Rataplan
The summer was anything but a carefree holiday for our Professor.
In the small room where the father lay motionless between the safety rails of the steel cot, the scorching wall facing the southern sun inflamed the air, without the full-speed fan managing to make it any more comfortable just a little. The unbearable heat raged mercilessly on the old man slumped down without strength, and the mellow suffering of his tortured body, mixing its own penetrating smell with that of the useless wound dressings, impregnated everything around, taking the breath away from those who entered.
Svetlana had returned to Ukraine at the first rash of the great heat, and for a while, only he was left to look after his parent.
Fortunately, he was not as overburdened with work as he was when schoo
