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Volodya’s telegram was a shock for Yurka.

Why couldn’t Yurka write? What happened? Yurka’s thoughts ricocheted from bad to worse: Volodya’s parents read my last letter, realized who I was to him, and now blame me for messing up his treatment! Or maybe it’s that Volodya himself wants to get rid of me and my interference? Because I was the one he dreamed of, I’m getting him off track.

Doesn’t he need me anymore?

Yurka’s guilt, and his fear for Volodya, kept him from disobeying and writing to ask what had happened.

Logic calmly reminded him, No matter what, Volodya’s too grown-up now for his parents to punish their son for something somebody else said.

But his fear whispered, Volodya and his father are in business together, and that means he’s still dependent on his father.

And the very worst times were when his hurt feelings tormented him: Volodya was looking for an excuse to break off our relationship, and I’m the one who gave it to him.

He really doesn’t need me anymore.

He never did.

He barely listened when his memory pointed out, Volodya’s getting paranoid again.

This has happened before, more than once.

Still, Yurka waited for that “later” to arrive and for Volodya to write him.

But no letters came.

Yurka was exhausted by doubt and uncertainty.

Nothing could make him smile.

His apathy made itself felt in every way.

He was sleeping badly and eating badly.

He was taciturn and soon became completely withdrawn.

He was indifferent to everything and even lost interest in music.

He made it through the interminably long winter.

In the spring of 1991 he was briefly drawn out of his stupor by good news from the embassy.

His mother, beaming with genuine delight, ran right into the kitchen without even taking off her coat and shoes, shouting, “We’re approved!”

“I’m leaving! I’m actually leaving!” Yura was happy, for the first time in a long while.

But soon his happiness evaporated.

He was leaving! But what about Volodya?

In May they found out their departure date and other details.

There was no time to waste.

Despite Volodya’s request not to write, Yura sent him a brief note: “We’re leaving in July.

First they’re sending us to a distribution center, then from there they’ll transfer us to our permanent place of residence.

I don’t know the permanent address yet, but here’s a temporary one.”

May was coming to a close, but Yura still hadn’t heard from Volodya.

His heart pounded like crazy every time he approached the mailbox: maybe there was a letter! He startled every time the doorbell rang: maybe it was a telegram! But he never got an answer.

Once June started, Yura had no choice but to borrow money from friends and go to Moscow himself.

He stepped off the train and plunged into the chaos of Moscow.

He definitely did not like it.

It was like a seething cauldron: too aggressive, too noisy, too dirty.

Everything from the pavement to the sky was plastered in posters of Yeltsin, Zhirinovsky, and other candidates in the upcoming election for president of the RSFSR—the first such election ever.

Half the city’s parks and squares were taken over by demonstrations and rallies, but even if you didn’t take those into account, Moscow was still too dirty and too loud.

The city looked to Yurka like one big street market where people haggled over clothes when they weren’t haggling over rights and freedoms.

Street vendors were everywhere: in the squares, in and around the metro stations, and even standing in rows along the sidewalks of busy streets, next to the panhandlers and lines of people.

Throughout the city, high above the political posters, hung banners advertising the Russian production of David Henry Hwang’s M.

Butterfly by the Soviet Ukrainian director Roman Viktyuk: the first show with homosexuality as a theme.

And all this was engulfed by the endlessly scurrying populace.

Yurka had never been in the capital until this moment.

He’d previously dreamed of visiting Lenin’s mausoleum as soon as he got there, but once he arrived he completely forgot about it and went straight to Volodya’s metro station.

He more or less figured out where he was on the map and was so concentrated on the purpose of his trip that he paid no attention to the beauty—or ugliness—of the metro.

Or to what Volodya’s apartment building looked like: a yellow, four-story, Stalin-era building with stone balconies and picturesque ivy growing up the sides.

Or to what Volodya’s courtyard looked like: shady and quiet, with a statue of Pioneer girls poring over their books.

Or to the smell of Volodya’s building entrance.

Yurka only came back to his senses and began to notice at least some of the things around him when he found himself at the door to Volodya’s apartment.

He rang the doorbell.

Nobody opened the door.

He pressed his ear to the door: silence.

Yurka settled in to wait.

He remembered that Volodya’s mom didn’t work anymore, which meant she had probably stepped out for a little while and would soon return.

It was getting on toward four o’clock and he was counting on the fact that in a couple more hours somebody would definitely be showing up.

He tensed at every rustle, hoping it was one of the residents of the hallowed apartment coming up the stairs.

But nobody ever came all the way up to the fourth and last floor; nobody went to Volodya’s door.

One grumbling old granny did shuffle past Yurka and survey him suspiciously, but she ducked into the apartment next door without a word.

An hour later, the granny cracked her door open, without undoing the security chain, and yelled rudely at Yurka: “Who are you? What are you sitting here for?”

“I’m waiting for someone,” he said, and turned away.

Then, thinking better of it, he jumped up: “I’m a friend of Volodya Davydov.

He lives here.

Do you happen to know if anybody’s coming home soon?”

“You go on home, then.

They’re not coming back.”

“What do you mean?”

“The whole family left.

Six months ago now,” replied the granny, continuing to drill a hole in Yurka with her gaze.

“Just before New Year’s.”

Yura’s throat seized up.

He croaked out: “But why?”

“How should I know? They didn’t tell me,” answered the granny sharply.

But she made no move to close her door.

“Have the other neighbors said anything?” asked Yurka, trying to get the woman to at least share some rumors.

I mean, she is a granny , thought Yura, and grannies are all equally nosy, no matter where you are in the USSR.

This one’s probably no exception.

He was right.

“People talk, but how much of it’s worth listening to?” said the old woman, frowning.

A minute later, though, she broke her silence: “Lev Nikolayevich got mixed up with some bandits.

He borrowed money from them and then couldn’t pay them back.

He signed the apartment over to them and he and his family escaped.”

“Lev Nikolayevich?” This was Volodya’s father.

“What about Volodya? Are you sure they weren’t after him?”

“I saw it myself.

More than once.

A car would stop at the entrance and Lev Nikolayevich would get in.

Then he’d get back out.

Then the bandits started coming right up to the apartment.

They’d come banging on the door at all hours of the night.

I’d call the police, but they’d be long gone by the time the police showed up.”

The first thing Yurka felt upon hearing this was relief: he had spent so long blaming himself for Volodya’s disappearance, afraid he’d outed their relationship to his parents and revealed that the treatment didn’t work.

But now it turned out Yura had had nothing to do with it.

The thing that was the real reason for Volodya’s disappearance—or rather full-on escape—was far worse: his family had been run out.

And the granny’s story was entirely plausible, because in those days it was impossible for businessmen to get by without borrowing money, but the only people who had money were the bandits.

So there were only two ways to keep afloat: either borrow from a bandit, or become one.

The sudden upswing in Volodya’s family’s income was confirmation of that, he realized: it was impossible to just start out from zero with the kind of thing that’s as long-term as construction and make that kind of income after just one year.

“And what about Volodya?” Yura asked hoarsely.

“Did he leave with his parents? Because he’s grown, he’s in college ...”

“You tell me.

You’re the one who said you’re his friend.”

“We haven’t seen each other in a long time, I haven’t—”

“And there’s no telling what’s wrong with that Volodya, anyway,” the granny interrupted.

“He was a good boy.

He always said hello, helped me carry up the shopping.

But then at the end he got all jittery.

Always peering around wide-eyed.

Stopped saying hello.”

Yurka feverishly cast about for his next move.

How would he find Volodya now? “Where might they be? Do you know?”

The granny shrugged so hard that the security chain on her door clinked.

“What about relatives or friends?” said Yura, inspired.

“His cousin! He had a cousin with the same exact name! Where do their relatives or friends live?”

“I believe they had someone in Tver,” replied the granny.

“Now, you go on along.

You can’t wait for them.

They’re not coming back.”

Yura asked a couple more questions, but the granny had no answers.

He asked about the institute—“He was a student.

Did he really just quit?”—but on that note their conversation ended.

Yura flopped down on the top stair like a rag doll.

He stretched and limbered his fingers, which had gone numb from the shock, and stared at the gray floor, trying to sort out the fragments of thought wheeling through his head: They escaped.

Bandits.

They’re hiding.

If they’re hiding, then they’ve hidden well enough not to be found.

Tver.

Is Tver far? The institute.

I have to go to his institute.

I have to get ahold of myself.

This is my only chance to find him.

There’ll be no chance later.

He forced himself to collect his thoughts and stand up.

His gaze shifted from the concrete floor to the padded, pleather-covered door of Volodya’s apartment.

His heart went tight.

Yura realized that he would never, ever get inside this apartment.

He’d never see Volodya’s room.

Even if nothing of Volodya was left inside the apartment anymore, even if the couch he’d slept on wasn’t in his room anymore, even if the nightstand he’d put his glasses on every night before bed wasn’t there, even if the desk he’d sat at wasn’t there, then at least the window Volodya had looked out of when he was writing Yurka letters was still there.

Yura wanted to look out that window.

It felt like that would bring them closer together.

Or at least if he could see the marks Volodya’s furniture had made on the floor.

They’d prove Volodya really existed, Yura hadn’t just been imagining him.

I will find him! I will! His feet moving reluctantly, he made himself walk away down the stairs.

In hopes of finding letters from the Davydovs’ friends or relatives, Yura broke open the door of their mailbox.

The blood pounded in his head as he saw that there were two letters there! But his hope faded as quickly as it had blossomed: they were his own letters.

The second-to-last one, in which he’d declared his love, and the last one, in which he’d said he was leaving in July.

Then, despite the hopelessness of the situation, Yura’s spirits lifted just a tiny bit.

It hadn’t been his fault, after all, that Volodya had sent that last telegram telling him not to write anymore.

He hadn’t even read the letter that Yura had been so worried about.

There was hope after all that Volodya still loved him, still needed him.

But this also meant he didn’t even know that Yura was leaving soon.

Yura left Volodya’s apartment building and went straight to Volodya’s institute, where after some effort he found out that Volodya had collected his records and documents and left.

And that this had also been just before New Year’s.

Yurka spent the whole way to Kursk train station, where he’d get his train back to Kharkiv, trying to decide whether to go to Tver or not.

It’s not far.

But I don’t have much money left.

But if I don’t at least try, I’ll never forgive myself.

I’ll never forgive myself for it.

The metro was loud, thundering and clattering.

On the opposite seat a young man put his jacket down on his girlfriend’s lap and tentatively squeezed her hand.

It was just like in Volodya’s dream, except that this pair didn’t have to hide their hands.

It’s a sign , thought Yura.

So he transferred to another metro line and headed for Leningrad Station, where the train for Tver left from.

Once he got to Tver, he stopped at a post office, bought a phone book, and began calling all the Davydovs one by one.

He called over half the numbers, but nobody knew a Vladimir Davydov.

His heart skipped a beat when a girl finally said Vladimir was home and called him to the phone.

The seconds of waiting stretched into minutes, or hours.

It was like Yura had gotten lost in time and space and couldn’t tell whether he’d really been waiting for a long time at all.

But his wait finally came to an end: Vladimir answered.

Yura’s heart fell.

This Vladimir Davydov was an old man.

Trying not to lose heart, Yura ran his finger down the lines of text in the phone book.

A few lines down was something that made his finger tremble: the name Davydov, Vladimir Leonidovich.

Yura stood for half an hour in the telephone booth, the receiver glued to his ear, cursing through gritted teeth: he couldn’t get through.

The line was busy.

It was getting late, but the phone kept giving him nothing but those short, rapid beeps.

Yura decided it was time to pay Comrade Davydov a visit.

The entrance of the old Khrushchov-era building reeked of cats.

Yurka rang the doorbell.

A girl replied from inside, without opening the door.

She heard what Yura had to say and called the Vova who lived there to the door.

A young voice answered her.

The lock clicked and the door opened, revealing a tall, broad-shouldered man of about thirty.

“I’m looking for Volodya Davydov.”

“Yes? What can I do for you?”

“It’s not you, it’s probably your cousin.

He lived in Moscow, he had dark hair and glasses, I was at camp with him,” babbled Yura, digging in his pocket for the single photo he had of Volodya, in which he was with Troop Five.

“Volodya was a troop leader there in ’86.

The Barn Swallow Pioneer Camp, outside of Kharkiv.

I ...

hold on a minute, I’ve got a picture of him here ...”

“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” answered Vova brusquely.

“Hold on a second—here’s the picture.” Yura held the photograph out to Vova, but the man didn’t even look at it.

“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” he announced again, and shut the door, pinching the photo between the door and the doorframe.

Yura pulled the bent photo back out, straightened it, and saw with dismay that the corner had been torn off.

That was it.

The end.

Period.

But Yurka couldn’t bring himself to believe it.

He thought he must still have a chance; he just wasn’t looking in the right place.

He thought he could find Volodya if he just had a little more time.

The only thing left to Yura when he got back to Kharkiv was to pin his hopes on others.

He wasn’t going to be able to meet the new residents of his apartment, if there even were any: the Konevs’ apartment had been state-owned, not theirs, so they hadn’t been the ones who sold it to a new owner.

Yura wrote a note to the new residents, asking them not to throw away any letters that came to him but to send them to his temporary address in Germany, and left it with the neighbors in the apartment next door to give to them.

But he didn’t hold high hopes: the neighbors were alcoholics and had always feuded with his parents.

In a P.S.

to the note Yura added that soon he’d send a letter to this address with a new permanent address in Germany.

He asked his buddies from the building the same thing: to stop by his old apartment every so often, in case the new residents were there, and tell them everything, and also to check the mailbox from time to time, in case a letter from Volodya came.

And that was it.

He did the work of gathering his things and getting ready to leave in a kind of daze.

The airport, the flight, the transfer to the distribution center—it was all a blur, too.

And then there he was.

It was 1991 and he was in Germany.

He hadn’t done a single thing to get there, while ever since Volodya had been little he’d dedicated his whole life to getting out to America.

Did he? He has to have.

It’d be too unfair otherwise! Yura thought.

Maybe he’s already there?

For a long time he felt utterly foreign in the country.

He was ashamed of his accent and cringed every time he heard the word “immigrant.” The tone was always disgusting, demeaning.

And he was a Russian immigrant to boot.

That’s what the Germans said, anyway, despite the fact that the entire world had been following the collapse of the USSR and everyone knew that Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus were different countries now.

And Yura was not Russian.

But what was he—what could he be, here? A quarter German, a quarter Jewish, and half Ukrainian, with a good knowledge of German language and history and a lively interest in culture.

But knowledge of the language, culture, and history couldn’t change the fact that he was an immigrant; in fact, he was something even worse, essentially a refugee.

He felt disdain and contempt for himself and hated himself for it.

Trying every day to convince himself that he had no other choice—he had to forget Volodya—Yura lived through his first month in Germany.

But it felt to him like surviving, not living.

August had a fantastic beginning: Yura made it into the conservatory immediately, on the first try.

But a short while later, on August 19, 1991, a heavy blow awaited him.

He was sitting in his room, testing out a new piano his uncle had given him, when he was startled by someone pounding on his door like a crazy person.

It was his mom.

She started shouting so loudly that her voice temporarily drowned out the music: “Yura! Come here, quick! Yura, there are tanks in Moscow! Gorbachov’s been overthrown! Good Lord, what’s happening? Tanks!”

Yura, unable to believe his ears, moved slowly into the living room, overcoming the awful resistance of the air, suddenly thick as soup.

He lowered himself onto the sofa in front of the TV and sat there until late at night.

And the next morning, too, and all the next day, the images stood before his eyes: Yeltsin on a tank, the crowd around the Russian White House and on Red Square.

Later, the press conference held by the State Committee on the State of Emergency, and Yanayev, whose hands shook so badly, he couldn’t hold the piece of paper.

Yura’s hands were shaking just as badly.

He was starting to panic.

Worse than he ever had before.

The kind of panic that had probably tortured Volodya when he was unable to control himself and thrust his hands in burning-hot water.

What if he never went anywhere? Neither to America nor to Tver? What if he’s in Moscow? What if he’s there, at the White House? What if those bandits hounding his family were mixed up in politics? What if Volodya’s involved with them, with the coup? He used to go to some kind of demonstrations ...

That night, things got even worse.

The White House was attacked and there were tanks driving along the Garden Ring.

When Yura saw people throwing themselves at the tanks and someone was killed, his whole body shook.

In the dark of night it was hard to make out who exactly had been killed.

It was a young man, with brown hair, no glasses, but he still looked a lot like Volodya.

What if it’s him? What if his glasses got broken and that’s him? Yurka heard himself thinking, but knew he was just being hysterical.

He knew that in the multimillion metropolis of Moscow, there were hundreds of thousands of young men whose build and hair color were similar to Volodya’s.

But he was scared anyway until the man’s identity was confirmed.

Yura wrote to his friends from his building and asked them again to go to his old apartment and see whether any letters had arrived there for him.

If they had, he asked them to send the letters on to Germany.

He got his answer a month later.

His friend wrote that the apartment was still vacant and there were no letters in the mailbox.

He also shared the news of what was going on in the country, but Yura had no response to that.

He just asked the friend again to make sure and check the mailbox every once in a while.

In December of 1991 the USSR ceased to exist.

Yura watched on TV as the Soviet flag over the Kremlin was lowered and the Russian flag raised in its place.

Along with the flag of the USSR, a curtain seemed to come down, signaling the end of his old life, and it was like a new curtain lifted up along with the Russian tricolor to reveal a new scene.

And that’s when Yura realized that not only was his childhood good and truly over but the place it had occurred was gone, too.

It had given him the gifts of love and friendship and then left, taking everything with it.

Before him lay a different time, a new time.

And a completely different life.

Just like Volodya himself had written once, it was time for Yura to stop looking back at Volodya and learn to live a normal life.

It didn’t take Yura long to find out that in his new town, just like in all of Germany, there were a lot of Russian speakers.

Although they had no official organizations, they supported each other.

It was from them, as much as from the TV, that Yura’s family found out what was happening in Russia and Ukraine.

It was hard for Yura to adapt to his new life.