Read Online Meatloaf in Manhattan by Robert Power - Free Book Online Page B

question. Ivan looks like a Cossack, with thick jet-back hair, dark eyes, dark skin and a full bristly moustache.
    â€˜Dr Browne, Nicholiavich Roshikiev asks what do you think of methadone in treating drug users? He says it is illegal here in Russia, but wants to know if it is useful in harm reduction.’
    â€˜A good question. Let me speak plainly,’ I reply.
    â€˜And simply, please,’ says Ivan. ‘My English is stronger, but not yet that good.’
    â€˜Of course. So, methadone is a valuable treatment option in helping drug users to come off heroin,’ I reply and then wait while Ivan translates. Across the table, Enid is looking bored and uninterested; sentiments, I recall, that seem to permeate the sloppy reports she despatches back to her funders.
    When Ivan has finished his Russian and looks back at me, I continue.
    â€˜It has been shown to lead to a reduction in injecting, as it’s mainly produced to be taken orally. Also it’s a way of keeping drug users in treatment and gives us the chance to work with them on their addiction and risk behaviour.’
    As Ivan translates for Doctor Roshikiev there comes the sound of voices and the clunking of discarded boots from the hallway.
    â€˜The General,’ says Oleg, and we all stand up in anticipation.
    He enters the room, three steps ahead of his entourage. His uniform is tight on his body. The top button of his shirt undone and his tie loosened. His legs look too short and his torso too big. His belly hangs over his belt, barely trussed in by an off-white shirt straining at the buttons. He has a large, fleshy grey face and wispy black hair smeared on to a shiny scalp. He sits down and places his pack of Marlboro Reds and a silver lighter on the table. In spite of his jaded appearance I have heard he is trying hard to understand why he should help drug users; and trying even harder to comprehend a world turned on its head, where the old order lies in ruins, criminals flaunt their wealth in Moscow and drug addicts are given priority over the old and sick.
    â€˜So, Doctor Browne,’ he says, offering me a cigarette, noting my polite refusal and then lighting his own, ‘you must convince me why I should tell my men to leave the drug injectors alone when they visit your needle exchange programmes. But before you do that, we must drink a toast.’
    The General pours vodka into the small crystal glass of each guest in turn. When he comes to me, I place my hand over my glass, already filled with sulphurous mineral water.
    â€˜I’ve heard you don’t drink,’ he says, pouring vodka into his own glass. ‘And you don’t smoke. That worries me,’ he adds with a smile.
    Then he stands to make his toast. And we all stand to join him.
    â€˜To a fruitful collaboration between the bad guys who lock up the drug users and the good guys who look after them. To the good and the bad,’ he says with a huge smile.
    â€˜To the good and to the bad,’ we all add with a laugh.
    I look around the table at the smiling faces. Sitting in the hallway are two uniformed soldiers. Their epaulettes tell something of rank. There are two other men in smart black suits. When I was a kid it was simple. There were Cowboys and there were Red Indians (we’d never heard of Native Americans back then). The Cowboys were good and the Red Indians were bad. You chose whose side to be on and you knew how to act. But nowadays, who knows?
    Across from me sits Dr Roshikiev. A grandfather, the first Young Pioneer from Altai Krai to run one hundred metres under twelve seconds and, a decade later, the first doctor from Hospital Number Five in Barnaul to win a place at the Medical Academy in Moscow. A leading psychiatrist and narcologist who pioneered electro-acupuncture for the treatment of opium addiction. He meets my eyes with a warm and gentle smile, telling me nothing of what he makes of me and this invasion of modern thinking, this