“You will get in your car, and proceed directly to Stavropol,” he said. “What about Privolnoye?” I said. “I told the foreign ministry I’d go there, too.” “As you know, there is a quarantine.” “What quarantine?” “You know very well. You were told.” “And how do you know that?” The deputy chief blinked once, slowly, to indicate annoyance. I was not to be childish, he seemed to say. He had no time. He had an entire town to run into the ground before the year was out.
