Moscow in November was cold in a different way than London.
London's cold was damp, pervasive, the kind that settled into clothes and stayed. Moscow's cold was direct—clear air, specific temperature, nothing ambiguous about it. The park where 531,000 names existed in the ground received them at noon, the sun low enough that everything cast long shadows.
Rama walked the familiar path from the park entrance toward the memorial's center. The path had been walked enough times now that his feet knew it without his attention being required.
Six years of ashes and letters and flowers. The ground itself had changed—not visibly, not in ways you could point to specifically, but the accumulation of six years of offerings had done something to the quality of the place. Parks that received sustained human attention developed character. This one had become something specific rather than merely a park with a memorial.
The mental recitation began at the memorial's center and moved outward.
