“Nadya, what does this ersatz want?” the boy asked. Not actually threateningly, but defiantly.

“Pull on back,” Nadya replied incomprehensibly. “This is my abu.”

The boy gave me a look that was unfriendly, but a bit softer. And he asked: “Any problems, honorable sir?”

“No problems,” I said. “And if you disappear straight away, none will arise.”

The boy grinned crookedly. Apparently I hadn’t scared him. The little fool. I could soon have him on his way home to do his homework and wash the floors . . .

“Everything’s smooth, Vovik,” said Nadya. “Lighten a bit.”

“Tap me if anything comes up,” Vovik answered, and flashed another glance at me. Then he disappeared into the crowd with his girlfriend.

“What idiot kind of slang’s that?” I asked.

“The usual,” Nadya replied and sniffed. Her eyes were red. “What did you come here for, Dad?”

“Nadya, let’s go home,” I said.

“What for?”

“Nadya, your mum will be worried,” I said, appealing to the argument that had worked unfailingly when she was ten.

“What have you and Mum got to do with anything?” asked Nadya.

I got a terrible cold feeling in my chest.

“Nadya, I don’t understand what’s happening,” I said. The music was hammering in my ears, dark storm clouds were covering over the sky on the ceiling screen. “Let’s talk somewhere else.”

“What’s wrong with here?”

“This is no place for a Higher Other!” I exclaimed in exasperation.

Nadya laughed. And if at first it was simply quiet laughter, as if she’d heard a good joke, an instant later it had become loud, hysterical giggling.

I hate women’s hysterics! It’s a totally dishonest trick to use in the relations between men and women!

The only thing worse than women’s hysterics is men’s hysterics.

“For a Higher Other?” Nadya repeated. “For an Other? Dad . . . Daddy, you’ve really lost it! Dad, after what you did to us, how can you even say the word ‘Other”?”

And she went off into the crowd, still laughing and running her hand over her face, as if she was brushing away tears.

And I stood and watched her go.

Then I shifted my gaze to Kesha.

“ ‘You are Anton Gorodetsky . . .’ ” I said. “ ‘Because of you . . . all of us . . .’ Just what have I done to ‘all of you”?”

“I don’t know,” replied Kesha.

“Why didn’t Nadya say anything to you?”

“She didn’t see me.”

Thunder rumbled above my head, and heavy raindrops started pattering down. I held out my hand to them . . . a drop fell onto my palm and disappeared. There was rain, but it was an illusion—like the clouds above me.

Like everything here.

“Why didn’t she see you, Kesha?”

“Because this is your vision, Anton Sergeevich,” the young man replied. “And your dream.”

He swung round and disappeared into the crowd too—still as plump, awkward and unattractive as he had been as a child.