Lena read about this incident in the morning paper and couldn’t stop thinking about it ever since. She wasn’t the only one, of course. Many of her fellow doctoral students and faculty at the Language and Translation Institute shared her incomprehension and outrage. People shuddered at the horror of the attack, cringed at the brutality of the skinheads and worried about the little girl. Strangely, no one condemned the witnesses who had been close enough to see the crime but did nothing to intervene or help the police find the attackers.

As she walked home from the institute, Lena thought this incident was an extreme form of her home city’s ugliest side—its hostility toward the outsiders. Not the rich tourists who bought overpriced souvenirs and ate in expensive restaurants, but the scruffier migrant workers and refugees.

She glanced at the unusually blue September sky, then at her watch, and made a detour to the park. As she treaded on the colorful carpet of fallen leaves, her dark thoughts began to fade away. Soon enough, she lost herself in the childish joy of ruffling the dry leaves with her feet and listening to their soft rustle.

She filled her lungs with air and remembered she had a reason for celebrating today. This morning, before she opened the newspaper, she had realized she could no longer picture the exact shade of Rob’s eyes. At first, she felt shocked and bereft, but then it hit her that this could be the first sign of healing. Since her return to Moscow two months ago, she’d done everything in her power to help the out-of-sight cure do its magic. She had deleted all Rob’s photos, avoided social media, and asked Jeanne not to talk about him in her e-mails. But until now, she’d been seeing no results.

Lena reached a five-story building off Tverskaya where she had a small apartment. The location was perfect and within walking distance from both her father’s place and her school. Plus it eliminated the need to drive—or be driven around—in Moscow’s crazy traffic.

As soon as she walked in, she opened her e-mail to see if she had a reply about the abstract she’d submitted to a conference organizer. With a gasp, she stood up and walked over to the window. She remained there for a few moments, staring at the traffic and counting to ten, then to twenty, then to thirty. When she reached one hundred, she returned to her desk and opened Rob’s e-mail.

Lena reread Rob’s e-mail five more times. Could she forgive him? Eventually, yes. Despite his betrayal, she knew he hadn’t meant to hurt her. He’d behaved in a stupid and selfish way. He’d convinced himself that what he was doing wasn’t so bad, and downplayed the damage his actions could cause. He’d been irresponsible, but not mean.

So yes, she could find it in heart to forgive him. But she couldn’t trust him. Everything she knew about him told her he could hurt her again. He would hurt her again. Without meaning to, of course. And when that happened, he might shatter her heart into too many small pieces to reassemble.

And that was why she couldn’t let him back into her life. She had torn herself from him in one clean cut, like a surgeon, so that she’d have a better chance to heal. But her wound was still raw. She needed a lot more time before she could envisage even friendship with him.

And by then he’d probably have forgotten she existed.

* * *

Lena made some coffee and sank into the cushy couch. She looked around. The apartment was now nicely furnished, trendy—and impersonal. Just as impersonal as it had been four months ago when she moved in. Oh well.

She opened her e-mail and read Jeanne’s typically short note.

Lena immediately shot her a reply.

As soon as her note hit the cyberspace, Lena shut the laptop. She wasn’t going to work on her paper or translations. She had established a rule for herself—Saturdays were for relaxing, which was why she was still in her pajamas. The rest of the week she worked almost around the clock, but she didn’t want all work and no play to turn her into a bore.

The problem with her seemingly sage rule was that it created a space unoccupied by purposeful activity. A space in which she was alone with her moleskin notebook. A dangerous, murky space in which strange things happened . . . Like now. Feeling as if she were a zombie, Lena grabbed a pen and began sketching portraits of an ancient god—a painfully familiar ancient god. After she filled several pages with drawings en face and in profile, she traced her finger over each line and then tore them into tiny pieces. Next, she began to decorate a blank page with the same tightly strung three-letter word.

She couldn’t help it and she couldn’t stop. She had the impression her hand was possessed, its neural pathways diverted from her brain and plugged into her silly defective heart. After she was done writing and tearing up, she chastised herself and made another useless promise to never do it again.

To distract herself, she turned on the TV. The eleven o’clock news segment was just beginning, which reminded her to stay close to the phone. Dmitry said he’d call between eleven and eleven fifteen, and Lena expected him to call in exactly that interval. The phone rang at eleven oh-three.

“Hello, my dear. I’ve got great news. I managed to get us front row tickets to the Swan Lake at Bolshoi.”

“No kidding? The new stellar interpretation everyone is raving about? How on earth did you accomplish that feat?”

“I’m not telling. But I’m happy you seem pleased.”

“I’m over the moon! Thank you so much, Dmitry, I really appreciate it. When is the show?”

“It’s tonight. I hope you don’t have other plans, but if you do, you shouldn’t feel—”

“I don’t have any plans, and even if I did, I would cancel them in a blink. When and where shall we meet?”

“I’ll pick you up at six o’clock at your place, so we can grab a quick dinner before the performance. How does that sound?”

“Perfect.”

A perfect night with a perfect man, she told herself after she hung up.

Dmitry was perfect, in every way that Rob wasn’t. Unlike Rob, who was just beginning to build a career, Dmitry was already established. He was a well-respected CPA. Her father’s chief accountant, as it happened. He owned a cozy apartment and drove a nice car. He was crazy about literature. He was honest and staid.

Dmitry was also always supportive, even protective of her, but without a trace of machismo. He was keen to know every detail about her work and her workplace, including the names of her colleagues and professors. If she didn’t feel like opening her calendar, she could just ask him about her schedule. He knew it better than she did.

When anyone—including Anton and Anna—teased her, she knew she could count on his swift intervention to defend her or to divert the discussion. Which always reminded her of how Rob had let Amanda bully her throughout their Nice weekend without attempting to protect her. He had acted like it wasn’t his business to speak up on her behalf. Which would have been fine, had she not been under such a relentlessly taunting assault. Dmitry would have said something, done something or just . . . carried her away. He wouldn’t have let her fend for herself.

He was perfect.

* * *

They had first met at Anton and Anna’s wedding shortly after Lena’s return to Moscow. They had a pleasant conversation and danced together a little. Lena enjoyed Dmitry’s quiet intelligence and his undisguised admiration. She forgot about his existence the following day.

She crossed paths with him again three months later. Her stepmother, Anna, who was full of energy in spite of being on the verge of giving birth, had learned that the Moscow City was planning to shut down one of the oldest Children’s Arts and Crafts Centers. The center had survived for the past few years mainly on the unflagging enthusiasm of its staff. But it had reached the degree of squalor that endangered the children. The site hadn’t been renovated since the Soviet days, when it was called a Young Pioneer House.

During a family dinner one evening Anna banged the table with her fist and told Anton and Lena, “Shut down the center? The hell they will. It’s the place where I learned how to make a teddy bear from fabric scraps and dance the kazachok. I fell in love with Ray Bradbury’s stories in its library . . .”

She stared at the wall for a few moments, her eyes vacant, and then blinked. “I don’t care if the mayor is hell-bent on closing it. I won’t let it happen.” She winked at Lena and added, “I didn’t marry a tycoon for nothing.”

“Is that so?” Anton smiled. “Here I was deluding myself that you married me because you were madly in love with me.”

“That, too. But don’t you think your money is begging for a noble outlet, such as saving a children’s art center? Besides, I’m sure your gifted accountants can figure out how to deduct most of it from your taxes.”

Anton put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Anna, my love, you always manage to get me to do your bidding, don’t you?”

“Who? Me? I wouldn’t dream of it,” Anna said.

Anton’s eyes fell on his wife’s prominent belly. “Well, as long as it’s to make children happy . . .” He gave Anna a gentle peck on the cheek. “Do your worst. But promise me to take it easy and not let your enthusiasm interfere with our baby’s plans.”

Shortly after that conversation Anton donated a substantial sum of money to the center, and Anna organized a fundraiser at a trendy downtown restaurant to collect the remaining capital required for the complete renovation of the building.

It was at that banquet that Lena met with Dmitry for the second time. He took a seat across from her at the long table overflowing with beautifully presented food.

“Lena!” He beamed. “What a pleasure to see you again. You look great.”

Lena smiled politely. “Hello. It’s nice to see you, too.”

Then her smile broadened as she recognized the enthusiastic gentleman. He was the nice accountant from the wedding. If only she could remember his name . . .

Right on cue, he held out his hand. “My name is Dmitry, just in case you were wondering. I’ve been hoping for a chance of seeing you again ever since we met at Anton’s wedding.”

Lena didn’t know what to say. She had noticed how Dmitry was looking at her, but she found his words a little too forward. She feared the evening was going to be awkward. To her surprise, it turned out to be the opposite. After having unequivocally signaled his interest, Dmitry steered the conversation to completely different subjects ranging from the Russian oligarchs’ tentative forays into arts patronage to a comparison of contemporary Russian and Japanese novels.

He was thirty-five, a grown man—a real adult—to her twenty-three. He was well-dressed and good-looking. He wasn’t funny or charismatic, but he had impressive erudition, impeccable manners, and that look of adoring wonder that appeared on his face every time he glanced at her.

When the banquet was over, Lena realized she wanted to stay and continue talking to Dmitry. And when he asked if she’d like to visit an expressionist exhibit with him next week, she accepted without hesitation.

* * *

Rob had just finished a complicated financial report when Amanda walked into his office. She leaned against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest. “Shouldn’t we be booking our tickets to France? The longer we wait the more expensive they’ll get—soon it’ll be Christmastime, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Rob shuffled his papers. “I booked my trip this morning.”

“What? And you didn’t think to tell me? We could have flown together. Now we’ll probably end up on different flights!”

“We will end up on different flights, I’m afraid.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m flying with Aeroflot with a twelve-hour stopover in Moscow.”

Amanda smirked. “Oh, I see. You must have found a really good deal with Aeroflot to accept such a long stopover when you only have ten days of vacation.”

“Amanda, I—”

“It’s OK, Rob. I get it. You still aren’t over Lena, even though she made her position abundantly clear. Are you hoping for a chance run-in while you’re in Moscow? It’s a small town, after all. Just a dozen million people, give or take a million.”

“Jeanne gave me both her home and her school addresses.” Rob offered Amanda a lopsided smile. “You think I’m pathetic, don’t you? I can’t blame you—I am pathetic. I’d promised myself to leave her in peace. And yet . . . here I am, planning to stalk her in Moscow.”

Amanda didn’t contradict his bitter comment.

He shook his head, as if baffled by his own behavior. “But this time will be the last. Once I’ve found Lena, I’ll do everything I can to sway her. I’ll use my irresistible charm—it’s worked on her before. And if she still won’t change her mind, I’ll give up on her for good.”

Amanda gave him a tired look and turned to leave. She stopped in the doorway and spun around. “You know, Rob, the good thing about this whole Lena debacle is that you’ve shown a level of constancy I’ve rarely seen in a man. So no, I don’t think you’re pathetic.”

As she stepped out of Rob’s office, she added without turning around, “Let me know how it went, Romeo.”

It was three o’clock when Rob finally arrived at Lena’s home address, but she wasn’t there. So he hurried to her school and waited in the large lobby close to the main entrance. He didn’t want to go looking for her inside, afraid she might leave the building in the meantime. He hadn’t been to Moscow since student summer camp four years ago, but he’d ascertained that the charming teahouse he’d found at the time was still in business. It wasn’t very far, and he could take Lena there for pancakes and a cup of warm chai.

A little after four o’clock he spotted Lena rushing down the central staircase that led to the lobby, a coat folded over her arm, a woolen hat on her head and a big smile on her face. He grinned and took a step forward. But his smile died and he stopped in his tracks when Lena halted in front of a guy in a suit, standing at the foot of the staircase. The Suit kissed her on the mouth and helped her into her coat. Then he took her hand and led her out of the building.

Rob remained where he was with his jaw clenched while his mind processed the images. Ten minutes later, he walked out of the building. It was getting dark. No longer warmed up by anticipation, Rob could now fully appreciate how freaking cold Moscow was in the middle of winter. The wind filled his eyes with tears that instantly turned into tiny icicles attached to his lashes. He rubbed them off with the back of his hand, took a deep breath of icy air that burned his lungs, and hailed a cab to take him back to the airport.

During their customary after-work drink two weeks later in Bangkok, he filled Amanda in on his missed meet.

“And thus ends my sad tale of foolhardiness and frozen ass. From now on, you are officially authorized to punch me in the face if I ever mention Lena’s name again. Oops, I just did. Go on, punch me!”

“I didn’t know you were such a drama queen.” Amanda laughed, waved at the waiter, and ordered two vodka lemons.

When he raised an eyebrow at her unusual choice, she said with a playful smile, “Seemed appropriate to mark the end of your Russian affair.”

A few more vodka lemons later, Amanda declared she was ready to turn in. As it was past midnight, Rob insisted on walking her home.

“You want to come up for a coffee?” she asked just as he was about to leave.

“Sure, why not?”

But he didn’t get any coffee, not until the next morning. Once inside her apartment, Amanda began to unbutton her shirt. Rob bent his head and kissed her. She tasted of lemon and vodka.

Amanda put her hands on his chest and leaned away a few inches. “You don’t have to . . . continue this, if you don’t want to do.”

“Oh, but I want to.”

He kissed her long neck, admiring its elegance. She was beautiful. She’d always been there for him. She knew him and understood him like no one else.

This was bound to be as good as their friendship.