She frowned. “Stas? I heard he also took you to the station. I told you he was a provocateur. He’s going a little far tonight—”

“Do you remember me?” Arkady asked.

“Of course I do.”

“You don’t seem to.”

Irina sighed. Even to himself, he sounded pathetic.

“Of course I remember you. I simply haven’t thought about you for years. It’s different in the West. I had to survive, get a job. I met a lot of different people. My life changed, I changed.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Arkady said. The way she described it, they were two tectonic plates moving in different directions. She was cold, analytical, correct.

Irina said, “I didn’t set back your career too badly?”

“A Russian hiccup.”

“Don’t make me feel bad,” she said, though there was no indication that he could.

“No. I had inflated expectations. Maybe my memory was playing tricks.”

“To tell you the truth, I barely recognized you.”

“I look that good?” Arkady asked. A feeble joke.

“I heard you were doing well.”

“Who told you?” Arkady asked.

Irina lit a second cigarette from the first. Why do Russians need to burn a little all the time? he wondered. She stared at him, the smoke shifting, her face shrouded by her hair. He imagined holding her. No, it wasn’t imagination; it was memory. He remembered the weight of her cheek against his hand, the smoothness of her brow.

Irina shrugged. “Max was a friend and support for years. It’s wonderful to see him here again.”

“I can tell he’s popular.”

“No one knows why he went back to Moscow. He helped you, so you have no reason to complain.”

“I wish I’d been here,” Arkady said.

If I stood and crossed the room, he thought. If I crossed the room and simply touched her, could a touch be the bridge? No, her face said.

“It’s too late now. You never followed me. Every other Russian here emigrated or defected. You stayed.”

“The KGB said—”

“I would have understood if you’d stayed for a year or two, but you stayed forever. You left me alone. I waited in New York; you never came. I went to London to be closer; you never came. When I found out where you were, you were doing exactly what you did before, being a policeman in a police state. Now here you are, finally, but not to see me. You’re here to arrest someone.”

Arkady said, “I couldn’t come without—”