The smashing noises were coming closer. They were in the next street now. And they could hear something else: the pattering of running feet. Nicolas thought: they sound like rats, hurrying through the night. He had heard rats running across the floor of a flour warehouse once, and that was just what they sounded like.

He hesitated for a moment, but then he gave a decisive sniff, and swung his legs out from between the sheets. He walked around the end of the bed, where his pants were neatly hung with their maroon suspenders still attached, and crossed the bedroom to the window.

Dolores watched him as he held aside the floral drapes and peered down into the street. There must have been a fire burning not far away, because she could see the reflected sparkle of orange in his eyes. On the top of the varnished bureau beside him were the bits and pieces of his hobby – the modelling knives and tubes of glue and carefully-cut sections of balsa wood which he devotedly assembled into tiny ships. The sad gilded face of the Virgin looked down on him from a plastic icon.

Dolores said, ‘What do you see?’

Nicolas frowned. ‘Nothing so far. But it looks like something’s burning on the next block. An automobile, maybe. Or a van.’

‘They’re burning a van on the next block?’

‘It’s hard to say. I can’t see anyone around.’

‘Not even a cop?’

Nicolas shook his head. They were both sensitive about the police, the Prokopious. In this neighbourhood, they were regularly shaken down and robbed, and the police patrols did very little to protect them. There were always plenty of police around at Thanksgiving, or at Christmas, when Nicolas gave away bottles of retsina and Keo brandy. But when the kids came around with their knives and their zip guns and raided the cash register, you could scream ‘Police!’ until you were purple in the face and nobody would come.

‘What do you think’s happening?’ asked Dolores. ‘All that glass breaking. It sounds like a war.’

‘Maybe it’s something to do with the food shortages.’

‘You mean that television programme? I don’t understand.’

Nicolas let the drapes fall back into place. His face was sweaty and serious. ‘You heard what they said on the news. They said keep calm, don’t try to stock up on more food than you need. But you think people are going to take any notice of that? They panic when there’s a shortage of gas. They panic when there’s a shortage of bread. In my opinion, that’s what they’re doing now. Panicking. Breaking into food stores, looking for supplies.’

Dolores said anxiously, ‘They’ll come here.’

Nicolas nodded. On the bedside table just behind Dolores’s black wavy hair, his luminous alarm clock read three in the morning, almost to the minute.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Dolores. Her question was punctuated by a loud crash from across the street, and the sound of a woman shouting. Nicolas turned and regarded the drapes as if he expected them to fly apart of their own accord.