Lost in his own thoughts, he hardly took in the orange interior or the cuckoo clock that chimed every fifteen minutes, or the smells of tobacco smoke and pork that lingered in the air. After fifty-seven years he had completed his quest: his beloved Natasha was buried and her honour restored. His work in space exploration was finished, his wife was dead, his son was a grown man. What was left for him now but to await his death? He wasn’t afraid of it. Orlov often thought that he had lived too long and should have died in the war like Natasha and Leonid Smirnov. His son, sensing Orlov’s need for silence, ordered him beetroot salad and fish soup, and the grilled salmon with mashed potato for himself. He then occupied himself with reading the menu as if it were a fascinating novel. Orlov turned over in his mind the last twenty-four hours before Natasha had disappeared, as if he might discover some fresh clue that he hadn’t recalled before. The death of Colonel Smirnov had hit him hard but he hadn’t allowed himself to grieve.
