I pace the width of the waiting room, over and over, because every time I stop his eyes fly open. What do I know about babies? At one point I realize he needs a change of diaper. I rummage in the valise until I find the clean cloth and the safety pins and whatnot. I guess I manage all right. I didn’t know what to do with the dirty diaper—I can’t just put it back in the valise like that—so I head for the bin to throw it away.

Iris’s eyes fly open. “What are you doing?” she calls out.

“Throwing away the diaper.”

“No, bring it back.”

She sits up and wads the soiled cloth carefully into a ball, which she puts in a separate pocket. I walk with her over to the ladies’ room so we can wash our hands. The journey nearly finishes her entirely. We return to the benches. She curls up and closes her eyes. I pace the floor with Gregory and smell the brown hay smell of the fields outside, the reek of coal smoke and of steam. The station’s empty, except for a ticket clerk who reads some book behind his glass window. Above his head, the station clock ticks and tocks.

At a quarter past nine, I hear the distant rumble of a car engine, more like a vibration in the air than an actual noise. I pause in my pacing, but miraculously Gregory’s little eyes stay shut. The rumble becomes louder until it’s a recognizable sound. I return to Iris and shake her gently. She looks up at me, uncomprehending. “Ruth? Are we late for the party?”

She seems flushed. I touch her forehead, but I can’t tell if it’s warm or not. My own fingers are so chilly, because the weather in Latvia—in midsummer—isn’t what you’d call tropical. Already a cool, dry evening breeze whisks through the open window, even though the sun still burns bright in the western sky.

“Not yet, pumpkin,” I tell her. “Come with me.”

I help her up with one arm, while my other arm holds Gregory. She leans heavily on me as we walk to the door. The ticket clerk glances up, watches us for a second or two, then returns to his book. We pass through the doorway and pause on the steps. The station seems to be on the outskirts of town, and the nearby streets are quiet, except for a large black car creeping down the road that fronts the station. I stand where I am, supporting Iris with my arm. The sunlight glints off the car’s windows. It looks just like the vehicles we saw speeding through the Moscow streets, big sleek black machines that Fox told me—under his breath—belonged to the KGB.