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Tatyana’s gallery opening was on a Saturday night in May. She had to be there early to oversee the setup and make sure everything was hung in the right place. “You don’t have to be there until eight, Pasha,” she said.

“You sure you don’t want me to help?”

“You’d just be in the way, to be honest.”

The Argold Gallery was on Twentieth Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, on the third floor of an old warehouse. The walls were white and sparsely hung with Tatyana’s photographs in black frames. A lot of white space between them.

They were not what he expected. The shots of the Russian ladies he’d seen at her place, the babushki , were excellent and moving, but these photos blew him away.

They were brightly colored portraits of what Paul thought of as street people, maybe homeless, standing in the glaring midday sun against white backgrounds that, upon closer examination, turned out to be the white walls of buildings. Sometimes the subjects looked directly at you; sometimes they looked away or inward. Their faces were weathered. The stark sun emphasized their physical imperfections, their wrinkles and scars, making them look both vulnerable and hardened. The portraits were powerful, original, beautiful, and sad all at the same time.

A few guests were at the gallery when he arrived, not many. A few limos idled outside. One of them was a silver Maybach Landaulet with its retractable roof open and Niko sitting in the back, smoking, chatting with his driver, a handsome guy with long black hair and blue eyes. Next to Niko was a woman whose face Paul couldn’t make out.

He found Tatyana inside, talking to the gallerist, a thin man in his late thirties with enormous black-framed glasses that dominated his pallid face. Tatyana was wearing a sharply tailored black suit with no shirt underneath. Her shoes were simple black suede pumps with a high heel. Her makeup looked minimal but no doubt had involved a lot of work: natural lipstick, cat’s-eye black eyeliner with rounded corners, perfect brows. She looked nervous.

“These are great!” Paul said. “Just fantastic.”

She hugged and kissed him. Then she introduced him to the gallerist and excused herself to speak to someone who’d just arrived.

“You know her work, of course,” the gallerist said.

“Of course,” Paul said. “But not these.”

“I call them street portraits,” he said. “It’s a procession of humanity, a danse macabre of the marginalized and the powerless.” He lowered his voice. “A critic from Artforum is here.”

“Oh, good,” Paul said. Gesturing to the pictures on the wall, he added, “They’re very different from her Moscow portraits.”

The gallerist cocked his head uncertainly.

“The old Russian ladies.”

“Ah, yes. Her early work. I think she’s developing her own voice, her own style,” he said. “I mean, you look at Annie Leibovitz or Richard Avedon or Yousuf Karsh—you can tell their style at once, right? Same is true for Tatyana Belkin.” He walked Paul over to a photograph of a strange-looking guy, shirtless and heavily tattooed, including on his face, with a strong overhead sun bleaching out part of his forehead. “Now, that’s a Tatyana Belkin. You can tell from a mile away.”

“Interesting, you know, it doesn’t look posed,” Paul said.

“Exactly. Though of course it is.”

“It’s like he’s proud of his warrior attire—his Iron Cross belt, his pierced nipple, the war paint on his neck. He’s a book you want to read.”

“Photographing in bright light, taking pictures midday in the hot sun—that’s typically advised against,” the gallerist said. “It can create a hazy, washed-out look. Even lens flare and color distortion. But for her, it works.” He looked over his shoulder, probably for the critic from Artforum .

“There’s a contrast between the bright, sunny midday light and her subjects,” Paul said, thinking out loud.

In fifteen minutes, the place was packed with an affluent crowd, nearly everyone holding wineglasses. He heard the name “Diane Arbus” a lot, floating out of the hubbub. No surprise. Arbus did strange and powerful black-and-white portraits of people on the fringes, circus freaks, the mentally ill. But Tatyana’s photographs were very different. They were in color and bright, and they seemed to have been taken with compassion, not condescension or voyeurism, just as she’d said. He heard Russian being spoken, which wasn’t a surprise, either.

Tatyana was soon surrounded by admirers. One of them, a sixty-something-year-old man, was telling her that her images captured people at their truest.

Paul overheard two women next to him talking to each other and looking at Tatyana. “She’s wearing an Azzedine Ala?a,” the first woman said. “Think that’s Rent the Runway?”

“Please,” replied the second woman. “She’s a Galkin. She owns the runway.”

Tatyana’s brother turned up at Paul’s side in front of a large picture of a Black man in a black hat and black leather jacket, an oxygen tube under his nose. The subject’s face was deeply lined from life on the streets, illuminated by a glaring noontime sun.

“Bizarre stuff, huh?” Niko said. His long, dirty-blond hair, combed straight back, was either unwashed or had a lot of product in it.

“This one?”

“The whole show. Weird, don’t you think?” Niko was accompanied by a beautiful girl in a short black dress and a low-cut spangly top whom he didn’t introduce and who stood by him and said nothing. He always seemed to be with a different woman, Paul had noticed.

“Actually, no, Niko. Her work is terrific,” he said. “This guy here shows vulnerability and, I don’t know, bravado? It’s surprisingly intimate.”

Niko’s eyebrows shot up. “Gotta wonder how she got this fancy gallery interested in her stuff, huh?” He chuckled.

Paul smiled. Niko was playing his mind games, trying to provoke Paul into saying something critical of Tatyana.

Paul looked around, saw Tatyana’s father enter, with his redhead security chief, Berzin, at his elbow. Behind them followed Polina and a couple of bullnecked security thugs. Paul wondered if Arkady had to take his security people with him everywhere he went. That could not be fun.

As usual, Polina was subtly competing with her stepdaughter, who was only a few years younger. They were both fashionistas, though their styles were very different. Tatyana countered Polina’s gold and glitz by dressing herself in clothes that weren’t flashy. She had a super-hip, Brooklyn vibe, whereas her stepmother simply and crassly dressed to show off her figure and beauty and wealth. Even their manicures competed. Polina’s nails were long and glossy, different colors each time Paul saw her—hot pink, classic red, salmon, that sort of thing—while Tatyana wore her nails short with pearl polish in an understated, natural shade. She looked subtle and hip where her stepmother went for a big, brassy look. Tonight, Polina was wearing a dramatic black fishnet dress with long fringe at the bottom. Very eye-catching, perhaps meant to steal attention from Tatyana at her opening. Smoky-eye makeup with tiny crystals on the lids. Very high heels with sparkles all over the spikes, and red soles.

Arkady hugged his daughter long and hard. While they were embracing, Polina gasped and took Tatyana’s hand. “Your ring!” she exclaimed. She faltered: “It’s—the diamond is so cute! I think the smaller stones are very chic now.” Then she eyed Tatyana from head to toe and said with a smile, “I’ve said this before—I’d never be able to pull off that outfit.”

“Thank you, I guess,” said Tatyana.

Polina turned to Paul. “Women, in our twenties we dress for men, in our thirties we dress for other women. Who do you think is more judgmental, men or women?”

“Women can be judgmental about a twenty-six-year-old, too,” said Tatyana. “Believe me.”

“Your pictures are surprisingly good,” Polina said. “Especially for a hobby.” She gave Tatyana a hug. “Good for you. I’m glad you’re having fun.”

Tatyana gave Paul a knowing smile and moved on through the crowd.

Arkady put a meaty hand on Paul’s shoulder. “We’re going to make some money with you on the board,” he said.

“The board?”

“You maybe say ‘on board.’ Anyway, is very exciting.”

“I appreciate the offer, and I’ll let you know soon,” Paul said.

Galkin lowered his voice. “Maybe you will let me buy my daughter a bigger diamond. Bump her up.”

Paul didn’t have a chance to reply. The gallerist with the big black-framed glasses immediately glommed onto Arkady. Paul wondered if Galkin was a major customer.

Paul caught Tatyana’s eye in the crowd, excused himself, and crossed over to where she was standing, in front of a large photograph of a man wearing white curlers in his hair and smoking a joint. Next to her were her friend Vera and Vera’s husband, Brent. Tatyana and he had seen them at dinner a few weeks ago. They were laughing about something. But when Paul approached, Tatyana turned away from them, looked at him, threw out her arms, and said, openly vulnerable, “Do you really like them?”

“I think they’re knockouts,” he said, hugging her. “Portraits of our time.”

“Oh, thank you, Pasha!”

He tried his Russian. “ Ochen interestnyie fotografiyi .” Very interesting pictures. It wasn’t hard to remember: Interestnyie sounded like “interesting,” and fotografiyi was obviously “photographs.”

“ Otlichno! ” she replied. Excellent. “Terrific.” Then she switched back to English. “I love them,” she said, meaning the subjects, not the photos themselves. “They’re my people.” Then she whispered nervously, “The critic from Artforum is here!”

Just behind them, a buxom middle-aged woman came up to Arkady. “Wonderful show,” she said. “Congratulations.”

“Is my daughter show, not mine,” Arkady said. “Tell her.”

“Well, let me congratulate the gallery owner,” the woman said, leaning over and giving him a kiss.

Paul realized then that Tatyana’s photographs were here, at this prestigious gallery, only because of her father. That Niko, with all his mind games, knew it. That Tatyana, as a result, would never really feel any sense of validation as a photographer. And his heart broke for her.