An amateur, in this desperate beauty, is someone who has not yet learned how to lie to a camera. They arrive to liquidate the last relics of their former lives: a wedding ring from a marriage that drowned in vodka, a violin from a conservatory dropout, a World War II medal from a grandfather they cannot afford to bury.

“Yes,” she says. “Tomas and Helena.”

You might ask: why Czech ? Why Pawn Shop ? And why the number ?