The next morning I got in the car and drove to the clearing.
The route to the Academy had turned into reflex over eight years: three hundred and forty kilometers on the Yaroslavl highway, turn past the thirtieth kilometer from Pereslavl, then a dirt road for seven kilometers, then forest, where the GPS loses its bearings and the compass behaves like a PhD candidate’s brain toward the end of the year (meaning it points at its own hands).
Since then, only one thing about the road has changed: GPS in this forest now lies consistently. It shows that I’m in Kostroma. Always. I entered the forest and the phone informed me I was at Sovetskaya Street, building seventeen, apartment twelve. That’s Irene’s address.