He came back in and sat down without turning on the light.

“It’s going to be about doomed love. The kind of love you don’t get any more. The way my mum and dad loved one another.”

“I thought you’d given up believing in love.”

“The night before my dad left for the front, I couldn’t get to sleep, listening to them moaning from the other side of the wall.”

I pulled the blanket over my head.

Run away, run away from here as soon as possible.

The next morning, we went to the cemetery. It was a cursory and almost painless visit. Our ride waited for us by the gate while we shivered and searched for the grave. Yes, he couldn’t find his way and shamefacedly had to admit he couldn’t remember where she was buried.

“Senility,” he said, waving his hand irritably. He was drunk at the funeral, most likely.

Finally, we found her. Her ashes were placed next to her husband’s empty grave and a tin cross had been placed on the spot. He slid all her holy pictures out of his pocket and placed them on the mound. He laid them out the same way he used to arrange them on her pillow.

I laid down four bright red carnations. They blurred into red blobs. I wiped away the tears, he sobbed noisily and rested his head on the cross. With his crying done, he asked me to take a picture of him by the grave. So that the name “Maria Vitaliyevna” was clearly visible. I lifted the bottle of beer out of his jacket pocket before taking the picture.

The driver gave us a lift to the nearest bus stop. We stood together under the awning, sheltering from the rain. I watched the white plumes rise from the stacks at the chemical plant and mingle with the dreary clouds. Dad seemed sad; I wanted to say something kind to him. I asked him to quit drinking.

“Will you stay?”

“Of course not, Dad.”

Chapter 9

But I stayed. I found a spot at the Agricultural University dormitory.

He didn’t stop drinking, but he did emerge from his funk by degrees. After a week, he went round to the neighbours and offered to sell them Grandma’s belongings. He sold what he could and dumped the rest on the street. She had accumulated a vast trove of bric-a-brac: Grandma never threw anything away, a habit common to people who lived through the war. The house was cluttered with armchairs, bedside tables, lamps, rolled-up carpets wrapped in plastic sheeting; suitcases of old shoes and clothes were stashed in the loft. What I saved from Mum’s things came with me to the dormitory. What we put outside disappeared as soon as we went back inside for another box. People took things indiscriminately. Nothing is ever unneeded in this city.

Back in the flat, he slumped wearily into a chair in the hall and moved his lips noiselessly as he watched me running up and down, steadily emptying out the rooms. I found it sad and easy at the same time. I got why he wanted to get rid of all these things. It alarmed me to think how furniture, used clothes, a few photographs, and a clutch of souvenirs is all that remains of us. They weren’t just objects—each thing was tied to a memory of some event, dream or person. That porcelain ballerina, it was bought at the Central Department Store on her birthday—oh, youth! That dress she wore to meet a suitor, the tea set was a wedding gift—material memories are what makes a life. And now, all but useless, they are carted off to strangers’ homes, stripped of meaning.