The prosecutor’s office had offered him a modern flat in a suburban high-rise of apparatchiks and young professionals, but he had wanted to feel he was in Moscow. That he was, in the angle formed by the Moscow and Yauza rivers, in a three-story building behind a former church that produced liniment and vodka. The church spire had been gilded for the ’80 Olympics, but the interior had been gutted to make way for galvanized tanks and bottling machinery. How did the distillers decide which part of their production was vodka and which was rubbing alcohol? Or did it matter?

While he was removing windshield wipers and rearview mirror for the night, Arkady remembered Jaak’s shortwave radio, still in the car trunk. Radio, wipers and mirror in hand, he considered the food shop on the corner. Closed, naturally. He could either do his job or eat; that seemed to be the option. If it was any consolation, the last time he had made it to the market he’d had a choice of cow head or hooves. Nothing in between, as if the bulk of the animal had disappeared into a black hole.

Since access to the building could be gained only by punching numbers into a security box, someone had helpfully written the code by the door. Inside, the mailboxes were blackened where vandals had shoved newspapers in the slots and torched them. On the second floor, he stopped by a neighbor’s for his mail. Veronica Ivanovna, with the bright eyes of a child and the loose gray hair of a witch, was the closest thing to a guard the building had.

“Two personal letters and a phone bill.” She handed them over. “I couldn’t get you any food because you didn’t remember to give me your ration card.”

Her apartment was illuminated by the airless glow of a television set. All the old people in the building seemed to have gathered on chairs and stools around the screen to watch, or rather to listen with their eyes closed to, the image of a gray, professorial face with a deep, reassuring voice that carried like a wave to the open door.

“You may be tired. Everyone is tired. You may be confused. Everyone is confused. These are difficult times, times of stress. But this is the hour of healing, of reconnecting with the natural, positive forces all around you. Visualize. Let your fatigue flow out your fingertips, let the positive force flow in.”

“A hypnotist?” Arkady asked.

“Come in. It’s the most popular program on television.”

“Well, I am tired and confused,” Arkady admitted.