell us where you are, and why? What is today’s date?
You had a pacemaker check the first of the month, two weeks ago? How have you felt since then?
Who is the President? (“Yours or mine?” Mr. Petrov sassed them back, and named them both.)
Can you count backwards from 100 by sevens? Well. That was fast.
Would you show us all your medications again? Can you tell us what each one is for? Have you taken each one as directed? Has the dosage changed? Let’s compare each one with the medication list on your patient chart. Is your pharmacy still the same, for refills?
Has your insurance changed?
In the past two weeks, have you changed your diet, sleep, exercise?
In the past two weeks, has your vision changed?
In the past two weeks, has your breathing changed? What about bowel or bladder habits?
Do you smoke?
Any family history of cardiovascular ailments?
Can you cross the room along that straight line, please?
Can you count many fingers I am holding up?
Can you hold your arm out, and then sweep your hand in and touch your nose?
Are you left-handed, or right-handed? (Interpreter Rule: raise hand, and ask permission to speak. “Interpreter would like to mention that in the Soviet Union all children were trained to use only their right hand for penmanship. The hand used for writing may not be the dominant hand.”)
Are you allergic to any medications?
Are you allergic to any medications, or substances including latex?
Do you have difficulties with general anesthesia? Do you have any chipped or broken teeth?
Do you feel safe at home?
Are you afraid of falling? (Mr. Petrov laughed outright. Men on The Mission were not, to put it mildly, afraid of falling.)
Is your son still your emergency contact?
Do you ever think of harming yourself?
Are you concerned about your level of drinking?
Do you ever feel that someone is listening in on your phone calls, or your private conversations in your home? (“Interpreter requests permission to speak. In some cultural settings, it is routine for phone calls and home conversations to be monitored by a third party.”)
Have you lost interest in any favorite activities including sex?

The action then proceeded from room to room, starting with the Blood Draw lab. Mr. Petrov refused a wheelchair with a head toss of contempt until Nurse Keller looked up at him. He sat down then.  

   “Nurse Keller? At some point I will need to call Base,” I ventured, on one of our transfers.

   “I called,” she said, taking a turn with the wheelchair.

   “For Rodion at 8:00 tomorrow?”

   “Maura’s got it,” she said.

   “And Pineview Manor? Reserving their shuttle for tonight and tomorrow –“

   “Told ’em.” She gave me a collegial nod.

The energy of the team was attentive and non-committal. Mr. Petrov’s interest had long worn off; he was like a cultured talk show host grown weary of the guests: the schoolboy with trite magic tricks, or the zoo visitor displaying a contrary animal, or in this case the smiling tuneful-voiced woman who introduced herself as a social worker and asked gently whether Mr. Petrov had an Advance Directive on file?

No, Mr. Petrov did not. Granted, in a perfect world, advance directives were supposed to be handled sooner, during routine visits with a trusted primary care provider, long before they were needed. They were not meant to be an afterthought during a health crisis or en route to the OR. But that is exactly when they usually come up in conversation. The topic was never popular. Patients assumed that we were questioning God’s will, tempting fate, securing permission to turn off life support, or trying to frighten the chronic Medicaid patients into an earlier death.

The social worker then asked with special gentleness whether in his culture Mr. Petrov had any special Spiritual Needs.

Mr. Petrov looked to me. “Shto? What?”

I interpreted and paraphrased the question three times.

   “Spiritual needs? No.” He flashed his teeth in a defiant laugh, reminding me of Beethoven shaking his dying fist at the thundering sky.

For the next couple of hours, my Radio Voice continued to speak for me and to animate energy in my steps and steel in my spine. There were only three strange side effects. One, my hands trembled with adrenalin and the ambient electricity of the medical drama around us. Two, my eyes absolutely refused to look at Mr. Petrov, to reveal to him any more of the mirror of my soul. Three, these eyes overflowed with tears. Despite the calm dispatch and demeanor of the best interpreting work of my entire life, the tears flowed on their own. The effect called to mind accounts of the Orthodox Christian experience of the Chudotvórnaia Ikóna, documented wonder-working icons, where a depicted saint mysteriously sheds myrrh-bearing tears of fragrant chrism, gathered by the faithful to heal the sick and the broken of heart.

And all the while, Mr. Petrov kept up his sotto voce comments in my direction. “It’s obvious you’ve never been married,” he hissed at me. “Why would you care for a husband? When you met a patient late, without checking his chart? No lipstick, no makeup. No proper name on your badge. Squatting in one room like a bohemian, not at home caring for your parents. Didn’t bother to finish school. Thinks that literature is tales about a cancer ward by some muck-raking literary hack! Rákovyi Kórpus indeed.”

Because the patient addressed none of this to the providers, and because the providers had nothing further to say to the patient, there was at last nothing more to interpret. The team agreed to reconvene at 8:00 am with Mr. Petrov and Interpreter Rodion for more testing. They dispersed for the night. I ran back to the exam room and fetched the leather satchel from the hook on the door, then ran to catch up with the group as they headed out of Cardiology. “In only fourteen days!” Schmidt’s voice faded down the hall. “…the hell could have happened?”

Mr. Petrov packed up his patient visit summary printout. “American success. Career before love and family. You aren’t here for the patients. You’re here for the pay.”

   “Here is your bag, Mr. Petrov. Reception is this way.” Still drying my eyes I handed Mr. Petrov his leather satchel, and pointed him back in the right direction.

   “You don’t know what it is,” he shook his head. “To love a man. With all your heart.”

Through my tears a haze of red and glitter swam into view, from a display window of flowers and balloons. The Gift Shop was closed. Valentine’s Day was over.

   “Vot smotríte. Just look at yourself,” Mr. Petrov marched past the shop. “You are acting like a child! You deliberately chose to misunderstand my intentions.”

   “Evening, Dotty,” I greeted the night Receptionist. “One for Pineview Manor.”

   “Driver’s right there.” She slid the transport book across the counter.

   “Great.” I checked off Mr. Petrov’s name from the list of patients expecting rides, wrote in the departure time, and dried my eyes. “Good evening!” I hailed the driver.

   “How are ya,” the driver greeted me. “Hiya, Nick!” He led us to the green and white shuttle.

   “Sovétoval kak drúg.” Our passenger fastened his seat belt. “I advised you as a friend. For your own good. You don’t have the constitutional fortitude to face the truth about yourself.”

   “All set?” I checked that Mr. Petrov’s leather satchel was on his lap, and his hands and feet safely out of the way.

   “Well ‘MARY.’ Or whatever your real name is,” Mr. Petrov concluded, “You can take off that badge now; you’re a professional disgrace. And the worst is, you can’t be bothered to care.”

   “We’re ready!” I closed the door, waved to the driver, and stepped back.

I turned away with a deep yawning sigh of relief. But then in the darkness someone behind me seized my wrist. I gasped and spun around. A man bowed and kissed my hand, and sprinted back to a green and white van. The van pulled out. Its taillights splintered in red rays through the first raindrops in my eyes.

“Perevódchitsa — Vy opozdáli! Interpreter — You were late!” Mrs. Nina Melnik was part of the crowd heading home. “I expected you to show up for Radiology at 3:00. You kept us all waiting!”

“Your 3:00 interpreter was Zoya, she had to drive to get here,” I called over to her. “For 3:00 they dispatched me to a different clinic. I had to stay with the patient.”

“Well, it still delayed everyone. I wish you’d all organize yourselves and show up on time.” (Small Epilogue: Two years later, an email from Management notified me that on the contractor list my place had to be reassigned to a new interpreter for our many new speakers of Iraqi Arabic. I was hired instead by that same Radiology department. Mrs. Melnik was one of the patients who praised me once I was gone. “I’ll have you know,” she told Interpreter Zoya, “That Mary? She was a nachítannaia dévushka, a well-read girl. She knew not only her own literature, but she’d read ours as well.”)

   “Polkáaan — domói!” Mr. Levitskii with his seat walker and his oxygen tank was boarding his Medicaid shuttle with his swollen legs and labored breaths and eager grin. “Fido — Go home!” he hollered as the driver fastened his belt. I gave him a snappy salute.

Before the two-mile walk home, in an alcove between two brick walls and the smokers’ bench, I sat down to put on my sweatshirt and scarf and boots and rain tarp slicker. Then I pulled the hood of the tarp low and rested against a warm heating grate to eat a banana. The bricks formed a little grotto all around, lined with wintering ivy. “Vysókhshaia,” I whispered in sympathy, reaching out to touch its leathery leaves. Its suction disk rootlets wrapped around my fingers.

A young woman with a cigarette came and sat down, hunching over in the chill. She wore a red knitted stocking cap and a fluffy sweater with red hearts.

   “Oh.” I took a closer look. “Nurse Keller. Good evening.”

   “Jesus! You scared me to death.” She nearly dropped her lighter. “Who is that?”

   “Interpreter.” I pulled back my hood. “Thank you for all your help in Cardiology today.”

   She sat, taking a long drag of her cigarette. “Why didn’t you go to nursing school?”

   “Me?” My imagination took wing for a moment, then came back to earth. “Can’t handle stress.”

   “Huh. So much for that then,” she laughed, standing up with car keys in hand. “Night, Hon.”

Pinpoints of precipitation whispered along my tarp hood. My eyes closed. A long-ago letter floated to mind, fountain pen ink in beautiful shaded Cyrillic letters.

Since you left here I’ve learned a number of pieces for piano, and progressed a great deal in technical execution; but the playing has gone dry, with a “touch of chill.” For my professor I played Rachmaninoff’s preludes in D Minor and B Minor. He was not pleased. “No lyricism,” he shouted. “Go fall in love with a girl!” In response I had only a hapless smile. And what lay behind that smile, only I knew. Well, and you. Yes?

He practiced so hard. He cared so much. And already his Rákovyi Kórpus was waiting for him.

My eyes blinked open in a soft glow of light. Someone at the hospital must have switched on a Gobo, a go-between optic light display, against the opposite brick wall. I’d only seen them outside city taverns, but now to my amazement the lighting cast a life-size image of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. The wind rippled through her veil, setting the gems in her diadem to sparkle and gleam. Cradling the infant Jesus in her arms she gazed at me in sorrow and sympathy, with her eyes brimming with tears. Chudotvórnaia Ikóna! I sprang to my feet for a closer look. But the tears of Our Lady were only crystals of sleet; her gown and veil were the wind on rippling ivy. The apparition disappeared. My own tears calmed down and stopped.

________

7:15. At Base I checked the mailbox. Schedules were ready, but none was printed for me. In the staff room, at the Chinese language station, the interpreters kept a little memorial temple, a wooden model with a tiny ceramic bud vase with a single flower. Tonight in the temple window there was a new light from a battery candle. Inside the temple door there was a new rice paper scroll with some Chinese calligraphy. “Good bye, Mr. Scotty,” I whispered. “Sleep in peace.”

In the dispatchers’ office, the lights were on. Lead Interpreter Maura always started in at 6:00 am, an hour before her shift, to walk the wards and check on our patients who needed care most. Now she was still here, after hours. She was keying numbers on an adding machine, leafing through a tall stack of crumpled appointment schedules.

“You’re still here!” I greeted her, hanging my slicker outside the office door. “Mr. Levitskii was outside just now; still in rare form, whistling for us dogs.”

“He’s on his last legs,” Maura said softly. “Your schedule’s late. Short month. They’re due the 14th. I’ve already totaled up the batch.”

   “Oh. Sorry.” I unfolded my schedule on her desk. “We ran way past 5:00.”

   “You know the rules. You tell the clinic to fax it to us by 6:00!”

   “Stella was long gone. And there was a lot going on.”

   “Look here: They didn’t sign you out! How am I supposed to submit this? Accounting won’t pay. Take that schedule right back to Cardio tomorrow. See if you can talk them into signing for next pay period. I’d sign myself, but when a timesheet’s overdue, Payroll might audit us.”

   “Anesthesiologist to NICU, stat!” A woman’s voice broke in on the overhead, broadcasting full volume. “Anesthesiologist to NICU, stat! Anesthesiologist to NICU stat.”

   “Okay,” I said. “Oh, Cardio for 8:00 tomorrow morning. Did Cassie call? Petrov has tests.”

   “Keller called. And he doesn’t.”

   “Ya he does. They want him back in the morning.”

   “They’ve got him now.”

   “Petrov? He’s gone home. I just saw him on the Pineview shuttle myself.”

   “He passed out in the van. Shuttle driver brought him to the ER.” Maura hit the print key.

   “He was fine not an hour ago! Will he be okay? Was it his heart?”

   “Stroke.” Maura tore off the adding machine tape roll.

I squared my shoulders. “So… do you need me to stay tonight? Interpret for him?”

   “Cancel anesthesiologist to NICU,” said the woman in the ceiling. She sounded tired. “Cancel NICU.”

   “Not much point interpreting. Not if he’s unconscious.” She stapled the roll to the timesheets.

   “For his wife Lilya, though. Whatever she has to say.”

   “Oh very funny,” she seethed at me. “Is that your idea of a joke? What is that supposed to mean?”

I noticed her bloodshot eyes and the catch in her voice. “Nothing. I don’t mean a thing. Night.” I collected my slicker and turned to go.

   “Wait.” Maura stood up. In her eyes the flash of indignation faded to dismay. “But you’re the last person he spoke to! Didn’t you — He must have — All that time, what did he talk about?”

   “Talk? About 1943, what else.” I took off my lanyard and photo ID. “Being a hero.”

Maura sank back to her chair and took off her glasses. “She’s dead.”

“KELLER?” I put down my bags.

“No. One of those missed voicemails was Pineview Manor. Lilya died last week. She had leukemia for years. Nikolai took care of her.” Maura put her glasses back on. “Look, just gimme the timesheet. I’m signing you out myself for 7:30. That’s walking Petrov to the shuttle, and to make up for the lunch break you didn’t get.” Maura knew the rules: on-call interpreters don’t get a paid lunch. But she made the change anyway.

“Thank you, Maura. I’m very sorry to hear this. Inseparable, weren’t they?”

Maura signed my timesheet, stapled it to the batch, edited the paper tape, and bundled it all in a string-cord envelope. “Your schedule’s in the printer. Surgery Prep is at 6:45 tomorrow morning. Check in there at 6:30.” She turned back to the answering machine, and hit Play.

I picked up my bags.

A holiday theme story is in progress, almost ready to post here. And meanwhile,

Here is a wee corner of the Valentine’s Day display at our corner Big Chain Grocery. This is only 25% of the fanfare; I cropped out the background of customers, juice coolers, carts, and other sundries. But even this small slice shows that the staff have outdone themselves. They set out flowers, giant balloons, cookies and cakes from the bakery in back, even strawberries hand-dipped by the Produce team in stripes of dark chocolate and white chocolate. Yesterday before 8:00 am the store had a rush of young men hurrying to buy bouquets! That seemed a hopeful sign. And so many bouquets to choose from! (In the center of these bouquets, the sharp spiky blue flower below is Sea Holly. It’s an interesting touch, and one more sign that the staff really care about their handiwork.)