“My name is Timur Timyanov.”

Silence filled the large, empty, dimly-lit hall. Behind the low counter, he saw outlines of old-fashioned nickel-plated clothing racks, bare and splayed like autumn trees.

“I came to …”

Timur faltered.

He’d entered this building many times before, but never from the stage door—not since he was a young child. The hall was empty and clean, a single mirror hung on the wall across from the entrance, and a single clock glowed faintly above the stairs that led up and to the left.

The hall was deserted, yet Timur felt as if he were standing naked in front of a large silent crowd, all stares merging into one, unbearably heavy, devoid of either malice or sympathy. At first, Timur recoiled; in all honesty, he was ready to run back out into the street. It took a significant effort on his part to hide his fear.

Prompt disliked cowards.

“I came to … I’d like to talk about a play.”

The most important thing was out; now he had to wait for the answer. Timur did not consider the possibility of not getting an answer. Not now, not ever.

The long hand on the green-tinted clock dial twitched, jumping from one reference mark to the next. A whole second later, Timur heard a soft click.

Had he said everything he was supposed to? No, he’d missed the most important detail.

“I am a director. And a producer. I wanted to make arrangements for …”

Somewhere above, on the next flight of stairs, a door screeched. Again, silence reigned. Timur waited. The long sonorous hand twitched again: three minutes past eleven. The best time for a visit.

“May I come in?”

It was still quiet, but the tension in the invisible gaze had subsided ever so slightly. A barely perceptible draft pushed Timur toward the staircase, then disappeared.

Timur allowed himself a moment of hesitation, then proceeded up the worn-out marble steps. He was afraid of touching the rails, polished by the hands of so many great people. The very thought forced Timur to pull his hand away from the gleaming wood.

He stopped at the next landing. From there, he could turn left or right, or continue up.

The sensation of someone watching him returned, and immediately a light flashed at the end of the corridor to the left. It flashed again—oh, but how long and dark that corridor was—and this time it stayed on. Pushing against an unpleasant chill in his stomach, and stumbling on the folds of the carpet, Timur followed the light.

A yellowish light bulb, dimmed by its wire wrap, was revealed under the ceiling. A circle of light fell on the painted wall. Timur shuddered.

What’s the play?

The inquiry was written in chalk. The question mark coiled itself like a viper.

“Three Brothers,” Timur said quickly. He added, justifying his choice,

“Classics make sense because …”

The door behind him slammed shut, making Timur jump. He turned around, tearing his eyes away from the chalky words on the wall. This time the door opened with a long screech; it was clearly an invitation.

Timur entered.

It was a dressing room big enough for four. Since he was a child, Timur hadn’t seen such cozy dressing rooms. One of the mirrors looked foggy, and as the fog evaporated, Timur barely had time to read the words on the misty surface:

Does the eighteenth work for you?

“Eighteenth of November?”

The sensation of someone’s stare lingered. Timur felt it with the itchy skin of his cheeks, but the fear was gone now, replaced by the premonition of an enormous success, by the ease of his first lucky break. He had two weeks before the opening, and November 18 was a Saturday, the best day for a performance.

“Thank you,” he said, not quite believing his luck.

He looked around.

Comfortable armchairs, a leather sofa, a small bathroom. This dressing room looked like an ordinary room at a mid-range hotel. Instead of wallpaper, the walls were covered with posters: both old yellowing ones, and newer ones, marked with the sharp strokes of autographs.

“My darling Diana! On the day of your triumph …”

“Because theater is our home, our life …”

“Congratulations!”

“Congratulations on your success! This … this triumph on Prompt’s stage …”

Timur glanced at the opposite wall.

A short paragraph was written in red marker in an empty corner of one of the posters:

Dress rehearsal on the morning of the eighteenth. The stage is yours starting at 9 a.m. When convenient, drop off the music score, lighting notes, and any technical requirements. Do you understand, Timur Timyanov?

“I understand,” Timur said.

His fear had evaporated completely. He saw himself reflected in the mirrors: a skinny young man with a dopey grin on his face. Sharp cheekbones, dark hair, wide lips. The bigger the mouth, the wider the smile, his mother used to say. The blue suit worn for this special occasion looked baggy. I look horrible, Timur thought, still grinning. I wonder if Prompt has an opinion of me already, or would he reserve his judgment until after the opening? Or maybe he liked me, and that’s why the opening is so soon, and is to be held on a perfect day?

He walked toward the door but did not leave. He stepped from foot to foot. The posters summoned him.

“May I?’

The lights came on suddenly. Used to the semi-darkness, Timur squeezed his eyes shut. Yes, Prompt was encouraging his curiosity. Timur heard that Prompt was usually gracious with polite strangers, but he preferred to think that it wasn’t just courtesy, but rather the beginning of rapport.

He approached the wall covered with posters.

Titles. Names. Dates. Ornate autographs. Intricate drawings. And, among all this motley magnificence, a simple poster, familiar to the tiniest detail.

STORM. One hundredth performance. Starring Greta Timyanova.

Timur inched closer and stood on tiptoes.

Was it a coincidence that this very poster would end up in this dressing room? Or was Prompt making a special gesture?

The poster displayed the date of the hundredth performance—ten years ago. Timur was fifteen then, a carefree teenager, not particularly studious. His mother had played an eighteen-year-old girl, genuine and inexperienced. On stage she’d looked twenty at most. There had been a standing ovation; in the audience, the principal of Timur’s school (who’d been given a ticket as a bribe) was shocked and dismayed by the actress’s youth and talent. Timur barely made it into the next grade: excelling in literature, history, and choir did not quite outweigh his failure in physics, and the principal had had no desire to help out the son of Greta Timyanova, who, despite being the same age as her, still looked like a schoolgirl.

Timur thought someone else was in the dressing room. He turned sharply, trying to catch his own shadow in an act of defiance. The drawer of the nearest dressing table was slightly ajar; Timur remembered it being tightly shut just a few minutes ago.

Inside the drawer he found a paper towel, a cake of soap in a plastic dish, and an open pack of napkins. The top napkin read: Do you understand the terms? You may decline at any moment, I will not be offended. At any moment, up until the third curtain call. After the third call, your decision becomes irreversible. Do you understand, Timur Timyanov?

“I understand,” Timur said, trying not to shiver. “Thank you.”

The lights went off. There was no mistake: the audience was over.

Timur felt his way back into the corridor. The yellow light bulb was still burning, and underneath it, a few words were written in chalk:

I will be waiting.

“Are you in love?”

Timur looked up from an empty bowl of soup.

“What?”

His mother cleared his bowl and replaced it with a plate of rice and meatballs. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel.

“You are acting as if you were in love. You don’t talk, you just smile.”

“Umm, I don’t know.” Timur had no idea how to respond.

Mom was quiet. Above her head, a poster familiar since his childhood hung on the wall opposite the kitchen window: STORM. Performance #120

“You’re scaring me, darling,” Mom said pensively. “Are you sure you’re not in love?”

“What’s so scary about being in love?” He popped a whole meatball into his mouth. “Sooo good. Just enough onions. Did you soak the breadcrumbs in milk?”

“Don’t change the subject.” Mom smiled. “Is everything OK?”

“Yep,” Timur said, chewing.

“Any news on the job front?”

He shrugged.

“Nothing special. We are rehearsing.”

“I mean, a real job. A paying one.”

“Mom, I am busy with a real job,” Timur said, placing his fork on the table. “Right now. The fact that I am not making money yet doesn’t mean anything.”

Mom smiled thinly. She sat down and put her elbows on the table.

“So that means you are in love.”

“I am,” Timur said after a pause.

“Do I know her?”

“No.”

Mom sighed. All the unspoken reproaches and wishes, all the plans, hopes, and laments hid behind that sigh. Not a single word was needed. Mom was a virtuoso of speechless sighs. She was a brilliant actress.

“What about Irina?”

Timur gave another vague shrug. As if coming to his rescue, the phone rang in the bedroom.

“Finish your dinner,” Mom said, getting up.

Timur sunk his fork into the mound of rice. He grinned again: his silly smile stuck to him all day, like a haunting melody. One had to be blind not to notice; he needed to regain his self-control.

Mom came back, and when Timur saw her face, he nearly choked on the rice.

“Timur.”

“Who called you?”

“Timur. Did you really go there?”

“Who. Called?” he asked, full of icy fury.

“Why does it matter? Did you think you could hide it from me? Did you really think it was possible? Not to mention that it’s simply dastardly to do this behind my back.”

“Who. Called. You?” he asked for the third time.

“Degtyarev,” Mom said softly. “He saw you leaving. Today, at quarter to twelve.”

“Did he watch me with a timer or something?”

“What did you think?” Mom said, her voice unexpectedly calm, even teasing. “Did you think it would be easy to keep a secret here? Like a lump of hot coal in your pocket? Degtyarev has two shows on Prompt. You are his competition. Every new production on Prompt devours the old shows, it pushes them off the schedule, it eats into their time …. Some people will do anything to keep you from Prompt. Don’t expect mercy.”

“I know,” Timur said.

“You know.” Mom smirked. “Idiot.”

She left.

For a while he stared at the empty plate in front of him. It was already dark outside, and the only source of light in their entire apartment was a small light bulb above the sink.

Eventually, Timur got up and switched on the light in the living room. He stopped in front of his mother’s bedroom, hesitated, then took a deep breath and opened the door.

In the dark, his mother lay face down on the sofa.

“Mom, you performed at Prompt yourself,” Timur said to her back. “Why do you think it strange that I want to do the same thing?”

She said nothing.

“Mom. I am confident that what I’ve done—what we are doing—it’s good, at a minimum.”

His mother stirred, then sat up.

“My teacher, Grigory Petrovich, spent his entire life directing brilliant shows,” she began.

Timur couldn’t see her eyes in the dark.

“He received every possible title, accolade, and award. He raised two generations of students and had never gone to Prompt. But when he got older, he cracked. I suppose he’d always had it in him, this need to be recognized and accepted by Prompt. He asked Prompt for a chance to direct a show. I was there. All his students were in the audience. The show was sold out, a full house, you know how Prompt loves people standing in the aisles. We watched the show, watched all our favorite old actors, our gold standards, our icons—and we saw how mediocre they were. We saw through their lies. We saw their grandiloquence, we saw how ugly, insincere, pretentious they were. Prompt did not accept this play, I don’t know why. The same actors shone in other productions, but Prompt did not accept this one, and all of us in the audience saw everything he wanted us to see. And these actors, all these old actors crowned with laurels, understood what he wanted them to understand. Three of them suffered heart attacks right after the show. As for Grigory Petrovich …”

“I remember that story,” Timur said.

“What could you possibly remember? You were just a kid back then.”

“I know that Prompt is harsh.”

Mom smirked in the darkness.

“You don’t understand just how harsh he can be. You will certainly know if Prompt does not accept your show. And if that happens, you will need to change your profession, Timur. You will need to give up theater forever. Do you understand that?”

“But what if Prompt does accept my show?”

Mom said nothing for a while.

“What about your cast? All these eager kids who don’t want to look for regular auditions, who don’t want to run around as extras and beg for episodic roles? These kids who want to start with performing for Prompt! After the show, these actors will have to find other jobs, and that’s assuming everyone survives. If Prompt does not accept your show.”

“But what if he does?”

Another pause.

“Do you remember those actors from the provinces, whatever their names were? It was about three years ago. Everyone warned them …”

“Seriously? Are you comparing our production with that provincial amateur debacle?”

“I am not comparing. I am simply referencing the situation. They had been warned. And still, they took their drama to Prompt. Do you remember? That girl who played the female lead ended up committed to a mental institution for two years with depression. Do you remember that? You were old enough to remember. It wasn’t hearsay, you were there, and you saw it all!”

“They had been warned,” Timur said, his voice hollow.

“And you are being warned yourself. As we speak.”

“Mom! This is a solid, professional production. I am not saying it’s a masterpiece, but …”

“That’s just it, Timur. You are convinced that it is a masterpiece. You are confident. The only thing that would dissuade you is being booed at the opening.”

“Bite your tongue,” Timur said, and bit his own. “I am sorry.”

“I am sorry, too,” Mom said softly. “Just so you know, Degtyarev called specifically so I could stop you.”

“Are you going to make Degtyarev happy?”

Mom switched on the light. The gentle glow of a bedside table lamp blinded Timur.

“You shouldn’t have gone there without telling me.”

“I am sorry.”

“You’ll have to go back. And tell Prompt that you changed your mind.”

Timur did not respond.

His mother’s face looked pale, weary, and determined.

“Our opening is on the eighteenth,” Timur said.

Olya inhaled sharply. Vita clapped her hands. Kirill and Boris exchanged glances.

“What about a dress rehearsal?” Drozd inquired.

“Just one. Unfortunately, on the same day. But we’ll have access to the stage starting at nine in the morning.”

“That’s pretty typical for Prompt,” Drozd said pensively. “Evenings are for shows.”

“The eighteenth is a Saturday,” Vita said, hugging herself as if she were cold. “It’ll be packed.”

“Prompt’s shows are always packed,” Kirill said. “Especially opening days.”

“Flying close to the Sun,” Drozd said wistfully. “Hope we don’t melt.”

“All you need to do is work hard,” Timur said sternly.

“I won’t do it,” Olya said, looking up. Timur realized she was about to cry. “I won’t. I’m too scared. I can’t work with Prompt. I have no talent.”

“Then get up and get out,” Timur said, keeping his voice steady.

A pause hung in the air, as rigid as dry glue. Olya climbed out of her seat. The club had old wooden rows of chairs nailed too close to one another, and Olya’s movements were slow and awkward.

“Olya, don’t do anything dumb,” Vita said, distressed. ”We talked about it.”

Olya picked up her bag from the aisle and moved toward the door, keeping her head low.

Timur remained silent.

“Olya Toporova!” Kirill said sharply. “Sit back down!”

“Let her go,” Timur said. “Goodbye, Olya. You made a mistake with your chosen profession.”

Olya turned around, red spots spreading on her cheeks.

“I am scared! Don’t you understand? This is a failure, it’s …”

“Olya, we discussed it,” Drozd said gently. “You knew about it beforehand, didn’t you?”

The fluffy curls framing her face made Olya look like a Cocker Spaniel. Her enormous desperate eyes made the resemblance even stronger.

“Get out of here,” Timur said, forcing down a wave of involuntary empathy. “Loser.”

Olya ran up the stairs, dragging her bag behind her. The door slammed shut.

“Well,” Timur said. “Of course, I anticipated something like this.”

He’d anticipated nothing, but he had to maintain his authority.

Vita got up.

“Hold on, I’ll go after her.”

“Listen, guys,” Boris said hoarsely. “What if we drop this? I mean, seriously.”

“You too?” Timur said, turning to face him. “Good riddance then.”

“No, no, I’m good,” Boris said, taking a step back.

“Don’t panic, Timur,” Drozd said softly. “It’s a natural reaction. We didn’t expect you to just go straight to Prompt. And you did, you went straight to him. This is a cause for agitation. I am feeling quite a bit of discomfort myself.”

The room was quiet. Inside the People’s Club, the performance hall was large and chilly, and the backs of wooden chairs sported obscenities carved into the cracked, worn out surfaces. The four men sat in front of a stage that was flat as a pancake, suitable for accommodating speakers at political rallies and not much else.

They were still very young. Kirill and Boris were only twenty-two, Timur twenty-five—and only Drozd was older, having just turned twenty-nine. Ahead of them were many years of hustling, performing on pitiful makeshift stages in half-filled halls, longing for the day when fate would hand them a spot in a halfway decent repertory theater.

“Prompt’s dressing rooms are really cool,” Timur said, surprising himself.

“Oh yeah?” Kirill asked, clearly interested. “We’ve all seen the stage. Are the dressing rooms as good?”

“I’d live there,” Timur said. “Seriously, I’d move in if I could.”

“Were you scared when you went to see Prompt?” Drozd asked, keeping his voice casual.

“I was at first,” Timur admitted. “But then the fear kind of goes away on its own. Maybe he liked me, or maybe he remembered my mom, but I just had this really good feeling.”

Timur paused, then spoke in a very different tone of voice.

“Guys, we’re a thorn in everyone’s side right now. Everyone who’s ever had a show on Prompt will converge upon us in droves.”

“Obviously,” Drozd said, rubbing his forehead. “We have to protect the girls, Tim. Kirill, Boris, and I can handle it, but Olya is so sensitive …”

The door opened and shut again. Vita came back, radiant despite a long scratch on her cheek.

“So,” she said, hopping onto the stage. “Olya is ready to work. She’s the most talented, the best one, she’s a genius. And our show is pure genius. Timur, if you have cigarettes, give me one, I deserve it.”

Timur pulled out an unopened pack he carried around for his actors and tossed it to Vita over Drozd’s head. Vita caught it in mid-air and nodded her thanks.

“All yours,” Timur said. “You did well. Just don’t smoke in here, please. The last thing I need is trouble with the fire department.”

Vita smiled her most charming smile, and Timur thought about the brilliant future ahead of her. All she needed was for other producers and directors to see her on Prompt. Let them see what she was capable of …

“When you’re standing in the limelight, you can share your cigarettes with me,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse.

“You don’t smoke,” Vita said, smirking.

“You can share your chocolates. Anyway, break’s over—enough chatter. Everyone, on stage.”

“Timur.”

He turned around and saw nothing but a glowing end of a cigarette that looked like a tiny red emergency light.

“Hey, Timur.”

He knew that voice.

“Good evening,” he said dryly.

“Why so cold?” the man said, stepping into the circle of light under the street lamp. Timur saw his expressive youthful face and a pair of fashionable glasses perched jauntily on the tip of his slightly hooked nose.

“Anything you want to tell me?” Timur asked.

The man smoothed an elegant lock of gray hair away from his forehead.

“Actually, yes, I do.”

“Well, I am not going to listen to you, Degtyarev. Prompt wants to see my, I mean, our show on Saturday, the eighteenth. Feel free to attend. If you can get a ticket.”

“The boy is all grown up,” Degtyarev said, smirking.

“I grew up a while ago. Did you only just notice?”

“I’m worried about you,” Degtyarev said, his voice suddenly harsh. “You are responsible for the lives and wellness of your actors. You are risking their wellbeing, you are setting them up for a guillotine. You yourself are safe, humiliation is not deadly. But do you know what it’s like to suffer from depression after failing at Prompt? You have no idea.”

“We will not fail. I understand you really wish for us to fail, but we’ll not fail.”

“You will! You will fail. You are ignorant, Timur. You learned nothing in five years of drama school. I saw your school productions. You’re a dilettante, an amateur, Timur. Prompt will never accept it. I know his taste.”

“Go to hell,” Timur said, slamming the heavy door in Degtyarev’s face.

“Mom?”

She sat at the kitchen table. In front of her was a half-eaten chocolate bar and a nearly empty bottle of cognac.

“Mom?”

Horrified, Timur stopped at the door.

“Have you talked to your father?”  Mom asked, not looking at him.

“Yeah,” Timur said, his voice deflated. “I mean, no. I mean, we have nothing to talk about. To be honest, I told him to go to hell.”

“Good for you,” Mom said, lowering her head onto her intertwined fingers. “I also told him to go, but not to hell—further.” She laughed mirthlessly. “When I went to Prompt for the first time, I was so stupid, I wasn’t afraid of anything. Just like you, Timur. I was young, younger than you are now. I remember coming out for the final bows, but nothing about the show. I remember standing at the edge of the stage, sweaty, hot, covered in talcum powder. And the audience in front of me, undulating like the sea. Screaming ’bravo,’ nearly falling off the balcony …”

Mom sloshed some cognac into her glass and drank it like water. She grimaced, smiled, then continued.

“Yes, it was happiness. We were given a hundred shows—it was happiness, it was life. Then one hundred and twenty, then one hundred and fifty …. I played my role for seventeen years, my darling. I was offered other roles, but I didn’t take them. I wanted to continue performing in Storm. And when Storm was finished, I was almost forty, and I was still playing an eighteen-year-old. We had one hundred and fifty seven performances of Storm. I knew I wasn’t going to play anyone else ever again. I couldn’t fathom playing another role after my brilliant performance on Prompt. They called me ‘The Talented Timyanova.’ I don’t know whether I was a good actress, or whether Prompt made me that way because he liked the show. Perhaps it was Prompt who killed the actress in me. It was like a drug: you get addicted and then you’re left with nothing. With emptiness. I could’ve still been performing now, Timur. But I loved Prompt, I adored that monster. You should stay away. But you don’t want a bird in the hand, do you? You don’t want to spend the next few years doing children’s matinees.”

“That’s not the problem, Mom.”

“I know what the problem is,” Mom said sharply. Then she whispered, “Timur. Promise to let me see your show. Before you take it to Prompt. Do you promise?”

A woman is washing clothes in ice-cold water. She sniffles, grits her teeth, and plunges back in, rubbing the fabric against the corrugated metal of the washboard. There is a thin layer of ice on the surface of the basin, and she cuts her hands on it, but continues to rub.

There is nothing about washing clothes, or frost, or the washer-woman’s shabby apron in the stage directions. In the play, the female lead is at her country house, bored out of her mind. She’s sitting inside a gazebo, conversing with her guest, while a distant gramophone supplies a gentle soundtrack.

“Good, Olya. Nice work. Kirill, don’t get too close. Keep your distance, both literally and figuratively. Yes, exactly!”

The rehearsal was underway. Timur sat amidst the empty kingdom of creaky chairs; he thought he could see energy flowing from his actors. He was swimming in it. Kirill would need additional direction; he flailed a bit in that scene. The Writer was not the easiest role, but Timur knew exactly what to say to Kirill, and how to say it, to make everything come together. Olya was great. Drozd—what was happening with Drozd? Something was definitely off, and Timur would have to investigate after the rehearsal.

On stage, the woman tosses a wet rag aside. Her hands are crippled by a cramp, and she cannot continue. She is conducting polite small talk.

Timur had directed this show in his imagination three years ago. He’d watched it over and over, taking it apart and watching it again, playing each and every role. He’d experienced disappointment, anger, and he’d walked away. He’d been woken up by sudden vivid dreams in the middle of the night, and the dreams had told him just how a particular scene would have to be changed. He’d gone back to the text, and read it over and over again, leaving brown coffee spots on its pages. He’d sketched the sets and blocked the show, he’d searched through the crowds for faces that resembled the characters as he saw them. The trouble was that with each change, Timur’s vision had moved further and further away from the original, from the play he knew from his childhood, from the text familiar to the last letter. Timur had directed several term and graduation productions; he was well liked at the university, but it was only six months ago that he’d gathered enough courage to offer Vita a role in Three Brothers.

… Here, the lights would change. Timur knew exactly how the spotlight would have to fall. The primitive club switchboard could not handle it, but Prompt … Prompt would take care of it.

He’d found Kirill and Boris at the same time. Olya came later. Before her, another actress had played the role, and only with Drozd’s arrival had everything come together, and the ghosts from Timur’s obsessive dreams had finally begun to grow flesh. That was when he’d known that everything he’d done so far was wrong. Terrified, he’d realized that these living human beings imperiously acted against his ideas simply by the fact of their existence, and that now he had to start from scratch.

… He’d felt that the music in Drozd and Olya’s love scene was as solid and as material as his own hand. He could stretch the music toward them and use it to push the dialog in the right direction to fit the scene.

He’d known he had to start from scratch. Not everyone had believed him right away. Even Boris had had his doubts; his perplexed face said, “That’s not how we’ve been taught.” Out of all of them, Drozd was the least gullible one, but it was him, Drozd, who believed fully. Once, when Timur had come in early, he’d overheard something he wasn’t supposed to hear. “Timur senses time,” Drozd was saying to Boris. “Whatever he’s doing may seem like heresy at first, but if you think of the history of theater …”

If Drozd had meant these words for Timur, Timur would think of them as flattery. But Drozd never bothered to butter anyone up; perhaps that was why his acting career had yet to take off.

This show, this production that had grown its roots through Timur, like bamboo shoots piercing a living human body. This show had found its own life. It existed separately, independently. Should Timur die in a car accident tomorrow, the show would still go on. At least Timur liked to think so.

… Darkness. The recorder had stopped, all the stage lights went out, and even a small service light behind the curtains went dark.

“Hello?” Drozd said in the darkness. This line was not in the text. “They killed the electricity again.”

“That’s fine,” Timur said. “We have candles.”

“My voiceover has been rescheduled for evenings, from five to eleven,” Drozd said. Every day until the eighteenth. What are we going to do, Timur?”

“I hope you understand: this was done on purpose, to throw off our rehearsal schedule,” Timur said wearily.

Drozd scratched his ear.

“So the question is—do I quit my job?”

“Do you think Prompt will accept our show?” Timur asked, looking into Drozd’s eyes.

Drozd was almost two meters tall, and Timur had to crane his neck to look at him.

“Do you think … if they weren’t afraid of us, would any of them bother interfering with us?”

“Right,” Drozd said after a pause. “I get it. If I can’t get time off for these two weeks, I will have to quit.”

“It’s your decision,” Timur said, his voice hollow. “But I think it’s the right one.”

Comedy of Manners, directed by Degtyarev, was the only Prompt production Timur hadn’t seen yet. It was the most recent show, the latest opening. Timur didn’t mind the overnight queue snaking along Prompt’s walls; he enjoyed these overnights, even in the winter, even in the rain. The night queue to the box office served as a threshold to joy, a start of the show, a beautiful ritual that demanded patience and humility from true theater lovers.

Sitting on a folding chair by a fire made of wooden crates, listening to the banter of the aficionados and the scalpers (the two types comprised the majority of the Prompt night queue), Timur kept running through his show, making mental notes to the cast, and running through the whole thing again, until someone’s elbow poked him in the ribs.

“What are you doing here?”

Timur looked up. His classmate Ilyukha stood by the fire, dressed in a camouflage jacket and quilted trousers—ready for a cold night.

“Waiting for tickets,” Timur said.

Ilyukha whistled.

“You need tickets to see your own dad’s show?”

“Who is his dad?” the closest scalper asked suspiciously. “Degtyarev? But this guy’s Greta Timyanova’s son.”

“Not mutually exclusive.” Ilyukha smirked.

“Shut up,” Timur said.

“Sorry,” Ilyukha said, immediately backtracking. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just weird, that’s all.”

“You are a strangely unkempt young man,” the scalper said pensively. “With parents like yours …”

Timur did not respond.

“Using open fire on stage is strictly forbidden! Strictly forbidden, Timyanov! I warned you!”

“But the electricity went out,” Timur said, trying to make his voice sound friendly and polite. “We are paying for the stage and would like the conditions …”

“Who allowed you to be here until one in the morning? We’ve had this discussion before, Timyanov, don’t you remember?”

An enormous box of chocolates lay in front of the administrator, but the woman did not look at the chocolates, she stared into Timur’s eyes. She was not faking her irritation, she was truly very angry.

It was infinitely harder to stay calm after a sleepless night. Timur wanted to slam his fist on the desk, making the damn box of chocolates jump. He wanted to tell this woman everything he thought of her, and the club’s management, and all these power-hungry bureaucrats who loved restrictions. Perhaps later he would be ashamed and painfully sorry, and more importantly, the show would be homeless right before the opening.

“I promise, there will be no more fire,” Timur said meekly. “I promise to vacate the stage no later than 11 p.m. I am begging you to unlock the backroom and give us back our stuff.”

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out his trump card: two tickets to Prompt. Two tickets to that evening’s performance of Comedy of Manners. The tickets smelled of smoke; they had been paid for by waiting by the firepit in the overnight queue—and by the rest of Timur’s savings. He had meant to resell the second ticket before the show and thus patch up the hole in his budget. He did have a fleeting thought of inviting Irina, but the thought had disappeared as quickly as it came.

He watched the administrator’s face, and the changes in her demeanor. He saw the way she examined the tickets, first with distaste, then with bewilderment, then with interest. He waited for her to finally hold the tickets in her hands.

Prompt’s tickets were dazzlingly white, no vignettes or unnecessary frills: only the date, the row, and the seat. And a hand-written invitation on top: Prompt is expecting you.

“Wow,” the administrator said dreamily.

The tickets were for the orchestra section. Together, the two tickets cost more than two months of the administrator’s salary. Obviously, with a family like his, the administrator thought unkindly. She hadn’t actually said it out loud, but anyone could have read the thoughts written on her scowling, sallow face.

“Fine, Timyanov,” the woman said, after a respectably long pause. “Here are the backroom keys. If I see fire on stage one more time, or if—God forbid—someone smokes in here, you will never see this stage again. Keep that in mind.”

The rain started at lunchtime. Timur packed the soundtrack recordings into a plastic bag and the music score into a thick folder, pushed his hood deeper on his head, and went to visit Prompt.

No one stood near the service entrance, but Timur did not rely on false hope. The door was definitely under observation, and all the interested parties would know within half an hour that “that stubborn kid went to Prompt and brought all his stupid stuff.”

Timur lingered inside the hallway while his eyes got used to the semidarkness, letting rainwater roll off his jacket and his shoes and collect into a small puddle on the stone floor. He needed time to get used to the intense stare. He needed time to relax and stop being afraid.

“Hello. I brought the soundtrack and everything else.”

Silence. A gentle draft pushed him toward the stairs.

Timur struggled to unbutton his coat, his fingers stiff from the cold. He hung his coat onto the closest hanger and looked at himself in the mirror, but saw nothing but a dark silhouette holding a large bag.

He wiped his feet on a fuzzy rug at the foot of the stairs and hesitated before the first step. A soft creak came from above, as if the wind had swung a door left ajar.

Timur followed. He stopped at the second floor; the last time a light had beckoned him to the left, but this time the corridor was utterly dark, not a spark in sight. Instead, a barely audible creak came from above. Timur went up to the third floor and stopped again, unsure of the direction. Someone was watching him, and Timur’s skin prickled under their gaze, as if disembodied wings kept touching his face and hair. The sensation was not pleasant. Timur fought the urge to scratch.

There was a blinking light on the left. Timur walked faster, almost running, then stumbled upon a rolled up carpet, lost his balance, and went crashing down.

He got up, rubbed his knee, and wiped his hands on his pants.

Ahead of him, the light was still blinking. Twenty paces further, Timur stopped at a freshly painted wall. A single light bulb wrapped in wire netting illuminated a sentence written in chalk: Watch your feet, Timur Timyanov!

Timur smiled. He sensed a positive, benevolent intonation. Not irritation, more like friendly grumbling. What made him think of it this way? Did Prompt really favor him?

“I will try,” he said out loud. “It’s so dark.”

The light came on brighter, and Timur saw a door frame a few steps ahead. He took a confident step forward but the floor went down sharply, and Timur nearly fell again, slipping on a low ramp. He saw another corridor ahead, the same dull yellow light bulbs along the walls leading the way.

Twenty steps. A turn. Fourteen steps. A staircase. Two flights down, a turn. Ten steps. A turn. A staircase, two flights up.

Wondering if he would be able to find his way back, Timur thought of Degtyarev boasting of his ability to navigate Prompt with his eyes closed. Was he lying?

Are you lost? The question was written in chalk on another wall. Once again, Timur imagined a benevolent smirk. He wished he could watch the words appear on the wall. In the entire history of Prompt, no one had ever seen it. The only existing amateur video was a crude and obvious fake.

“I am lost,” he admitted.

Down the corridor, a door creaked again, beckoning and—possibly­—mocking him. Timur found himself in a small hall. A set of three doors led him to the right. The middle one was slightly ajar, and a ray of light shone through the narrow gap.

Timur entered.

Various equipment took up almost the entire room, leaving enough space for one person to stand amidst all these tools and appliances or to perch on a swivel stool with worn out upholstery.

A rectangular window across from the door showed Timur’s reflection: tense round eyes, dark hair sticking to the sweaty forehead. Timur was drenched, and not from the rain; his wet coat remained downstairs.

The lights in the control room dimmed, and now, instead of a reflection of his own pale face, Timur saw the stage. He couldn’t breathe.

The stage was right there, right in front of him. It looked enormous; a fragment of a transcendent world in a single white beam. The air shimmered between the curtains as if above a fire pit. Or perhaps, it was simply Timur’s imagination. He was ready to witness a miracle, and he did see it. This stage was Prompt’s biggest asset. The stage was the face of Prompt. Once accepted by Prompt, you had full power over the souls of others. And should you have been rejected by Prompt …

Timur stopped himself from going further. He simply cut this thought off as a hanging thread.

The spotlight went out and the lights in the control room came on. The dark window transformed back into a mirror, and Timur saw himself again. This time, he looked happy, his eyes open wide and shining with excitement.

He needed to get a hold of himself. Overboard enthusiasm was unnecessary; Prompt did not suffer fools gladly.

Timur still felt someone’s gaze on him, this gaze coming from nowhere. The darkness dissipated, and Timur found himself surrounded by wooden walls plastered with old calendars and soundboards, as dusty as if no one touched them in years.

Timur looked closer.

All the equipment, both new and old, looked abandoned. Dust, broken cables, an old tape stuck in the recording head of a tape player.

Perhaps for Prompt, all this was nothing but props. Perhaps it wasn’t a magnetized tape that brought music to life on that stage. It wouldn’t be surprising, considering how music sounded on Prompt, any music, even the most primitive soundtracks. That is, of course, if Prompt liked the show.

Timur turned sharply to the window. He thought he saw a faint shadow move behind the glass.

He wasn’t mistaken.

Someone was looking at him through the window, someone human. A weak light from the control room illuminated his pale face.

It was Degtyarev.

“Timur, hello! Did you bring the music? Nice, good for you.”

For the umpteenth time, Timur marveled at Degtyarev’s skill at changing demeanors. This time he was a nurturing parent, sincerely wishing his son to be successful. Of course, Prompt could hear their conversation. Timur wondered if Prompt perceived human pretense. Could Prompt recognize people playing different roles in life, and not on the stage?

Timur smiled. Degtyarev was dumb. Prompt did not care about their relationship. Should they exchange the filthiest insults, should they start a fistfight, Prompt wouldn’t even make a door creak. It was of no interest to him. If Degtyarev was brazen enough to steal the music score or somehow sabotage the soundtrack, Prompt would interfere, because for Prompt only the show meant anything at all. Only the show, and not some stupid human squabbles.

Degtyarev must have known that. And yet he couldn’t help being a hypocrite, it was such a part of him by now.

“My show is on tonight, Timur. Comedy of Manners. Have you seen it yet?”

“No,” Timur said. He didn’t see the point of lying.

Degtyarev was—or at least acted—embarrassed.

“Darn, such a shame. Of all days, today I don’t have any complimentary passes left.”

“That’s all right,” Timur said. “I’ll see it some other time. I hope it doesn’t close any time soon.”

Cold fury flashed behind Degtyarev’s eyes. What exactly had he read between his son’s lines? Timur didn’t care.

Prompt provided no assistance on the way back. At first Timur could retrace his steps, but eventually he got lost for real.

The theater was filling up with people: Timur heard voices in the distance: Comedy of Manners’s cast members, the crew, and the production assistants were gathering inside. The doors slammed shut, not by Prompt’s will but thanks to some ditzy makeup artist. This busy nightlife was happening very close, yet quite far away: wandering around for the last forty minutes, Timur had yet to meet a single person. He made no effort to rectify that.

At some point a wave of fatigue washed over him. He sat down on a concrete step that was cold and not particularly clean.

When he was little, about six or so, his mom used to take him backstage at Prompt. He remembered waiting for her in the dressing room, drawing with the colored pencils his kind daddy Degtyarev had brought back from some exotic trip. Back then, Timur didn’t think of Prompt as anything special. It was just a building, just a theater, the same as the other theaters in the city. He did remember that the only time he longed to draw was when he sat behind Mom’s makeup table. Later, he had nothing but Cs in art.

He drew people. Not trees, not landscapes, only people. One person angry, the other making apologies. One running away, the other chasing him. Once he drew a person who was lying, but neither his mom nor any of the other ‘art lovers’ understood his concepts. They missed the reddened ears and the long nose of the liar in the picture.

In Timur’s day care center, boys were expected to draw cars. Timur found a way to express himself by drawing the drivers in the car windows: he made up their lives and their challenges, all the while leaving the outlines of the tires and trunks unfinished. His teachers only shook their heads.

But when he was seated at the makeup table, no one told him how and what to draw. When he got tired of drawing people, he would gaze into the mirror, at his face illuminated from both sides by the lights, and then he would draw self-portraits. Every time they came out different: a plump boy with sad blue eyes, a skinny angry boy with piercing black eyes, and once the portrait turned out to be of a girl, and Timur tore it up in frustration.

He would draw while a speaker murmured softly above the dressing room door. Timur knew the show like the back of his own hand: a beautiful melody would play five minutes after his mom’s “death,” and another fifteen minutes later there would be only music and the crackling sound of applause, and then Mom would come in, happy and exhausted, and he would have to give up the seat at the dressing table and wait for her on the sofa, while she “enjoyed her silence.” She would change and wash her face, and finally she would nod to Timur and then he could tell her everything that had happened at daycare that day.

Eventually he started school and she stopped bringing him backstage. In the last eighteen years he’d forgotten all this, forgotten the speaker above the door, the chair, the pencils, the self-portraits, and now, sitting on the cold steps, he remembered everything.

He saw a crumpled candy wrapper by his right shoe. Automatically, Timur picked it up and smoothed it out.

Can you attend tonight’s performance?

Not “would you like to,” but “can you?”

“I can,” Timur said. “I’d be so very thankful for a chance to see it. Actually, I had tickets, but I had to give them away.”

A draft, cold and sharp, touched the back of his head. Timur turned around.

Go, was written in coal on the light beige wall.

A light bulb swayed invitingly at the end of the corridor.

He went straight to the balcony, embarrassed by his wrinkled pants and enormous wet boots. The orchestra section was teeming with evening gowns; here, in the cheap seats, the crowd consisted of students with university passes and lucky holders of the standing room only tickets, drunk with happiness.

Timur found a good spot: to the side, but in the first row. He rested his elbows on the worn-out gray velvet and proceeded to study the audience.

A few faces he’d seen on the news: well-dressed women accompanied by their well-off husbands, a famous film actor, a renowned politician, someone with an exceedingly prominent facial expression with a very tall, very fit blonde on his arm.

The People’s Club’s administrator with her husband, both dressed to the nines and glowing with self-importance.

Tons of out-of-towners. Foreign languages abounded: Prompt’s shows required no interpreters. Everyone understood everything, regardless of their native language. Foreigners would come for a day or two, pre-order the tickets, bring their best outfits and change on the train, and head back to the station right after the show, deliriously happy. Dozens of travel agencies specialized in “thespian tours.”

Degtyarev was sitting in the director’s box. He glanced up at the balcony, then looked again, paying attention this time. He smiled insincerely and waved at Timur.

Timur waved back.

All the seats had been filled immediately after the second call. Every single seat.

Apropos of nothing, Timur recalled: You may decline at any moment, I will not be offended. At any moment, up until the third call.

He shook his head in frustration.

No one was ever let into Prompt’s theater after the third call. No one. It was common knowledge, and everyone always arrived early. To be late for a Prompt show was equal to being late for a flight. There were no reminders to turn off cell phones. There was no need for that: cell phones and pagers did not work in Prompt’s space, and everyone knew that.

The lights began to dim. Gazing down at the rows of well-coiffed heads and lines of attentive faces, Timur thought—not without a certain pride—that Prompt never spoke to any of the people in the orchestra seats. He awed and amazed them nearly every day. But he never spoke to them.

The curtain went up.

It was still raining. Timur waded through the puddles.

He was thinking of Degtyarev. His hypocrisy and even betrayal had to be forgiven for that. Let him spread malignant intrigues backstage, but Prompt had accepted his show, and that meant that Degtyarev had created something big, something good. The audience members leaving the show tonight were a little nicer, all of them, even the administrator of the People’s Club. They would be nice until the next morning, or even the whole day tomorrow. Maybe even the whole week.

Timur plodded on, ignoring his wet boots.

Because this Comedy of Manners was nothing but a good play. Decent cast, a few successful directorial decisions. And—life. It wasn’t important who breathed life into this play, Prompt or Degtyarev himself, because if Degtyarev’s show wasn’t good, Prompt wouldn’t have chosen it.

The only thing that bothered Timur was the sense of déjà vu. He knew he’d never before seen Comedy of Manners. But where did this sense of having seen it before come from?

It wasn’t worth getting worked up about. He’d been coming to the theater since before he was old enough for daycare, and in the last twenty-five years he’d seen more than his fair share of shows, including some really good ones.

Timur stopped by the streetlight and leaned his forehead against the wet concrete.

God Almighty, if You can hear me, make it so that Prompt accepts my show. Because You see, O God Almighty, You see that it is good. It’s not worse than Degtyarev’s, it’s better than his. I can’t pray to Prompt, Prompt doesn’t care for my prayers. He believes only what he sees. But You, Almighty, You will help me, won’t You?

In the dark building, only one window was lit up. Their kitchen window.

“Timur, may I speak with you for a moment?”

The problem counter in Timur’s heart clicked before Vita had a chance to explain. They stopped in front of the bathroom, and Vita fiddled with a light.

“Can I bum a cigarette?”

Without a word, Timur pulled another new pack out of his pocket.

“They are threatening to kick me out of the university,” Vita said, inhaling.

“Why?”

“The graduation show was scheduled for the eighteenth. My role in it is minuscule, three lines at best. But oh no, there is zero leeway. Either I am on stage on the eighteenth, or I am dismissed without the right to reapply. So that’s that.”

Timur said nothing.

Yesterday’s Comedy of Manners was still alive inside him. The audience’s laughter, the tense silence, a lump in his throat. An echo of applause.

“Vita, after the eighteenth, you won’t need a diploma. There are so many people out there with diplomas, all those useless, pointless pieces of paper. So what if they write ‘Actor’ on a blank sheet of paper? What are you going to do with it, take it with you to the stage? Are you going to show it to the audience to make them believe?”

Vita was silent. The cigarette in her hand burned slowly, ashes falling to the floor.

“You are an Actor with a capital A. You are a real talent, deep and mature. It becomes clear the second you step on stage. If you go and deliver your three lines on the eighteenth, they will simply wipe their feet on you and continue walking. And whatever they write in your diploma, even if they say you are talented, none of it will matter. Do you understand?”

Vita said nothing. The cigarette in her hand burned down to its filter.

“We are having an open mic night tomorrow,” the administrator said with a hint of regret. “Sorry, but the stage will be reserved from noon to 10 p.m. I can let you into the dance hall, but only if you accept personal responsibility, the hardwood floor is very expensive there.”

“We don’t need hardwood floors,” Timur said, holding back his despair. “We have three days left before the show! We need a stage!”

“But this is a People’s Club!” the administrator said with reproach. “Open mic is a regularly scheduled event!”

“I understand,” Timur said.

He was so tired. For the past ten days he felt like a soccer ball. He was kicked and tossed non-stop, and he rushed around, somehow managing to achieve his goals, despite major losses, functioning at the very edge of the possible, and yet he did get things done.

A truck had been rented—to deliver the set pieces.

A contract with a technical crew who had worked with Prompt before had been signed.

You may decline at any moment, I will not be offended. At any moment, up until the third call.

“Let us rehearse overnight,” Timur said. “It’s very important. Please let us in overnight.”

The administrator gazed at him; she wasn’t young anymore, she wasn’t very bright, and she wasn’t happy.

Somewhere deep in her eyes lived a memory of Comedy of Manners: the laughter, the ideas, the silence, the echo of applause.

“God forbid you light candles on stage, Timyanov.”

“We won’t.”

“And god forbid you decide to spill water on stage again, it makes the wood buckle.”

“We won’t.”

“If you swear to me, Timyanov, if you swear that only your people will be here. Only those who have been added to my restricted list.”

“I swear.”

“And if no one smokes on stage, then as an exception—do you hear me, Timyanov? — as an exception, I will let you rehearse overnight. But only as an exception.”

“Timur, may I talk to you for a second?”

Boris. Something was up. Again.

“Timur, my mom is sick. My father is working the night shift, and there is no one to stay with her overnight. I can’t do it tonight, Timur. I just can’t. She has high blood pressure, and when it goes up … ”

Timur closed his eyes for a split second. Or so he thought, but when he lifted his eyelids, he saw Boris watching him with terror and confusion.

“Do you want me to find a night nurse for your mom?” Timur asked. “A medical professional?”

“I can’t afford to …”

“Free of charge! Would that work?”

“Timur …”

“Boris. We have three days left. We can’t have a dress rehearsal without you. We just can’t.”

“But my mom …”

“I said I’d find her a nurse.”

“What if she deteriorates?” Boris said, a shadow of panic in his eyes. “I won’t be able to live! I would—”

Timur held his collar and pulled him closer, face to face.

“She won’t. She’ll get better, I know she will! I will find her the best nurse, the very best in the city. I will pay for medications. I will find a professor who will watch her all night! It’s only for a few hours, from eleven to five in the morning. Agreed?”

Boris said nothing, gulping air with an open mouth, like a fish.

“Timur, have you forgotten your promise?”

“Have I made any promises to you, Mom?”

A long pause.

“You promised to invite me to the dress rehearsal.”

“No. I never promised you that. You asked me to promise, but I never—”

“Timur, listen to me. No, don’t listen to me. Don’t listen to anyone, just to yourself. Step over me, step over everyone, for the sake of art, it’s worth it. If Prompt accepts you, everything will be forgiven, everyone will forgive you, even those you stepped over.”

“Mom, give me the bottle. Please give it to me! You shouldn’t drink anymore.”

“Oh god, it’s so hard. To know everything in advance—and fail to explain. I know. But I cannot convince you. I will come to the dress rehearsal, on the morning of the eighteenth. You can’t stop me, Timur. Prompt knows you’re my son, he’ll let me in.”

The night rehearsal was scheduled for eleven. The People’s Club was deserted. A security guard dozed on chairs pushed together inside the locked booth. Paper garlands, an indispensable attribute of amateur performances, swayed in the wind.

“What time is it?”

“Eleven forty.”

Timur and Drozd kept watch by the door so they would be the first ones to hear Kirill knocking on the glass door. Minutes went by, but Kirill was still missing.

Ten minutes to midnight.

“Don’t worry, Timur. Things happen. I believe in Kirill. He’s coming.”

Two minutes past midnight. Half past midnight.

Vita appeared in the hallway and offered a piece of candy first to Timur, then to Drozd.

Forty minutes past midnight.

“I saw him earlier today, I mean last night. He looked happy, and there was no indication he wouldn’t …. There was absolutely no sign he wouldn’t show up!”

Timur did not reply.

Earlier, at ten past eleven, Kirill’s younger brother told Timur on the phone that Kirill had left for the rehearsal a while ago.

“Go back inside,” Timur told Vita. “Grab my bag on the way. I have a large thermos of coffee in there.”

“Cool,” Vita said happily.

The security guard continued snoring.

Fifty-nine minutes past midnight.

A soft knock on the glass door.

Timur and Drozd jumped up. Carefully, as not to wake up the security guard, they removed the deadbolt. Krill entered awkwardly, sideways, pulling a ski hat all the way down his forehead.

“Kirill?”

“They broke my arm,” Kirill said apologetically. “It’s fine, Timur. It’s just the arm that’s broken, not the leg. And I can use makeup on my face, you won’t be able to see anything. They said there is no concussion. It’s just my arm. Assholes, all five of them …”

A bruise had bloomed under Kirill’s right eye. His cheek was scratched up, and his lips were bleeding. His right arm was in the sling, the tips of his bluish fingers peeking out.

You may decline at any moment, I will not be offended. At any moment, up until the third call.

Timur sank into a creaky chair.

“Kirill …”

“I went to urgent care,” Kirill said. “They said there was no concussion. It’s great, Timur. If I had a concussion, I couldn’t perform. And now I can. The Writer will have his arm in a cast. It’s kinda cool, actually. Everyone will think it’s an interesting artistic direction. Or I can take the cast off, and then put it back on after the show. Are you listening to me, Timur?”

Timur said nothing. Brightly colored circles swam in front of his eyes.

They held their last rehearsal on the seventeenth, on the stage of the People’s Club. The administrator showed up uninvited and took a seat in the middle of the empty creaky hall.

“It was amazing,” she said later, stopping Timur in the corridor. “I thought it was supposed to be a classic.”

“It is a classic,” Timur said.

The administrator shook her head in distrust.

“What do you mean, it’s a classic? It’s not boring at all!’

Timur did not sleep on the night before the eighteenth. He knew he had to be in good shape the next day and went as far as taking a sleeping pill, but the acid-yellow pill sank into the abyss of his stomach with no effect.

He sat in the kitchen, hunched over a book, but he could not read. He stared at the words, listening to Mom toss and turn in her bedroom.

On the morning of the eighteenth he left the house at seven, when Mom was still asleep. At half past seven a truck drove up to the People’s Club; Timur made sure the sets were loaded carefully and that none of the set pieces were left behind.

At half past eight the sets were unloaded at Prompt’s entrance. Despite the early hour, a surprising number of onlookers had gathered nearby.

The crew began at nine, as they had agreed to previously.

By nine thirty they had begun to gather: a deathly pale Olya, a solemn Vita, a glum and focused Drozd, a surprisingly gaunt Boris, and Kirill with his arm in a sling.

“We are going to walk in together,” Timur said. “Relax, there is nothing to be afraid of. For Prompt, we’re nobodies, we are nothing but pleasant strangers. Prompt is going to judge us during the show, not before. Are we ready?”

They entered.

The black hands of a green clock showed 9:38.

“Good morning,” Timur said, trying to make his voice sound as even as possible. “Here we are. Everyone, please introduce yourselves.”

They took turns stating their names. Olya was so pale she looked blue. Vita was as red as a teacher’s pen. Boris breathed heavily. Kirill bit his lips, and only Drozd appeared to be perfectly calm. At least, he didn’t seem to be bothered by an intense gaze roaming over his face.

“We need two dressing rooms,” Timur said, feeling calmer with each sentence.

A window slammed loudly at the landing above.

“Follow me!”

He felt like a commander leading his troops into battle. Leading them toward victory despite their fears. He guided those who trusted in him. He took them up the stairs toward recognition, toward glory.

A dim light flickered in the dark corridor. Two dressing rooms opened their doors: the one Timur had seen on his first visit to Prompt, and another, bigger one, spacious enough for six people.

More comfortable now, his friends looked around. The first squeals of delight came quickly; Olya gazed at herself in the mirror, Boris plopped down on the leather sofa. Drozd tested the water in the sink; the water ran both hot and cold.

Vita stared out the window. Timur stood next to her: the busy morning street looked like an ant trail, even though they weren’t that high up, only on the second floor.

“It all depends on the point of view,” Vita said, as if reading his thoughts.

Timur nodded in agreement.

At half past ten Timur and Drozd cut into the cast on Kirill’s arm and helped him into his costume. They pulled a glove onto his injured hand; Kirill assured them that it didn’t hurt and the injury was nothing to worry about.

The dress rehearsal started at eleven sharp. Timur aimed for iron-clad punctuality; he thought it was something Prompt would appreciate.

At Timur’s signal, Prompt played three calls (You may decline at any moment, I will not be offended. At any moment, up until the third call). Then Prompt raised the curtain and switched on the lights.

They had discussed it in advance: this dress rehearsal would be for real. No allowances for a new stage or unfamiliar conditions. Prompt would do his technical work—run the lights, test the sound—and they, the cast, would do theirs.

Timur sat in the audience—a richly adorned hall with comfortable chairs, such a cozy, elegant theater space—and understood absolutely nothing.

At first he felt that nothing was working, and the new stage was killing his cast members, used as they were to the People’s Club. He panicked and screamed at the top of his lungs, forgetting the microphone provided by Prompt:

“Olya, I can’t hear you! Louder, Boris, louder! Enunciate! Haven’t you been trained for this?”

Then he thought things were getting better. It seemed that the actors had regained their spatial awareness and relaxed, and that everything was going as planned. Timur thought that Prompt simply couldn’t not approve of their production, so original, so courageous, so …

Then fatigue stepped in, and Timur stared at the stage, automatically noting errors, taking notes on a piece of paper, and occasionally reminding the actors to speak louder.

Act I took an hour and ten minutes, Act II, an hour and four minutes. Timur made a mental note about tightening up the first act; the second would do as is.

“We break for a half an hour, then meet in the first dressing room. Drozd, can you help Kirill?”

Drozd nodded reassuringly, as in, “Don’t worry, I won’t leave my wounded friend behind on the battlefield.” They went backstage, excited, full of desperate cheer, the mirth of soldiers before hand-to-hand combat …

“Timur.”

He flinched. For a second he thought Prompt had gained a voice and was calling him.

But Prompt had no voice.

Timur turned. His mother stood by the entrance between two loges.

Strangely enough, he felt nothing. No surprise, no anger.

He came over, taking gentle steps on the carpet.

“Hello.”

“Hello,” Mom said. “I watched it from the balcony.”

“Clever,” Timur said.

“You know, Timur … I didn’t understand it,” Mom said. “It’s so strange. I was engaged, I wasn’t thinking of anything else, not even about this show being on Prompt’s stage, or about you being my son. But I didn’t get it! It must be a good show, right?”

“I think so,” he said wearily.

“It’s so strange, frightening even, and so unexpected. It is jarring in some parts. But it is a good show. Right?”

She looked into his eyes almost ingratiatingly. As if it were up to Timur to decide whether the show was to be good.

“Yes,” he said.

“Your actors are wonderful,” Mom said. “Especially the girls. And that tall guy … and the actor who plays The Writer, there is such pain in his eyes, such unbearable pain.”

Timur opened his mouth to tell her about Kirill’s broken arm. Then he changed his mind.

Mom stood on tiptoes, as if about to kiss him on the cheek. Then she changed her mind.

“Good luck, honey. Good luck.”

The voices of Drozd and Boris came from the second dressing room. On its door a sentence was written in red marker: If you’ve changed your mind, you can say no before the third call.

Timur looked around.

The corridor was empty. When the cast had walked into the dressing room, the door was clear, with no trace of a red marker.

A tiny light bulb wrapped in a wire was switched off. The lights came from two bright wall lamps.

“I didn’t change my mind,” Timur said through gritted teeth. “Don’t try to scare me.”

At half past two he dashed to a cafe for takeout: cheese danish, pigs in a blanket, coffee, lemonade. On his way back he ran into Degtyarev by the stage door.

Timur tried to nod and walk on by, but Degtyarev stepped into his path.

“I saw bits of your dress rehearsal.”

“I am touched,” Timur said. “You’d think the entire city is dying to see ‘bits of my rehearsal.’”

“It’s clever,” Degtyarev said. “And unusual, and possibly even talented. You know what your show is like? A cluttered room, with dried butterflies pinned to the most unexpected places. To worn-out shoes, to the tablecloth, to the wallpaper …”

It was time to go, but Timur remained rooted to the spot. A plastic bag of food pulled his arm down, nearly touching the sidewalk.

“Oh yes,” Degtyarev continued, smirking. “Everyone knows this play, every schoolboy, yet you managed to surprise even me, and I directed it some time ago. You turned everything upside down. This play is about The Writer, and you made it about The Scientist, who’s really a supporting character. You ignored the script, stripped the motives to bare bones, and you pinned your own image and your own association to each action of each character. It’s an interesting concept, but the whole thing turned out rather formalist. A little bit of drama, a little bit of ballet, interspersed with musical vignettes. It’s too bad. If you had even an ounce of competence …”

Timur waited—for what? What did he want to hear?

“It’s an amusing production,” Degtyarev said wistfully. “But I don’t think Prompt will accept it.”

“Why?” Timur asked. “Do you know what Prompt likes?”

Degtyarev smiled enigmatically.

“It’s not a secret, Timur. Prompt’s preferences are not a secret at all.”

The audience began to gather ahead of time. By five, a crowd of optimists stood around the entrance, hoping for a rush ticket.

Prompt loved opening nights. In addition to the traditionally sold tickets, Prompt let in students and actors, along with devoted theater lovers ready to perch on limited-view seats, on the steps, in the aisles.

Timur had no doubt that the people who’d beaten up Kirill in a dark alley were here as well.

All the directors whose shows were currently playing at Prompt, and all the cast members of those shows were automatically invited.

Degtyarev made an entrance; Timur saw him from a distance and retreated cravenly, leaving through the stage door. He had no bandwidth for Degtyarev.

The theater was full. Ticket holders took their seats. Those without assigned seats made themselves as comfortable as possible. Timur walked along the balcony, watching familiar and unfamiliar faces from above, then went back to his actors.

Everyone was ready. Kirill’s makeup was too thick, but Timur knew it was too late to make adjustments. If Prompt accepts the show, he will hide the spackle on Kirill’s face. If Prompt doesn’t accept the show …

Timur plucked the pesky thought like a gray hair.

My friends, we are on the verge of success. This is our biggest chance.

Instead, he simply said: “We’re on.”

They got up without a word.

Timur walked behind them. He was impressed with his cast’s familiarity with Prompt’s layout. They’d learned their way around in only one day. The first call rang out, but the audience was already in their seats. Everyone was impatient; everyone was waiting for the start of the show.

He turned and shuffled toward the director’s box, the same one recently occupied by Degtyarev. He sat in the back, hiding from the idle glances of the audience. Timur did not want any attention; he wanted the lights to go out.

The second call came.

The waiting grew unbearable.

Timur knew that once the third call came, there would be no way back, and there would be relief. He wanted to rush the last few minutes between the second call and the last, third call.

And here it was. Thank God. Timur had taken the last step, and now the wind would carry him away.

The lights went out. Timur moved closer to the stage.

The music began.

The curtain went up.

“Timur, stop! Stop it, Timur! He never explains anything …. Come on, let’s go.”

Timur stood in front of the stage door, pulling it, and pushing it, and kicking it—but the door didn’t budge. Prompt did not wish to see him anymore. Drozd’s long arms dragged Timur away from the door, into the darkness, but Timur kept coming back, jerking the handle, and pushing it, and kicking it again and again.

“It’s your own fault,” Boris said darkly. “It’s too late now.”

“Shut up,” Drozd said, not looking in Boris’s direction.

“But it’s true, Drozd,” Boris said. “He set us up. All of us.”

“One more word, and I will smash your jaw,” Drozd said, his voice so calm and even that Boris took a step back.

“Drozd …. What am I going to tell my mom? If I tell her the truth, she’ll have another seizure …”

Drozd turned, his movement laborious and heavy.

“Lie to her. Tell her …. Just go away, Boris. I could beat you up right now, but I don’t want to feel guilty later.”

Boris walked away. He sat at the edge of the lawn, leaning against the lamppost.

Timur stared at the closed door.

They’d begun well. Drozd, who played The Scientist, kept up the tempo. His scene partner Olya, who usually struggled with the opening act, followed Drozd like a meek little lamb.

The only thing that bothered Timur was the excessive gray on Drozd’s temples. He had a split second to think that they needed to revisit the makeup.

And then he realized that he saw nothing aside from the fake gray hair. He realized that Drozd was woven entirely out of fakery, that Olya mumbled all her lines, and that the scene was drawn out. There was no hint of action, there was no dialog, instead there were clichés and perfunctory gestures, and the audience was beginning to fidget, move in their cushy seats, whisper to each other, and cough impatiently.

The show, as taut as a guitar string only yesterday, was now deflating like failed sourdough. Timur hoped Kirill’s appearance would save the day, but he made things even worse.

On stage, Kirill looked wooden. His broken arm limited his movements, but there was none of the real pain that had so shocked Timur’s mother during the dress rehearsal. On stage, Kirill looked like a clumsy boy, who saw nothing, heard nothing, was completely unaware of his partner, and who simply repeated his memorized lines.

That’s when everything went dark for Timur.

This was how it happened.

Vita washed the clothes in ice-cold water, but there wasn’t even a hint of the energy that had pleased Timur so much before. Now there was nothing but exaggerated acting, a lot of fussing, dirty water splashing everywhere, the washboard rattling, drowning Vita’s lines and those of her partner.

The audience was bored. A few people left before the intermission, and the empty seats gaped like dislodged teeth. When the deteriorating show made it to the intermission, the audience greeted the descending curtain with a disappointing hum and sparse applause.

Half of the audience members rushed to the coatroom. The doors slammed, letting people out onto the streets.

This intermission was the worst twenty minutes of Timur’s life. He had to go backstage and scream and threaten and force them to play the second act because they had to: Prompt would not let actors who didn’t finish their show leave the building.

And so they played the second act, accompanied by whistling, coughing, loud nose blowing, and insidious sneering.

After the curtain came down, they were greeted with a short mocking ovation. Everyone who had successful shows on Prompt—all the actors, directors, and dramaturges—everyone clapped, celebrating the failure of their impudent competition.

Half an hour after the end of the show two ambulances stopped in front of the stage door. Drozd went to the hospital with Kirill. Timur accompanied Olya to the neurology clinic. Vita and Boris stayed behind in the smoke-filled dressing room.

Kirill was given a shot of painkillers and a sleeping pill, and he fell asleep. Olya had three different injections, and now she was asleep as well. The middle-aged doctor shook her head at Timur as they stood in the drafty waiting room.

“This is my ninth patient after Prompt. But you—how are you feeling?”

Eventually, they took Vita home. Vita was as brittle as alabaster, and just as white. Timur kept talking, but Vita didn’t hear a single word.

As if pulled by a magnet, they went back to Prompt. Prompt greeted them with dark windows and the locked stage door.

“Timur, let’s go home. Let’s take Boris home. Leave the door alone. Leave it alone. We’ll deal with it. We’ll survive.”

“Drozd,” Timur said, turning to face him. “I have a huge favor to ask of you. Take Boris home by yourself. There is something I need to do.”

No one came to the door, and Timur pressed the doorbell again. Then again.

Finally, something stirred inside the apartment. The lights came on. Someone stared at Timur through the peephole.

The lock clicked open. A man stood at the threshold bathed in yellow light. Dressed in a bathrobe, he looked disheveled, his face pink and squashed like playdough.

“Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s half past two,” Timur said. “I need to talk to you.”

“You woke up my kid!”

“We have to talk, Degtyarev. Can I come in, or are we just going to chat on the landing?”

In the depths of the apartment, a woman’s voice said something tense.

“Go back to sleep,” Degtyarev said to her. “Go to sleep, everything is fine.”

He gave Timur a sidelong glance.

“Come in.”

Timur took off his shoes and walked into the spacious kitchen. He sat down on the edge of the oilcloth-covered seat. The kitchen was tidy and cheerful. A high chair stood in the corner, and a pretty child’s bib hung on a towel rack.

“Want a drink?” Degtyarev asked, very businesslike. “Usually helps quite a bit.”

“No,” Timur said, shaking his head. “I can drink by myself. I need to talk to you.”

“Mmhmm,” Degtyarev said vaguely, setting a pot-bellied red teakettle on the stove.

“I did warn you, didn’t I? I hate to say ‘I told you so.’ No need to kick a man while he’s down. What can I do for you, Timur?”

“You said: ‘It’s a good show, but I don’t think Prompt will accept it.’”

“I said, ‘It’s an amusing production.’”

“You said: ‘Prompt’s preferences are not a secret.’ I was naive enough to think that Prompt likes good shows.”

Degtyarev nodded.

“You were right.”

“But you meant something else, didn’t you? When you said, ‘Prompt’s preferences are not a secret.’”

“No, Timur,” Degtyarev said, his surprise ever so slightly exaggerated. “I meant exactly that: good shows. Professional, solid productions. It’s not a secret that Prompt likes good shows.”

Timur said nothing for a while.

“Does that mean my show wasn’t good enough?”

Degtyarev pursed his lips.

“Timur, I understand. Everything is still very raw. The shock of the failure …. Let’s not talk about it yet. Perhaps in a week or so, when the dust settles …”

Timur smiled mirthlessly.

“Everyone who’s needed consoling has already received it from the nurse and her syringes. How did you know Prompt wouldn’t like my show?”

“Because it was weak and loose,” Degtyarev said gently. “Because you see, Timur, Prompt cannot add merit or remove flaws. Prompt takes what already exists—and then tactfully highlights and emphasizes what he considers necessary. It’s like the art of photography: take an average-looking woman and, with lights and the correct angles, turn her into an old hag or a young beauty. Meanwhile, her face remains the same. It’s just a question of whether she’s loved or not.”

“We weren’t worthy of love,” Timur said.

Degtyarev nodded.

“Everything you saw today was real, all the real flaws of your production. Prompt never lies. Your show had merits, but Prompt didn’t think it necessary to emphasize them.”

Degtyarev took the teakettle off the stove and poured boiling water into a cup. Timur watched the tea leaves swirl and swell.

“That’s how it is, Timur. For instance, the boy who played the Writer—he missed his entire first year of college. I mean, he attended classes, but he learned absolutely nothing. It’s not fixable. He simply does not see his scene partners. And that girl—”

“Kirill performed with a broken arm!”

“Who cares? All our pain, our traumas—it’s our business, no one else’s. Haven’t you heard of Prompt’s cruelty before? He’s very cruel. Like an animal. Prompt cares about the show, about what happens on stage, and nothing else. Everything else is just noise for Prompt.”

“I don’t believe that our show was that bad,” Timur said slowly. “It was Prompt who destroyed it.”

“Believe it if you must,” Degtyarev said, shrugging. “In any case, I am glad you haven’t lost your courage. I’ve seen other directors after their shows bombed on Prompt. I’ve seen tears, snot, suicide attempts …”

Timur stared at Degtyarev for a long time. Eventually Timur smirked and shook his head: “In your dreams.”

Streetlights were on. At half past three in the morning, the city resembled an aquarium without water; it was just as empty and semi-transparent. He had been walking for a long while when a lone myopic taxi cab pulled up to the curb and winked at Timur with one headlight. His coat unbuttoned, his suit crumpled, and his tie pushed to the side, Timur must have looked like a candidate for a ride.

Timur kept walking.

Since he was a child, he’d had an uncanny ability to scroll through images seen or imagined. This skill had proved invaluable for the future director in college. And now, walking through the puddles, Timur watched his show. Not the way it was performed today, but the way it should have been performed. Where did it go wrong? Timur asked himself, but could not find the answer.

All the flaws and inaccuracies picked up by Prompt had been there. But there were other things! There was the main concept, or at least Timur thought there was. There was an original approach, a certain flair, there was style.

Why hadn’t Prompt wanted to acknowledge any of it?

Was Timur truly “a thespian hack,” as he was once branded by an aggressive, newly appointed critic?

He stopped at an intersection. Shiny, wet pavement stones resembled an infinite audience seen from above, from the balcony level, or perhaps from the sky.

Dark sleeping Prompt dominated the other side of the empty street. Ten billboards rose on both sides of the grand entrance. Timur recalled counting them for the first time when he was three years old.

Currently Prompt was running fourteen shows. The oldest had been performed for the last seven years. The most recent one, Comedy of Manners, had lasted only four months, a dozen performances.

Timur crossed the street and stopped in front of the billboards, affectionately known as the Ten Tin Men. It was customary to tease freshmen by asking, “What are you doing here, trying to get your poster on one of the Ten Tin Men?”

Timur walked on, studying the posters he’d seen so many times. At first he resurrected all these tragedies, farces, and dramedies in his memory, recalling the most minute details; eventually, he got tired and simply looked at the posters.

How come there are no photographs, he thought suddenly when he had learned the tiniest letters on each Tin Man. Why were there absolutely no pictures, when all urban theaters, big and small, good, average, and lame, always displayed actors’ photos and scenes from each production?

Recordings of any kind were forbidden on Prompt; allegedly, stage action did not transfer well onto film, it had to be watched live. Whenever someone tried to break that rule, they found their camera damaged in the process, or the film exposed to light.

Slowly, Timur started moving back, along the line of the Tin Men. Prompt likes good shows. Timur gazed at the posters of fourteen good shows.

He wished he could see them on a neutral stage, beyond Prompt.

Timur stopped.

Not a single production accepted by Prompt had ever been played on a regular stage. After her astounding success on Prompt, Timur’s mother had stayed away from the regular stage.

Timur wrapped his coat tighter. The morning wind chilled him to the bone.

If only he could separate Prompt’s magic from the show’s own merits—perhaps then he could understand.

The white clock face over the main entrance showed half past four. Soon he was expected in Olya’s hospital room.

He spotted a row of four phone booths. Timur dialed the number. The call was answered immediately, and Timur felt a sharp pang of remorse.

“Timur?”

“I’m fine,” he said, as gently as he could manage. “Mom, tell me something. Did you see Degtyarev’s show, Comedy of Manners, before the opening? Before Prompt?”

“Timur …”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

A pause.

“Yes, I saw it.”

“Was it really that great? Without Prompt’s help?”

A pause.

“Timur, where are you? Come home. Please. Irina called. A dozen people called, everyone wanted to tell you how wonderful you are, how—”

“Mom. Tell me. Degtyarev’s show—I thought I’d seen it before.”

“Timur, come home. I am begging you. I will tell you everything when you come home.”

“I’ll be home soon. Bye, Mom.”

“Timur, please—”

Carefully, he replaced the receiver in its cradle. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, pulled up his shoulders, and walked around the corner to the stage door.

The door was still locked. Timur touched the handle, knowing his effort was futile.

He raised his head and looked at the rows of dark windows.

Slowly, he rounded another corner toward the set loading dock behind the theater.

The wide iron gates were closed, but a small second floor window appeared to be slightly ajar. The window had no bars.

Timur took off his coat and hung it on the branch of the short scruffy tree nearby. After a moment of consideration, he took off his sports jacket as well and left his bag next to the tree. All thoughts had disappeared from his head; he felt calm and content, knowing that he could finally take some action. He could achieve something, not just analyze his defeat.

It was very cold. Timur climbed the tree, then jumped onto the roof of the garage, and from there to the second-floor cornice. More than anything he was afraid that the window would slam shut in front of his face. It would be very much a Prompt gesture, but Prompt was either asleep, had severely underestimated Timur, or was simply curious.

The window was tiny, but Timur was slim and not very tall. Drozd wouldn’t have made it. Despite skinned sides and a torn shirt, Timur made his way in without too much difficulty. He jumped down, leaving dirty footprints on the white windowsill.

He felt for a lighter in his pocket, then looked around.

He was in a dressing room. At an ordinary theater, the room would smell of mothballs, but Prompt did not tolerate old costumes. Or moths.

Once Timur’s eyes got used to the dark, he made his way to the door, flicking his lighter for extra help. Each of Prompt’s shows had its own costume rack, and every costume exuded its own aroma. Timur flared his nostrils greedily: the room smelled of talcum powder, perfume, machine oil, wax.  But more than anything, it smelled of sweat. Even the most exquisite dress adorned with ostrich feathers, the dress that belonged to the Comedy of Manners’ female lead, smelled like the perfumed leotard of a gymnast.

Timur pushed the door and it opened, and he was glad because up until the last minute, he’d worried that he wouldn’t be allowed past the dressing room.

The corridor had no windows. It was pitch-dark.

“Hello,” Timur said, trying to speak calmly. “Or, I suppose, good morning. Please accept my apology for coming in without an invitation. But I really need to talk to you.”

He was met with silence.

“I realize that many people do the same thing—demand an explanation after a failure.”

Silence.

Timur walked down the corridor, moving his hand along the wall. He stumbled upon a rolled up carpet and proceeded with caution, flicking his lighter on and off, looking for words on the walls.

The walls remained cold, coarse, and bare.

The corridor turned, and a staircase appeared in front of him. With effort, Timur figured out his location, ignored the staircase and continued along the corridor, toward the stage.

“I assume you can hear me, but you are pretending I’m not here. Well, I can explain. After today’s—last night’s—fiasco, no one will hire me even for a high school drama club. I don’t know if theater arts would lose much if I’m not involved. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. It’s not important. It’s not about me. It’s not even about those I failed, like Vita who could have been a brilliant actress. Not about Olya, who will be in treatment for a long time. Not about Boris, whose career is over. Not about Kirill, who’s so devoted to theater he would have performed with a crushed skull. Or Drozd, whose rare talent was never recognized. It’s not about them. I simply want to understand. Please explain what exactly you hated so much about our goddamn show? What exactly bothered you so much? Because you broke it like a toy. You mutilated it in front of its audience. You twisted it into a caricature of itself. Why? Because it broke some rules? The rules you consider absolute? Because it was made according to different rules?”

Timur flicked his lighter. The walls remained empty.

“I can tell you why this show turned out the way it did. When I read Three Brothers in high school, I felt so sorry for The Scientist. All the other characters considered him selfish, materialistic, and they treated him accordingly. And I felt sorry for him. He is not as much of an aesthete as The Writer, not as romantic as The Doctor. And it was back then that I decided to tell this story differently.”

A flick of the lighter. An exit loomed about thirty paces ahead.

“But that doesn’t matter. It’s not how the play is interpreted; you’re annoyed with the implementation. But every story can be told differently. Any story can be told, sung, danced …. Why does it matter how empathy is achieved?”

A flick of the lighter.

“Anyway, I am going to tell you something. You despise mothballs. But out there, beyond your walls, the world is changing fast. You don’t have the concept of time; for you, time is but a distance between the first call and the curtain call. From the intermission to the finale. But time is something different. It’s a different way to perceive reality. If these shows—the ones that thrill and astound your audiences—should they be released naked onto a regular stage … I am not saying they would be bad. They might be perfectly fine. They could have been great ten, twenty years ago. I am babbling right now, because I don’t know how to express my thoughts to make you understand. You are so much older than me, and you think you know everything, have seen everything. But just try! Try to renounce these rules of yours. Try a different angle! Like a child on their first visit to the theater.”

Timur stopped and pressed his cheek against the wall.

“You know what’s truly terrible? You set the tone, you define the concepts of good and bad. All your shows are the same: the dramas, the comedies. Everything is proper, everything is done according to the first year’s textbook. There are limits, there are blinders! Everyone wants to meet your expectations. Smart people have had it all figured out a while ago, and they produce their shows especially for you. And you happily accept them. You add a bit of soul to these shows, the soul their creators never imbue them with in the first place. But when someone tries to look at the world with their own eyes, not yours—assuming you even have eyes—you reject them. You squish them like bugs. To warn all the others against it. And everyone says, ‘It was a bad show.’”

The corridor ended; the iron door leading to the stage was locked. Timur went around.

“But do you even have the right to judge people? You have no eyes. And I don’t think you have a soul either. Or do you? Where are you hiding that soul of yours? I’d love to see it.”

The wide opening through which sets were brought in had no doors. Timur walked into absolute darkness. He stepped forward, skirting the wings, pushing aside the heavy velvet. It was stuffy in there, and all the dust made his nose itch. Timur sneezed, the stuffiness thickened, then receded. In front of Timur was a large empty space. He stood on the stage, and the curtain was raised.

Everything was quiet. The air was still.

“Won’t you talk to me? Will you say nothing at all?”

The lighter flicked on. Instead of switching it off, Timur stepped toward the wings and brought the tiny flame to the edge of the fabric.

“Will you talk to me?”

The curtain collapsed. Tens of kilograms of dusty velvet fell from the height of four floors, extinguished the lighter, knocked Timur off his feet, pressing him into the wooden floor, knocking the wind out of him.

He did not lose his composure. Instead, he held his breath like a deep sea diver and began to feel his way out. He crawled out from underneath the heavy mountain of crumpled fabric and stopped to catch his breath. Sparks danced in front of his eyes, the only source of light in the room. A black box theater indeed. Timur made his way to the middle of the stage, away from the wings, and flicked the lighter again.

He heard creaking and rumbling. Timur fell flat on his face. The crossbar with the mounted projectors stopped about half a meter above the stage, in its lowest position. The disturbed machinery kept humming; it had been activated too fast, against all regulations, and now it swayed heavily just above the prostrate man.

“You’re wrong,” Timur said softly. “It’s too late to try to squash me, you’ve already flattened me. But you must understand: theater cannot simply move along the tracks like a train. Theater must have a right to take a turn. If you don’t like something, it doesn’t mean it’s bad. You are like a gardener who rips out irises and daisies just because they are not his beloved potatoes.”

The stage flinched and began to rotate with a soft creak. It went faster and faster. Timur managed to get on all fours, but immediately fell down again, pressing himself against the smooth wood to avoid being thrown off by the centrifugal force. The stage rotated like a mad carousel, the lighter flew out of Timur’s hand, and at some point he nearly passed out.

The rotation slowed down, but Timur couldn’t get up long after the stage had stopped.

Then a bright light hit him so hard that he had to cover his face with his hands.

Still pressing his palms to his face, he sat up.

His eyes, having taken forever to get used to the dark, were now trying to get used to the light. Timur saw patterns on the insides of his eyelids.

And then, illuminated by the white surgical spotlight, he saw himself: a torn shirt with dirty cuffs, his best trousers, now crumpled and stained. Long scratches on his hands. On the floor by his feet, he saw words written in bright yellow chalk: Go home, Timur.

“I am not leaving,” Timur said, getting up.

All the lights—both on stage and in the audience—came on at once.

It felt like something between a summer afternoon and a blast furnace. Timur shielded his face with his elbow; the light was as solid as a wall, just like the darkness before that, but if the darkness could be dispelled with a flick of a lighter, there was no weapon against the light.

“You can’t stop me,” Timur said. “I understand that I cannot dissuade you. But I must at least try. And here is my first victory: you are no longer ignoring me.”

The lights went out, all of them, except for a single spotlight, as dim as a lone light bulb in a shabby hallway. The spotlight crept across the stage and stopped at a chalky inscription: You are mad. Leave.

“I am not mad,” Timur said.

The patch of light moved a bit further.

Have you heard what theater is built upon?

“Upon trampled egos,” Timur smirked.

Pick up what’s left of yours and get out.

“Listen to me,” Timur said softly. “Why won’t you have a sliver of doubt? At least once, a tiny little doubt. I am not telling you to reconsider your taste. You know theater—but you know nothing about life! How can you judge it?”

The spotlight dove backstage, then crawled over to the concrete wall.

Why shouldn’t you doubt yourself? was written on the wall, half a meter above the ground.

“Because I’ve already experienced doubt. I realized that I have a right to a show of my own. I have a right to my own view. I shouldn’t have come to you with it. I was stupid. I wanted recognition. I should have simply written ‘Mediocrity and Formalist’ on my forehead.”

The spotlight went up. The words were scratched on the black paint, as if with a nail: Indeed you are a mediocrity and a formalist.

“Indeed.” Timur nodded.

The spotlight went higher. Timur stepped toward the staircase and felt his lighter under his foot.

Without thinking, he picked it up and put it in his pocket.

The stairs smelled of iron.

You’ve been taught poorly, my boy. You are an amateur.

“No,” Timur said.

Lumps of dried mud broke off his shoes and flew to the ground.

You don’t know the basics.

“No,” Timur said louder. “I know the rules I have broken. I did it intentionally. My Scientist, unlike the original character, lives among painted dolls. Yes, it was my creative decision. Like children painting blue horses, knowing well that blue horses don’t exist.”

Arrogance is the hallmark of mediocrity.

Timur went up a few steps.

“You are confusing mediocrity with a different approach. Yes, in my production characters first answer, then listen to the question. I know it’s the wrong order. They have to listen first, process it. But it makes us feel that they are completely, utterly deaf inside! They are all emotionally deaf, all except for the Scientist. I know that most of my decisions are formal. That this production is not a psychological drama, it’s something different. But the empathy is still there! At least it was until you pushed it away.”

The stage was now far below. Timur stood on a narrow iron platform. You came to me, said the door of a switchboard, above the skull and bones warning sign. Do you want to leave?

Timur clung to the railing. High voltage was all around him; it would be so easy to fall down in the dark, maiming himself in the process, and if he fell into the hatch …

Rage descended upon Timur, heavily and suddenly, just like the stage curtain earlier. And while Timur made his way from underneath the curtain, this rage left him no chance at all.

“Stop trying to scare me! You are a murderer, not a temple! You are an orthopedic corset! You are a factory of prosthetics for healthy people! You ruined my mother’s life. You destroyed so many destinies and so many talents! I want you gone!”

Three fire engines pulled up to Prompt at seven in the morning.

It took the firefighters a while to extinguish the flames. The crowds around Prompt grew. The firefighters looked inappropriately confused; they hid their fear behind anger. They never told anyone what had happened to them and what they’d seen inside the old building.

Eventually a single white van with a red cross drove up to the theater. The police cordoned off the stage entrance and pushed the onlookers to a safe distance, but the curious ones stood on tiptoes and saw a stretcher covered with a sheet.

The fire had destroyed the roof above the stage and the stage itself, but not the rest; the city government rushed to allocate a large sum for renovations, and two weeks later Prompt was fully restored. Everyone expected the shows to resume immediately, but time passed, and no one could explain the absence of posters on the row of The Ten Tin Men.

The big snowstorm came late in the night. It blanketed the roofs, drowning the chimneys and the antennas. The trees resembled ghosts in white sheets. The autumn grime disappeared under the snow as if it never existed, and only a few maple leaves peeked through the slush around the warm sewer hatch.

Performances finally resumed on Prompt; Comedy of Manners was listed as the first show of the updated lineup.

One of the ticket holders was a beautiful woman of a certain age. Under her long, snow-dusted coat, she wore black jeans and a voluminous black sweater. She checked in her coat and went up to the balcony.

The theater smelled faintly of whitewash. Excited audience members took their seats. From her balcony seat, the woman had a clear view of the director’s box occupied by a middle-aged man with a serene expression on his face. Looking benevolently above his tiny, fashionably tinted glasses, he studied the audience. The audience looked enraptured, in anticipation of a miracle.

The curtain went up. The show began. A minute passed, then another.

Listening to the familiar lines, the woman had a strange feeling as if a glass wall had risen between her and the stage. As an impartial observer, she easily detected all the pros and cons of the show: the actors’ skills and their failures, occasional directorial mistakes, some garbled lines, a few excellent artistic decisions, and several clichés. Comedy of Manners appeared before her in its original form, devoid of the aura created by Prompt. Devoid of Prompt’s light. Bare.

She smirked. So that was the price of her metamorphosis: she’d learned to see Prompt’s shows beneath the veil of genius he draped over all of his productions.

And then she knew, and the knowledge paralyzed her on the spot.

The audience whispered uneasily. The velvet chairs creaked. Someone coughed, immediately stifling themselves. On the stage, a perfectly ordinary show went on, made of perfectly ordinary clichés. It wasn’t particularly bad, and it wasn’t particularly good either. It was just a show, the same as dozens of others, performed many times, as familiar as old slippers.

From her balcony seat, she watched the previously calm, confident actors starting to panic. Some gritted their teeth and continued following the script with a tenacity of a steam engine; others thrashed around, lost without the usual safety net, trying to improvise, update, revive.

But all their efforts were in vain. There was no help, no opposition; the show, so accustomed to Prompt’s gentle support, was now forced to impress on its own. The cast would be just as successful acting in the middle of a desert or on a makeshift platform in the center of a county fair, or at a local open mic night. Prompt had deserted its favorite child. Prompt had left Comedy of Manners to its own fate.

The audience was buzzing, the whispering growing louder and louder. A few people clapped, someone hissed, coughed, clapped again.

“Quiet!”

“And they call themselves theater lovers.”

“It’s unbearable.”

“You don’t understand it, it’s Prompt!”

“What do you know about art?”

“What do you understand at all?”

The woman in black understood nothing. And yet she knew everything, but what was she supposed to do with all that knowledge?

A narrow rectangle of light appeared in the director’s box, and when it went dark again, the box was empty. The woman in black did not feel like gloating.

During the intermission, tensions ran high. The coat check attendants, visibly pale, handed out one coat after another. A reporter from an evening paper spoke quickly into the phone. The woman in black came down to the orchestra section, approached the stage, and stared heavily at the lowered burgundy curtain.

At the very edge of the stage, a few words were scratched onto the lacquered surface of a wooden plank. The woman didn’t notice it for a while, and when she finally saw it, she flinched and narrowed her eyes as if in pain.

Greta, come to the dressing r

She tore her eyes away from the truncated sentence. Once again, she glanced at the drawn curtain. The call announced the second act, as the main door slammed demonstratively.

Greta Timyanova handed her token to the nervous coat check attendant. A second later the attendant panicked even more because the hook where Greta’s long gray coat hung just a moment ago was now empty. Showing no signs of anger, Greta did not listen to the offered excuses and promises; she simply smiled and walked out the front door as she was, without a coat.

She found herself in the darkness of a December evening. The snow flew horizontally, slamming into the row of Tin Men.

“This is the end of Prompt!” A young man in a long camel coat shouted through the wind. “This is the end of Prompt, the end of an era, remember my words!”

Greta looked away.

Com … ack … said the nearest billboard, the words written on the glass over the poster. The words swam in and out, changing as if someone wiped it with a wet rag and then wrote again. Must … cannot … have to … have to …

“You are mad,” the woman said.

Come-ee-e ba-ck. The letters morphed, flew away with the snow, and returned.

Greta turned toward the subway. It seemed as if the billboards were blocking her path. As if they were about to step off their centuries-old pedestals, only to stop her from leaving.

They couldn’t stop her.

Arms wrapped around her shoulders, the woman in black walked through the white blizzard. She stopped at a corner and looked back. The audience members moved away from the theater; lights shone through the snow in all the windows, and the woman felt as if she were being watched by dozens of yellow lights.

She turned, not toward the subway, but in the opposite direction. Toward the stage door.

The door opened as soon as her hand touched the handle.

A phosphorescent clock hung in the hall like a green moon. Please, was written over the black clock hands.

She took a short walk over, the same one she’d taken so many times before. She stood in front of the dressing room, biting her lip, then took a step forward and yanked the door open.

The show posters were gone. Instead, from floor to ceiling the walls were plastered with pencil drawings on pages ripped out of notebooks. In them, drawn by a child’s hand, people fought and reconciled, summoned and drove away; among this human hustle and bustle, a single portrait stood out, that of a dark-haired boy with a wide smiling mouth.

Help said a crooked line on the mirror.

Greta Timyanova pressed her hands to her face, reading through the loosely clasped fingers:

Help … me. I want to see the show again. His show. One more time. It’s necessary.

The woman rubbed her eyes, trying to decipher the last blurry line:

I want to understand.

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