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.

Eventually she got over the pain of having been left behind. After all, so much else had happened to remove the slight shadow this had cast over their relationship, a shadow he was never even aware of. And what use would it have been to dwell on that shadow?

He invited Sabina to dance, reached out and pulled her up. Karolko sat in the wardrobe playing Romany dance tunes but Olda asked for Roll Out the Barrel and later the Firemen’s Song. They danced on the table making the cats run for cover under the wardrobe, meowing mournfully.