The corridor is empty again.
Different sounds are now drifting in from the gala: less applause, more murmuring. Conversations in layers. A glass being placed on a tray somewhere. A brief crackle over the loudspeaker, then music. The subdued bustle of an evening that thinks itself festive and does not yet know that it is already showing cracks.
ILYA comes down the corridor.
He moves more calmly than Shane before him, not more slowly, just more controlled. Hands loosely behind his back, his stride precise, his gaze fixed ahead. Anyone not looking closely enough might think he is merely on his way from one duty to the next. Anyone looking more closely would notice that he is deliberately not hurrying.
He turns the corner and pauses for a moment. Then he quickly lights a cigarette.
The door to the storeroom is still not quite closed. The strip of warm light is still falling onto the floor. Only now there is no more arguing to be heard. The voices inside have grown deeper, more subdued, and precisely because of that, more tell-tale.
Ilya does not go any closer. He remains in the shadow of the wall, half a step from the doorway, as if the corridor itself had deposited him there.
The PHILANTHROPIST’s voice is heard first, quieter than before, with the false calm of a man who has just learnt that dignity is not a currency.
PHILANTHROPIST (VO)
If you summon me here a third time, someone is bound to notice, you fools! You’re risking too much.
The DOCTOR’s voice remains unshaken.
DOCTOR (VO)
No. I’m calculating. This is about the United States of America tonight, not some provincial hall. Or a private bankruptcy.
Ilya’s gaze shifts to the door. No visible expression on his face. Only the tension around his eyes grows slightly more alert.
PHILANTHROPIST (VO)
If you think you can use that to exert pressure—
DOCTOR (VO)
I’ve been exerting pressure for a long time.
A brief sound of glass or metal. Perhaps a ring against a table edge. Perhaps just a hand seeking a grip.
PHILANTHROPIST (VO)
Let the boy out of there.
Ilya grows even quieter than he already was.
A tiny muscle in his jaw twitches.
DOCTOR (VO)
Then don’t give me any reason to drag him in.
Silence.
From the front, a woman’s voice drifts through the hall, muffled, bright, festive, amplified by a microphone — Jennifer announcing something that sounds, back here, as if from another country.
PHILANTHROPIST (VO)
He’s got nothing to do with it.
DOCTOR (VO)
That’s rarely up to those involved.
Ilya briefly lowers his gaze to the floor. Not out of uncertainty. More like someone tracing a line in their mind and suddenly no longer sure where it ends.
PHILANTHROPIST (VO)
You would ruin him.
DOCTOR (VO)
No. I would hint. That’s usually enough.
Now Ilya’s posture visibly tenses. Not enough for an outsider to notice. But enough for anyone who knows him to realise: he is suddenly fully present.
PHILANTHROPIST (VO)
Training methods and aids have changed drastically over the last seventy years. To use that against him now is pathetic.
DOCTOR (VO)
It’s efficient. I repeat: this is about the United States, not interchangeable extras.
Again that grey, clean silence in between. Only the hall continues to breathe at the front, warm and oblivious.
PHILANTHROPIST (VO)
You overestimate your indispensability.
DOCTOR (VO)
And you underestimate how quickly sympathy turns into kompromat when the right people are watching.
Ilya now raises his head.
The sentence hangs in the air, clearer than anything before.
Not just any young man.
Not just any risk.
Someone vulnerable enough to serve as leverage.
He needs hear no more to draw the wrong conclusion in full.
The doctor presses on, almost casually.
DOCTOR (VO)
An American hero today, then a photograph, something inappropriate at the wrong time — you know yourself how little it takes these days.
Ilya exhales very slowly.
There is no longer any ambiguity in his perception, only in the truth.
In his mind, what has been said immediately becomes something dangerous and concrete:
The doctor is ready to use Shane.
Or is already doing so.
Inside, a chair is pushed back. Footsteps. The conversation ends.
Ilya silently steps away from the doorway and takes two steps back, right into the shadow of a protruding heating pipe. When the door opens, he is already standing where, with a bit of luck, he will be taken for nothing more than a quiet guest who has taken a wrong turn.
The PHILANTHROP steps out.
He appears composed, but not calm. His forehead glistens slightly. His hands are too smooth. The face of a man who is forcing himself back into his public persona because his private one no longer holds any value.
He does not notice Ilya.
The Philanthropist heads towards the main hall, slower than before, but still with that practised, elegantly measured dignity intended to give others the impression that everything is under control here.
A breath later, the DOCTOR appears in the doorway.
He spots Ilya’s glowing cigarette immediately.
This time he even pauses for a moment, as if recognising not just a listener, but an opportunity.
DOCTOR
Mr Rozanov. Smoking is harmful to your health!
Ilya steps out of the shadows, just far enough to make the conversation official.
ILYA
Doctor.
DOCTOR
You seem as though the social part of the evening has become too noisy for you as well. If you’re nervous, you can still withdraw. No one in Mother Soviet Union will be watching this little nest.
ILYA
I prefer rooms where there is less smiling and more playing.
A very small smile from the doctor. More recognition than warmth.
DOCTOR
Then you have chosen the more honest part of the building.
Ilya holds his gaze. ‘Honest’ is not the word that would spring to his mind, but he doesn’t say it.
ILYA
Honest is a flexible term.
The doctor takes half a step closer from the doorframe, closes the door behind him with a casual wave of his hand and smooths the sleeve of his jacket.
DOCTOR
Not as elastic as loyalty.
Ilya shows no visible reaction. That, too, is a reaction.
ILYA
I don’t see why we should be talking about loyalty.
DOCTOR
No? I would have thought a man in your position would know exactly why.
A pause.
Ilya remains completely still. Only his eyes grow colder.
ILYA
And what is my position?
The doctor tilts his head slightly, as if examining a diagnostic finding.
DOCTOR
Young enough to believe that discretion is a private virtue. Old enough to suspect that other people turn it into fodder.
Ilya says nothing.
The doctor continues, his voice gentle enough that the menace in it sounds almost medical.
DOCTOR
If I were you, I wouldn’t cause any further complications this evening. Neither on the ice nor off it.
Ilya looks him straight in the eye.
ILYA
Is that medical advice?
DOCTOR
An observation.
ILYA
Then carry on observing.
The doctor seems to find this almost amusing.
DOCTOR
With pleasure. Only pleasure is poor protection when the wrong stories spread too quickly.
Ilya finally moves. Not back. Half a step forward.
Not aggressively. Just enough to make the air between them tighter.
ILYA
If you want to say something, say it.
The doctor stands his ground. Not the slightest bit surprised.
DOCTOR
I’m simply saying that public displays of affection are rarely the problem. Private vulnerability is more likely to be.
A blow. Small, precise, delivered with complete intent.
Ilya’s face remains almost unchanged. Almost.
But the doctor has seen what he wanted to see.
He steps aside and, with an elegant little gesture, clears the way towards the hall.
DOCTOR
I wish you every success on the ice, Mr Rozanov. Perhaps you’ll do your family proud today.
The doctor walks past him.
Not quickly. Not defensively. Rather with that effortless confidence of men who have grown accustomed to letting others work with half-baked information.
Ilya stays behind.
He does not watch the doctor leave. His gaze falls on the door of the equipment room, on the sliver of light, on the faded paint, on the ‘STAFF ONLY’ sign, as if one could tell from metal how many bad conversations a room has already survived.
From the front, someone is now calling out a name over the microphone. The music starts up again. The gala carries on.
Ilya places a hand flat against the cold wall. Just for a moment. Not for support. More like a point of grounding.
Images. Rumours. An American favourite. Something out of place at the wrong time.
It isn’t much.
It is more than enough.
His first thought is not of the philanthropist, not of the doctor.
But of SHANE.
Not as an accusation.
Not yet.
Rather as a sudden fear that someone wants to use him as leverage.
Or that Shane would become a pawn here for a cause Ilya could not understand.
Ilya exhales quietly, straightens his shoulders, puts on that smooth, controlled face again with which he can stand up to cameras and hymns, tosses the cigarette butt into a drain grate and walks back towards the main hall.
Behind him, the corridor remains silent and grey, as if it had heard nothing and would remember nothing.