Officially they were emigrating to Israel, the only permissible destination for Soviet Jews, yet they had no Zionist yearnings nor religious stirrings; in fact, they lacked all but the most rudimentary knowledge of how to be Jewish. But given the push and snarl of Russia’s chronic anti-Semitism, not a day passed without a reminder that ethnically they were Jewish. This was such a common aspect of life in the Soviet Union that Galina had accepted, with neither rancour nor resentment, that the bribes she’d had to pay for her mother’s funeral were more numerous and hefty than those extracted from Russians. It was, simply, the way things were.

They had planned to change their destination from Israel to America once they got to Vienna. Or was it Rome where they were to make the change? Galina’s head had fogged up. Vienna or Rome? She couldn’t remember. Her mother had died, and it seemed that memory and reason had cut and run. How was she going to manage? Whether here or elsewhere in the world, how would she manage the future alone?

Her breath was drawing short and harsh. She stopped by a canal, pulled the air into her lungs, and forced out a slow exhalation. She felt faint, and leaned against the iron railings for support. The metal was sharp and cold against the bones of her hips; she pressed in harder. The surface of the water was an oily, dark opalescence — strangely beautiful, she found herself thinking. Garbage bobbed against the canal walls, ducks poked about looking for spoils, a barge and a smaller boat chugged past. She closed her eyes and slipped into a gentle, muted world where life seemed to have stopped. It was a brief respite, however, for intruding into this twilight zone came her own clear voice: You’re twenty-four years old, Galina Kogan. You’re an adult, and you’re on your own. So pull yourself together.

She opened her eyes, took one last deep breath, pressed her hands to her chest as if that would squeeze the terror out, and set off again.