She gulps down the cognac that is left in her glass because she no longer wants to be sober. Being sober means she must feel the hurt of this stunning announcement by erupting in anger or disintegrating into tears. She must say something in response to the words that have just crushed her windpipe and left her speechless.

“You have to understand,” he says. “I had to. I couldn’t not . . .” He doesn’t finish the sentence, doesn’t want to repeat the words for what he has done. His eyes are downcast, evading hers.

“You couldn’t not?” she repeats. “What does this mean?” The cognac she has just swallowed instantly makes her drunk again.

Andrei gets up and paces to the wall and then back. “I had no choice. It was a requirement from the ministry.” He pauses. “No. It was my father-in-law’s requirement,” he says. “I can’t explain.” He shakes his head. “It would make no sense to you.”

She doesn’t want to hear how he was forced to marry someone else. “Fuck you and fuck the ministry and fuck your father-in-law,” she says, the drunken words sticking to her upper palate. What she really wants to say is, “Why did you do it? If you had to marry someone, why didn’t you ask me? You know I would have said yes. Why didn’t you come here and ask me to marry you? Why did you marry someone else, someone who knows nothing about Ivanovo, who never rode on the back of a streetcar, who doesn’t share with you the dark secrets hidden in the most remote corner of your soul? Why did you marry her and not me?”

Suddenly she knows why. The words swim up to the surface, struggling through the thick, slow current of her drunken mind. You told me why when I was filming The Tsar’s Bride. The Party told you that you couldn’t marry an actress. And, like a good Party member, you had to do what the Party ordered.

“Why did you come here tonight?” she asks. “To tell me this? To tell me one more time that you couldn’t marry an actress?”

Andrei stands with his head down, silent.