I woke up in a train carriage slowly dragging me through the night.

  The first thing I felt was the smell of the sea — salty, warm, laced with the faint tang of soot and coal.

  Odessa. You could recognize it even with your eyes closed. That scent couldn’t be mistaken — part wine, part fried fish, and something else... subtle, uneasy. As if the city itself wanted to say: I've been waiting for you.

  Sleep faded slowly. I sat on the narrow bunk for a while, listening to the rhythm of the wheels and watching the night slip past the window. Trees blurred into shadows, houses drifted by one after another, until the train finally began to slow down, approaching the station.

  Below the window, life had already begun — soft and unhurried, but somehow all the more convincing for it. Cabmen argued lazily, vendors arranged goods on wooden crates.

  The city was waking up — even though the night still hung overhead like a dark roof.

  I pulled on my old trench coat, checked my bag, and took out a letter folded in quarters. The handwriting was familiar.

  It was a letter I never sent, but one that had somehow still arrived — a message that dragged me back to the place I had once left too quickly.

  The train stopped. I stepped off the carriage.

  Odessa greeted me with heat, with the slow, thick murmur of the square outside the station. Somewhere nearby, meat sizzled over coals. The air was heavy with the smell of spices, dust, roasted onions — and something else. A kind of freshness only found at night, just before dawn.

  I adjusted the strap of my rucksack and stepped out, feeling how the city reached for me again — like an old habit, not forgotten but buried.

  A boy was sitting near the station with a wooden shoeshine box. He glanced at my boots and gave a crooked smile.

  “Shine, monsieur? Fast and clean.”

  I sat down on a bench and stretched out my legs. The boy got to work immediately — quick hands, practiced motion.

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  When he was done, he looked up and handed me a folded scrap of paper, eyes gleaming.

  “This is for you. Someone asked me to give it.”

  He didn’t wait for questions. Just vanished into the crowd.

  I opened the note. It was brief:

  “Find Rabbi Zusya. He knows. Don’t delay.”

  The name echoed faintly in my memory — like the end of a conversation I couldn’t quite recall. University? The desert? Jerusalem? Maybe all of them.

  Didn’t matter. I had a direction now.

  I slipped the note into my coat pocket and looked around.

  Across the square stood the Continental hotel — its plaster peeling, stone stairs worn down to the bone. It had once been elegant. Now it was simply tired.

  Inside, an old concierge dozed with his head resting on his hand. He stirred only slightly as I approached, opening one eye.

  “Second door on the right, room twelve,” he said, as if we'd already spoken.

  I climbed the stairs, accompanied by the creak of old wood — the same sound I’d heard in a dozen other cities. But this time I wasn’t running.

  I was searching. For something I’d left behind long ago. For myself.

  The room was modest: a bed, a washbasin, a small desk, and a window overlooking a quiet street.

  I dropped my rucksack in the corner, pulled out my map and notebook, and spread them on the desk. Next to them — the letter, and the note from the boy.

  I stood by the window for a while, looking at the lights of Odessa, feeling something old wake inside me. Something buried, but not lost.

  I knew that morning would bring more questions than answers.

  And I was ready for that.

  When the first light of dawn began to tint the sky pink, I washed my face with cold water, put on my coat, and went downstairs.

  The concierge was still asleep in the same pose, unmoving, as if preserved by dust and time.

  If anyone in this city knew something about the mysterious Rabbi Zusya — it would be the market.

  Privoz was the kind of place where everyone knew everything.

  The streets were already filling with people, and I walked quickly, keeping my head low. Around me, voices rose in a dozen languages. Arguments, laughter, haggling — as if the past hundred years had changed nothing.

  Vendors were laying out fruits and vegetables, shouting across their stalls.

  The air was thick with the smell of fresh fish, brined cucumbers, and smoke from early fires.

  I approached an old man with thick eyebrows and a still gaze.

  “Do you know someone named Rabbi Zusya?” I asked quietly.

  The man raised his eyes slowly, as if deciding whether to answer.

  “Dead-end alley behind the meat stalls,” he said finally. “Green door. Knock three times. And only before sunset.”

  He turned back to his apples, not waiting for thanks.

  I stepped back. My heart beat just a little faster.

  Everything was unfolding exactly as I feared — the past hadn’t let go.

  It had returned.

  And now, I would have to find out why.

  The city went on around me, wrapped in its familiar rhythms, unaware that I had come back — and that nothing, from this moment on, would ever be the same.