Andrei was suddenly struck by the realisation that he would be unable to talk about himself without mentioning the war.

“You’re the first woman not to ask me for ‘some story,’ but who wanted to know about me personally. I don’t even know what to say. How about you read aloud from the book? I couldn’t keep up with you on the tram.”

“I read a lot and fast.”

“Go on, read.”

Maria took out the book and started reciting a passage. Andrei leaned forward, listening to her soft voice. She tried to keep her pitch low. She failed to notice his face blanching as she reached a chapter titled “The Great Battle.”

“A curtain of fire went up, followed by unprecedentedly brutal roaring. A wild thunder, which submerged even the loudest explosions in its rolling, made the earth shake. The enormous roaring of the innumerable guns behind us was so horrific that even the greatest of the battles we had experienced seemed like a tea party in comparison.”

She looked up and started at his expression.

“What a fool I am, I’m so sorry.”

Andrei gulped what remained of his cold coffee.

“Are you enjoying the book?”

“I don’t know. No. But I like that it isn’t indifferent toward the war it’s describing. There’s a certain courage in that.”

“Only if you’ve lost the war.”

“Are wars won or lost? The more I read, the more it seems to me that wars are either survived or not.”

Andrei looked at the crusted foam on the rim of his empty cup.

“A hundred years have passed, nothing has changed, nothing at all. All the same steel thunderstorms.”

“Is it all bad? Nothing good?”

“Well, it’s good when you wake up in the morning and everyone sleeping around you is still alive. It’s good when you’re watching TV in the dugout, and there’s guns blasting outside, but you don’t have to worry, because you know it’s your artillerymen firing, not somebody else’s. It’s good when you can call your parents and tell them how much you love them. Listen, this one time, we called up this kid who had sent us a drawing. These kids in schools, they’re always sending us drawings. We call and say: ‘Hello!’ And he was like: ‘Mum! The boys called!’ and then he burst into tears and hung up.”

“My son and I wrote letters to the front as well,” she said, thinking about how to rest her hands on the table.

He was startled and checked her fingers for a wedding ring. Nothing.

“You have a son?”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“Tykhon.”

“What happened to his father?”

Maria shrugged.

“Not scaring you off is it?”

“What? Children?”

“Yes, you asked me out for a coffee, and I’m here talking about kids.”

“I should have invited the both of you.”

“He doesn’t drink coffee yet. He’s only four.”

Andrei stood up.

She looked at him teasingly.

“I said you’d run away.”

He held out his hand.