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“Pretty much, yeah. Want to see the bear?"
    He nodded and followed her through the hall of the train station to a small grass-covered yard in the back. Furtively, he made sure that his watch was still attached to the wristband, and that the band still circled his wrist.
    The bear chained to a wooden stake thrust carelessly into the ground was old and arthritic, and his rheumy eyes watched Fyodor with indifference born of old age and a lifetime of oppression. The fur under his eyes was sticky with gunk, and his chin was bare, as if he rubbed it too much. There were also large bald spots on his sides, gray skin amid mangy brown fur, like patches of lichen on the stone. The bear smelled strongly too, of wet dog, iodine and bad teeth.
    "Poor thing,” Fyodor said.
    "Poor Misha,” the girl agreed. “He's so old, my mom says he won't live through the winter."
    The bear sat on his haunches, his sides rising and falling, his pink tongue hanging out among the broken teeth; Fyodor doubted he would survive the summer. “You call him Misha?"
    The girl laughed. “Yeah, I know. Original, right? By the way, I'm Oksana. You?"
    "Fyodor.” He thought a bit. “Why did you drag me here?"
    "You said you had nothing else to do.” She still smiled, but the look in her eyes was crestfallen.
    Had he been older or not so preoccupied, he would've understood that she was showing
    kindness to a stranger, looking for a friend or just offering a hand. If he had not been so scared of being stolen in all these years, he would've known better than to scoff, and say, “Look, I told you I don't have any money. None."
    Oksana just stared at him. The bear moaned.
    "I better go,” he said. He had sense enough not to add, I wouldn't have fucked you anyway, but he thought it, and suspected that Oksana could guess his thought.
    * * * *
    He never went back to Zvenigorod-another gypsy encounter, coupled with the presence of the amulet and the image of the old and ailing bear convinced him that going back would mean stagnation and death. As the formerly solid structures and ideologies crumbled and the social services collapsed one by one, he learned how to live the life of the street artist. He squatted when he couldn't find other options, preferring the attics of the apartment buildings downtown, not too far from Arbat where he sold the watercolors and bought art supplies and booze; Herzen Street was the reliable favorite. Sometimes he stayed with the hippies who liked Arbat and the artists, and a few of whom didn't mind his overnight presence on one couch or another. Winters were hard but he survived; if it got too cold in his attic, he dragged himself down the stairs, into the streets, into the flashing lights of ambulances who had the good grace of collecting indigents on especially cold nights and taking them to hospitals and shelters, wherever there were beds and food. Sisyphus’ labor if there ever was one, because the winters kept returning, the indigents grew in number, and the ambulances got their funding slashed time and time again.
    He was not looking forward to the winters, and come September he started to drink and worry more and paint less-nowadays, he stuck with the views from the roofs and attics he frequented. Every time he saw gypsies, he searched for Oksana, but she was either not there or he failed to recognize her in her street clothes-he remembered her earrings better than her face. He painted her occasionally, hoping to summon her by sympathetic magic, which turned out to be as useless as the defaced coin hanging on the chain around his neck.
    The tourists liked buying Oksana's portrait-they liked anything colorful and exotic, like magpies. They were also as loud as magpies, talking at Fyodor in slow, loudly enunciated syllables. He just smiled and gave no sign that he understood English; he didn't have to-exchange of art for foreign green money was a silent transaction. Moreover, if he played dumb, he got to hear them talking about