She didn’t explain further. She didn’t need to. Kosta would never understand. He was a man who collected things—money, women, power—and he thought the world was a ledger. He didn’t know that the world was a spoon. Small. Ordinary. And absolutely necessary. They killed her, of course. Not quickly. Not kindly. But Veta Antonova had been dying since the moment her father was dragged out of the flat in Minsk. Every year after that was a gift she’d stolen from the universe, one border at a time.

The teaspoon went into her pocket. She didn’t know why. Later, she would understand: some objects become talismans not because they are special, but because they were present. The spoon had witnessed. That made it sacred.

“You’re not Romanian,” he said one afternoon, leaning against the counter while she swept the floor.