Arkady resisted the temptation to clap for what was, he thought, an unusual dive at every stage: finding the ladder, climbing the rungs by feel, walking out onto the high board and keeping her balance while locating the board’s end with her toes, finally pushing down against the strength of the board and flying off into … nothing. He expected to hear her surface; he imagined she would be an expert swimmer, the sort who did laps with languid, tireless strokes. But there was no sound besides the steady drumming of rain on the pool and the irregular, barely audible rush of traffic from the embankment road.

“Hello?” Arkady called. He stood and walked along the side. “Hello?”

The other customers in the Dream Bar of the Kazan Railway Station carried suitcases, duffels, cardboard boxes and plastic bags, so Arkady didn’t feel out of place with Jaak’s radio. Julya’s mother was a stocky peasant dressed in discards sent her over the years by a chic, long-legged daughter: rabbit-fur coat, denim skirt and lacy hose. She consumed sausages and beer while Arkady ordered tea. Jaak was half an hour late.

“Julya won’t meet her own mother’s train. She won’t even send Jaak, oh, no. She sends a stranger.” She studied Arkady. His jacket smelled like wet wash and sagged around the gun in his pocket. “You don’t look Swedish to me.”

“You’ve got a good eye.”

“She needs my permission to go, you know. That’s the only reason I’m here. But the princess is too good to come to the train herself. And now we have to wait?”

“Let me get you another sausage.”

“Big spender.”

They waited another thirty minutes before he took her outside to the taxi line. Clouds smothered the spire lights of the two other railway stations across Komsomol Square. Taxis slowed as they approached the line, perused the prospects and drove on.

“A trolley might be faster,” Arkady said.

“Julya told me in an emergency to use this.” As she waved a pack of Rothmans, a private car skidded to a stop. She hopped in the front and rolled down the window to say, “I’m warning you, I’m not going back home in any rabbit-fur coat. I may not go home at all.”

Arkady returned to the Dream Bar. Still no Jaak. He was never this late.