The door opens — might she have knocked? — and immediately she’s drawn inside and embraced by well-wishers. Everyone is sad, everyone needs consolation, but everyone knows a daughter’s loss is greater than theirs. More people arrive, and soon the flat is jammed with friendly faces and rousing memories. Despite the cold, the door to the balcony is open to draw out the cigarette smoke and the heat of so many bodies. There’s plenty of food and several bottles of Georgian wine, and no shortage of vodka despite Gorbachev’s absurd prohibitions. (‘Not even Lenin himself would dare separate a Russian from his vodka,’ Nadya, her mother’s best friend, says.) People share stories about Lidiya; there’s laughter as well as sadness, but with the passing hours, it’s the laughter that dominates. The night deepens, the food is eaten, the alcohol is drunk.

It’s close to eleven o’clock when everyone finally leaves. Nadya helps with the tidying up, then makes them some fresh tea. They sit at the table where she, Galina, and her mother have spent so much time, and where Nadya and her mother have spent so much time, but never before has it been just her and Nadya sitting here together. And it occurs to her that it is these small everyday happenings that will drive home the fact that her life has cruelly and irrevocably changed.

Nadya tucks a fresh a cigarette between her lips, and reaches for Galina’s hands. As soon as Lidiya is laid to rest, she says, Galina will be going back to work, even earlier if she is up to it. Work will help, she says, work will distract. She takes a deep drag of her cigarette, ash falls to the table. ‘And, Galya, no more talk of emigration. It is better to remain in the country you know. Where you yourself are known.’ And when there is no response, she adds, ‘Life must go on, Galinochka. And life here is not so bad. Not like it used to be.’

Nadya continues to talk about the future, but Galina is not listening. She is caught by Nadya’s face, a face so familiar she’s not really looked at it before. It is as if a hessian sack has been stuck to the skull and neck, leaving holes for the eyes and mouth. This rough, mustardy fabric-skin, falling in folds and creases, is the map of Nadya’s life. It reveals poor nourishment and too many cigarettes, too little money and too much vodka, too much work for too little satisfaction. She loves Nadya, but now, suddenly, looking at this woman she has known her entire life evokes a terrible fear: might this be the face of her own future?