Aliya’s mother fussed over having company, fetching bowls of pilaf, saucers of sweets. Aliya knelt beside her grandmother. There was a transparent flash of pity, a genuflection. She kissed the old woman’s hands and the grandmother ran a hand through her hair. Then she stared at me.

‘Who is he?’

Aliya spoke Russian. ‘He is English. Visiting.’

‘A prince?’ The grandmother cackled.

‘She thinks you might be royal,’ Aliya called over. Her parents laughed.

‘I’m the next-best thing.’

I felt that lightheadedness again. You get moments on a job – especially after a drink – when you’re in a life, a home like you imagined a home might feel like. Enclosed in a moment. You’re welcome there. But it’s always someone else’s home, and no one knows who you are.

I watched the grandmother and imagined her surviving the decades, passing through famines and ideologies. Her speech was inflected with something neither Russian nor Kazakh, almost Chinese. Aliya joined us, declined her father’s offer of vodka.

‘Where’s your grandmother from?’ I asked.

‘Karakol, even further south than Almaty.’

That made sense. I was hearing traces of Dungan; she was a descendant of refugees from Northwestern China, Hui traders who knew the routes west. A rare linguistic treat. Aliya turned to her parents. ‘She is worse.’

‘Today it is bad,’ her father said. He asked me about England, how much flights and houses cost; if I was anti-European. He had read on Russian sites that Britain and America were not friends any more. Asked whether I shared concerns about immigration, and what I thought of Kazakhstan.

‘It is beautiful,’ I said. ‘The landscape.’

‘Have you been to the national park at Burabay?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are here at an interesting time.’

‘Really?’

‘You say honeymoon? The honeymoon is over. Many of my fellow Russians returned to the motherland after independence. Others enjoyed the oil boom. But now, without the oil prices, no one knows what will happen. But don’t believe this is the next Afghanistan. These are good Muslims. Not like the ones you have wars with. People like my wife.’ He smiled at her. ‘I am more Muslim than her.’

When we had eaten, the parents cleared plates away. Aliya and I were alone.

‘Let me email you the details about the magazine,’ I said. ‘Please.’

I emailed them, the links directing to malware instead. ‘Have a look. I’ve been having difficulty with sending documents.’

‘It opens but the link doesn’t work.’

‘Hang on, I’ll try again.’

‘Okay. This one works fine.’

‘Great.’

The bathroom was upstairs. So were the bedrooms. I took the opportunity to explore. The parents’ room had bare plastered walls, a bed and single dresser. A framed wedding photograph stood on the dresser. I listened to the voices downstairs, questioning Aliya: where she met me, what my work was.