At one o’clock I went to the canteen. I didn’t really feel like eating—the events of the morning must have killed my appetite. I just picked at my chicken Kiev and left most of it. Our chef Aunty Klava gave me a reproachful glance as she surveyed the dining hall from the serving hatch, so I had to go through a whole pantomime to demonstrate that my trouser belt would barely close, I was really getting out of shape and that was the only reason I hadn’t eaten up my full portion. Aunty Klava was appeased. I poured myself a glass of her remarkable cranberry mors, downed it in one, took another and sat back down at my table. The canteen was almost empty: after all, it was the middle of the day and the operations staff were either catching up on their sleep or spending time with their families—those who had them, that is. In another hour or two people would start congregating for lunch.

“Is the mors good, Anton?” Klava called to me across the canteen.

“Great!” I declared quite sincerely, and the chef smiled in delight.

You know, there’s something to all those quack theories about the influence a name has on a person’s character, after all. All those Andreis, Alexanders, and Sergeis or Lenas, Mashas, and Natashas can be absolutely anybody at all. But once a name deviates just a little bit from the perennially popular list, it starts to have an influence.

With the name Klava, for instance, it’s good to be a chef. Not necessarily fat, but sturdy. And from the age of twenty-five you’ll be known as “Aunty Klava.” Because “Aunty” and “Klava” are inseparable somehow.

But how does the name “Anton” influence someone, for instance?

I pondered for a moment, recalling the Antons I had known. One Anton, for example, was a robust, amiable individual, a good family man and conscientious professional. And at the same time an inveterate practical joker and composer of scabrous verse. But then another Anton had been a bookworm, entirely unsuited for real life.

So probably the name Anton wasn’t rare enough to influence people at all.

I picked up my plate and empty glasses, so as to take them over to the sink for washing, but Aunty Klava came across without making a sound and took them out of my hands.

“Go on, off you go and work. The idea of it, Great Ones carrying dirty dishes around . . .”

“I’m not a Great One,” I muttered.

“A Higher One, are you?” Klava asked, and then continued: “You are, and that means you’ll be a Great One. Off you go.”

I set off to my office, feeling awkward. And about ten meters before I reached the door I heard the mobile phone that I had forgotten on the desk, ringing.

And I suddenly had an ominous kind of feeling.