He wished his mother had not told her that. It made him seem a beginner. He was a beginner, and Nina had figured that out long ago, but all the same he did not need her to be reminded. Anyway, he was learning fast. Nina said he was a good lover, better than her husband, though she would not go into details.

To his surprise, Nina went out of her way to be pleasant to his mother, politely calling her Anya Grigorivitch, helping in the kitchen, asking her where she got her dress.

When they had had some vodka, Anya felt relaxed enough to say: “So, Nina, my Dimka tells me you don’t want to get married.”

Dimka groaned. “Mother, that’s too personal!”

But Nina did not seem to mind. “I’m like you, I’ve already been married,” she said.

“But I’m an old woman.”

Anya was forty-five, which was generally considered too old for remarriage. Women of that age were thought to have left desire behind—and, if they had not, they were regarded with distaste. A respectable widow who remarried in middle age would be careful to tell everyone it was “just for companionship.”

“You don’t look old, Anya Grigorivitch,” Nina said. “You might be Dimka’s big sister.”

This was rubbish, but Anya liked it all the same. Perhaps women always enjoyed such flattery, regardless of whether it was credible. Anyway, she did not deny it. “I’m too old to have more children, anyway.”

“I can’t have children, either.”

“Oh!” Anya was shaken by that revelation. It upturned all her fantasies. For a moment she forgot to be tactful. “Why not?” she asked bluntly.

“Medical reasons.”

“Oh.”

Clearly Anya would have liked to know more. Dimka had noticed that medical details were of great interest to many women. But Nina clammed up, as she always did on this subject.

There was a knock at the door. Dimka sighed: he could guess who it was. He opened up.

On the doorstep were his grandparents, who lived in the same building. “Oh! Dimka—you’re here!” said his grandfather Grigori Peshkov, feigning surprise. He was in uniform. He was nearly seventy-four, but he would not retire. Old men who did not know when to quit were a major problem in the Soviet Union, in Dimka’s opinion.

Dimka’s grandmother Katerina had had her hair done. “We brought you some caviar,” she said. Clearly this was not the casual drop-in they were pretending. They had found out that Nina was coming and they were here to check her out. Nina was being inspected by the family, just as she had feared.

Dimka introduced them. Grandmother kissed Nina and Grandfather held her hand longer than necessary. To Dimka’s relief, Nina continued to be charming. She called Grandfather “comrade General.” Realizing immediately that he was susceptible to attractive girls, she flirted with him, to his delight, at the same time giving Grandmother a woman-to-woman look that said You and I know what men are like.

Grandfather asked her about her job. She had recently been promoted, she told him, and now she was publishing manager, organizing the printing of the steel union’s various newsletters. Grandmother asked about her family, and she said she did not see much of them as they all lived in her hometown of Perm, a twenty-four-hour train journey eastward.