“Bodian died of pneumonia,” Daniil said.

Tanya knew that. She was pretending ignorance only to bring the conversation around to Vasili. “There was a writer arrested with me that day—Vasili Yenkov,” she said in a musing tone. “Any idea what happened to him?”

“The script editor. He got two years.”

“Then he must be free by now.”

“Perhaps. I haven’t heard. He won’t get his old job back, so I’m not sure where he’d go.”

He would come to Moscow, Tanya felt sure. But she shrugged, pretending indifference, and went back to typing an article about a woman bricklayer.

She had made several discreet inquiries among people who would have known if Vasili had returned. The answer had been the same in all cases: no one had heard anything.

Then, that afternoon, Tanya got word.

Leaving the TASS building at the end of the working day, she was accosted by a stranger. A voice said: “Tanya Dvorkin?” and she turned to see a pale, thin man in dirty clothes.

“Yes?” she said, a little anxiously: she could not imagine what such a man would want with her.

“Vasili Yenkov saved my life,” he said.

It was so unexpected that for a moment she did not know how to respond. Too many questions raced through her mind: How do you know Vasili? Where and when did he save your life? Why have you come to me?

He thrust into her hand a grubby envelope the size of a regular sheet of paper, then he turned away.

It took Tanya a moment to gather her wits. At last she realized there was one question more important than all the rest. While the man was still within earshot she said: “Is Vasili alive?”

The stranger stopped and looked back. The pause struck fear into Tanya’s heart. Then he said: “Yes,” and she felt the sudden lightness of relief.

The man walked away.

“Wait!” Tanya called, but he quickened his pace, turned a corner, and disappeared from view.

The envelope was not sealed. Tanya looked inside. She saw several sheets of paper covered with handwriting that she recognized as Vasili’s. She pulled them halfway out. The first sheet was headed:

Frostbite

by Ivan Kuznetsov

She pushed the sheets back into the envelope and walked on to the bus stop. She felt scared and excited at the same time. “Ivan Kuznetsov” was an obvious pseudonym, the commonest name imaginable, like Hans Schmidt in German or Jean Lefevre in French. Vasili had written something, an article or a story. She could hardly wait to read it, yet at the same time she had to resist the impulse to hurl it away from her like something contaminated, for it was sure to be subversive.

She shoved it into her shoulder bag. When the bus came it was crowded—this was the evening rush hour—so she could not look at the manuscript on her way home without the risk that someone would read it over her shoulder. She had to suppress her impatience.