blue with a light-colored pattern. No dye could have produced the natural color of her shoulder-length blond hair. She might have been around Anna’s age, but her bearing, her self-confident air, suggested a woman in her thirties. When the blonde’s turn came, she didn’t make her choice hastily, as the other customers did; she took the long-handled spoon from the counter and pressed the metal into the loaves that were on offer. By the fourth, the people behind Anna began to grow restless. “They’re all the same!” one cried out.
The shop assistant nodded and said, “They all come out of the same machine.”
“How old is that one?” the blonde asked.
“It’s fresh.” The girl tried to hand her the loaf, but the customer decided on another one. “That man who was just here was right,” she said without emphasis. “You ought to put out your newest loaves. This bread’s already getting hard.” With that, she took the loaf and went to stand in the line in front of the cash register. Very soon, Anna was behind her again. It had grown dark outside, a draft of cool air entered the bakery, and thunder crashed over the rooftops.
“Oh no, not now!” a woman cried. She quickly counted her kopecks, dropped them on the cashier’s counter, and ran out in an attempt to beat the coming storm. The next woman in line was equally hurried, but not the blonde. She calmly opened her shopping bag, let the cashier peer inside to see whether there was anything there besides a loaf of bread, took out her purse, and started looking for the correct change.
“It’s going to be pouring in a minute!” a man barked.
After paying, the blonde ambled past the line of customers to the exit.
Anna paid in her turn, put her change in her pocket and her loaf under her arm, squeezed through the door, and stepped out. The air was green, there was a smell of sulfur, and lightning and thunder were following each other in rapid succession. She was surprised to find the blond customer still standing in the entrance, apparently having trouble with her umbrella. The rain was coming down so hard that two men who were running for the bakery collided just outside the door. Laughing, they hastened to take refuge inside. From one second to the next, the street was swept empty. Anna decided to wait out the heaviest downpour and leaned against the wall. As the pretty woman was still struggling with her umbrella, Anna offered to help and opened it with two swift movements.
“Where do you have to go? I can take you part of the way.”
Had Anna been able to imagine the consequences of this offer, she would have run out into the rain without replying. Instead she gazed at the lovely things the blonde was wearing. “You’ll ruin your dress,” Anna said.
“I want to go to that café.” Arm in arm, protected by the umbrella, and running in step, they set out.
When they reached the door of the bar, the unknown woman asked, “Shall we go in and have some tea?”
Anna, breathless, stood there without speaking.
“Without you, I would have got soaking wet,” said the woman, smiling. “And by the way, my name is Rosa.”
The meeting that took place one week later marked the first time that Anna stepped into the trap. For a long time, her family had enjoyed a privilege: During the 1940s, when Viktor Ipalyevich was at the height of his fame, he had purchased a grave in one of Moscow’s central cemeteries. And so Anna was among the few who, when they visited their dead, could do so inside the city; most people had to go to the urn graves located on the outskirts. On that particular afternoon, having picked up some spike broom and some forget-me-nots, Anna had passed through the cemetery’s main portal and watched the crows, which seemed to be attacking the graves. It was hot and sunny. Many visitors were kneeling on the marble gravestones, scrubbing them with brushes or putting plants on them. Anna reached the grave that was her goal and greeted a couple who had set up a table on their son’s gravestone and were having lunch.
“We’ve brought Sasha some of the things he used to like.” With a gesture, the father invited Anna to share their meal: pirozhki, hard-boiled eggs, pickled mushrooms, and fish. Regretfully, Anna pointed to the neglected adjacent grave and held up a hand rake. “First I have to