Before rehearsals, in their dressing room, Lara is her savior, insisting that they begin with an exercise from drama school: Sasha becomes a rusty engine in need of lubrication, and Lara presses her palm to her friend’s and makes believe that she pours oil into her creaky system. Sasha feels the revitalizing oil run through her veins, making the joints rotate smoothly, pumping energy through to her limbs. Maria’s every word filters through the nerve fibers of Sasha’s body, and when the rehearsal is over, she feels emptied of emotion. For a few hours afterward, she feels so hollow inside that she can’t think of anything, even Andrei.

She doesn’t see Andrei until the entire cast comes out for a curtain call. They were all at their best that evening—Vladimir Ivanovich, who plays her earthy partner Sir Toby Belch; Lara, the willful Viola in men’s clothes; Viola’s twin brother, Sebastian, played by Maksim, just out of drama school; and the rich and ravishing Olivia, played by the director’s wife. For two and a half hours, she was Maria, and they lived inside a mesh of golden light charged with the energy they have created, which has left them all breathless. As she smiles and curtsies in front of the curtain, adrenaline still pumping through her veins, something forces her to look down into the third row of the audience, as if the stage lights have instantly reversed direction and plucked Andrei’s face out of the crowd.

When she fits the key into her apartment door, glad that her mother is on a visit to Ivanovo, they don’t even bother to turn on the hallway light or hang their coats on the coatrack in front of the refrigerator. The coats drop onto the floor, followed by her sweater and his jacket, layer after layer of clothing, a trail of selfishness and frivolity leading to a finale to which no Party Committee would ever give its stamp of approval.