She slipped on her jacket, grabbed her shopping bag, and they walked to the tram stop along the main road bordering the cemetery. The weather was mild with a cool breeze; cottony clouds bulged white and motionless in the astonishing blue of the Australian sky. She buttoned her jacket and wondered if Andrew, with his bare arms, was cold. He seemed nervous — although what he, at home in his own city and in charge of this expedition, had to be nervous about, she could not guess. As they walked, he asked the usual predictable questions: how long she had been in Australia, how long she was planning to stay. A year, she answered to the first, and forever to the second, even while hoping for the questions she most wanted: ‘Why did you come?’ and ‘How are you faring?’

She was grateful for the arrival of a tram. She took a window seat — she nearly always managed a window seat on these Melbourne trams — and gazed through the glass at the passing scenery. They travelled in silence; if she’d been less aware of Andrew, she could have pretended she was alone.

And then they were at the market. It was huge, it was astonishing, it was marvellous. Filled with people and surprises, it was how she imagined a carnival might be.

‘If I was not seeing this with my own eyes, I would not believe it,’ she said. ‘You must show me everything.’

Her dark eyes were sparkling, her whole face was alive; she was a joy to watch. Andrew wondered at this unguarded delight of hers. Was it attributable to her Russianness and a direct result of her former deprivation? Might it be typical of any migrant? Or was it specific to her, Galina Kogan? That she could be from London, Nepal, Palermo, or Palm Springs and she would still display such exuberance. Whatever the explanation, it was captivating — she was captivating.

He started their tour in the fruit-and-vegetable section. They entered the area and Galina immediately stopped, right in the middle of the main walkway. Quickly, he guided her away from the stream of shoppers to one end of the open-sided shed so she could observe undisturbed.

The air was cool, and plump with summer fruits; pigeons flapped beneath the roof beams, and sparrows darted from one side of the shed to the other; people laden with bags and shopping trolleys jostled together in the aisles. There was the clarion call of stall-holders spruiking their bargains, of parents shouting at straying children, and bursts of laughter trumpeting above the general noise. Galina stood at the end of the shed, transfixed by the extraordinary sight. So many times in the past year she had been struck by the plenitude in Australia, but nothing could compare with this. There must have been a hundred stalls in the section, each piled high with fresh, unbruised produce. It was heavenly: the colours, the appetising smells, the good cheer.