the fifth hour of his dispiriting search. Irina stuck by his side the entire time, accompanying him to the stuffy police station, a cold morgue, out on the snowy wet streets, to the hospital waiting rooms.
“What exactly did she say? Did you have a fight?”
“We didn’t have a fight. She’d been planning on leaving for a while. I just didn’t think she could.”
“What didn’t you believe? She was going to leave—wait, why?”
The words repeated over and over again, the conversation went in circles, and, strangely enough, Aspirin found some comfort in that. He needed Irina to sit by his side and ask him inherently idiotic questions.
That night was populated by doctors and nurses, their drunk, bloodied patients, cops, security guards, prostitutes, and the homeless—but no one had seen Alyona or knew where she was. It was probably for the best; Aspirin shuddered at the thought of Alyona meeting one of these people.
“Does she have any friends? Not a single one?”
“No. No one she mentioned, at least. She didn’t even go to school—just went to her violin lessons. And she’d stopped that recently too.”
“This is so terrible, Alexey. It’s a disaster. Why did she leave?”
At nine in the morning Aspirin made a long-distance call from a hospital, but no one at the Pervomaysk Institute for children with intellectual deficiencies picked up the phone. He wasn’t even sure it was a real number to a real place.
“You were going to tell me how she came to live with you,” Irina reminded him gently.
He shook his head. “Not now. Later.”
He called his apartment, but, as he expected, no one picked up the phone either.
“What if she’d lost her keys?” he wondered without much conviction when they got to the car and started driving. “She could be standing by the locked door . . .”
Irina shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
The sun came up slowly. It started to rain, mixed with wet snow. Aspirin turned on the windshield wipers.
“Should I take you home?”
“What about you?”
“I will keep searching. You know what could be helpful? Do you think you could stay in my apartment for a bit, just in case she calls? Or in case anyone calls my home number?”
Irina hesitated.
“You have to work, don’t you,” Aspirin realized.
“It’s fine,” Irina said. “Don’t worry about it, I will figure it out. Let’s go.”
The apartment remained in the same condition. The violin case, the school bag under the tree, the head of a stuffed bear sticking out from under the top flap. Aspirin didn’t get a chance to say anything before Irina bent down and picked up Mishutka. She fluffed up the fur on his face.
“You poor thing. Be patient. She will return.”
Aspirin swallowed, worried for her safety. But the toy remained a toy.
“I’m going to go. If anyone calls, let me know—on my cell, all right?”
She nodded and then pressed Mishutka to her chest, just like Alyona.
Aspirin left. He smoked a cigarette sitting in his car and glancing at his own windows. Something bothered him, like a grain of sand in his eye, or a pebble in his shoe. Irina, Mishutka . . . Irina.
He smashed the cigarette in the ashtray and went back up to the fifth floor.
“Sorry. Let me take the bear.”
Irina did not seem surprised.
“Here,” she said solemnly. “For good luck.”
Awkwardly, he picked up the bear by its front paw.
“No funny stuff,” he whispered to Mishutka once they were inside the elevator. “No funny stuff, you . . .”
He winced at his own idiotic behavior.
It was Thursday, a regular working day, but no one answered the phone at the Pervomaysk Institute. Aspirin was about to assume that the number was wrong when someone finally picked up at half past eleven. The shrill woman on the other end of the line had trouble understanding what Aspirin wanted from her. She called someone else, couldn’t find who she wanted, demanded he call back; she butchered Alyona’s last name (Glimansky? Imansky?) and finally announced that only the director could answer Aspirin’s question, and he wouldn’t be in until Monday.
Hanging up, he no longer experienced disappointment, only exhaustion.
He went to McDonald’s, as many locations as he could cover. He looked into the patrons’ faces. He vaguely remembered Alyona liking McDonald’s.
She didn’t have any money . . .
But she had her violin! She could have earned some cash at least for a bread roll. On the other hand, Aspirin couldn’t force himself to imagine Alyona wandering around the city, playing at intersections, eating at McDonald’s, refusing to