48

Astakhov left, leaving behind acrid smoke and a taste of bitterness in his mouth. Night fell imperceptibly, and the rain fell, ruthlessly filling the dimly lit room with the thoughts I had promised her when I returned here. And all of them, of course, were about Nikita.

At some point, they became unbearable, like the smell of cigarettes left by the wolfhound, and I opened the balcony wide open, turned off the light in the hope of falling asleep, but it only got worse: the dream did not go at all, and every rustle from the street seemed to revive not only my thoughts about my son, but memories of those days that I spent at the residence with Boris, and indeed memories of my whole life.

I saw faces, heard voices, smelled and touched, heard shots and moans, sweaty palms, and in them I alternately felt the weight of a gun.

Closer to dawn, this torture began to come to an end, but there was another on the way, and the brighter it became, the more clearly I saw Boris. He stood by my bed and