for so many years that neither she nor anyone else could destroy this hope in a flash. The thought «I shan’t be seeing this sky» was so much vaster and colder that somehow it didn’t seem to disturb her. While it was indeed a real possibility – that she wouldn’t see the sky, or walk beneath it, or fly through it, or breathe it in – all this was abstract. On the other hand, not to see him – this completely defied utterance, defied even formulation. Everything else she could take but that. Even the professor whose clinic she was now going to for the operation had not been able to change her mind. And here were these pale blue steps, this sky beneath her feet…
She realised, of course, that this image hadn’t presented itself to her sight simply by chance, and now she knew perfectly well that the professor was right, but this could no longer make any difference – even to the sky which had thrown itself at her feet across her path, which she now could not bring herself to set foot on. «All right, all right, just another moment, just a wee bit – and I’ll go on up, I’ll go through that door – nobody’s looking – I’m coming!»
One in ten – a slim chance, indeed – slim, yes, but for her that had long ceased to be significant, for without this operation she wouldn’t have any chance at all, not even one. Ever since she realized that she couldn’t – and wouldn’t – live without him, she hadn’t had any chances, not even one in ten.
When they were little they had gone to school together, right from the first grade, from day one. He was short too, even shorter than her by a wee bit, and the hump on her back wasn’t so noticeable back then. The doctors somehow tricked her Mama into believing that in time her back could become straight. After she had grown older and the hump had swelled into all its ugliness, she and Mama eventually realized that they had been lied to, and after delving into all the specialized literature on the subject, they were finally convinced.
Her Mama wasn’t completely literate, not like his Mama. But here was something they had in common – each of them had a mother on her own, with no father. Her father had been taken away even before the war and incarcerated for «ten years with no outside communication permitted».