CHAPTER ELEVEN
Later on, during the months before his leaving, Sidelnikov struggled to remember Rosa, to recall what she looked like and what she had been saying. To his consternation and shame, he could not recall anything. For some reason, other things would surface, like his washing the floor when nobody asked him to. It was just that visiting her he noticed the fluffy coat of dust under his feet and with the words, ‘I’ll be right back,’ he went to the bathroom to get the mop and the bucket. It was not that he had some sort of a strong housekeeping reflex – more likely, he lacked it altogether, but the untidiness of the flat seemed to harbour an implicit threat. Yet is it worth remembering the way Rosa half-rises from her couch in embarrassment, as if caught red-handed, and he, care em
