Scene 3

 

My name, embattled comrade, is Valentina Stanovova. I have blond hair and a smug, blushing baby face. I proudly a daughter of Dmitrograd, which is now minus one. I am not an architect per say, but I possess a body of certificates vouching admirably for my acumen in engineering and my useful gifts in fine arts and technical drafting.

I have been solicited by the Ministry of Sustainable Development, newly retitled, of the Federation of Russia to advance aid and good will to the Americans, the Americans our allies under the bold leadership of President Donald Trump, which occurred in the 8^th day of November of the year 2016, a hotly contested affair. Well anyway, the Americans are our allies, again. How nice of everyone. I deeply enjoy travel, but am indifferent to airplanes.

Since they were so supportive and nurturing to us in the 1990’s President Putin wishes to extend to them every bit of generosity now that they have shall we say a premier we can look in the eyes as a man.

I am flying first class on Aeroflot 873 Moscow to JFK direct, a part of a delegation of experts from the Development Ministry taking part in, shall we say renovations of popular landmarks. President Putin has said in a recent speech that by 2025 Russian made boots will crunch the red desert of Mars! Imagine that? I don’t really, I don’t. I am an architect by training and I am more concerned with things erected here on this orb, this terrestrial. But fine news, not all were so behind the clever and bold President, but we always had faith. Scary the 1990’s, real bad times, I was just a girl. Half the women of Ukraine sold off into flesh service! The Poles given nuclear missiles! Think of that, the Poles! All this is a quiet race of thoughts inside me. Mtyblonde hair is tied up professionally, I am in a crisp, and womanly business blue suit from France. All is well. This is such an opportunity.

The public address asks if any physicians are on board. If they could identify themselves to the crew, none visibly do in the first class chamber. The air maids wear a bright orange, a blood orange almost red smock, a little hammer and sickle in a star can be found in their head cap. Still no doctors.

My work in New York is massive, completely up ladder, completely a new league. I have made my name in the Russian Federation at a comparatively young age thought the design of various sporting areas; such as that of the Falcons of Nizhny Novgorod, an ice hockey team. The papers say I am a savant, a real gem, a real Slavic gift to the world still only aged 28. The Falcon Stadium is the third largest in the Federation, its opening roof seals with vast mechanical levers almost like a rose curling its petals inward, were such petals 78 ton sliding plates of steel.

My work in New York, our work is not so pedestrian, or populist. It concerns renovations of two famous Amerikanski landmarks, and the erecting of a floating pleasure garden above the central park of the Isle of Mann.

Still no doctor, I hope nothing calamitous is a foot.

The sky help are stirring, they are so well trained to not show any alarm, and they bring a man from storage, for economical seating, he is dark and dashing and I must say he is well dressed too in Zara brand maybe, he is too young to be a doctor.

I am curious now, I see a heavy set Americansky clutching his chest. Just maybe seven rows back in the business class periphery. The dark man, I say he is dark because his hair is on the browner side of black, but he has negative energy too about him. I can tell these things. He is taking the man’s blood pressure with a true cuff, not the automated, he is looking self-assured, asking the man questions in Anglesey. His patient looks fifty pounds obese. Flushed and distraught, actually no one else is paying attention but me and the sky help.

The helpingly helper is Eastern European moving, but I do not think he is a Russian actually.

“You’re a doctor,” a stewardess asks the man in Russian, who is requesting the medical bag be brought out, asking for some pills of this or that.

“Sorry, I don’t speak Russian,” the man replies listening to something with a stethoscope.

“Sorry,” the stewardess replies, “Are you a doctor?”

“A paramedic,” the man replies, which is enough for now the crew thinks and no doctors or nurses appear to be identifying themselves.

“What’s wrong with him?” a stewardess asks, surprised the paramedic doesn’t speak any Russian.

“He is having chest pains.”

The stewardess thinks, a nation of morbidly obese man babies.

And soon though the medical bag is brought out, and the dark paramedic is giving the man some pills, but it is too late, the fat American he clutches his chest and moans, he is very much now having a full blown heart attack!

The man appears to die in front of us, I gasp internally. Everyone in first class tries to not stair, the American paramedic, I assume he is American any way speaking English when Russian would be more pleasant to all of our ears, he seems calm though in his head perhaps he is either annoyed, or indifferent over variables only he can know. Such as doing CPR on a plane which is many kilometers from the east coast, the seat before me says 3 hours at least.

“Blat,” the paramedic says, he checks a pulse there is no pulse. I see him unbuckle the heft dead man and say, “help me lower him to the floor,” and the stewardess does, and she re checks the pulse and begins CPR, as all Aeroflot attendants are trained in basic life support when hired.

I unbuckle myself and come over, “I’m Valentina, can I help you?” I say in stupid sounding English, not that my English is poorly, just I know that English in general sounds so stupid.

He looks up from within the medical bag, where he’s taken out a red box with a button contraption, the stewardess in still doing the CPR, I expect to be asked if I have any training, “Can you take over her CPR in about 90 seconds,” he says, “I’m Valera, people call me Val, it’s short for Valera,” he says as he open the box, and rips the mans button shirts, and he get these pads on the dead fat man, tells the stewardess to hold CPR, the box says in Russian, “Analyzing, Analyzing heart rhythm.”

“What did it say to do,” he asks the stewardess.

She continues CPR, and tells him that it said to do that. Everyone is watching now in the first class compartment.

Valera seems mostly calm, he’s looking in the drug bag, and he clearly can’t read anything on the labels. It’s all in Russian.

“Read me what these vials say,” he asks me.

“Epinephrine 1:1000.”

“Take over CPR from her Ms. Valentina,” he says and I try I mean I just push on the chest and imitate the stewardess.

“Push hard and fast, allow for full chest recoil,” he says he’s drawing up the epinephrine into a syringe.

“Huh,” I say.

“It’s just something they say in CPR videos in the USA, you’re doing a wonderful job dorogaia,” he says in Russian, and winks.

“Hold this please,” he tells the Stewardess, he hands her two syringes he’s filled with epinephrine and normal saline. She does.

“Stop CPR,” he says maybe two minutes late and the box says something about shock advised push to shock, he clears us away and pushes it and the dead fat body jumps a little, he checks a pulse, tells the stewardess to hand me the drugs and do more CPR.

He began an IV and then he pushed one vial of epinephrine into the man, and this all went on for what seemed like a very long time.

There was more CPR, and more trying to shock with no result, and more epinephrine, then there was no more epinephrine, and he even did some CPR since there were no longer medications of a useful nature in the drug box, and the machine would shock the man no more.

“What now comrade paramedic?” I ask him. He seems unalarmed.

“When we stop pushing on his chest he will be certainly dead, but I will tell you that he will not be alive when we land in New York, even if brought back he will not be alive in a meaningful way.”

“Well should we stop then,” the little stewardess asks, we are switching every two minutes between the paramedic Valera Valera, and two stewards of sky help and I.

“I will tell you that there is nowhere to land for nearly three hours, and this chest pushing will require more people than us four to sustain for three hours,” he says while doing CPR.

“Well could he come back?”

“There’s a 1-6% chance if the CPR is continuous, if we are met in JFK by paramedics and physicians that he could be resuscitated, but it is unlikely as he has not responded to good CPR for twenty minutes and six rounds of epi. Switch with me,” he says to me.

And I take over again. Three more hours, blat. What is an American life worth?

“Do you speak Farsi,” he asks the stewardess who looks vaguely Central Asian, maybe.

She looks confused and a little upset, and says, “Niet.”

“I speak Farsi,” says the second the piolet who has arrived to review what is happening, a handsome young man.

And then they speak in Farsi. I look at the stewardess and she shrugs, the CPR is still going on, the four of us all around this heft dead business man, the paramedic Valera Valera said that no one stops for ventilations in Arizona, Seattle, South Africa, Dublin or Boston so we just take his word and do continuous CPR.

I wonder what he’s telling the pilot in Farsi.