Then he added: ‘But you must pay attention to what I am saying. It is genuine. It is not a forgery. This is important. We interpreters, we like to add a signature, a deliberate error, a stamp – something that proves it was us, and proves it’s not real. The plates I cut in ninety-five? The ones I told you about? I ran the O in United States Of America under the edge of the border that runs around the note so the top of it is hidden. That’s not correct. The O should be complete. That is a forgery.’

‘But why would you do that?’ Baaz piped up indignantly. ‘Why ruin something so … perfect?’ Then he added, excitedly, ‘Is it because only God is perfect? Is that why?’

Moshe burst out laughing.

‘I’m not a Muslim rug weaver! No, we do it for the thrill of it. If an expert, a banker, passes a note I’ve forged with a deliberate error, then the victory is even sweeter. And anyway, printing a perfect dollar note is suicide. Economies would collapse. Presidents would fall. The Americans couldn’t let it stand. And the Arabs,’ he drew his index finger across his throat, ‘the Arabs would hang you for it. No. No one would do it, could do it, unless they were protected. Otherwise not even your archangel could save you. And this note,’ he waved the bill with a theatrical flourish, ‘is perfect.’

‘But you were protected,’ I replied.

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘I was. And now?’ He shrugged. ‘The Haredim pray for all Jews. But not all Israel prays for us. In God we trust. But it doesn’t hurt to have an insurance policy.’

‘But,’ I tried to find the words to crystallize his assessment, ‘how can the Russians print genuine US hundred-dollar bills? How is that not automatically a forgery?’

‘Because,’ Baaz cut in, ‘they used plates from the Federal Reserve. That’s how they did it, isn’t it?’

Moshe nodded.

‘Your apprentice is very good. Very good indeed. Yes, this is exactly how they did it. With genuine plates.’

I narrowed my eyes at Baaz and took a mouthful of smoke down into my lungs.

‘So, let me get this straight. This note was printed by the Russians on a US Federal Reserve plate, with a deliberately invalid serial number?’

‘Yes,’ Moshe nodded. ‘A deliberately uncirculated number.’

‘So, the Russians are working with the Americans?’

‘No,’ Moshe shook his head. I breathed out hard and rocked back in my chair. ‘Look,’ he explained, patiently, ‘the CIA took plates to Afghanistan. They were used to print money for the Mujahedin. The Russians captured them. The same in Syria with the Syrian Democratic Forces, and probably with the Kurds in Iraq. The Americans, they are very consistent. The Russians, too.’

‘The provenance?’ I asked. ‘Can you, could anyone, say where these notes originated?’

Moshe shook his head again.