He takes her by the shoulders and kisses her on the cheeks, three times, an old-fashioned custom Grandma favors. There is a different air about him, the way he carries himself, the way he moves—an air of gravity and importance. Maybe he is no longer Andrei but Andrei Stepanovich, a man she knows yet does not know. In this byzantine room of so much excess, he seems completely at ease, introducing himself to the crew members and kissing Raisa’s hand as if she were a real tsarina. Sasha sees all this in snatches—discarded frames on the floor of a film editing room. When they are invited to sit at the table, Andrei is next to her on her right. Sasha’s first banquet is foggy, experienced through the delirium of his presence.

Someone in a gray suit makes a toast, and they all drink what has been poured into their glasses. First it’s vodka; then it’s either cognac or wine. She chooses wine. It is red and sweet, the wine from Georgia called Khvanchkara, the favorite wine of Stalin, the toastmaster proclaims. Sasha has her doubts about this claim, for whoever knew what Stalin favored has probably been dead for at least a decade, arrested and shot for knowing too much, but sitting next to Andrei makes her skepticism melt away. Despite a line of waitresses snaking through the room carrying trays of hot dishes followed by a whole roasted baby pig on a platter, she cannot but feel heat radiating from him. Neither the pig’s baked eyes nor the signature dish of Bely Lebed, a whole roasted swan, with its curved neck and a charred beak, distract her from Andrei’s hypnotizing presence.

He piles up their plates with meat and raises his glass. “To your first film role,” he says. “Drink to the bottom.”

She drinks to the bottom. She is thrilled to sit next to Andrei, their sleeves touching, their legs pressed together under the table. She feels liberated to be with him, without her mother’s condemning looks and warnings about danger, without the whole town of Ivanovo gossiping on benches about the daughter of an anatomy professor seen walking around with the janitor’s son. She doesn’t know how Andrei found out about the filming in Suzdal, but she is glad he did. She is glad she can be alone with him in this town that has been turned into a huge movie set. She is glad she is nearly eighteen, an acting student doing real acting. Today is a perfect day to celebrate all this.