“Well, I just hope it means what I think it means,” said Gesar.

“Well maybe it really does mean the morning,” I said. “You know how . . . poetical . . . all these poets are.”

“The analysts tell me that it’s actually an allusion to Milton’s Paradise Lost, a reference to the fallen angels who were defeated, fell from heaven, and were lamented by the other angels . . . You’re right, Anton, poets are so poetical. How can you tell what it is they really mean?”

I walked over to the window and looked out at the sky over Moscow. The usual low Moscow sky. No stars to be seen, although it was dark already and they should have appeared by now. Rain . . . rain was possible . . . perfectly possible . . .

“Anton, you won’t be able to do a thing,” Gesar said gently. “Even I won’t. Or the entire Watch, all together. You go. I’m going to work with the boy. I just hope I’ll get it done in time.”

The boss is a dyed-in-the-wool pragmatist, of course. And his pragmatism would allow him to hand the boy over to a creature from the Twilight, or even to a real tiger in the zoo, if he decided that was the lesser of two evils. But he would try everything he could to save him, out of sheer stubbornness . . .

I knew that.

“I’ll be in the office for a while. Call me if anything happens, Boris Ignatievich . . .”

Gesar nodded.

“Is our conversation confidential?” I asked, just to make sure, as I walked over to the door.

“As you think best,” Gesar replied unexpectedly.

I hesitated and looked at my boss.

Then I walked out, closing the door firmly behind me.

There were three people sitting in the duty room—Las, Semyon, and Alisher. What they were discussing wasn’t the boy-Prophet and it wasn’t the Tiger. Their topic of conversation was far more exalted.

“And then I suddenly realized,” Las was saying, “that I have been granted peace and the world of the spirit. So my decision to turn to God was the right one!”

“I should think so, after a bottle of cognac,” Alisher remarked. “Hi, Anton!”

“Hi,” I replied, perching on the table. The duty watchmen’s room is fairly large, but the two sofas, large round table with chairs around it, and mini-kitchen along one wall don’t leave much free space.

“The cognac’s got nothing to do with it!” Las exclaimed indignantly. “Do you believe in Allah?”

“I do,” Alisher replied. “But then, I don’t drink.”

“What about beer?”

“I drink beer. But the prophet said the first drop of wine kills a man—he didn’t say anything about beer.”

“Excuses, excuses” Las snapped. “So why mock at my faith in God?”