— Twelve years later… and she didn’t say a word. Why?..

The next morning Nikolai began searching. He found a hotel with that name on the Internet — in Kyrgyzstan, in a small mountain village. He didn’t hesitate: he packed his things, withdrew money from his account, and set off.
The journey turned out to be long: a train, transfers, a bus, and finally an old minibus that wound through the mountains. The higher he climbed, the colder the air became. When there was very little left to the place, Nikolai’s heart was beating as if it wanted to jump out.
The hotel was in place. An old sign, a familiar façade. Inside, it smelled of wood and time. A middle-aged woman was sitting at the counter.
“Excuse me,” Nikolai began in a trembling voice. “Don’t you know a woman named Lena? Lena Nikolaeva. Perhaps she lived