THE MUSIC ROARED. HARSH, UNFAMILIAR AND, TO MY EAR, totally discordant. But the people around me seemed to like it. The discotheque was packed solid—the young people weren’t dancing so much as swaying, twitching on the spot, and brushing against each other, periodically grabbing each other by the hands and starting to move in a strange, grotesque, tangled roundelay. The ceiling glowed, and it wasn’t just beams of light from projectors or disco lamps, it was as if the panels of the ceiling were themselves radiating light. Streaks of different colors were replaced by an even orange light, then the ceiling started glowing cerulean blue—and then it became a single, continuous screen. Above us was the sky, with white, feathery clouds drifting across it.

“What’s this?” I asked, dodging away from a chain of teenagers that had just meshed together.

“A discotheque,” they told me.

I turned my head. Standing beside me was a youth of about eighteen, short and chubby. He looked familiar somehow.

“Kesha?” I asked, suddenly recognizing him.

“What, Anton Sergeevich?”

What?

I didn’t know “what.” I didn’t understand where I was and how I’d got here. But I had to ask something.

“Where’s Nadya?” I said, suddenly realizing that was the right question.

“Here,” Innokentii Tolkov replied with a shrug. “Somewhere here . . .”

I tried to spot her in the crowed. Then I realized I was involuntarily looking too low, at the level where a ten-year-old girl’s head would be. I should be looking higher . . .

And I saw Nadiushka almost immediately. I wasn’t sure how I recognized her . . . she had grown, just like Kesha. But she had changed far more—her head was completely shaved, with just two clumps of white-bleached hair left above her ears. A long narrow skirt, with slits that reached almost right up to her waist, boots that reached halfway up her calves . . . and an absolutely plain white blouse. Nadya looked grotesque and pitiful, even hideous, dressed like that, but this was my Nadya. And I felt my heart contract painfully in my chest.

I took a step forward, elbowing my way through the jostling youngsters, grabbed my daughter by the arm, and dragged her out of the chain of “dancers.” The bright-colored metal bracelets that covered her entire wrist jangled.

“Dad?” Nadya asked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” I asked at the same time.

Nadya shrugged.

“Relaxing.”

The boy and girl between whom Nadya had been swaying in the chain pushed their way through to us. They looked . . . well, appropriate. The boy was wearing a glittering thong and a fluffy shirt (yes, it was a shirt, and it was fluffy), the girl had the same kind of plain blouse and long skirt with slits that Nadya was wearing.

Clearly, that was fashionable.

It was a long time since I’d attended any teenage gatherings.