Maria wanted the conversation to end quickly. She said in one breath: “Religion, God, it’s all the same. He’s four, he takes everything literally. Please. You know I respect your relationship with . . . God . . . and your going to church, but I want my child to choose when he grows up. This is my child, it’s me that gets to decide what’s good for him.”

Olga Konstantinovna waited for Maria to finish. Her knee was aching after their long walk. There was nowhere to sit in the hallway. Maria had put away the chair, and Olga Konstantinovna was too proud to ask.

“A person is never too young to talk to God. It’s good for him. It’ll foster obedience.”

“Obedience to whom?”

“To you for starters. You need to be stricter.”

“Mum, I am already a drill sergeant.”

“Tsk,” said Olga Konstantinovna, looking through the door to the bedroom, from which the noises of an IS-6 tank could be heard.

“Tut all you like.” Maria passed her wrist across her perspiring forehead, smearing herself with a drop of paint. “You’re like one of those bornagains handing out pamphlets in the metro. Why is everybody ganging up on me today?”

“Nobody is ganging up on you.” Olga Konstantinovna took a sky-blue cotton handkerchief out of her bag and moistened it with spit. “Here.”

She took a step towards Maria and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Mum!” Maria waved her hand away, but Olga Konstantinovna ignored the resistance.

“Oh, hush! You’ve smeared yourself all over with paint.”

“All over,” Maria mimicked her mother’s tone and rolled her eyes.

“Just stop taking him to church! It’s bad enough you baptised him behind my back.”

“It wasn’t a secret. Andrei agreed to it.”

“He agreed to it. The double-crosser.”

“Look, Masha, I do know a thing or two about bringing up children. You came out intelligent and healthy. You and I went to church together, and that doesn’t stop you doing things your own way. Too much so, if you ask me. At least you were an obedient child. But all this permissiveness of yours, what good is it doing you? He doesn’t listen to you at all. I’m just trying to make a good boy of him.”

“Mum,” Maria said firmly. “I want my son to see the world through his own eyes. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t learn to distinguish good from bad. Just that it isn’t Jesus or the old, bearded man in the sky who makes up the rules.”

Olga Konstantinovna said nothing. She stared at Maria for a long moment, and then her face softened: “Masha, what’s wrong with you? You look shattered.”

Maria felt the blood rush to her cheeks, her nose tingled.

“I’m just tired from the night shift. Why are you changing the subject?”

“Are you unwell? Can I help you with something?”