Granny Dan

He sat with them for a while, and took her temperature again. It had risen slightly, and Madame Markova was already applying the cool cloths he had recommended. The students were bringing them to her, and keeping them damp and cool, but she would not let them in the room with her, for fear that they would get it. The five girls who normally occupied the room with her had been sent to the main dormitory to sleep on cots or on mattresses with the others. Their room was completely off-limits to them.

“How is she now?” Madame Markova asked him anxiously after she had been bathing Danina's chest and arms and face with cool cloths for an hour. The patient was completely unaware of their presence or attention, as she lay deathly pale and trembling, her face as white as the sheets she lay on.

“She is about the same,” he answered when he checked her again. He didn't want to tell Madame Markova that he thought she was even a trifle warmer. “She will not improve so quickly.” If ever, which he doubted. But even he was struck by how lovely Danina was as she lay lifelessly before them. She was a striking beauty, her features exquisitely delicate, her body minute and incredibly graceful. Her long dark brown hair was fanned out behind her on the pillow. But she had the look of someone near death, he knew only too well, and he was sure by then that she would not live till morning.

“Is there nothing more we can do?” Madame Markova asked, looking desperate.

“Pray,” he said, and meant it. “Have you called her parents?”

“She has a father and four brothers. I believe that all are at the front, from what she has told me.” The war had broken out only months before, and their regiment had been among the first to go. Danina was very proud of them, and mentioned it often.

“Then there is nothing you can do. We must wait and see.” He looked at his watch then. He had been with Danina for three hours, and knew he should get back to Tsarskoe Selo to see about Alexei, and it would take him an hour to get there. “I will come back in the morning,” he promised. But he feared that by then the good Lord would have taken matters into His own hands. “Send word to me if you feel you need me.” He gave her the directions to his home, should they need to send someone for him. But by the time he came back with the person they sent, it might be too late for Danina. He lived beyond Tsarkoe Selo, with his wife and two children. He was still young, in his late thirties, but extremely responsible, capable and compassionate, which was why he had been entrusted with the care of the Czarevitch. And he looked oddly like the boy's father. He had the same distinguished features, was as tall as the Czar, and wore his beard in precisely the same neat, trim way the Czar did. Even without the beard, the doctor looked oddly like him, except that his hair was darker, almost the same color as Danina's.

“Thank you for coming, Dr. Obrajensky,” Madame Markova said politely as she walked to the main door with him. It was a long walk, which took her far from her patient, but walking down the cool halls was a relief, and as she opened the heavy front door, a gust of cold air both startled and refreshed her.

“I wish there was more I could do for her … and for you …” he said kindly. “I can see how distressing this is for you.”

“She is like my own child,” Madame Markova said with tears filling her eyes, and he gently touched her arm at the sight of her sorrow. He felt utterly helpless.

“Perhaps God will be merciful and spare her.” She could only nod then, bereft of words in the face of her emotions. “I will come back very early tomorrow morning.”

“She begins warming up every day at five or five-thirty,” Madame Markova said, as though it still mattered, but they both knew it didn't.

“She must work very hard. She is an extraordinary dancer,” he said admiringly, unable to believe either of them would see her dance again, but happy that he had at least once. It seemed tragic to contemplate now.

“Have you seen her dance?” Madame Markova asked with mournful eyes.

“Only once. Giselle. It was lovely,” he said kindly. He knew how hard this was for Madame Markova. It was easy to see it.

“She is even better in Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty,” she said with a sad smile.

“I will look forward to it,” he said politely, bowed, and then left as she closed the heavy door behind him, and walked quickly through the halls to return to Danina.

It was an unforgettable night for Madame Markova, of sorrow and despair, and also fever, delirium, and terror for Danina. And finally, by morning, Danina seemed almost to have left them. Madame Markova was sitting at her bedside, looking lifeless herself, exhausted, but not daring to leave her even for an instant, when the doctor returned at five the next morning.