He stepped back onto the path, feeling even more chilled. The blood circulated poorly in his feet, and his hands were numb.

"It's not cold," he hissed to himself, chiding himself silently as he walked.

"You're an old fool talking to himself, an old fool who can't think straight, can't tell-"

Two men stood before him on the path. He sensed them long before he saw them and looked up. He could not run or hide. His body would no longer tolerate or support such action. He assessed the situation quickly, efficiently, and walked toward the men whose faces he could not yet see. When he was perhaps two yards from them, he stopped, pushed his glasses up and found that he could make out their faces, could see what they were wearing. One man was a mountain, massive, wearing a blue sweater and a dark frown. The second man was small, very small, and thin, with a wild eye that did not join its partner in looking at Georgi Vasilievich.

And in that moment all became clear. He had not imagined it. He had figured it out, had figured it all out. He fleetingly wished that he had shared his knowledge with Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov. He stopped walking as a large wave beyond the trees slapped the shore.

Though the film at the Oktober Theater was not over and Emil Karpo had never seen it, indeed, had not been in a movie theater for more than twenty-five years, he stood up and left. He had been sitting in a seat on the aisle while above him on the screen fat Hungarians were laughing, acting like buffoons, and chasing thin blond women who occasionally spoke words in French.