He chuckled at the word “friends”:
“When I left for Africa, it all started.”
“And yet you remember her warmly.” I couldn’t bring myself to say, ‘you love her.’ “And you forgave her.”
Ovsyanikov thought about the question.
“I forgave her when things turned out the way they did… When she died.”
“Did Olya have any contact with her grandmother — Anastasia Vladimirovna?”
“Probably. Petrova, I remember, had some fans and dresses from Japan.”
“From China.”
“There were oil portraits of her. I also remember Olya dancing, and Petrova watching her. She was a grand old lady. Like Gogoleva or Pashennaya.”
“Did you hear that Petrova loved a man by the name of Umansky?”
“No.”
“And there was also one incident: on the Great Stone Bridge a boy shot a girl and then shot himself.”
“I never heard o
