Arkady had left Polina and hurried home in time to catch Irina’s first broadcast. Drinks with one woman, then rushing to the voice of another. What a sophisticated life, he thought.

“Official justification for the military operation was the mob violence against Armenians by militants who showed documents identifying themselves as leaders of the Azeri Popular Front. Since the Front does not issue such documents, a KGB provocation is once again suspected.”

While Arkady listened, he changed to a dry shirt and jacket.

Who was right? She was. He was. There was no choice, no right or wrong, no black or white. He wished for one blinding ray of certainty; even to be wrong would be a relief. He had stepped back in his memory so many times his tracks would have worn through stone, and he still didn’t know what else he could have done. He had told Polina, “We’ll never know.”

Irina said, “Increasingly, Moscow has cited nationalist tensions to justify the continued presence of Soviet Army troops in different republics, including the Baltic states, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and the Ukraine. Tanks and missile launchers that were supposed to be scrapped in the arms-control agreement with NATO have instead been moved to bases in the dissident republics. At the same time, nuclear missiles have been removed from those republics to the Russian Republic.”

He hardly heard her words. Every rumor he heard was worse than her reports; reality was worse than her reports. So, like a beekeeper separating honey from a comb, he was able to hear only her voice and not the words. She had a darker sound tonight. Had it rained in Munich? Were there traffic jams on the autobahn? Was she with anyone?

She could have said anything and he would have gone on listening. Sometimes he felt as if he were going to fly out the window and wheel in the sky above Moscow. He would home in on that voice like a beacon, which would lead him, lead him, lead him away.

When the news went to a tape, Arkady left his apartment not with wings but with wipers, attached them to his car and plunged into the midnight traffic. Night and rain combined to make disoriented streets and paint smears of light across the windshield. At the embankment road he had to stop for a convoy of army trucks and personnel carriers as long and slow as a freight train. While he waited he felt his jacket for cigarettes, found an envelope and winced when he recognized the letter Belov had given him in Red Square. His name was written across the face of the envelope with a fine nib in letters that started as slashes and ended in sprawls, as if the hand had been too weak to wield a pen or a knife.