Outside, too, the world is sort of dark blue, the air is dark blue, swirling round the oleanders and the yellowing leaves of the plum trees. Little puddles of dark blue everywhere...

It is a place where customs officers frequently come across lorries that carry cheap, Chinese-made copies of branded clothes (adidad, nikhe) but this time instead of fake clothes or perfumes the lorries contained books. Dostojevzski, Tolsztoi, Toorgenef – cheap imitations of lasting literary value for those who can’t afford to read real Russian classics because these are too demanding.

The year 1969 put a stop to every reform movement and aspiration and extinguished the hopes that had been nurtured since Stalin’s death and solidified in 1956, when the illustrious leader of the proletariat was denounced in Moscow, launching more than a decade of a bizarre dance: one step forward and two steps back, then the other way round.

Then came the day that the decree ordering the deportation of Jewish girls was issued. It was in all the papers and probably also posted all around town.All I know is that we didn’t receive any summons at home. But we knew that all unmarried Jewish girls and young women between the ages of 16 and 30 were to report to the courtyard of the Reform primary school that I had attended as a child.

It is one of the little tricks we humans play: whenever something is beyond us, we invent a name for it, at the very least, or borrow one from some ancient language, and we feel more secure straight away.

St Teresa of Ávila was a strong, wilful woman. After her death her enormous popularity led to this humble, handsome, splendid Spanish virgin from a noble family being transmuted by church dignitaries and bureaucrats into a plaster saint.

The writer bought a literary magazine, leafed through it, and was gratified: he hadn’t submitted anything and none of his work had been published.

I’m on display here, you fool. I’m wearing my best dress, simple, posh, fresh like fresh fruit, flammable, cling-wrapped to protect it from vagrants, cool like a crouching leopard with taut muscles. And the first words you shoot at me are Hi, Paula, feeling better now?

What he couldn’t afford to do was attend his wife’s funeral where quite a few people might see him. He could not go to his wife’s funeral one day and phone Highly Placed the next. That might ruin everything.