[ The slightest flex of his left masseter, imperceptible to all but perhaps the trained eye of a sniper or a hawk, is the only indication of the waning of some of Vasiliy's sympathy. He had time, four years of time, to learn control of almost every involuntary movement of the face, to assemble the right expressions and modulate his tone of voice until he got the desired result. His life depended on it. It comes as second nature now, far away from the interrogation rooms beneath the Lubyanka's yellow walls.
Of course the poor died first, were poisoned more acutely. He finds himself disgusted—a routine emotion by now, having spent multiple years in an unapologetically, brutally capitalist country—as he tries to consider how a man might feel comfortable sitting apart from his fellow countrymen, his fellow soldiers, eating fresh meat—a luxury in Vasiliy's own time, as well—while they picked at the scraps. How could he rationalize it? How could this man so completely numb the impulses that would have Vasilily crawling out of his own skin with self-awareness, unable to enjoy the food placed before him?
It is a stark reminder that they are different creatures, himself and the bourgeois, from different universes. There is something that they lack, by design or by conditioning, a void that stares back at him: he'd felt shy wearing visibly new jackboots on the Moscow line in 1936, as though the rest of the uniform didn't explain how he'd come by them, face burning with self-consciousness, eyes lowered to stare at the scuffless toes. ]
Three years is long time. You will need to take these drugs longer if we find them.
[ Vasiliy rises and walks to the stove, grateful for the excuse the now-boiling water gives him for the addition of distance, and glances at the clock, mentally marking the start time for the sterilization of needle and thread and saline. ]
Do you have headaches, confusion, seizures, blurred vision?
uh oh boys
Of course the poor died first, were poisoned more acutely. He finds himself disgusted—a routine emotion by now, having spent multiple years in an unapologetically, brutally capitalist country—as he tries to consider how a man might feel comfortable sitting apart from his fellow countrymen, his fellow soldiers, eating fresh meat—a luxury in Vasiliy's own time, as well—while they picked at the scraps. How could he rationalize it? How could this man so completely numb the impulses that would have Vasilily crawling out of his own skin with self-awareness, unable to enjoy the food placed before him?
It is a stark reminder that they are different creatures, himself and the bourgeois, from different universes. There is something that they lack, by design or by conditioning, a void that stares back at him: he'd felt shy wearing visibly new jackboots on the Moscow line in 1936, as though the rest of the uniform didn't explain how he'd come by them, face burning with self-consciousness, eyes lowered to stare at the scuffless toes. ]
Three years is long time. You will need to take these drugs longer if we find them.
[ Vasiliy rises and walks to the stove, grateful for the excuse the now-boiling water gives him for the addition of distance, and glances at the clock, mentally marking the start time for the sterilization of needle and thread and saline. ]
Do you have headaches, confusion, seizures, blurred vision?