Then there was the girl he had knocked down in the street, the girl who had never called, the girl who, if he were to be realistic, was never going to call. But in the three months since their meeting, he had spent so much time thinking about her, she had become part of his Leningrad life. Her striking presence back when they met had inflated to giddy proportions now. Not just her height — so appealing, given his own six feet — but the dark eyes and olive skin, the lush figure, and the caramel-coloured hair that reminded him of palomino horses. He had crafted their second meeting and all the ones after that. He had scripted conversations with her; he had imagined holding her and kissing her, he had even imagined making love to her. In short, he had managed to make her an intimate, and typical of a shy bloke, to fall for an imagined woman — although gratifyingly easy to transport her home.

He arrived at Pulkovo airport very early on the day of departure, having learned that despite all the rules and regulations circumscribing Soviet life, rarely did things proceed as planned. It was minus ten outside, with an Arctic wind blasting across the flats. The Intourist driver had dropped him off a good fifty metres from the terminal entrance (that in itself was against regulations), rightly guessing she’d not receive much of a tip from a foreigner with a backpack. Russians, he had learned, had a great sense of entitlement when it came to Westerners; they were also shrewd punishers. By the time he entered the terminal, the cold had carved into his bones, his lungs had stiffened, and his face, foolishly uncovered, was flayed by that unique blend of sting and burn that is the province of extreme cold.

He found a space away from the doors against a small patch of wall. His breath still refused to come, and his hands and feet were blocks of pain. This will subside, he told himself, in just a few minutes, his hands and feet will return to normal, and his lungs will resume their usual work. He forced his attention outwards, beyond his beleaguered body.