Anna Kralova stands outside the apartment door, listening. This irrational impulse makes her cringe, though she assumes no one is here to record her embarrassment. Anna does not believe in ghosts. She believes that when we die, we are gone forever. She believes everything we know of the world, we know through our senses, a sudden flaming vision through time. And yet how to explain this feeling? This sense of a foreign sadness that’s been lodged in her throat since the young man’s death.
She turns her key in the lock and opens the door. Not too slowly, not too quickly. As naturally as she can, she opens the door to her old apartment. The door swings into silence. What was she expecting? Creaking hinges? A cold spot on the floor? Footsteps? Anna smiles to herself. For days afterward, that odious old man downstairs continued to complain about phantom footfalls.
