Deliberately she averted her face, thus to prevent herself seeing anything so distasteful. It was almost as though the sharp edge of the irregular mass had left a wound somewhere in Mrs Hajistavrou’s mind.

‘At least,’ she said, ‘I believe this is the block.’

Again consulting the envelope.

It was one of the beige blocks of Kolanaki in which the bullet holes had never healed.

Mr Hajistavros grunted.

‘It is not bad,’ his wife persuaded.

The doorkeeper pointed at the sky, and insisted on answering the Americans in English.

‘Up! Up! Yes! To the roof! No work ascenseur. Tomorrow!’

‘Drama! Drama!’ Mrs Hajistavrou was less jaunty than she tried to sound.

The small old man clapped Mr Hajistavros on the back.

‘Bravo, Amerikani!’

The Americans picked their way, apprehensive for their clothes.

‘The address is a good one,’ Maro continued to insist in whispers, as if she alone would have recognized it.

Her husband burst one of the large, dried paint blisters on the wall. She knew, but ignored what Spiro meant.

And so they ascended. And as they did, careful of their American hearts, the excellent materials of their French and English clothes seemed to be slipping from them, together with Mrs Hajistavrou’s breeding and Mr Hajistavros’ seven restaurants, the two Cadillacs, the apartment in New York, all eventually superfluous, as the victims were reduced again to Maro and Spiro, a couple of Greeks. So they climbed. There was a smell of beans from under one door, there was the sound of an educated quarrel through another. If the stairs had not been so narrow, the visitants might once again have taken each other by the arm, to reconcile themselves to the thought that over all those years, in spite of the plans and discussions, it had perhaps been fear of the Alexious which had prevented a return to their native land.

Till there, at the top, was the woman standing in the doorway, in the draught which was blowing that post-war nylon stuff hither and thither between her thighs. The rather slack, mature figure, innocent of girdle. Eyes inquisitive amongst the fat.

‘Kyria Alexiou,’ Maro began, so tentative it sounded false.

She had realized, of course, but was compelled to hold off her realization as long as it was possible.

Only Kikitsa Andragora would not allow. Could she have been expecting them?

‘Maroula mou! Chrysoula mou!’

Momentarily the twenty years’ fastidious aridity to which hairdressers, manicurists, couturiers and milliners had reduced Maro Mauroleondos was clasped to the steamy body of her friend.

Maro made the little, dry, gasping mouths of neat, middle-aged gentlewomen. To express what is, technically, their pleasure.

‘Hi! Come right in, folks!’

Kikitsa should have shouted, but for some reason, she encouraged sotto voce.

‘Why does this Mrs Alexiou speak like this?’ Spiro would ask latter on.

And Maro would reply:

‘She likes to think it has a kind of chic. That is Kikitsa all over.’

‘So very common?’ Spiro would ask fastidiously.

‘She can afford to be. Kikitsa is of such good family.’