Chapter 12
The People's Voice
Agnė speaks with Elena and other pensioners, hearing their anxieties and hopes. Their stories become the human face of the scandal, strengthening her purpose.
The air in the small apartment, thick with the scent of dried dill and boiled cabbage, hummed with a quiet anxiety. Agnė sat opposite Elena Petrova, a woman whose hands, gnarled like ancient tree roots, rested on a worn, floral tablecloth. Elena’s eyes, the color of faded cornflowers, held a flicker of apprehension, a silent question that mirrored the unease Agnė had felt since first glimpsing the cryptic notice on Sodra’s notice board.
“They say it will be better, Agnė,” Elena began, her voice a gentle rustle of dry leaves. “The young man at the office, he was so polite. He explained how the new system will be more… efficient.” She paused, her gaze drifting to a framed photograph on the sideboard – a younger Elena, radiant, standing beside a man with kind eyes and a hopeful smile. “But ‘efficient’… it sounds so cold, doesn’t it?”
Agnė nodded, her pen poised above her notebook, yet her mind was already painting a different picture, one of hushed corridors and hurried whispers, of figures dancing in ledgers under the cloak of night. “What did he say would change, Elena?” she asked, her voice soft, a deliberate counterpoint to the bureaucratic jargon that often obscured truth.
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