“I put up a sign,” said the checkout girl. Then she deftly raked together the old woman’s purchases, got up, and carried them to the next conveyor belt. “Leila, let the granny through ahead of the queue.”

The old woman moved to the next checkout, muttering something indignantly, although she did growl “Thank you” to the girl with the pierced nose. The queues waited patiently. The youth fidgeted nervously, looking at his watch, but he stayed where he was. I studied the sign: Sorry, we are temporarily unable to accept bank cards.

A man who looked like a building laborer bought two packs of two-minute noodles and a can of strong beer, and then set off towards the chemist’s stand with a confident stride. I had no doubt that he was going to buy either “antiseptic liquid, 96 percent ethyl alcohol” or “tincture of hawthorn,” which possessed the additional advantage of having a pleasant smell. And then the youth who came after him didn’t buy any alcohol at all, but some kind of vitaminized lemonade “made with natural ingredients.” Maybe he was intending to mix this lemonade with tincture of hawthorn too, of course. But I decided not to think badly of people. Otherwise I would start thinking of them as inferior too.

The girl quickly rang up my purchases and even treated me to a weary workaday smile before she turned to the next customer. I walked thoughtfully towards the doors.

On the one hand, Las was wrong: I could live without magic, no problem. But on the other, it turned out that I really had lost the habit, if a simple trek to the shop had become a reason for me to anticipate heroics . . .

And incidentally, what was that Las had said about our bank cards from the Watch?

I walked towards the ATMs. Took out my card and twirled it in my hands. It had been issued by some bank I’d never heard of called the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which seemed basic-ally rather strange. Didn’t Russia have enough of its own banks or branches of well-known foreign ones? I stuck the card in the slot and entered the pin code. Right, let’s try it . . . Balance request. No information. Naturally, the ATM belonged to Raiffeisen, and I’d never seen any ATMs belonging to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Russia. I probably ought to look for them in Australia. And I thought I’d seen their logo in Taiwan, too . . . But I’d never even thought of checking my balance.

I wondered what the point was of the Night Watch providing its staff members with cards from a bank that didn’t conduct any business or have any offices in Russia.

Well . . . for instance, so that they couldn’t check their balance.

But then, what was the point of that?