For four days Igor went about thinking.
You could see it in the work. He did everything the same and did it well, but between operations he would stop and stand with a last in his hand, and Slava asked twice whether everything was all right, and both times got a "mm".
On the second day he said in the evening:
"I keep wondering whether my mother knows."
I said I didn't know.
"She'd have said." He thought. "Though she never says anything about his work at all. I don't even know what she knows."
On the third day he asked whether I remembered where the father's box had stood before we moved the shelving. I said in the same place, only nearer the passage.
"It seemed further to me."
On the fourth day, a Saturday, he said at breakfast:
"I'll probably go to that archive."
I was holding my cup and held it steady.
"Is it far?"
"It's just beyond the bridge. He said there's a woman there who'll show me."
I asked what he expected to find there.
"I don't know." Igor was buttering bread and was perfectly calm. "Probably nothing. I just want to see what he signed."
He finished eating, got up, washed his own plate and went to get dressed, and I understood he meant to go that same day.
Then the hotel rang. They asked us to collect the batch earlier, because they had an inspection, and we had to go at once, both of us, because one person can't take away twenty-two pairs.
We drove about until evening. In the evening Igor was tired and went to bed early.
Sunday was his mother, on Monday Slava ruined the seam on three pairs and Igor redid them, on Tuesday they delivered the wrong fittings.
He did not mention the archive again.
I didn't deliberately not think about it. I simply noticed that I wasn't thinking about it.
Open in the reader