want to give it up.” Leonid rolled over, making the bed creak. “We’ll just ask her when the time comes.”
“Why hasn’t the time come yet?”
“Because there’s a lot of things I have to get straight. But I’m sure it won’t be long now.”
Petya seemed to ponder this. Finally, he said, “I wish we’d all stay together.”
Anna felt that this was her cue. “Good evening, you two,” she said, placing herself in front of them.
Leonid flinched. “Have you been listening to us?”
“I’m not supposed to know what you talk about in bed?”
“Mama!” Petya cried, laughing at her sudden appearance. “We’re going to visit Papa in …” He couldn’t think of the name.
“We were just kidding around,” Leonid said airily.
“Not kidding around! Not kidding around!” Petya yelled jubilantly. “What’s the name of the place we’re going to?”
“Yakutia,” Anna answered for Leonid.
“Yakutia!” She received a damp kiss, after which the boy threw himself on his father and hugged his neck. “Yakutia!” he cried again and again, until finally his grandfather sat up straight in his chair. “Can I watch this program in peace, or is the counterrevolution breaking out?”
Uttering the battle cry “Yakutia!” the child sprang out of the sleeping nook and charged his surprised grandfather.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Viktor Ipalyevich said, protecting his cap.
“Yakutia!” Petya was not yet tired of shouting that name.
“Be quiet. That’s the name of the most terrible place on earth, the coldest wasteland, the horror of every civilized person.”
Confused, Petya fell silent, as though his voice had suddenly been taken from him.
“Are you a convict?” the grandfather asked, heightening the effect of his words.
“No, Dyedushka.”
“Then what’s all this uproar about? Only criminals get sent to hell on earth. Is that what you want?”
“No, Dyedushka.”
“Well, then.” With that, the old man lifted the boy off his lap and turned his eyes back to the television screen. It was as if he’d already forgotten the interruption.
Petya crept back to his parents. “Grandfather says—”
“Grandfather has his own ideas about that part of our country,” Leonid declared. “But he’s never been there.”
“Have you?” Anna asked in surprise.
Glowing patches appeared on Leonid’s skin. “Well, you see, the possibility came up. Flights between Sakhalin and Yakutsk—”
“So you didn’t come home to talk everything over with me,” she said, interrupting him. “You’ve already made your decision.”
“How was I supposed to get an idea of the place without seeing it even once?”
Petya stared mutely from one to the other. Music played in the background; a speaker announced the next program.
“Is Yakutia really hell?” the boy asked his father.
“Of course it is,” the old man said, intervening again. “What else would it be?” The three heard him get up and shuffle into the kitchen.
“That’s not true,” Leonid whispered. “And you know why not? Because there isn’t any hell.” He turned to Anna. “You’re home already? Didn’t you have a good meeting?”
She chose to ignore his sarcastic undertone. “Have you all eaten?”
“Just because you’re not home one evening, that doesn’t mean things fall apart here.” He went to the bathroom.
“If we move to Yakutia, we won’t be convicts, will we?” Petya leaned his head on his hands.
“No one’s moving anywhere. You misunderstood. And now it’s bedtime.” She picked him up and put him down on the floor so that she could shake out the bed. “Time for tooth brushing,” she said over her shoulder.
“Are you going to bed now, too?” The boy turned toward the bathroom.
“No, I’m going to sit in the kitchen with your papa for a while.”
Upon discovering that the bathroom door was locked from the inside, Petya called out, “Tooth brushing!”
The latch was raised, the door opened a little, and the child slipped into the bathroom. When Leonid came out, his path and those of Anna and Viktor Ipalyevich all intersected simultaneously. The three of them stopped short. “Leo and I are going to talk for a little while longer,” Anna said to her father.
“Not tonight,” her husband contradicted her. “I’m dead tired.”
Disappointed, Anna watched that evening’s performance of the going-to-bed ballet. Her father prepared the sofa, Leonid undressed, and Petya entered from the bathroom with his pajama pants around his ankles. Viktor Ipalyevich gave his daughter a pointed look. Traditionally, he took off his clothes last, because not even members of his family had the right to see him in his underwear. But instead of tidying up the room and hitting the bunk, Anna went into the kitchen, closed the curtain, and started boiling water for tea. I can’t go on like this,