We emerged from the Paddington tube station and headed off to the hotel. A couple of turnings and we are on Spring street, the name which is easy to remember.

The door tinkled and we entered the hall. The receptionist raised her head and smiled cheerfully. I took out our passports and stretched to her.

"I've made a reservation here", I said.

The girl took the passports and checked something in her laptop.

"Yyyes, we've got your reservation. Would you like to pay by cash or by credit card?"

"Credit card, please."

I had a couple of questions about our stay.

"Sorry, can I have your name please?" I decided to start the conversation. I always ask for a person's name. It feels more polite.

"Agnieszka", the girl answered.

"Oh, you come from Poland", I gave the girl an encouraging smile.

She stared at me flabbergasted.

"So…I don't look like British?", she asked and her eyes started to well up with tears.

I was a bit stumped by this and muttered:

"Oh no…it's just your name… it is Polish"

I could see her frustration go up a couple more notches. She was making copies of our passports with her head low.

The autumn dusk in Moscow dissolves slowly in the mornings. In fact, it never disseminates completely morphing from marengo into ash grey with our breath coming out in long plumes of white.

It was a rush hour and hundreds of fatigued people were marching to the bus stops to be further delivered to the coveted underground stations.

I got off the bus and nipped forward. The zebra crossing behind me split two sides of the avenue. I caught a glimpse of the traffic lights which were on the verge of changing lights for pedestrians from red man standing still to the green one trotting short. A young man dashing from the underground station to the crossing saw the green light man and made a beeline for the opposite side of the avenue. He didn't yet see what I saw, my heart being in my mouth. A car had separated from a bulk of cars standing afar and started its way to the crossing trying to run a red light.

Not until the man turned left did he seem to realize the danger. They hit in a second. The car tossed the man like a coin. From then on it all turned into a slow motion shot. The man was somersaulting in the air. Everything froze, and I cast a look round. The drivers, the passers-by, the cyclists were gaping at them appalled. The man plummeted onto the avenue, and the infuriated crowd rushed to the automobile cursing and swearing. They dragged the driver out, and he stood numb and silent, his hands quivering.

The book was mine. Back in the day it started to fall apart in my hands until one night the cover fell off. The first story I read was The Speckled Band which was a page turner – I was glued till four in the morning. I have set my heart on detectives since then.

After I had left for the capital with a suitcase full of southern tomatoes and cheap presents for our Muscovite relatives, the books were seized by my elder sister. It never dawned on me why she had chased the parents' books and, having captured, guarded them as a treasure being vaguely paranoid about possessing them. It's not that I look down on her, I just think she has a kind of dyslexia. If she hadn't, she would be capable of grasping what she was reading about whereas she was unable to follow the lines and what they weave into. Vernacular was also something she grappled over. Watching a film she would turn to me helplessly.

"What are they talking about?"

That Christmas we had been at mom's place for two weeks and were packing suitcases to come back home. The year had just begun having ushered new plans and new apprehension: what do we have to expect? The skin on my face was itching – winter temperature was a strain on it, and my attempts to find a suitable cream weren't fruitful. The stuff was on the threshold, whilst we were putting on coats and boots. My daughter and I had been reading the book for some time, but left off right in the middle of The Hound of Baskervilles. It was my daughter's fourth year at school but she was unwilling to read on her own. I had to read it out for her.

The book was waiting for us on the shoe shelf in the hall. I was rejoicing at the prospect of killing time on board the train.

Fidgeting with a shoehorn and trying to slip into my boots, I felt some stir behind me. I turned around and saw a woeful face – my mum was trying to say something but she was afraid to say the words out loud.

"Annie wouldn't like you to take the book away."

Every time, being confronted, I froze at first – my brain was revolving like a turbo machine trying to find the way out of the maze. Then the tsunami was rolling in, not yet visible but coming soon.

Annie, my sister who was living with mum, turned up in the room. I tried to hold my end up.

"May we take the book?"
"You may lose it."
"Why should I?"
"You have already wasted a hoard of our parents' stuff."
The scandal was looming large.
"What is it that I've wasted?"
"Mom's ring with a green stone and a gold bracelet."
"I didn't waste it. We had no money to live on so I sold it. Things do happen, you know." I said pointedly. "When one has money issues."
She hardly ever had any financial woes, so she might have been chastened but didn't give in.
"You are constantly losing things."
Her obstinacy defied explanation.
"Why do you need it? You don't read books."
What seemed gospel truth to me didn't seem so very invariable to my sister.
She lowered her head.
"I said I'm not going to let you take the book."
The exchange of shots went on.
"But I will return it! We haven't finished reading. I'm going to give it back as soon as we are over with it."
It didn't sink in how this is even possible not to let your niece read the book.
"This is a vintage edition. You are bound to tear it on the train. We won't find the same edition."
"Books do get worn out because they are read rather than kept for décor. I need it for the child. Why are you so mean?"
"I have a child too! He needs books."
"Who? Misha?" I grinned. "He'd been struggling over "Headless Horseman" for two years. Until I called him to see the film, or else he would never have found out the finale."
It was a blow beneath the belt of which I was oblivious of blurting out. My mum and daughter cast fearful glances. Silence.
"Screw you! Go to hell!"
I grabbed the suitcase, hurriedly pecked my mom's cheek and stormed out of the flat, my daughter following me. I rushed down the stairs hissing.
"Bitch. Bitch."

It was a cold summer after a tiring and energy-draining year. The days only varied in the shades of grey, with the temperature revolving around 10 degrees Celsius.

Anna got her diploma after 6 years of studying. One too many.

Since the autumn was rolling in and the family hadn't yet had a holiday, the idea popped up in her husband's mind to go to the Baltic sea. While hoards were travelling south, they headed off north.

At the station the buses were idling with their engines rattle. The family boarded and soon set off. She had a thing about what kind of passengers sitting next to them they will get. This time it was an old, skinny, and sharp-nosed man with a pair of Trotskyish round glasses and a kind of vicious streak about him. He sat behind her and her daughter's seats. Next to him there was a tall man, plain and wishy-washy. "Neither fish, nor fowl", Anna concluded. She preferred men who had a presence.

There was a wifi on a bus, and all the passengers put on their headphones. She didn't have any and was just staring at the window watching a northern milky night falling. Her husband was sitting across the aisle with his eyes closed.

The old man was talking to a plain guy who didn't actually take part in the conversation apart from lazy back-chanelling: Really? Yeah… I see…

She started to doze when suddenly a shadow sprang across the aisle and a loud voice said: Are you going to shut up tonight?

It was like a bolt from the blue. She opened her eyes bemused – somebody is joking? It took her seconds to pin down the fact that it was her husband who was standing behind her seat saying something. She turned back slowly and saw the Trotskyish glasses staring at her husband.

"What's the problem?", he said non-chalantly. "You have no right to make me keep silence"

"Shut the hell up!", her husband flared up.

She was petrified. She hadn't seen him so infuriated for a long time. Not after his alcohol addiction was beaten.

A pause. Anna was uncertain what to do or say. There was the crackle of a snack bag being torn open – some passengers decided to have supper.

She felt obliged to stand up for him and his serenity but didn't yet realise what could have spawned his rage – the old man's muted chattering didn't seem to have disturbed anyone except him.

"David…David", she whispered tapping his shoulder. "Sit down, stop it. Please."

He wouldn't listen.

"Come on, speak! Speak to me!", he shouted at the old man who didn't seem to care a bit.

"Or what? I don't want to sleep. I've had a nap and now I want to talk to a friend of mine", the skinny nuisance said defiantly. It was becoming to piss her off. "Bloody funkiller", she thought.

She couldn't stay away any longer. "Seriously, you don't let us fall asleep. We've been listening to you all the way through St.Pete. It's time to sleep".

The old man answered something back. What he said was so silly and out of place that a thought crossed her mind that he might be a schizophrenic. The old man seemed to agree with her. After the scandal eased off, he giggled and said to his neighbor pointing at her husband: "Nothing doing. The man must be insane. We are all a bit insane". He sighed.

The way to Olimpiysky Concert Hall led through the Central Shop. There was no need to drop by, but Tatiana decided to take a look at perfumes. She hadn't been using them for quite some time, but either something had changed, or the forthcoming concert invigorated her, but she did not mind painting her life with fragrances.

The way through the main aisle in the Central Shop conjured up a fly in a room attracted to the sticky strips hanging from the ceiling. Shop assistants were glued to her handing her strips of paper with various fragrances. She automatically grabbed them without stopping. She didn't mean to loiter around because the box office's working hours were almost over. Suddenly someone shouted into her ear: the fragrance of prune! She stretched her arm and took it.

She saw herself marching like a model on the catwalk, drenched with odours, and her hand sent forth a chaos of fragrances, through which the prune was vaguely looming. I could have bought it, - she thought when she left the shop. But it was too late – she couldn't identify which strip it sat on.

Streets fanned out in front of her, their lanes diverging in all directions; scenery, skyline, their womb. It was a beige city, with houses of beige shades. It was flowing like a beige river bringing her to a shore. To the box office.

She could have got the ticket delivered but she was eager to go out at lunchtime. At weekends she jumped on a trampoline, but during the week she didn't have enough physical activity. What's more, she wanted to do it herself – enter the box office, and coming up to the ticket vendor to say loudly: February 25, Olympyisky, Sting. Do you have tickets?
They had tickets. An assistant asked her: would you like to sit or go to the dancing floor?
Tanya hesitated. Will she manage to stand throughout the concert? The concert vibes could best be perceived in front of the stage, but after a short hesitation she said: can I have the best seat?
She took one.

On the day of the concert she was driving to the office with "I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien, I'm an Englishman in New York" at full blast.
Oleg, her boss, hadn't yet arrived in the office. She was aware that he would snow her under with various tasks, but when he came in the office, he didn't show up in the open space until lunch time. He didn't go out after lunch either. The office phone didn't ring.
At 4 p.m Oleg swaggered from his room into the open space working stations. He slowly approached Tanya:
- Tanya, Klaus is coming today instead of tomorrow. He apologizes for the short notice. You'll have to meet with him tonight.

Tanya froze. She wasn't altogether surprised to hear that. She gazed at her boss. Was he doing it deliberately? Ruining her plans, calling her when she is on holiday in Hong Kong and insisting she made a report, sending her emails at night asking to reply immediately. She tried to recall if she had told Oleg about the gig. Seems like she hadn't. She was sure he had found out about it somehow.
Her whole life whizzed by in front of her eyes as if she was going to die. For some reason It conjured up a boy living next to her who wore a yellow T-shirt striped with black lines. Like a bee or a wasp. She had found out that "Sting" in English means the sharp part of an insect's body. And so the boy was associated with Sting since then. Then her mother popped up: You can't be that lamblike. This was about Tanya and her ex-husband.
Come on, lighten up, Oleg said. You won't have to stay long there.
She looked up at him. Arguing was pointless. Pleading – so much the more.

She rose and went out of the room. If anyone could lip-read that moment, they would make out just one word which she was muttering under her breath: Moron. Morons.

Klaus stayed in the Ritz. They agreed to meet at 5. She did not want to stay in the office. Going out she almost fell on "Sobyanin's" tiles which triggered anger with the locals. They demanded the return of asphalt. But asphalt that day was as slippery as the tiles.

The parking lot was packed. Tanya had a look at the wind shields. The first three cars had something stuck behind the windscreen wiper. The BMW had a cheap magazine with advertisements of local prostitutes. The other two held messages. One of them was from the owner who having dumped the cars haphazardly asked the owners of other cars to give them a call if needed. It said: "Dear sir/madam, I do apologize for any inconveniences. Would you please give me a call at 8 903 756 45 56. I'm really sorry." The second one was evidently not from the owner but from one of the other drivers parking nearby: "When you go out of the car, ask yourself if you have parked like a jackass".

Crossing over the bridge, she took a short glance at the water in the river. The ice cracked and ice plates turned into Malevich's paintings – triangles, squares, rectangles crowded as if trying to repair the damaged picture.

Tanya approached the Ritz and gave Klaus a call. He asked her to rise to his floor and then they would go together to the roof and sit in a nice bar overlooking the Kremlin.

She came up to the lift and pressed the button. Sting was singing in her earphones. Poor alternate to the gig. The arrow lit up, meaning the lift was going up from the garage. The door tinkled and opened. She raised her head and stepped inside the lift.
Sting was singing in her head and was opening his mouth right in front of her. He was talking to someone from his entourage. Tanya peered into him. Him or not him? There was something strange about him – not that singing didn't match the moments he opened his mouth thus making the music sound even when he kept silence, but something else. The star was small and thin and looked like a baked apple. Turtle-neck sweater, black jeans. Before that he had seemed to her sartorially elegant and distinctive. Tanya was staring at him up and down. He was wearing heeled shoes. Why on earth did he amend the shoes with the heels? Her aunt would say "He is a kind of half-baked, isn't he?"
He was miserable, and she wanted to cup him.

The lift stopped a few times absorbing people going upward. It was narrow but long, rectangle-shaped, and the incomers didn't prevent her from seeing Sting. She was standing right opposite him. Her stare was too intense and he inevitably cast a glance at her. He turned away at once.

They went out on the same floor. While she was looking around to find Klaus's suite, the singer and his entourage turned left and walked along the corridor. Tanya figured out that Klaus lived in the same direction. She followed the singer. And half an hour later she was sitting in the bar on the roof sipping wine with Klaus.

Unlocking the door was a no-brainer. Didn't have to tinker with it. Something clicked softly and I pulled the door open. It halted for a moment, seemingly stuck on something. But it was just an old doorjamb which needed to be fixed. I drew the door forcefully and stepped inside. I intended to shut the door quietly but it wouldn't move, so I had to slam it.
I hovered in the doorway. The place wasn't huge. I could either head off to the right – through the door opening into a room which in perspective gaped like a shining spot. The light from the window which I couldn't yet see blurred the furniture and other items in the room.
There was another door in the hall, it was tightly shut.
The light beaming from the first room was entrancing. I headed off there.
I saw the window with gauzy curtains through which the light crept. I came up to the wall which was most intensely crammed. My eyes flicked back and forth across the bookcase, one part of which was behind the glass door. Souvenirs, knickknacks, photos. If you asked me now who was in them I would be unable to recount. I was scanning for something valuable.
I opened up the drawers one by one and fumbled inside. Pieces of scruffy paper, old football match brochures, tools, a calculator. My heart stuttered only once when I found a plump envelope. Full of faded receipts.
It was IKEA furniture – plain, the color of caramel and peanut. What was I doing there?
The color of the wallpaper – what was the name? Off-white? It took me right back to my childhood paintings, invoking a feeling of distaste.
I tore open the wardrobe – shoes stowed underneath, towels lying around on shelves.

The bulk of things looked insurmountable. Am I going to trawl through all of these? Suddenly the heap tilted and lavishly collapsed entombing me in this "rags sematary"*.

Reference to Stephen King's "Pets Sematary".

What was I feeling standing in the middle of the street? In hindsight, I'm trying to figure it out, evoking and eliciting the same feelings. Anxiety? Loneliness? Was I unsettled? Restless?

I was swamped by loneliness and freedom. I had just turned 17 which, from where I stand now, seems way too early to live separately from your family. How could they have let me go?

The street sprawled parallel to a boulevard in the very centre of this provincial town which for some reason possessed a big university. It was at the beginning of the 1990s, in the fervor of perestroika. Capitalism was rolling in with its numerous small shops, cafes and other commercial things unheard of before and aimed at making money. The street where I was standing that evening was scattered with the shops selling cheap clothes made in Turkey. Mom had given me some money and I felt free to spend it as I wanted. I spotted a leopard print blouse, the pattern which had always seemed so slinky to me. I wouldn't remember the fabric now – it will have been some cheap jersey draping greasily. A sour-faced shop assistant unwillingly took the blouse down off the rack fixed right beneath the ceiling. She scowled at me on realizing I was not going to buy it.

I lingered at a tramway crossing trying to work out which tram line I needed. The town was divided into two parts – the upper part and the lower part. The mountains surrounded the town, as if cradling and sheltering the town dwellers.

My mother had rented a room for me in a 3-room flat. On top of that, I acquired a landlady and a cat.

And so there I was, sitting on the edge of a bed which had never been mine, far from my home town, my flat on the 4th floor of a grand house, my parents, my grandma, my room, my bed. The one constant thing was the Great Bear gazing at me from the sky right above my window at all times. Even though back home it was much easier to get a good look at it, because the floor was closer to the sky, or for some other reason.

The train was half empty. It is always the case in the first and the last carriage on the Circle Line. A woman of about 30-35 steps inside pushing a stroller with a girl of about 6 or 7. Another girl, a bit older, follows them. They sit down next to me and I can feel a pungent odour of urina. The younger girl starts muttering loudly. It dawns on me that she is insane. The girls' hair is snarled. They are neither homeless, nor beggars, but there is something dysfunctional about the three of them. The smell, the hair, the way the woman treats the younger daughter – harsh, rude, no tenderness. They don't talk while going, don't laugh. Misfortune, misery.