When she returned the following night, he didn’t feel bad about that either. This time she had shaved her legs in an act of premeditation. Tracing his abdomen, she asked, ‘Why do you look like this?’ He thought it a strange question and laughed, saying, ‘Rowing, I suppose.’ Their conversation was light and inconsequential. She spoke about herself without revealing much, supplying cameo-like glimpses of a Russian childhood. She had grown up in St Petersburg and spoke fondly of the boulevards and canals, the wide Neva River, the walk to Vasilyevsky Island and her father’s office in a building made of granite. He would have liked to reciprocate with stories of his own, but he thought his childhood dull, too boringly suburban to be of any interest.

The third night, she showed up with a bottle of chablis. ‘What are you doing here, Paul?’ she asked in a wondering tone, the same tone she’d used when asking about his physique.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said.

‘You mean here, in this room?’

‘I mean with Nikolai.’

‘Let’s not talk about Koly.’ She pronounced her pet name for him like the first half of ‘cauliflower’. But after they had sex she spoke of him anyway, venting her frustration. He wouldn’t talk about his divorce, she complained; he said he had other things on his mind. But that hadn’t stopped him from going skiing. ‘Skiing!’ she repeated.

The worst part, she said, was that he wasn’t even close to his brother. The guy was boorish, disrespectful. He had made money, it was true, although it was unclear how. ‘Where does his money come from?’ she asked Paul, as if he would know. In the past, Nikolai had ignored his brother’s invitations to go hunting on the Kola Peninsula, saying he had no wish to kill animals for sport or to sit around with his brother’s cronies, drinking and singing. Darya couldn’t understand why he was spending time with him now. Nikolai was making his own way in the world, rising on his merits. ‘He doesn’t need anything from his brother,’ she declared, annoyed. ‘But enough of that,’ she said, lighting a cigarette. ‘Let’s talk about you.’