“Perhaps on that day⁠ ⁠…” her brow grew darker; she took my hand and pressed it hard. “Tell me, will you ever forget me? Will you always remember me?”

“But why such talk? What is it, I- , dear?”

She was silent. And her eyes were already sliding past me, through me, away into the distance. I suddenly heard the wind beating the glass with its enormous wings. Of course it had been blowing all the while but I had not noticed it until then. And for some reason those cawing birds over the Green Wall came to my mind.

I-330 shook her head with a gesture of throwing something off. Once more she touched me for a second with her whole body, as an aero before landing touches the ground for a second with all the tension of a recoiling spring.

“Well, give me my stockings, quick!”