The Librarian

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At dawn we arrived back at the Vozglyakovs’ place. The heavy cross was thrust into the earth under the crooked old apple tree in the yard, so that Anna could visit Ogloblin’s grave at any moment.

Then Sukharev drove the RAF to the reservoir—with Ogloblin’s death the minibus had ceased to belong to our reading room. At a secluded spot on the shoreline Sasha stuck fishing rods in the ground and laid out some simple snacks on a newspaper, with an empty half-litre bottle of vodka. If the militia started searching for Ogloblin after his disappearance, when they found the deserted site, the abandoned RAF and the rods, they would think the hapless fisherman had wandered into the water when he was drunk and drowned.