The first floor gave me something to think about, though. The blue moss was everywhere except around one door, from which it seemed to have crept away. And quite recently too, only a few hours ago. Fine blue threads were slowly retracting into the dense blue carpet—the same way an amoeba shrinks back when it runs into a grain of salt.

“He lives here,” I said, coming back to reality.

“Did you see something?” Las asked.

“No, nothing really.”

I rang the bell.

Almost half a minute went by before the door opened. Without any questions being asked and also, it seemed to me, without even the glance through the peephole that is an obligatory ritual for anyone who lives in Moscow.

The woman in the doorway was short and plump. A Muscovite’s image of “a typical middle-aged eastern type of woman”—obviously a beauty when she was young but not so lovely now, with a really calm-looking face, as if she was very self-absorbed.

“Hello,” I said, edging forward slightly. “We’re from the department. Is Bisat at home?”

“The department” is a very handy little phrase. Somehow no one ever asks which particular department it is that you’re from. The woman didn’t bother to check either.

“Come in,” she said, moving aside. “He’s in the bedroom . . .”

We seemed to be expected. Well, it wasn’t us, but they were expecting someone.

As I walked in, I glanced at her aura. Nothing special, of course. A human being.

The flat had three rooms, but it was small, and the hallway was really narrow and cramped. Loud rock music—something unfamiliar—was pouring out through the sitting-room door.

I was a player and I could have challenged

The inventor of cards at his game.

My luck always in, I followed my star,

It would never fail me, I would go far,

But disaster struck all the same . . .

This precious life crushes the weak like moths,

You have to choose which you trust the most—

The Holy Bible or a trusty Colt!

Las pricked up his ears—he adored little-known rock bands—then shook his head regretfully and clicked his tongue.

Without speaking, the woman gave me slippers, choosing one of the larger pairs out of a drove of them loitering around the door. Las didn’t bother to take his shoes off—and she didn’t react to that either.

Strange. Such simple habits are usually the most stable of all. She should either have asked both of us to change our shoes or not bothered to offer me any slippers, in keeping with the fashionable European traditions that are so slow to take hold in Moscow, with its wet climate and its mud.