“There’s another line for greens,” the woman said.

Arkady said, “You did a good job. I’m sorry it had to be so gruesome.”

Polina said, “If it bothered me, I’d be in the wrong profession.”

“Maybe I’m in the wrong profession,” Arkady said.

Most of the transactions at the scales were mute and sullen exchanges of rubles and ration chits for beets, though every fourth or fifth erupted into an accusation of cheating and a demand for more, denunciations that sang with frustration, hysteria and rage, which drew the line anxiously closer until soldiers pushed it back and the customer on, so that there was a constant eddy and pulse within the line. At least the rain washed the beets, showing their scarlet under a lamppost. In its light Arkady could see that the sacks heaped behind the scales exhibited the effects of their rough passage from the country, dirt and bruises staining the wet burlap. The wetter sacks were smeared bright red, the ground around them was steeped red, and the scales were dyed a winy vermilion speckled with the skins of beets. In the reflection off the water running from the sacks, the entire park glowed in a spreading lens of red. Polina stared down at her toes and open sandals, which were already stained pink. Arkady watched her face turn to wax, and he caught her as she dropped.

“Not the morgue, not the morgue,” she said.

Arkady put her arm over his shoulder and half-carried, half-walked her out of the park and down Petrovka Street in search of someplace she could sit. Across the street an ambulance was leaving the gate of a buff-colored mansion, the sort of pre-Revolutionary building the Party loved to use for offices. It seemed to be some kind of clinic.

As soon as he got her into the courtyard, though, Polina insisted, “Not a doctor.”

On one side of the courtyard was a rustic wooden entrance whimsically painted with crowing roosters and dancing pigs. They went through into an empty café. Small tables were surrounded by leather banquettes, and a row of stools stood along a padded bar. In back of the counter was an arsenal of orange-juice presses.

Polina sat at a banquette, put her head between her knees and said, “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”

A waitress appeared from the kitchen to chase them away, but Arkady held up his ID and asked for brandy.

“This is a medical clinic. We don’t serve brandy.”

“Then medicinal brandy.”

“For dollars.”

Arkady put a pack of Marlboros on the table. The waitress stared, unmoved. He added the other pack. “Two packs.”

“And thirty rubles.”

She disappeared, returned a moment later and in one circular motion set down a flask of Armenian cognac with two glasses and scooped up the cigarettes and money.

Polina sat up and let her head loll back. Her hair hung in sad ringlets. “That’s half your weekly salary,” she said.