Kapitonich returns to find Vladimir, but he’s no longer there. He’s slipped out of the Karenin Palace so he doesn’t have to see Aleksandra. Kapitonich shuffles back to the kitchen, but his femur and hip don’t cooperate, and the old man falls to the floor like a sack of potatoes. With the little voice he has left, he cries, “Help me! Help!” His arm is shattered, but no one hears his cries of pain because frightened Piotr is singing a funeral song at the top of his lungs.

“May her soul rest in peace.”

The doctor completes the death certificate with the name, date, and cause of death Anya provides. Aleksandra will get a proper burial. He leaves without bidding them goodbye and is halfway home when Giorgi reaches him with the news that Kapitonich has had an accident. The doctor returns to treat him.

Valeria finds the little wire figure. “I don’t know where it came from, but it will be perfect for my Matyushenko when he returns from the bottom of the sea.” Pulling the string of the little doll, watching it lift its hat over and over again, Valeria says, “I hate that damn submarine. I hate that damn submarine.” She puts the wire figure in her trunk.

Vladimir never returns to the Karenin Palace; he doesn’t reply to Anya’s requests to come and collect his sister’s effects. Giorgi can’t find him anywhere. “It’s like Vladimir vanished into thin air.”

28. The Reverend’s Beard

28. The Reverend’s Beard

Father Gapon is crushed. When his contingent of demonstrators is attacked and stampeded, he’s saved by the bodies of the wounded and the dead—Volodin being one of these human shields. As he lies there, he says, “There is no tsar, there is no God.” He repeats the phrase two more times, thinking of his Sasha, and says aloud, “Sasha, Sasha,” but no one hears him because they’re all repeating what he’s just said: “There is no tsar, there is no God.”