She watches Raisa, who plays her on-screen rival, Marfa, the woman Ivan the Terrible chooses as his bride, the woman Lyubasha poisons, spend half an hour teasing her hair and pinning up a shirt that in two months of work has become too wide at the waist. Sasha watches her thread a needle as she stretches out her arm that underscores the length of bone expected for a heroine. She is shorter than Raisa, and her Ivanovo bones boast in breadth rather than length. In the movie, Marfa, innocent of Lyubasha’s rivalry, doesn’t want to marry the tsar because she loves another man, and only a few days ago, in one of the ancient monasteries Suzdal is famous for—white stone walls covered with dark icons lit by candles—Raisa filmed the final scene where, after five takes, she goes insane and dies. As Raisa is finishing pinning her shirt, Sasha ties her hair back into a ponytail, makes up her face using the tricks she has learned from Sveta and their makeup class, and puts on her only good dress, stitched together from black cotton dotted with tiny daisies.

The White Swan is the size of a gymnasium, with one long table stretching the length of the room covered with dishes, glasses, and platters of food worthy of the tsarist feast they just finished shooting. There are crystal vases brimming with Olivier salad; bowls with rainbow herring under a fur coat sheathed in layers of carrots, potatoes, and beets; plates with pickles, salami, and cheese; and smaller dishes glistening with red and black caviar. Sasha thinks of the sweet roll Andrei brought her from his special Komsomol store last year, a roll full of poppy seeds and raisins that caused her to salivate just as all these delicacies spread in front of her now.

For no reason at all, she turns to the door and sees a handsome man in a suit and tie shaking everyone’s hand. She knows it has to be a mirage, but even after she shuts her eyes and opens them again, Andrei is still there. She looks away, but her head turns back, like a ball of iron attracted by a magnet, and the tugging pain of the year without him suddenly swells inside her and makes her walk in his direction, as if hypnotized.