Imagine walking through the cool interior and, like the prince in search of Sleeping Beauty, climbing up into the towers.

Maria began to wail in earnest and she bent over to wipe the hot little face. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll find somewhere for you to go.’

She shepherded the children over to the monument dominating the square, which she knew from the late-night reading (Prague on a Shoestring was becoming a bible) was a memorial to Jan Huss.

The monument was big. Too big, she thought. And in need of restoration. ‘It was a symbol of defiance against repressive regimes.’ Or so said this new bible. Whatever it was, the people sitting on its step behaved oddly. A relay appeared to be under way. One person would sit down, remain stationary for a minute or so, and jump up. He or she was then replaced and the process was repeated, as if they were observing a hidden rota.

She made Jan and Maria sit on its steps while she figured out what to do and checked the time. Only three o’clock. In desperation, and with some difficulty, she bought a packet of boiled sweets from the nearest shop and, hoping they would divert them, doled them out to the children. They were oddly coloured and tasted of nothing much.

‘Look,’ said Jan, pointing to an arched doorway, guarded by a full-sized wooden witch figure with a beaked nose, over which a wooden notice had been nailed. Painted onto it was a puppet in a Pierrot costume and the word: Marionety.

With a sigh of relief, Laure asked, ‘Do you two like puppets?’

Fifteen minutes later, having emerged from the negotiations at the ticket booth, and taken poor Maria to the lavatory, all three were ensconced with a dozen or so other children and adults.

Originally, the room with seating for seventy or so must have been part of a private house and traces of former grandeur in the cornicing were evident. Benches had been set out for the audience in front of a raised stage protected by a pair of curtains of virulent yellow onto which a hammer and sickle had been painted.

The walls were hung with wide strips of black material. In the spaces in between were several black-paper silhouettes pasted down onto white paper. One was of a girl with a pony tail. Another was of a male head with swept-back hair. Another showed an enchanting cut-out scene with a coach and horses dashing through a starlight night. Another was of a demon with staring eyes rearing up in front of a girl whose hair flowed down her back like a waterfall.

It was even hotter inside the room, the sort of thick heat that made you super aware of your body. A door leading into a garden had been propped open as wide as it would go.