It turned out that you could sleep in a pile-up among many other bodies and feel completely alone.
There were ever more lice, and the cold made them angrier.
Where was that Galia, who wasn’t there and had never been there? Where is she? That Galia, where?
“I can destroy her, after all!” Artiom told the saint on the scratched-off fresco. He called him “prince”. “I can destroy her, prince! Now I’m, what am I now? Shall I knock on the door? Ha!”
He could have played a childhood game, when he and his brother knocked on the door, heard mother’s steps and quickly hid under the bed or in an armoire. And mama pretended to be surprised, “Who was it that knocked?” And they would choke from laughter and hold it back, trying not to sneeze.
To knock, to hear the bell and then for everyone to hide.
