“I came to see you in person,” Filya went on. “I wanted to tell you everything myself. You see, they don’t need a designer for this show. They just want me.”

  “Go to hell, you creep,” Peter said.

  The next second, the apartment hallway behind his back was lit up by a flickering overhead light. Somewhere in the far rooms children were shouting ecstatically. Peter blew out the candle and closed the door in Filippov’s face.

  Curtain.

  INTERMISSION

  THE DEATH OF NINA

  At the very end of August 1986, Nina and her flight engineer moved to the dacha. His granny had been sent back from Crimea for a short time to gather her thoughts before dying, so the lovers had to vacate the apartment, which smelled of old-lady medicines anyway. Venechka didn’t want to bring his beloved to his parents’ place in the port district, so they decided to wait out his granny’s demise at the dacha.

  In the North, of course, August isn’t exactly dacha season, but if you’ve got the urge, and if you fire up the stove in the evening, you’ll last until mid-September. The frosts coming on at night, the steam from your mouth when you cautiously peek out from under the blanket in the morning, the ice in the washbasin, sex very quickly and always clothed—all of that makes things tense, of course, but on the other hand, there’s the added bonus of no mosquitoes. In the summer in the North, those creatures perform the same function as piranhas in the rivers and ponds of South America: they eat everything alive.

  The nature of the North gives substance to its will in mosquitoes. It doesn’t give birth to them; it becomes them. It takes on their image, acquires billions of stingers, and has its revenge, stealing by the liter everything a man has stolen and collected, everything he’s plundered with his greedy paw. By comparison with the ordinary mosquito, which politely sucks blood from the resident of the middle latitudes, the Northern mosquito looks like a Titan of antiquity. It doesn’t nibble; it bites off whole chunks, descending in droning, furious waves and capable of leaving a devastated, almost scorched wasteland in its wake.

  But in August, a blissful silence ensues. Nothing is buzzing in the air, nothing is beating at the windows, and nothing is trying to drink you dry. You become trusting and gentle, like children drifting off to sleep. Nature curls up and purrs quietly, preparing for its five-month winter and total—virtually cryogenic—freeze. Everything gets slow. The river gleams unctuously and sends its dark mass along with obvious strain. A yellow birch leaf torn off by the slow wind at noon reaches the ground only toward nightfall. Everything in nature is already conserving energy; everything is moving twice, five times, slower than usual. Even the thoughts in your head move from place to place like sleepy grass snakes. Whatever you started thinking about on Tuesday won’t get thought through by Saturday. The pain you felt on Monday now will never let you go.

  Filippov knew that Nina and her flight engineer had moved. Basically, he knew everything about her—every movement, every new dress, every trip to the movies. He wasn’t even following her or standing outside her windows and peeking in. He just knew. He sensed her like an animal, like a wistful vampire. He’d died, but he kept sensing her. Nina had left him in the early spring, and by August he was as good as dead. He walked, ate, and responded to questions, but he was dead. His life had not just lost its meaning; it had filled with antimeaning. Everything was turned inside out. Antithoughts roamed around his head, and antifeelings swarmed in his heart. He had turned into a vampire.

  Loitering around town, Filippov—as you’d expect of a vampire—was aware neither of himself, nor time, nor space. Unable to stop, he moved his physical body from street to street, from sidewalk to sidewalk, but the part of him that had been him before, the part he’d once referred to as “I,” remained immobilized, lost somewhere in the dusty, lifeless city, and Filippov had absolutely no intention of looking for it.

  From time to time, he came across Nina’s fresh trail, her imprint in the air, the invisible impression of her shoulder, her slender neck, her jawline, the echo of her laughter. When he sensed that she’d recently passed by somewhere, he froze, stamped in place, bellowed something, and tried to remember, but her trail would gradually dissipate, dissolved in the crush of endless passersby, and Filippov would calm down, forget what had upset him, and wander on.

  One day, while doing a piss-poor job of pretending to be alive, he wandered all the way to the dacha. For a long time, he stood examining the stack of firewood. Then he watched a birch and counted the falling leaves. He listened to the music coming from the house and tried to figure out how many people were in there. When he saw Nina’s silhouette in the window, he was vaguely reminded of something and he grew sad, snarled softly, wandered around the house, and tripped. When everyone came outside, he guessed he needed to hide. He perched by the bathhouse. In the dark, they didn’t notice him. From their conversation he realized the flight engineer was flying away. Filippov waited until everyone got in their cars before he straightened up to full height. Then the cars drove off.

  The windows weren’t lit anymore. There was just a dim bluish nightlight on the porch. Filippov dissolved completely in the darkness. He went up the wooden stairs, a silent blob, and cautiously pulled on the door, and it yielded. Inside it was warm. And somewhere very nearby was Nina. Filippov knew she was in the house. He could smell her even on the porch. She hadn’t gone anywhere. She’d stayed here to wait for her flight engineer. Alone in the empty house.

  Filippov stood in the transparent light from the nightlight, listening to his instinct: Nina was sleeping in the farthest room. He quietly passed through the dacha, easily orienting himself in the darkness, as if he’d been there many times. He stopped next to Nina and for a long time listened to her breathing. Then he began breathing evenly, conscientiously copying the light sounds of her sleep, trying to coincide perfectly. He wanted to find out what she was dreaming. But he didn’t.

  Shifting from foot to foot in disappointment, he touched her hair on the pillow. Her hair said, No, she’s not yours. With a heavy sigh, Filippov nodded, agreeing, and left the room. On the porch he stopped again and looked around. It was important to remember what Nina saw, which objects she was reflected in, what she touched most often. He was jealous of the old refrigerator’s handle.

  He took a teaspoon off the table, stuck it in his pocket, and was about to leave when his eye fell on the stove flue, which was firmly wedged in the blue wall. Filippov opened the stove door and glanced inside. The wood had obviously not burned down completely. Blue flames trembled on the glowing firebrands. One of the guests had shut the chimney a little sooner than he should have; as he left, he’d simply flipped the damper, on automatic pilot, and obviously had forgotten all about it. Or else Nina herself had done it, out of ignorance.

  Filippov stood beside the stove, listening to himself. There wasn’t a sound inside him. Not a single thought, not a single movement, no feelings whatsoever: total silence. His antithoughts and antifeelings were silent, too. He left the house, carefully shut the door behind him, and descended the front steps. A couple of days later he learned that Nina had died from smoke inhalation.

  ACT THREE

  ABSOLUTE ZERO

  Noticing that the door handle had turned, Rita, who seemed to have been waiting just for this, leapt from the sofa, ran to the door that was already starting to open, and slammed it shut. Just to be sure, she threw her whole body against the door and screwed up her eyes, as if preparing to deflect a true storming, but whoever had been wanting to come in did not renew his attempts.

  “Have you totally lost it?” Tyoma said. “What if it’s kids there?”

  “It’s not kids,” Rita replied, peeking behind the door. She leaned over to pick up a package that had been left on the threshold.

  Tyoma got up from the sofa and walked over to her. He felt like continuing the conversation that had broken off, a conversation he found very disturbing, but Rita was already going through the package’s contents.

  “Just some drawings,” she said thoughtfully. “Dead bodies . . . Dead bodies . . . More dead bodies . . . Look! A whole mountain of dead bodies. And designs.”

  “Who was it?” Tyoma asked. “Who brought them?”

  “The wife of the artist who came with us. I don’t remember her name. Lilya, I think. Yes, Lilya. Exactly. And she had some Chinese last name. Mama mentioned it yesterday in the car, but I forgot it. Listen, why does he draw dead people? And so many of them, too.”

  “Li-Mi-Yan,” Tyoma said.

  “Oh-ho!” Rita tore her eyes away from the drawings and looked closely at Tyoma. “How is it you remembered that?”

  He shrugged. “I like unusual names.”

  “Or maybe you like pretty girls.”

  “That, too.” He nodded. “Except that girl has three kids. And her husband’s a famous artist. He works with your father a lot. You were wrong not to let her in. She just wanted to get the drawings to him. Must be some new project.”

  “She’ll live. I have to talk to him first. I’ll give them to him myself when he comes to. Come on, quit changing the subject. Did you get to appreciate this beauty?”

  Instead of answering, Tyoma suddenly started coughing.

  “Caught a cold or something?” Rita said. “I told you, don’t breathe outside with your mouth open. This isn’t Moscow. You have to use your scarf. Breathe through your scarf.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You know, in my opinion, you’re the one here who appreciates mature beauty. And I wasn’t trying to change the subject at all. We were talking about Danilov, basically, and why he brought you here before the emergency.”

  Rita furrowed her brow slightly and bit her upper lip, moving her lower jaw in a silly way. She knew Tyoma liked this habit of hers, found it touching, which was why, not one bit embarrassed, she exploited it when the situation called for it.

  After a second’s pause, Rita sighed, shuffled the depressing drawings a little more, pretending they still interested her, and finally summoned the nerve to say something. But at exactly this moment from the next room, access to which she was guarding so jealously, there was a brief moan and then indistinct murmuring.

  “Hang on.”

  Rita finished her shuffling and slid toward the second door. She tossed the drawings on the sofa in passing. Tyoma settled into his seat with a grim face, crossed his legs, put his hand on the file but didn’t open it, and kept looking at Rita’s back as she froze at the half-open door.

  He could tell he wouldn’t be able to hold on to her. She would slip away from him as lightly and airily as she’d just seeped into the next room, but he was angry not so much at this as at his own helplessness, his inability to counter this inevitable loss that awaited him with anything firm, clear, and masculine. He had no idea what a man should do in this kind of situation, and even though he liked to think of himself as a man, he realized he didn’t quite measure up to that status yet.

  Tyoma was angry at himself, his parents, Rita, and his age. He despised Danilov, and was repulsed by his house and even his couch, which was so soft to sit on. He hated this whole flea-bitten Northern burg where his parents had dragged him with servile readiness from his native and beloved Moscow, specifically because of Danilov, because he’d told them to, because he had the power to give orders, could command their fates. And the fact that Rita—the sole being who had reconciled him to the new place—had now become so slippery. Danilov had undoubtedly had a hand in that, too. He hadn’t simply influenced Tyoma’s life; he’d rewritten it the way he wanted, feeding him new, incomprehensible plots and destroying everything he’d come to love in his nineteen years.

  “No, he’s not up,” Rita whispered, turning around and carefully shutting the door. “Maybe we can go down and eat something. Or no, why don’t you go and I’ll stay here. Then we’ll switch off. Only don’t let anyone in to see him, all right?”

  A car gave two quick honks outside. Rita jumped on the sofa to look down at the SUV that had pulled up.

  “Danilov’s here,” she said. “He always honks like that. Hurry up. We’ll find out what’s going on in town.”

  “You wanted to keep watch here.”

  “It doesn’t matter now.” Rita jumped off the sofa. “No one’s going to come now. Everyone’s wondering what’s going on there.”

  Following Rita down the stairs, Tyoma pulled out his telephone and tried to connect to the Internet, but the network still wasn’t working. Rita was right. Only Danilov could tell them anything new.

  “Hi,” Tyoma growled as they walked past the house’s owner, who was standing in the middle of his roomy living room with seemingly no intention of removing his down parka.

  “Where are your parents?” he asked Tyoma, instead of responding with a greeting of his own.

  “In Karaganda.”

  Danilov let Tyoma’s thrust go right by.

  “Go get them,” Danilov said. “Basically, everyone needs to gather.”

  Once he’d given his instruction, he stopped looking at Tyoma. The assumption was that Tyoma would immediately go carry it out.

  “Well?” Danilov turned to Rita, who’d taken a seat next to the big fireplace. “Has your poor devil come around?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe we should bring the doctor one more time. Did he get badly frozen?”

  “Well, yeah, pretty much.”

  “Fine, I’ll stop by the hospital. Although, with what’s going on there now . . .”

  Danilov glanced at Tyoma, who was still shifting from foot to foot by the wall.

  “What’s the matter with you? I told you—go get everyone. I don’t have much time.”

  Tyoma looked at Danilov sullenly.

  Rita got up from her chair. “I can go. It’s easy for me.”

  “Sit,” Tyoma growled, then finally left the room.

  Danilov winked at Rita.

  “Hormones.”

  They spent the next five minutes in silence. Danilov sat down at the long table, unbuttoned his jacket, and stared at the wall with a look as if he were there alone. Not once did he glance in Rita’s direction, but she knew he wasn’t just looking at her but carefully examining her, studying her, waiting for her to make the first move. Absolutely not knowing what that first move should be, and not entirely sure she even wanted to make it at all, Rita squirmed in her chair from time to time, bit her upper lip, and furrowed her brow.

  She knew everything her mother did about Danilov. He ran the largest construction company in town, decided certain important matters of municipal administration, was married, and was raising two daughters. Or rather, the girls were being raised by his wife, because Danilov had sent them off to somewhere in Spain long ago, having bought real estate there. One of his daughters had rashly expressed an interest in tennis, and he’d immediately taken advantage of that. A large house was instantly purchased next to some famous tennis school, and the entire female contingent of the Danilov family swiftly decamped there. Actually, they probably had no objections.

  Right before his first daughter’s birth, when there wasn’t even a thought of a construction company, Danilov learned from utter strangers something about his wife that made him drive her out of the house after first shooting up the family couch with his hunting rifle. After these emotional experiences, Danilov’s wife, who was present during the shooting, took to her bed for safety, although as a result she did give birth to a perfectly healthy little girl, whom the happy father picked up from the maternity hospital himself, having restored his disgraced wife to full rights. His daughter strikingly did not resemble Danilov, but he patiently waited for a second child from his wife. And then he packed them all off to study tennis.

  Rita also knew from her mother that twenty years ago Danilov had served in the landing forces and taken part in “dispersing” the Georgians rebelling in Tbilisi. There were bloody details there about digging tools, dead women, and murdered comrades, but the story of the rifle, sofa, and birth bothered Rita much more. The revolution didn’t end in the maternity hospital and paled by comparison to the couch shooting.

  Danilov had met Rita at a city beauty contest, where he’d crowned her “Miss Intellect.” As a bonus, he’d offered to pay for the distraught young woman’s university education, and a little later he took on the then-unemployed Inga at his company. Her salary was set so high that Rita’s mother naturally went on her guard; however, after a certain point, Danilov no longer displayed any interest in their family. He revived his activity only with the appearance of Tyoma, who was exactly half his age.

  After what in Rita’s opinion was a very awkward silence broken by nothing, the rest of the home’s inhabitants started gathering around the long table. First to come was Inga—her maternal heart having hinted unerringly that she shouldn’t be late. Then Peter the artist and his wife, Lilya, showed up. After them, Tyoma’s parents came down. With them for some reason was the investigator Anatoly Sergeyevich, who had recently chatted with Rita about Danilov and suggested she call him Tolik. Zinaida and her husband looked extremely depressed, but they didn’t trouble themselves to explain what was going on.

  For an entire minute the owner of the house drilled a heavy gaze into the uninvited guest, whose response was to draw something in his notebook, unperturbed. In that minute, the general silence was broken only by Tyoma’s coughing. Entering the living room behind his parents, he stood near the fireplace, closer to Rita. Everyone else was sitting at the long table.

  “Fine then,” Danilov began at last. “Basically, the city has been put on emergency status.”

  “That can’t be good,” an impatient Zinaida said. She reared up, but Pavlik immediately caught her by the hand.

  “What exactly happened?” he asked, continuing to hold his wife’s hand tight.

  Danilov barely looked in his direction.