Alice arrived first, on a Tuesday, chasing a stray cat into his courtyard. She was all sharp elbows and louder questions. “Why is the sky in your canvas the color of a bruise?” she asked, peering through his studio window.

“Combine them,” the Old Man rasped one evening, pointing a gnarled finger at the two girls. “Alice, you are the fire. Liza, you are the ash. The woman I loved… she was both.”

Liza came the next day, quieter, carrying a loaf of bread she couldn’t afford to give away. She didn’t ask about the paintings. She looked at the dust on his shelves and began to clean.

He painted through the night. The brush no longer shook. Galitsin, the legend, returned for one last waltz with the canvas.