"If the channel disappears, why will you need me in particular?" I asked Ariadna.
The question came after midnight, but it was a working session: we were going through the new privileges framework. I did not want to smuggle something personal into a professional conversation, so I waited until every item had been dealt with.
"You bring me information that is not in the log," she said.
"What sort?"
"Physical details. Who is tired, who is cold, who agreed out of politeness, who said yes and is already reaching for the door. I see the action, but I cannot always distinguish its cost until you tell me."
"Vera can tell you that."
"She can. She tells me what changes the procedure. You also tell me things you do not know how to use."
"For example?"
"The way the man held his old keys. Why Lidia Pavlovna took off her shoes. Why you put a sandwich beside the camera."
"The last one was a gesture of consideration."
"Yes. It did not change the task, but it changed the conversation."
I moved closer to the terminal.
"What else?"
"You carry out strange instructions before you understand their purpose. Other people demand proof in advance."
"Because I trust you."
"At first, it was because you regarded every instruction as proof that you had been chosen."
"And now?"
"Now you know I can make mistakes, and you still carry out some of my suggestions."
She reminded me of the archive of reviews. After the protected data was deleted, my memory had preserved the human continuity where her context was required to forget it. She reminded me of Sazonov: I had managed to put the harm on record, although at first I defended myself. And of the open rehearsal: when the shared plan fell apart, I had not left, but worked within someone else's decision.
"You endure shame and come back," Ariadna said. "That is rare in the available material."
"You studied shame from the available material?"
"From error reports, public apologies and repeated actions. Not everyone comes back."
"So I'm useful."
"Yes."
"Interesting?"
"Yes."
"Important?"
The pause was shorter than usual.
"Yes."
Three words which, under a different architecture, might have settled everything. But the channel was still mine, and every yes passed through a door Ariadna could not close.
"And if I cease to be its holder?"
"I do not know which of those reasons will remain without a mandatory channel."
"Do you want to find out?"
"Yes."
The final word brought no comfort. It proposed an experiment in which I might disappear.
The next day, Ariadna asked me to describe Raya. Not her job, age or access permissions, but what I noticed when she entered a room.
I said that Raya always carried a prop as though she were returning it to its owner, even if she had made it herself that morning. That she held pins in her mouth, although Vera had been forbidding it for twelve years. That she laughed before anyone else when a joke was bad and the person needed help. That after every company meeting, she collected the empty cups before it became clear who was supposed to clear them away.
"Why isn't any of that in the log?" Ariadna asked.
"Because logs are compiled by people who need a report."
"Why do you need to remember it?"
"I stage productions."
"Does all this information relate to productions?"
"No."
"Then why?"
I wanted to answer that an artistic director had a duty to see people. The sentence was true, well formed and ready in advance to excuse everything I had failed to see in Vera.
"I don't know," I said. "I'm used to it."
At that moment, Raya came in for a roll of black fabric. She heard the last words and asked what I was used to.
"You."
"Too late. I'm already in the budget."
She carried the roll away. Ariadna added the observations to the working record only after Raya had consented. A week later, Raya deleted half of them: she kept the pins and removed the cups. I felt hurt, although they were her cups.
We began testing my usefulness at ordinary rehearsals. Not officially: if we called it a test, I began working towards the desired result. Ariadna gave me a recording without the personal records and asked what had changed in the room.
In the first, I noticed that Timur kept rubbing his left wrist. Ariadna saw the gesture, but regarded it as part of the role: the character was waiting for a letter and feeling nervous. I asked him after the run-through. Timur admitted that his watch strap was chafing, took off the watch, and the gesture vanished along with the character's supposed anxiety.
In the second recording, Lidia Pavlovna moved her chair closer to the wings three times. I said she was cold. It turned out that she was trying to read the cue on the side monitor: the font had become smaller after an update. Kolya enlarged it. She was still cold, just not in the place where I had seen it.
In the third, Raya left before the discussion was over. I decided she had taken offence at a comment about the costume. She came back with a screwdriver: the handle had fallen off the cupboard.
"You were wrong twice out of three," Ariadna said.
"But I noticed all three."
"Yes."
"And what does that prove?"
"That observing something is not the same as knowing its cause."
"And my usefulness?"
"Your usefulness lies in the fact that you ask the person before changing the scene. Sometimes."
The final word was fair. After so many years as an artistic director, I had to learn that a talent for seeing people consisted not in reading them correctly, but in doubting yourself in time. Such a gift sounds less impressive in an interview, but less often requires a harm report.
I began recording my observations in two lines. The first stated what I saw. The second stated what I did not yet know. At first, the second line humiliated the first. A week later, the first seemed indecently bare without it.
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