CHAPTER SIX
She died suddenly, without burdening anyone either with her falling ill with an abrupt aggressive cancer, or with her very death. Everyone was busy getting on with their own lives. Sidelnikov’s father went out to the East in search of a destiny less tangible than that of a chief electrician of the Nickel Industrial Complex and from time to time he sent letters with diligent descriptions of the Siberian weather. The mother was engaged in a continuous battle with her boss, the headmistress of a night school. After coming home from work, she would immediately rush to the phone. ‘You are gravely mistaken, Natalya Andreyevna!’ And a little bit later, on the phone again: ‘Believe it or not, but that is what I told her, plainly: “You are gravely mistaken!”’ As to Sidelnikov, he had j
