CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Trains bound for his hometown left daily, and this very fact provided a sort of lifeline for Sidelnikov. Whenever he had a chance, he would buy a ticket, reserved seat or third-class, put his clothes into a bag and go, even just for a few days. Since the reasons for leave inevitably turned out to be , if not university recesses, then public holidays (and even the most official ones, with parades and demonstrations, suited), every trip had an invariably festive feel to it.
Moreover, the trip was equivalent to evacuation from the hostel as the epicentre of an alcoholic explosion, where the critical mass of provincial gloom guaranteed the chain reaction of rage. Drinking parties swelled, outgrowing themselves, wrenched out the splintered rattling windows together with the fr
