Now it is twenty years after his last summer in Saranza, and the narrator is roughly thirty-five. As the Soviet Union is falling, his career as a Russian broadcaster at Radio Free Europe comes to an end, and he begins to wander aimlessly throughout Europe. As soon as he becomes used to the routine of a place, its sights, smells, and sounds, he is compelled to leave it. He begins to have fleeting thoughts of suicide, as a way out of routine.