Now and again someone will get up and dance in the tiny space in front of the stage: arms out, eyes closed, head down or thrown back, they trace out the steps that the zeibekiko is showing them, steps of pain or pleasure but theirs and theirs alone. Hands fluttering in space or clamped against their hearts, they turn, stoop, kick and balance on the edge of collapse, of disaster, their friends calling out to them: ‘Yiassou, Dimitri! Yiassou, Vassilis!’

‘I’m going to sing a song for our dear friend who took Charon’s boat yesterday,’ Batis says, when the night has slipped along and the teké has almost lost its strangeness. ‘Our nightingale, Katina Valavani, the mother of Pavlaki here, and our dear Zoë. “San Pethano”, lads.’ ‘When I Die’.

‘Wait,’ Zoë says. She hadn’t intended to say anything, but she is reaching out for Batis, taking hold of his arm. ‘Let me sing it.’

‘Aman.’ Batis takes her hand and kisses it gravely. ‘Sing. Sing, little one.’

As she finds the words and lets them go, they cut into her like razors. She wants to tell the band to stop, to grab the bouzouki and the guitar and muffle their strings, but she can’t move. Then she sees that the men sitting at the nearest table are weeping quite unashamedly. A man is standing between the tables, fists clenched, stepping out a dance that is no more than a cramped, swaying shuffle. He’s dancing for me, Zoë understands, as the song flays her. Those are my steps. I want to sway like that, in the freezing cold wind. My God. My God. Beside her, Pavlo is playing with his eyes screwed shut, biting his lip.

When the song is over, Apostoli leans across her brother and taps her leg. ‘Why don’t you sing another one, koukla?’

‘I don’t think I can.’

‘What? Of course you can, Zozo,’ says Pavlo. His face is dead white and his eyes look bruised, but he is laughing.

‘I don’t want to!’

Micho has come over with one of the water pipes on a tray. He offers it to Batis, who takes a long, luxurious drag, letting a thick cloud of smoke out between his lips before sucking it in again with a theatrical gasp. He passes it to Pavlo, who sucks so that the coals glow orange. The smoke is heavy and alarming. Micho holds out the pipe to Zoë.

‘Lovely Stambouli medicine for you, princess,’ he says, but Zoë shakes her head. She has never smoked hashish. He shrugs and passes it on to Stellakis.

‘You need some, Zozo,’ Pavlo rasps. ‘Honestly. It’ll smooth you out like a hot iron.’ He giggles.