Dr. Masulis is a surgeon. Old and experienced. Very strict and pedantic. He never smiles. The teacher is good, speaks clearly, explains without excessive difficulties, does not get stuck in the details, to observe his lectures is a pleasure.

But we, the twenty-five-year-old inyaza, have long been tired of Dr. Masulis, of his lectures on surgery, and in general of four years of military department. According to the idea, foreign students are a direct path to military translators. And who invented it to cook out of us “the nurse GO?” And who can prepare when so many subjects, so little time and not even textbooks? We were already tortured with anatomy, we were drowned with pharmacology, we were drawn out with structural preparation, we were knocked out with civil defense... so, and now the main subject is "hospital surgery". It is understandable – what should such a nonsense nurse be able to do? Make a bandage. Assist a surgeon in very primitive operations. At least Dr. Masulis thinks so. He chases us in the tail and in the tail.

I go to Dr. Masulis in favourites. For some reason, I do not faint either in the operating room, where it is appropriate to stand several operations (silently, quietly, in the corner, but to stand), or in the bandage. I am not afraid of blood. My classmates envy me - many are badly done from one look at surgical instruments. I probably have a iron stomach. They have a better imagination. For some reason, the tallest and largest fall into fainting, and within me it is only about one-and-a-half meters, and the smallest classmate I can hardly get to the shoulder. Lithuanians are grown people.

(I still have one phobia – I can’t learn to inject. Well, I cannot smash a living man with a needle! I can not. But we are many, we manage to hide behind the backs of the more brave, and the account I safely pass on a mannequin with a rubber plate.)

I still remember the terms and names well. Dr. Masulis takes this for an interest in the subject, and I just love the words – philologist! And the words here are beautiful: cornhang, troakar, spatel... And I also like that in the names of the instruments are preserved the names of the inventors - such a historical succession, belonging to the old order: Liu-er, Ko-her, Bill-rot, Hall-Sted, Lan-gen-back... "Langenbeck" me confuses - "long clove".

Well, and of course, it affects the domestic Jewish education: they teach you - learn, the hell would take you! Learn to! There is no excess knowledge!

It, of course, is not superfluous, but we have two months to study, we have the protection of the diploma and the state exams on our nose, we have no time to rest. And I have another trouble: the account of Marxism-Leninism is too short. It needs to be “disassembled”. That is, just a written common notebook - no one will read it. Without this, they will not be allowed to take the exam. I find a way out – I take the “Christomatia of the Classics of Marxism-Leninism” from the library and rewrite everything in a row until the required volume is obtained.

The idea is good, but this should not be done at the lectures of Dr. Masulis. Because surgeons are very observing people, and to be distracted from his subject, Dr. Masulis will not tolerate this. I feel like a first-class girl with a book on her knees. The doctor is just angry. Do you know what Lithuanian rage looks like? It does not look. But somehow everything is understandable.
I have not yet estimated the extent of the disaster. Dr. Masulis stops over me and says very slowly, almost as he says, "The last practice in the hospital doesn't count on you. You will work again.”

This is already a catastrophe. Twenty-five hours later, I would have found them. Unwritten graduate work. The state exams! A diploma can only be obtained together with a military ticket. So I will have to work at night.
The classmates laugh - it is necessary to succeed in suffering for Marxism-Leninism! I bite slightly. They are right. Really a special luck.

In the evening after the longest day of school, I drag to the hospital and report. I am not sent to surgery (where, indeed, no sugar at night - the wounds hurt at night), but to the pulmonary department. There is a sick nurse, and any pair of hands will be pleased. Even with hands like mine.

is normal. 60 people sick. Two or three nurses. What should I do? Of course the injections. In enormous quantity. But I do not know! “You will learn.”

A very long evening begins. In fact, I am not doing so badly. Everything as taught. And I open the sterilizer correctly - a lid to myself so that the steam does not burn, and I collect the syringes, observing sterility... and, in short, pull the time as I can. But that moment still comes. Sister Wanda gathers everything I need for me in an enamelled bench, unfolds me behind my shoulders and sends me to the chamber with instructions to whom. My hands are trembling, everything is trembling in the table. I encourage myself by the fact that the sick are even worse - then I get ashamed...

And there is amazing luck. The first patient I need to inject is a retired former nurse. She assesses the situation instantly - and begins to encourage me in half a voice: "Look, okay, you do everything right, so, the air released, hold the syringe at such an angle, now smoothly... smart, you see, and I don't even hurt at all." (It doesn’t hurt her. There is no living place in it, and there is such a curvy failure...) The whole chamber is watching us with curiosity, and suddenly the other women are also turned on: "...collet, sister, do not be afraid, you have a light hand..." "...not the gods are burning the pots..." "...you are smart, daughter, you are a student, heaven..." Everyone, like one, convinces me that they are not hurt at all. I understand that they just reassure me, I want to cry, but after the fifth injection, things are going more fun. Crying in public is completely excluded. (I will cry later when the change is over, from the fear experienced, from the tension - and from the relief.)

The practice takes place at four nights. I learned to inject. Phobia is defeated. I bring to Dr. Masulis a signed paper from the hospital. Now there is an exam. The doctor doesn’t look at the paper. He quietly takes my check-in and - the machine! Give me a fifth on my subject. and unexpectedly. And honestly, unheard of it! But very Lithuanian: punished - forgiven - everything is forgotten.

I have two memories of this story. A sick woman is a whole house. - who want to encourage a timid unskilled girl. And how beautiful and slowly the sun rises when you go home from the night shift, and all the fears are behind.