A far longer line, all male, stretched from a vodka store at the corner. Drunks sagged and leaned like broken pickets on a fence. Their clothes had the grayness of old rags, their faces were raw red and blue, but they clutched empty bottles in the solemn knowledge that no new bottle would cross the counter except in exchange for an empty. Also, it had to be the right size empty bottle: not too big, not too small. Then they had to pass militiamen stationed at the door to check coupons for out-of-towners trying to buy vodka marked for Moscow. As Arkady watched, a satisfied patron left the store, cradling his bottle like an egg, and the line inched forward.

There was a selection, which was what was holding up Arkady’s line: meat or cabbage pies. Since the filling was sure to be no more than a suggestion—a delicate soupçon of ground pork or steamed cabbage, a fine line within dough first steeped in boiling fat and then allowed to cool and congeal—it was a choice that demanded a fine palate, not to mention hunger.

The vodka line also stalled, held up by a customer who had swooned on his way into the store and dropped his empty. The bottle rang as it rolled to the gutter.

Arkady wondered what Irina was doing. All morning he had denied to himself that he was thinking about her. Now, with the chiming of the bottle, the very strangeness of the sound, he saw her having her midday meal not on the street but in a Western cafeteria of gleaming chrome, brightly lit mirrors, smoothly rolling carts bearing white porcelain cups.

“Meat or cabbage?”

It took him a moment to return.

“Meat? Cabbage?” the vendor repeated and held up identical pies. Her own face was as round and coarse, her eyes sunk in a crease. “Come on, everyone else knows what they want.”

“Meat,” Arkady said. “And cabbage.”

She grunted, sensing indecision rather than appetite. Maybe this was his problem, Arkady thought, lack of appetite. She made his change and handed over two pies embellished by paper napkins dripping grease. He checked the ground. No dead flies, though the ones buzzing around looked depressed.

“You don’t want it?” the vendor asked.

Arkady was still seeing Irina, feeling the warm pressure of her and smelling not the rancid fumes of grease but the clean crispness of sheets. He seemed to be moving quickly through progressive stages of insanity, or else Irina was moving from oblivion to the unconscious, then to the conscious areas of his mind.

As the vendor leaned over her cart, a transformation took place. In the middle of her face appeared what was left of a girl’s embarrassment, of sad eyes lost between jowls, and she shrugged apologetically with round shoulders. “Eat it, don’t think about it.”

When Jaak brought the sodas Arkady awarded him both pies.