A good question. Jomier is uncertain. He scribbles down an equation in his mind. Western adversarial democracy + chumminess with pro-Western Arab theocracies + support of Israel + proactive wars against anti-Western regimes (Iraq, Grenada, Serbia, Sierra Leone) versus chumminess with any regime that will keep the gas flowing to his Potterton boiler and Rangemaster stove, and oil flowing to the Jet petrol station on the Goldhawk Road + minding one’s own business and leaving Iraqis, Israelis, Palestinians, Grenadians, Bosnians, Kosovans, Afghans to stew in their own juice. Jomier tentatively favours the second option but recognises that he has not factored in the imponderables – truth, justice, jobs for peacekeepers and the makers of Toyota Landcruisers, salaries and benefits for those who work for the Foreign Office, the EU or the UN. There are also the unknowables. And the things we don’t know we don’t know. Is reason relevant to tribal conflicts? What is churning around in our collective subconscious as we consider the state of the world? Jomier thinks back to Sidney Brichto: ‘Deep down in the European consciousness, there lingers a conviction that the world would be better without the Jews.’ Perhaps deep down in the Jewish consciousness there lingers a conviction that the world would be better off without Russians? Perhaps Tom’s loathing of Putin comes from a gene inherited from his pogrommed forefathers in the shtetls of the Russian Pale? Perhaps Jomier’s failure to choose one side or the other comes from a Hugeonot gene which tells him that God has chosen some to be saved and others to be damned, and that there is nothing you can do about it because the grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains for ever.

Jomier knows that this deus ex machina will cut no ice with Tom because Tom does not believe in God. Tom’s Judaism is tribal, not religious, which apparently is fine in the US where you can mix and match your beliefs – hence Zionist Christians, pro-choice Catholics and atheist Jews. But if there is no God, who chose the chosen race? Who promised the promised land? Jomier would like to ask Tom but knows that this would be construed as further evidence of his subliminal anti-Semitism. He says instead: ‘I must go.’

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ says Tom. ‘Whose side are you on?’

‘I’m not sure,’ says Jomier.

Tom snorts – a snort of contempt for all the shilly-shallying wishy-washy bystanders who kept themselves to themselves and minded their own business as Jews were rounded up and sent off to Auschwitz.

Jomier stands. ‘It’s been good to see you.’