At 2:17 a.m., Kokoshka emerged on the other side of the wall, into a birch forest blanketed with fresh snow. He did not run. He walked. He had a contact waiting three kilometers east: a former lover, a woman who still believed his forged paintings were real. She would drive him to the border.
“Patience,” Kokoshka would whisper, and continue sketching.
Kokoshka knew that the actual escape would last exactly eleven minutes—the gap between the changing of the perimeter watch and the arrival of the night backup van.