The beginning of the NEP. On the way from Taganrog, a passenger steamer burned and almost completely sank. Yegor Lisitsa—an employee of the new Soviet militia—serves as a medical examiner, identifying the bodies of the dead. But among them, he can’t find the body of an official from Stroitrust and his wife. Their names are on the passenger list, yet neither among the dead nor among the living are they to be found. A little later, the official is discovered in a city hospital. A head injury and long hours in cold water have cost him his memory. Where is his wife? He doesn’t know—and he doesn’t even remember her…