She stopped at a table filled with footwear. There must have been over eighty individual shoes—pumps, espadrilles, Birkenstocks, cowboy boots—some in pairs, others alone. Russell was a loafer man. Bass Weejuns his favorites, with beef rolls or sometimes tassels (he was particular about his shoes). Ana’s heart raced when she saw a loafer, but it was much too large for Russell’s. A size eleven at least—and it was black; he never bought black, always oxblood or brown. She circled the table twice, her heart still thudding, until she was certain: Russell’s shoes were definitely not there.

She moved on to the next table where Pars stood frozen, staring at dozens of watches laid neatly in rows: wristwatches with thin gold bands, digital displays. A Bart Simpson watch. A New York Yankees watch. Ana touched his elbow.

Are you all right? she asked.

No. He shook his head, then said: They’re still ticking.

Ana leaned closer. She hadn’t noticed it at first. The glass was still intact on most of them. All of the second hands were jerking together in syncopation.

Jesus, she whispered.

Pars checked his own wristwatch. All of them, he saw, were set correctly to Eastern standard time.

The Bulgarian man walked past at that moment but didn’t stop at the watches. His wife never wore one; it got in the way of her playing. He stopped instead at a table of eyewear. He scanned the dozens of sunglasses and bifocals and horn-rims. In the last two years, Evdokiya had started wearing reading glasses when studying notation. She was self-conscious about them at first and wore them only inside their flat in Sofia, but then slowly she brought them into the world. Secretly, they thrilled Orfeo Raskolov. He found them rather sexy. He’d even bought her a pair of pearl-rimmed cat’s-eye glasses just that summer, yet she refused to wear them. She preferred the cheap throwaways she found on racks in European discount stores.

Orfeo saw neither the cheap discount nor the cat’s-eye glasses on the table. Yet glancing up, he spied, leaning against a wall two aisles away—half-hidden behind a suitcase—something that made his heart stop: a blue cello case.