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[Alexandr Korol]

If I try to remember now... I think she said he sensed it. As I recall, she said he called her in the evening after our meeting — either that same evening or the next day. The point is, after I met with her, he called and asked, “Who did you see today?” or “What did you do today? Who were you with?” Or maybe he didn’t call for that reason, maybe he just called to ask how her day was. She might have said, “I met with a boy today.” And then he asked, “What boy?” So yes, first he called, asked what she’d been up to, then asked what boy. She said, “Just a very interesting boy.” And he asked, “What kind of interesting boy? We need ones like that.” Something like that. She replied, “You don’t need ones like that,” kind of jokingly, laughing. And he kept asking, “Come on, what kind of boy? Tell me more.” So she said, “He’s 17, has read a bunch of books and watched a lot of films, still young, doesn’t know or understand much.” But as I understand it, maybe at first their conversation was just that she let it slip or maybe boasted a bit that she’d met with a magical boy. And then he probably said, “We need ones like that.” And she said, “No, you don’t. He’s still young.” Maybe something like that. But I didn’t ask. You know, there are a lot of such questions I could’ve asked, but I purposely didn’t — just to not spoil the magic. Seriously, not to spoil the magic. If it sounds like a fairytale, then let it sound like a fairytale. And I’ll share a similar example now. In the second volume of “Alternative History,” there’s information revealed about the flying saucer I saw as a child over my kindergarten when I was five years old — at that time, I found a little plastic bag with red stones. My grandfather told me that the bag was still at his house, that he’d poured the stones into a vase, and that he had kept them ever since. So when he was at home, I naturally called and asked him to find them. But he didn’t find them. And to avoid being disappointed, I just let it go, assuming they must’ve existed but got lost during a move, or that they were packed away somewhere else. I didn’t want to go there and start turning everything upside down only to not find them and end up disappointed. Why? So it remains in this suspended, magical state — that they’re somewhere out there. And I don’t want to ruin that magic by trying to prove it. That’s the same kind of question you just asked — there are questions that you could ask and try to get an answer to, but if you don’t get one, it could ruin the illusion. Why do that? It’s wonderful when things sound magical, and this magic is fragile. Of course, when I study something specific, like a historical fact,