The cartoon was about to finish. Zoya strained forward, excited. Even better than the cartoons or the music were the programmes that ran in between shows. These shorts were no more than thirty seconds each. Sometimes they featured men and women speaking directly to the camera. They spoke about cars, silverware, tools and gadgets. This one featured a busy restaurant in which children laughed while being served wide glasses filled with ice cream, chocolate sauce and fruit. It was followed by a second short, this one featuring images of houses, impossibly large for a single family, more like a dacha than a house. Except unlike a dacha, situated in the countryside, there were many of these large houses side by side, with neat lawns and children playing. And every house had an automobile. There was a programme featuring devices to chop carrots and potatoes and leeks and turn them into soup. There were face creams for women. There were suits for men. There were objects for every chore, machines for every task, and they were all for sale, propaganda except not for a political regime but for a product. She’d never seen anything like them before.

There was a knock. Zoya turned the volume down, opening the door and finding Mikael Ivanov outside. He was the youngest of the staff accompanying them, some thirty or so years old and one of the propaganda experts assigned to the delegation. His purpose was to make sure none of the students embarrassed the State and to make sure the Americans were unable to unduly influence the students. Zoya didn’t like him. He was good-looking, vain, arrogant and humourless – textbook party loyal. He’d joined the tour preparations three months before they were due to leave, spending several hours a week lecturing the students, highlighting the social problems in the United States and explaining why Communism was superior to capitalism. He’d provided them with lists of things they should be wary of. While abroad they were supposed to carry these laminated checklists around with them wherever they went. On the checklist were statements such as:

The ostentatious wealth of a Few

The deprivation of the Many

Zoya wanted to wince every time Mikael spoke. She understood the principle, that the poor would be on the fringes, hidden from view, and that it was easy to be impressed by symbols of wealth in the centre of Manhattan. All the same, his relentless emphasis on party dogma was tedious. Of the many people involved in the tour, he was the person she mistrusted the most.

Mikael strode past Zoya, across to the television, turning it off with an angry flick of his wrist.

—I told you: no television. It’s propaganda. And you’re lapping it up. They’re treating you like you’re a fool and you’re behaving like one.