SYNOPSIS
(EXTENDED VERSION)
Back to: Part 3
Part 4
The Doctor
Central protagonist: Andrew
Leaving Pablo's life scene behind, the narrative now switches to Andrew's story since his childhood. Losing his parents to a fatal traffic accident at the age of nine, he was placed into the custody of his aunt. The poverty of her family, her husband's alcoholism and their emotional abuse shaped his adolescent years. At sixteen, he got the legal chance to move back into his parents' apartment and start living on his own, by virtue of his parents' remaining legacy. About the same time, he graduates from high school with excellent grades and successfully passes admission exams to a major medical school, receiving a full state-sponsored scholarship. Despite the increasing public awareness about corruption and underfunding in the medical industry, he believes that being a doctor is his true calling, and follows it with the faith that things will work out.
His university years are predictably impacted by material hardships: the stipend paid by the university is unlivable, while the crammed academic schedule leaves scarce options to get part-time employed. Working night shifts at a pharmacy quickly undermines his mental ability to study, so he shifts to low-wage, one-time jobs, like translating medical articles and coding Web pages. Despite his hand-to-mouth existence, he graduates summa cum laude and goes on to the residency at one of the surgical clinics affiliated with his university. In it, he observes doctors obviously living beyond any material need, and believing in the narrative of meritocracy, supposes that he'll also become middle-class through hard work with time. His hopes and efforts soon break against the corrupt realities of Russian healthcare system. It turns out that most people's legal salaries are below the poverty line, and those who make middle-class incomes do so by seizing under-the-table bribes, extorted from patients for treatments officially covered by the state. Career promotion, access to surgical practice and administrative position, and even basic practical training for residents are only provided through cronyism, favoritism, and familial connections, with no regard for merit, qualifications, intelligence, or diligence. Economically, Andrew and most other workers subsist on voluntary gratuity payments from patients, so small that they're commonly referred to as tips. But for Andrew's horizons, this low glass ceiling still feels so much better than the poverty of his university years. In his mid-twenties, he believes that things will somehow sort themselves out with time. He still doesn't understand the systemic and self-sustaining nature of any corrupt system, particularly when it reflects the makeup of power in the larger country.
A few months before finishing residency, his career disappointment is somewhat soothed by the improvement in his personal life. He meets Nathalie, a girl from a wealthy family, whose father, being a former 1990s mafiosi, is now the top manager in an oil-exporting company and the owner of a real-estate business. Nathalie looks attractive and smart, and she has a crush on Andrew, thanks both to his handsomeness and his wit. Their flirt quickly evolves into dating, and then into a relationship. Andrew isn't self-aware enough to understand that he doesn't feel real physical attraction to Nathalie — instead, after years of loneliness, poverty and unbelonging of his adolescent, he craves for security in the first place. In fact, given how few handsome men like him are in Russia, he never got the chance to fully understand his orientation — but Nathalie, on her part, certainly recognizes his hotness.
In the meantime, Nathalie's father is nowhere near happy about their relationship. He doesn't see the financially struggling young man as a good marriage material for his daughter, regardless of Andrew's intelligence or morals. But Nathalie's physical attraction to Andrew is intense, and she is determined to marry him if he proposes, which he soon does. A few months later, the married couple moves in together to the apartment that Nathalie's father purchases for them, his dislike of Andrew still being overt.
Shortly after their wedding, the fundamental differences in the values and characters start to emerge. While Andrew is preocuppied with high spiritual matters of meaning, purpose, and vocation in life, Nathalie shows up as shallow and individualistic, concerned with all things material in the first place. Her physical attraction for him predictably subsides, and Andrew is hurt by their growing distancing. The dysfunction in their relationship deepens when, right after graduation, Nathalie gets a leading, well-paid position at a real estate advertising agency, exploiting her father's connections in the business. Andrew still ekes out a meager living from "tips" at the hospital, and his contribution to the family budget mainly consists of the rent he receives from leasing the apartment of his parents, the one where he lived before marriage. Andrew tries to increase his earnings by taking night shifts in the hospital, by attending more patients, and applying for a doctorate program (which, as he believes, should increase his tips and the cuts he sometimes receives dripping down the totem pole, from the bribes of practicing surgeons whose patients he manages). Despite his efforts, as years go by, his earnings still can't compare to those of his wife. A woman raised in the lap of luxury, Nathalie continues to enjoy nightlife in her late twenties and spends huge amounts of money on fashion events and shopping. Andrew doesn't share these pastimes with her. He wants a more health-oriented lifestyle and seeks more meaningful ways of spending time with each other. Their interests in life, as Andrew realizes, are completely different.
Andrew's disappointment in his marriage is compounded by the growing disillusion with his career. Bumping into the glass ceiling of his attending physician's position and never getting access to fully-fledged surgical practice, he faces the complete absence of self-actualization prospects and the instability of his tip earnings. His university mates working elsewhere, from academic clinics to general city hospitals, report the same, making him understand these realities reflect the stagnation of the entire industry. On the family front, Andrew starts thinking that having a baby might make him and his wife emotionally closer. Nathalie is initially reluctant to consider pregnancy as she cares highly about her slender body, but after Andrew uses certain tricks to convince her, she agrees.
The trip to Barcelona is an unexpected news to Andrew. The abstract of his scientific work, which he submitted to a European medical congress via e-mail, unexpectedly gets accepted for a presentation. Andrew now cannot afford to travel to Spain at his own expense, and, in order to get the sponsorship from a pharmaceutical company, being a normal practice in Russia in those years, he agrees to write article favorably reviewing their product. At that point, Nathalie is seven months pregnant and despite Andrew's objections she is determined that she should go to Barcelona with him, to not miss the city's legendary shopping opportunities.
Aboard the plane to Barcelona, Andrew has an irrational and irresistible anticipation that a momentous event in his life is going to happen. Making his first step on the Spanish land, taking the first breath of the air imbued with the salty tang of the Mediterranean, seeing the bright sun in the cloudless sky of Barcelona, hearing the melodious sounds of the Spanish language — experiencing all it at once, he cannot help the feeling that he's coming back to his roots, like an exile after many years of separation. This feeling intensifies as he discovers Barcelona. Its gorgeous architecture, the evergreen nature, the forest-covered mountains contrasting so strikingly with the grey and joyless urban landscape of Moscow. The mild climate, the wide sand beaches, and the seafront avenues. The absence of crowds and traffic jams, reasonable living costs, efficient public transport infrastructure... The socioeconomic contrasts against Moscow are stark for his discerning eye. He sees the prevalence of middle-class life, not the division of society into the minority of the flagrantly rich and the majority of the poor with a wide gap between.
Cultural differences don't elude him either. He sees a lot of people smiling, looking open and engaging in conversations with one another despite being strangers. Pablo, his unexpected new friend, epitomizes his vision of the Spanish personality — wholehearted, passionate, and straightforward — on top of being smart and speaking fluent English. The boundaries between his feeling of belonging in Barcelona and the special connection he feels with Pablo are blurred. For now, he just enjoys it all. As the days pass, he envisions himself living a better, brighter, more meaningful in this city. He doesn't just want to visit this city again, but to move over permanently and start a life from scratch here.
He doesn't clearly see yet what this new life will look like, nor the role Pablo will have in it. But he just follows his heart's call, leaving his sports watch to Pablo as a gift. When his flight for Moscow takes off at night, he looks at the beautifully illuminated city from above. Over these days, he's learned enough Spanish to say, "No te digo 'adiós', Barcelona. Te digo 'hasta luego'".
[Spanish: I am not saying goodbye to you, Barcelona; I'm saying, 'See you later'.]
Coming back to Moscow, he starts considering immigration to Spain in a more pragmatic way. He remembers about one of his university mates, Irina, who moved to Madrid a few years before, and contacts her to find out how she is doing. As it turns out, she successfully moves ahead in her medical career and tells him all the details that strenghten his motivation to move. The healthcare sector in Spain is free from institutionalized corruption. There are no under-the-table cash flows and no crony-supported structures obstructing the training and growth of young medical specialists. Economically, there's a middle-class baseline for medical residents, allowing to rise to upper-middle-class after becoming fully licensed. All healthcare professionals get dignified employment conditions, a far cry from what the same workers chronically experience in Russia.
Motivated and hopeful, Andrew starts studying Spanish on his own using online resources. Strangely, it doesn't feel like he's learning something new, but instead like he's remembering something native yet long-forgotten. To boost his progress, he discovers modern Spanish-language music, starts reading Spanish poetry and learning the country's history. In one month, his language proficiency is sufficient to start watching subtitled movies in Spanish. In his daydreams, he envision a better future in Spain with increasing clarity.
At the same time, he realizes he's not free to do whatever he wants to with his life. He is married, and although he's not happy in his marriage, he and Nathalie are now expecting a baby. When he mentions the possibility of moving to Spain to her, she ridicules it. Her own economic position is comfortable thanks to an easy, fun, and well-paid job, and she dismisses Andrew's grievances about his professional journey. Moreover, she claims that if he failed to succeed in Russia, he'll fail to make it anywhere — i.e. that something is wrong with Andrew's character or personality, not with the system of the industry he navigates.
When their daughter is born, Andrew sees a new dimension of happiness open up in his life. Fatherhood gives him the sense of meaning and purpose. But his hopes that it would work the same way for his wife and make her more family-oriented fail. Despite Andrew's patriarchal stereotypes about biologically determined "maternal instinct", Nathalie doesn't seem to grow the emotional bond with the baby. She ignores most of her maternity leave, opts out of breastfeeding, and comes back to her job, fashion shows, and partying in a matter of weeks. Her mother, Sofia, moves in with them under the pretext of helping with baby care, and in fact she and Andrew do most of it.
A few months later, Mikhail, Nathalie's father, calls Andrew and asks him to come to his corporate office to discuss an urgent matter. Despite their tough relationship, Andrew agrees. Talking to him in a scornful and arrogant manner, he explicitly shames Andrew for his small earnings and waves in his face a picture taken at one of Nathalie's parties, where she's seen with her boss in a sexually suggestive position. He proceeds to say that Nathalie had only married him for his good looks, and that unless he starts making good money, she'll inevitably dump him for someone else. He makes it clear that in the case of divorce, his lawyers will make sure she gets the custody of their daughter. Andrew's rage starts boiling. His father-in-law obviously understands how much the child means to him and takes advantage of it to blackmail him. In the same toxic, domineering way, Mikhail demands that Andrew give up on his "penniless" medical profession and instead come work for his real state business. After another insulting line, Andrew can no longer keep his anger at bay. He punches his father-in-law in the face and storms off.
An hour later, crushed by the news of his wife's possible infidelity, he's crawling in the traffic jam on his way home. He realizes that in the case of divorce, her priorities and lifestyle will hardly allow her to provide proper care for the baby; all the while Russian courts are corrupt enough enabling her father's lawyers to easily gain her, not his, custody. Dreams about moving to Spain are whirling in his mind. He now imagines that it would be right for him move over there and take his daughter with him, although he doesn't see a realistic way to make it happen. At this vulnerable moment, as if on cue, he receives a call from Pablo asking him to come back to Barcelona.
Now, he snatches his Spanish friend's request as an opportunity to escape from the crisis of his life in Moscow — and come, even for a few days, to the place where he feels like he belongs. With his marriage obviously going awry, he needs to get some space for rest an clarity. He keeps his trip to Barcelona in secret from everybody, telling lies at work and to Nathalie about his absence of a few days.
But instead of giving him a relief, what he finds in Barcelona exacerbates his mental distress. After Pablo comes out, Andrew's still not ready to face his own feelings and, underlying them, his true identity. His internalized homophobia manifests ferociously, making him think that Pablo's interest in him was exclusively sexual from the start. In the same vein, his feeling of belonging in Spain now seems to be a broken illusion. He comes back to Moscow and resolves to settle for the life he has. He believes he should learn to find happiness in raising his child, despite his marital dysfunction and his career hitting a dead end.
During the next three years, his professional stagnation continues and his marriage progressively falls apart. Nathalie keeps living a chaotic life between night clubs, shopping sprees, and high society parties, avoiding spending time with him and their daughter. Unlike before, Andrew now realizes that she might be cheating on him as well. Her mother continues to live in their apartment, and Andrew is appalled seeing the increasingly toxic way in which Nathalie treats her. One day, Sofia refuses to go to Mikhail's country house with Nathalie under the pretext of being sick. While face-to-face with Andrew, she bursts into tears and opens up to him about the true reason she'd moved out: her husband has a young mistress who now lives in his house. She tells Andrew that Mikhail had always been a bully and a tyran, that she never loved him and had been in fact forced into the marriage by her parents. Because of his pressure, Sofia had to abandon her career as a ballet dancer and became a housewife — to only see her husband's multiple affairs over the years. Pushing her boundaries over the years and emotionally abusing her, now Mikhail in fact discards her: their divorce, as it turns out, is on the way, and his lawyers are going to leave her homeless and with no money. Moreover, Nathalie supports him, believing that her mother wasn't good enough of a wife and is to blame for the outcome. Andrew's little daughter and caring about her is Sofia's only solace in life that she otherwise sees as useless and meaningless.
The decay of their relationship deepens when, for the first time in their relationship, Nathalie explicitly shames Andrew for his low earnings. Witnessing the effort and dedication he's been putting into working and studying over the years, never mind the complicated condition of Andrew's industry, she's being unfair and for Andrew, that's the point of no-return. During these years, the dreams about moving to Spain and taking his daughter along with him don't leave Andrew — so even with his humble income, he deposits small amounts to an account which one day might serve to fund his emigration. After a while, he resumes studying Spanish as well. Thoughts about Pablo keep haunting him. Seeing Pablo on TV one month after his departure from Barcelona, smiling and confident amidst another game, he hopes that Pablo will forget him and find his love. He misses Pablo and their correspondence, but fear keeps him from reconnecting.
He has a recurring nightmare involving Pablo. In it, he sees himself driving a car on an empty contry road running through a scorched land. Then, he sees a little girl in a white dress in the passenger seat who guides his route. The girl tells him to go faster, and, when floors the gas, he hears a beeping sound. Then, he sees a countdown timer in the dashboard. The beeping gets quicker, and then he hears an explosion, and the picture goes blank — to only reveal Pablo jumping off the cliff, from the spot in the Montjuïc park where Pablo professed his feeling, his body falling onto the runway below. Andrew wakes up in cold sweat, and cannot make sense of it as the nightmare haunts him over and over again.
Andrew experiences the definitive collapse his marriage on his daughter's third birthday, where Nathalie doesn't show up, instead choosing to stay at another high-life party overnight. The child, already hurt by her Mom's emotional neglect, is devastated. Barely managing to comfort the girl and put her to sleep, Andrew spends the night alone in bed, and that's where he finally realizes that he never loved Nathalie in the first place — and that the only person he's ever been truly in love with was Pablo. The realization of his sexuality floods over him, but now he feels no shame. Somehow, he feels humility and gratitude. He starts seeing the reason behind his dreams about moving to Spain — gay couples were visible there, unlike in Russia, and maybe he and Pablo also had a chance to be together. Now that the long-lived lies of his marriage and his alleged heterosexuality became bankrupt, this truth had to be acted upon.
Next: Part 5