Andrew said he’d pick her up early to show her some of Melbourne — ‘My Melbourne,’ was the way he expressed it — and at exactly five o’clock he arrived. She had bought a new dress for the occasion. It was a colourful Asian design, light and pretty, and typical of what Australian girls were wearing this summer; she had teamed the dress with a pair of red sandals. (She had tried the thongs so popular here, but the bit between the toes might have been a tree trunk, for all the discomfort it caused.) As soon as she opened the door, she realised she would need a jacket; the sun was still bright but the wind had swung from north to south and it was quite chilly. Too bad about the summery casual Australian look she was aiming for. She had given up on her hair, having first tried it loose (it reminded her of a giant dandelion), then half of it tied back (like a giant dandelion half blown away), then a plait (too Russian), and a bun (too severe), and in the end bundled it loosely in a clasp at her neck. She grabbed her coat from the hook — not what she had planned at all — and locked the door.

Andrew, stiff and silent during the walk to the car, started talking before she had belted herself into the seat. He talked as if he couldn’t stop. Today, less than an hour ago, a lone gunman had marched into the central post office and killed eight people.

‘Here, in Melbourne, in 1987, for God’s sake. We’re not fighting a war, we don’t have ethnic disputes. Yet eight people are dead. The gunman, too. Jumped from a window. It’s a massacre. Eight innocent people. Random targets.’

His words were boiling over. It was hard to make sense of them.

‘Listen,’ he said, turning up the volume on the radio.

There was mayhem in central Melbourne. Witnesses to the tragedy spoke in staccato gasps, a relay of shock, horror, and incomprehension.

‘We’re turning into America,’ Andrew said, manoeuvring the car for a right-hand turn into Hoddle Street. His words seemed squeezed through a too-small throat. ‘And just a few months ago a young guy, younger than me, pulled out a gun and killed several people, just up the road from here.’ Andrew jerked his head to the left.

‘What motivates someone to act like this? Such senseless violence. Although does any violence make sense?’ He paused as a driver cut in front of them. ‘What makes these guys think it’s okay to kill? Kill randomly. What is it? A sense of power? Uncontrollable anger? Insanity?’

At which point, Galina had to interrupt. ‘Do not use the insane excuse.’