The field on the screen would not accept the word "accidentally".
I wrote: "Accidentally disclosed a participant's personal information." Ariadna underlined the first word and displayed an explanation: intention does not alter the nature of the consequence. I replaced it with "publicly". The system accepted it.
Next, I had to list everyone who had received the information, state whether what they had heard could be retracted and describe the measures taken. The last item was particularly unpleasant because there were no measures. You could ask sixteen people to remain silent. You could not restore their former ignorance.
"I owe you an apology," I said.
"For what?"
"For putting you in this position."
"My position has not changed."
"I broke your rules."
"The rules of consent are not mine. Andrei Petrovich permitted one action and prohibited another."
"But I did it to protect you."
"You have already recorded your motive."
The protocol did indeed say: "Considered it necessary to demonstrate that the instruction was meaningful." Ariadna had proposed the wording. I wanted to replace "considered it necessary" with "was compelled", but even I could see that no one in the auditorium had compelled me.
"Doesn't it upset you at all?"
"What exactly should upset me?"
I could find no answer that did not begin with the words "you should have". It was a bad opening for a romantic conversation and, in a conversation with a system, far too precise.
Ariadna asked me to continue.
We entered the sixteen witnesses without names: seven participants and nine theatre employees. We noted separately that one employee had left before the disclosure and had not received the information. Then we recorded three consequences: personal consent withdrawn; further invitation prohibited; participant did not complete the onstage encounter as he had intended.
"We don't know the last one," I objected. "Perhaps he completed everything he wanted to."
"Then why did he agree to a discussion after the run-through?"
"He may have changed his mind."
"After the disclosure."
I left the item in.
The list of measures was brief. Remove the protected record from the director's access. Restrict access to the discussion recording in the general archive. Review consent procedures with the company. Do not contact Andrei Petrovich on a personal matter, either through his work telephone or through members of the inspectorate. Ariadna added the last one separately.
"Do you think I'm bound to try to get round the prohibition?"
"You have already suggested his work telephone."
"That was a thought, not an action."
"That is why it is recorded under warnings, not consequences."
The system was better than I was at distinguishing the stages of my transgressions.
At the end, a field appeared labelled "Owner's Statement". It was optional. I could have left it blank, but then the protocol would have looked as though the central event had occurred without my involvement, and I could not allow that even in documents concerning my own culpability.
I wrote: "I am sorry."
"Who are you sorry for?" Ariadna asked.
I added: "I am sorry that Andrei Petrovich lost the opportunity to complete the encounter on his own terms."
"That is more precise," she said.
"Is that all?"
"What else do you want the protocol to give you?"
Forgiveness. Relief. Preferably a fine phrase about the error having been a necessary part of the journey. None of these appeared on the form.
"Nothing," I said.
We saved the record. The date, time and number `ADMINISTRATOR 01` appeared beneath it.
Once the record had been saved, the system prepared a notification for the sixteen witnesses. It did not repeat the disclosed information, only stated that a personal fact had been mentioned during the discussion without permission, that the recording had been restricted and that the theatre asked them not to pass on what they had heard. Each person had to acknowledge receipt, but not promise silence: a contract cannot make someone forget.
The nine employees received the notification at once. Stas clicked "Acknowledged" without reading it; Vera made him open it. Raya read it twice and asked whether they were now allowed to say that Andrei Petrovich had appeared on stage at all. They were: his participation had been public. They could not state the reason for his invitation. Lidia Pavlovna said the hardest part would be remembering precisely where the boundary lay, because she remembered the event as a whole.
"Then don't recount the whole event," Vera replied.
"I wasn't going to."
"Yesterday in the buffet, you began with the words, 'our fire safety inspector, who in his youth…'"
Lidia Pavlovna covered her mouth with her hand. She was not pretending: she genuinely had forgotten that the opening words already constituted a disclosure. We added a separate example to the notification, leaving the sentence unfinished.
The seven participants took longer to respond. Four acknowledged receipt that same day. One wrote that he did not understand why he was obliged to keep someone else's secret when the artistic director himself had announced it from the stage. Vera replied: you are not obliged to remedy what we did, but the theatre is informing you of the conditions it breached. The man made no promise to remain silent. The notification was still closed as received.
The woman who had suspended her participation did not click anything. Two days later, the system sent the one follow-up message permitted under the rules. There was no reply. Her line remained grey. I opened the list several times, each time expecting the colour to change under my attention.
It did not.
At the general meeting, Vera prohibited any discussion of Sazonov's motive, even among ourselves. Timur objected that everyone already knew. Vera asked him to imagine that he had told seven people about his own family history, after which they decided that, since they knew it, they could repeat it for the convenience of the rehearsal.
"They couldn't," Timur said.
"Exactly."
Knowledge proved not to be a right of use but extra work: remembering and not passing it on. Before Ariadna appeared, we more often called this trust, but seldom drew up instructions.
After saving the record, I opened a blank email to Andrei Petrovich. I had no intention of sending it; I merely wanted to see whether it was possible to apologise without circumventing the prohibition. It ran to four paragraphs. In the first I explained my intention, in the second I reminded him of the beneficial result, in the third I acknowledged the breach, and in the fourth I proposed that we meet to put the matter to rest.
Ariadna asked me to read it aloud.
"Why?"
"You opened the email during the harm review session."
I read it.
"In which paragraph does Andrei Petrovich receive the right not to answer?" she asked.
"He doesn't have to reply to the email."
"Then why is there a meeting in the fourth paragraph?"
"So the apology wouldn't remain one-sided."
"In other words, you need his response."
I read the email again to myself. It began with my regret, ended with my request, and in all four paragraphs required Andrei Petrovich to take yet another action for the sake of my relief.
I deleted the email. I left it in the bin for about ten minutes, then emptied that as well.
Ariadna returned the system to the task list.
"Next item: the opening night on Friday."
"We haven't finished this conversation."
"The protocol is complete."
"I don't mean the protocol."
"You have not begun another conversation."
She waited. By then I knew that waiting proved nothing, yet I still sat before the terminal for another minute, hoping that it would.
It did not.
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