8“What are you doing here?”
There were voices, distant, harsh voices in his head.
“Why, whatever do you mean? I am just as surprised to see you here, dear brother.”
“You knew that I was going off on mission work. You must have known that this was where I would be, Ivan.”
“Are you saying that I’m following you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if I’m following you, I must have a reason. And what might that be?”
“I don’t want you here.”
“But, dear Dmitri, we haven’t spoken in over a year . . . two years is it now?”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Wished it, maybe, but you couldn’t have even come close to believing such a thing.”
“Where have you been? Father said you had disappeared . . . when I spoke with him.”
“You actually spoke to him? Well, that I don’t believe. But, yes, to the poor piti
