‘You mustn’t scream like that, little bird.’ Zoë looked up into an older face, lined, a little heavy, framed by a printed cotton headscarf. Blue, white and black flowers on red. The woman smiled. Zoë opened her mouth again and the woman quickly pressed her hand over it. ‘Don’t be scared,’ she said, gently. ‘Everyone is scared. But you mustn’t attract attention to yourself.’

‘I want my mama!’ Zoë croaked.

‘Of course you do, koritsaki.’ The woman took a deep breath. ‘Was she there? With those unfortunate ones?’

Zoë shook her head furiously. ‘No!’

‘Good, good. Thanks be to God.’ The hand began its stroking again. Zoë felt herself growing calmer. The wasps buzzing inside her started to be less angry. ‘But you’re alone, aren’t you? You’ll have to be clever, now. You’ll have to be so, so careful. I’ve seen such things …’ The woman began to rock, slowly, and the movement felt so soothing to Zoë. ‘Holy Mother, such things. But as long as we’re alive, we must be thankful. So no more screaming, koritsaki. Will you be a brave one? A brave girl?’

‘I don’t want to be brave!’ Zoë said, letting the woman’s skirt muffle the words. ‘I don’t want to be!’

‘Hush now.’ The woman’s hand, large and rough, caressed her hair, played gently with the tangles. Zoë felt herself go limp, and then sleep came for her so suddenly that she didn’t have time to say anything else, to beg the woman not to stop holding her, to reach up and take her hand.

She awoke to find herself alone, lying beside the packing case, a neatly folded sack pillowing her head, looking into a thicket of bare legs, laddered stockings, dirty feet. She sat up and looked around wildly for the woman in the black skirt. But the woman was nowhere to be seen. Zoë had never felt more lonely. It overwhelmed her so that there was no Zoë Haggitiris, nothing of herself left at all. Terrified, she jumped up and fought all the way across the quay, trying to outrun the horrible emptiness she felt, until she came to the edge of the dock, the edge of the world.