A woman digging at the earth under the nearby slabs stood up straight and looked at me. She thought she owned the place, but it was I who wanted to be in charge.
“Who are you?” I asked.
She sensed something and immediately introduced herself:
“I’m one of the Orlovs. My father was sent to Uruguay and died there in 1944. Of cancer. At the age of 42! He was a foreign intelligence officer. And over there is Dekanozov, a worthless person!”
Dekanozov was the only person in the Soviet Union to whom the war was declared formally: the Germans called him to the foreign ministry in the morning and announced it. But Dekanozov on that terrible day of the 22nd of June quickly gained his composure, declared in an unwavering voice something along the lines of we’ll still be victorious, and strode towa
