A patient stood up and stepped forward. K announced loudly: “You are free to go.”

“And where are we supposed to go?” asked the man sullenly, shielding his eyes from the flashlight. “We don’t have any documents, clothes or food.”

“I’m sorry. That’s all I can do for you. Leave in the morning when the shooting stops.”

He removed the key from the bunch and placed it on a stand by the door, keeping the patients in view as he left. He heard a running engine outside.

The bus had been positioned behind the kitchen wall for cover. It was the same yellow Ikarus that had brought K. to the city. In the glow of the red parking lights, the nurses carted patients onto the bus and arranged them on the seats and on the floor.

Lightbulbs burned dimly in the corridors of the night-hushed Mendeleyev Hospital. They were economising on petrol. The generators in the wing for injured soldiers in stable condition—there were about forty of them—were running at half capacity.

A limping figure in slippers crossed the corridor and disappeared behind one of the doors.

Lena went from ward to ward changing dressings. A nurse followed her, pulling a wheelbarrow carrying two large pots—one filled with buckwheat, the other with tea—doling out food to the ones who had been bandaged.

The soldiers woke up, caught the eye of Lena and the nurses, and obediently offered up their wounded limbs and waited for their rations.

K. approached silently, picked up dressing material, tweezers, alcohol, and scissors, put on gloves and set about tending to a wounded man. The soldier woke up and, gritting his teeth, watched the doctor cut away the bandages. The wound was large, but dry and well treated. K. grabbed a gauze swab with the tweezers, dipped it in Furacin, dried it off with a second swab, and placed it within several carefully wrapped layers of bandage.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” Lena’s patient shrieked.

“Keep crying, why don’t you?” she muttered.

The man fell silent.

K. nodded to his patient and proceeded to the next bed.

They worked in silence, moving from one ward to another, and to a third and fourth. Dozens of small and large shrapnel wounds were cleaned and treated.

An hour later, after they had finished in the last ward, K. removed his gloves and said: “Amazing. Not a single infected wound. How do you do it?”

“What do you mean?” Lena was surprised by the query. “I change bandages twice daily. Come along, I’ll show you your sleeping quarters. I have to deal with the washing.”

She gathered up sheets and pillowcases piled up in the corner.

“Lenochka, water please,” one of the injured men groaned.

Lena put down the dirty linen, picked up a bottle from the table, and gave the soldier his drink. She returned, scooped everything up again and led K. onward.

“Tired?”

“Yes, but I feel like I don’t want to stop,” said K., looking down at the worn linoleum.