Footsteps crunched on the gravel. Alexei slipped in behind the wheel, his mind a blank once more, his heart in his mouth, his body ready to go through the familiar motions and propel the heavy black car against the half-open door… But the sounds outside resolved themselves into an unthreatening sequence: the clink of a bunch of keys, the creaking of hinges, departure.

Stopping at a crossroads, he realized that he had only once had occasion to drive outside Moscow: to take Lera to the dacha in Bor.

In the car he found a bunch of road maps, including one of the region in the Ukraine where his aunt lived. There was a jacket and an old cap lying on the back seat. He put them on and later noticed how much this garb facilitated his passage at militia checkpoints. Thanks, in particular, to the cap, he looked like a chauffeur in a hurry to reach the home of a high-ranking person. And the farther he got from Moscow, the more the appearance of the big black car commanded respect.

At the end of the second day of his journey, on what was already a country lane, he met an old farm cart being driven by a young peasant who stared open-mouthed at this car appearing in the midst of all these fields. With a strong nasal accent, in a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, he gave him directions. Alexeï was a dozen miles from his destination.

Before night fell, he drove on farther, then turned off, following a dirt road that plunged into the forest, and stopped when a thick tree trunk barred his way. He ate a whole loaf, bought in a small town he had passed through at noon, felt intoxicated by the food and by the onset of sleep. On all sides the forest seemed endless. He wanted to look at the time, remind himself of the date, as if to have a buoy to cling to amid the ocean of branches and shadows. Lying down on the back seat, he held up his arm to the light filtering through the leaves. It was only half past eight in the evening, May 24.