The room falls silent. Apostoli says a word to Zoë, who leans forward and nods towards the man with the lute. She raises the tambourine until it hangs in the air in front of her, still and silent, all but hiding her face. The lute player takes a deep breath and bends low over his instrument. His hands shift suddenly, and a procession of notes slides into the air. Measured and with a deep, soft resonance, the individual notes begin to assemble into patterns. The notes slide up and down scales which Tom doesn’t recognise; they hover and repeat themselves, shifting ever so slightly each time. Zoë strikes her tambourine and begins to sing as the other instruments come in behind her. She sings one word, aman, drawing it out as though tracing the lines that the lute has painted in the air. The music drifts behind her, the guitar picking out a slow, tripping bass, the bouzoukis trembling over the top. The words change: a lament, or an incantation. Zoë’s voice winds its way inside him and finds a memory: another voice rising from the valley below Koovappally, from the Muslim village – the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. He closes his eyes and remembers: lying in his little bed in a tent of mosquito netting, the bedroom almost dark beyond the netting, the sounds of dawn coming in through the shutters like a ribbon of gold. Zoë’s voice trails the same golden ribbon around him.

The song is over. Tom opens his eyes and finds that they are wet. A bit taken aback, he lights a cigarette and looks around him, but everyone is looking at the musicians. The next song is different. Pavlo’s left hand glides up and down the neck of the bouzouki, fingers trembling against the strings, then gripping them, then hovering above the mother of pearl flowers that shimmer between each fret. Even to Tom it is obvious he is a master. Then he nods and the band launch into a fast, jangling tune.

Pavlo leans forward and begins to sing in a high, cracked nasal voice that is the complete opposite of his playing. The words, whatever they are, sound knowing, wheedling. Tom guesses that there is some personal story being told, a boast, probably, though there is that same thread of desolation in Pavlo’s voice that seems to run through all this music. Niko brings more wine. The song ends, and the band relax and start to retune. Conversations start up and the room quickly fills with voices. Above it all, Tom’s ears catch something.