Dead Hands

It happened in a small town in eastern Russia.

A woman was hired as a nurse for a terminally ill elderly woman. She hadn't gotten out of bed for several years and hadn't even spoken—she just stared at the ceiling with eyes as white as a washed-out tablecloth, waiting for death, which never came.

The job wasn't difficult. Several times a day, she'd pry open her hard, gray mouth with her fingers and pour yogurt and thin soup into it with small spoons. She'd bring a bedpan, turn the old woman over, who weighed no more than a large rag doll, and wipe her yellow, waxy skin with a special lotion to prevent bedsores.

Then one day, the nurse approached the old woman and saw that her eyes had turned completely white, like a dead bird's, her mouth was open, and her jaw was slack.

 The woman called an ambulance, even though she knew it wouldn't help. And so it happened—a tired woman in a grimy white coat sternly scolded her for calling a dead woman: "You should have called the morgue right away. They won't get here until tomorrow morning anyway; there's a snowstorm outside. Just tie her jaw with a handkerchief and open the windows; nothing will happen to her."

She didn't want to spend the night in the same apartment with a dead old woman. But as luck would have it, the deceased's relatives had left for the regional center and were also expected to return by morning.

There was nothing to be done—the nurse found a handkerchief in the closet and covered the dead eyes with her hand, trying not to look at the old woman's face and thinking about her own thoughts. About a bright future, for example, and its charming companion, a truck driver named Ivan, whom she had been dating for three months and was heading toward marriage.

 The nurse opened the window, for some reason covered the old woman with a thin wool blanket, and left, closing the door behind her.

Oddly enough, she fell asleep quite quickly, but her sleep was shallow and restless. She dreamed of gray port cities, deep ship horns, and seagulls soaring low over a stormy sea. Suddenly, she seemed to hear shuffling footsteps through her sleep. As if someone was walking down the hallway, slowly, as if with difficulty.

The woman sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes, and then, throwing a robe over her shoulders, walked out into the hallway.

And immediately she saw her, the old woman. She was leaning against the wall, walking with difficulty, her knees buckling. She seemed to be heading to the restroom.

The nurse wasn't even afraid at first. Her first thought was: could the doctor have been wrong? It was so awful, and she left the poor old woman with the window wide open, in the freezing cold and snowstorm. And she tied her headscarf so tightly, she almost suffocated her. It was really strange that the old woman was walking—after all, she hadn't gotten out of bed for the last two and a half years. What if she fell and broke her hip? The woman rushed forward and supported the old woman by the elbow.

"Be careful, be careful, why didn't you call me..."

The old woman was swaying. She was even paler than usual, and her eyes were closed.

And suddenly she whispered, weakly and hoarsely:

"Help me... Hands..."

It seemed the nurse heard her voice for the first time.

"How can I help you? Let me take you to bed. Perhaps some hot tea with jam?"

"No, hands..." she repeated monotonously. "Help me, they won't straighten. Straighten my arms."

Only then did the nurse notice that the old woman's hands were folded across her chest, as if she were dead.

"Now, now..." But, touching the old woman's palms, she jerked them away as if from a hot frying pan.

They were icy. And hard. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, the woman looked closer and saw purple spots on the old woman's face. In three leaps, she was in her room, closed the door tightly, and pushed the desk against it. Her heart was pounding, her head was buzzing. This couldn't be happening. It simply couldn't be happening.

But it was happening, it was real. The dead old woman was walking down the hallway, carefully and slowly, her eyes closed and her face white. Her weak voice came from behind the door:

"Why did you leave? Help me." My arms won't straighten... Straighten them... Come out... Open the door...

The nurse lost track of time, but when the old woman fell silent, it was already dawn outside. Finally, the woman decided to peek out of the room. There was no one in the hallway. She slowly made her way to the old woman's room, the door tightly closed. The woman couldn't explain what was guiding her. Why didn't she just leave this apartment and forget what had happened?

The old woman lay on the bed, her arms folded across her chest, her jaw tied with a kerchief, frost on her white cheeks.

Only for some reason the blanket was lying on the floor, crumpled.

The woman waited for the car from the morgue, and then left, never to return to that house again.