Dimka felt as if he had been punched. He stared at her in uncomprehending shock. “Pregnant,” he said stupidly.

“Two months and a bit.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve missed two consecutive periods.”

“Even so . . .”

“Look.” She opened her robe to show him her breasts. “They’re bigger.”

They were, he saw, feeling a mixture of desire and dismay.

“And they hurt.” She closed the robe, but not very tight. “And smoking makes me sick to my stomach. Damn it, I feel pregnant.”

This could not be true. “But you said . . .”

“That I couldn’t have children.” She looked away. “That’s what my doctor told me.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Yes. It’s confirmed.”

Incredulously, Dimka said: “What does he say now?”

“That it’s a miracle.”

“Doctors don’t believe in miracles.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Dimka tried to stop the room spinning around him. He swallowed hard and struggled to get over the shock. He had to be practical. “You don’t want to get married, and I sure as hell don’t,” he said. “What are you going to do about it?”

“You have to give me the money for an abortion.”

Dimka swallowed. “All right.” Abortions were readily available in Moscow, but they were not free. Dimka considered how he would get the money. He had been planning to trade in his motorcycle and buy a used car. If he postponed that he could probably manage it. He might borrow from his grandparents. “I can do that,” he said.

She immediately relented. “We should pay half each. We made this baby together.”

Suddenly Dimka felt different. It was her use of the word baby. He found himself conflicted. He pictured himself holding a baby, watching a child take its first steps, teaching it to read, taking it to school. He said: “Are you sure an abortion is what you want?”

“How do you feel?”

“Uncomfortable.” He asked himself why he felt this way. “I don’t think it’s a sin, or anything like that. I just started imagining, you know, a little baby.” He was not sure where these feelings had come from. “Could we have the child adopted?”

“Give birth, and then hand the baby over to strangers?”

“I know, I don’t like it either. But it’s hard, to raise a child on your own. I’d help you, though.”

“Why?”

“It will be my child, too.”

She took his hand. “Thank you for saying that.” She looked very vulnerable suddenly, and his heart lurched. She said: “We love each other, don’t we?”

“Yes.” At that moment he did. He thought of Natalya, but somehow his picture of her was vague and distant, whereas Nina was here—in the flesh, he thought, and that phrase seemed more vivid than usual.

“We’ll both love the child, won’t we?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then . . .”

“But you don’t want to get married.”

“I didn’t.”

“Past tense.”

“I felt that way when I wasn’t pregnant.”

“Have you changed your mind?”

“Everything feels different now.”