![]() ![]() ![]() And she always seemed to be striving to turn out her life’s light. ![]() ![]() As a helpless infant, as a child of limited understanding, as a fearful teenager, as a young woman. It seemed to me that since I was born I’d been trying to get my letter to connect to life. Perhaps they’ll have the opportunity to deepen their relationship but, with long hours at the clinic, and her own psychological flakiness, the roles are reversed (p184): This time, she takes her daughter with her. Banished to the countryside, she must adjust to a more restricted life treating, as best she can, the stream of desperate women – many with fertility issues, both too much and too little – who attend her clinic. But when she attacks a drunken neighbour who has beaten his pregnant wife, her patient, the doctor’s sojourn in the city comes to an abrupt end. It’s no particular sacrifice to leave behind her daughter the girl’s grandparents have been her primary carers since birth. So she’s delighted when given the opportunity to further her studies in Leningrad. The doctor enjoys the intellectual challenge of her profession, the science. Is this because the child was unwanted? Or in the belief that her milk is so tainted it would harm the child? An act of love or hatred? Or simply the best a sensitive woman can manage when she feels so caged and torn apart by Soviet rule? A young doctor goes missing for five days, abandoning her newborn baby to the care of her parents. ![]()
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