She fixed on Raj. “Look at you!” Then she shouted back toward the house, “Olenka! Olenka, is Indian boy. From India.” She snatched up Annie’s hand.

Annie protested. “We’ve got to meet some people at the county fair.”

Ignoring this, Pela dragged Annie through the front gate. “We have scratch. We think it Sashenka. Vladi too fat to get this high.” She called back to Raj. “Young man, take shoes off. We going into parlor.”

Catching Raj’s eye, Annie made a comic grimace as they all removed their shoes. Olenka, who rarely left the house, peered at Raj from the doorway. “Is a big one, Pela.”

She was just as short as her sister, but heavier-set, her expression infantile, her face so thickly and inaccurately made up it looked as if a three-year-old had been allowed to go at it with a set of bright crayons.

Inside, Pela retrieved a key from under a vase of dried flowers and opened a door at the end of a dark hallway. They entered the parlor, which the sisters cleaned every day and used only on special occasions. Between two windows, on the wall opposite the door, stood a display cabinet. None of the objects in it could be seen because they were wrapped in rags. Pela dragged Annie over to an antique mahogany bureau.

“Sashenka,” Pela said, pointing at the sloping lid of the bureau.

“Sashenka,” echoed Olenka, peering suspiciously at Raj.

“One of their cats,” Annie explained.

“Cats are very cunning,” Raj said.

“When I come clean,” Pela explained, “in here he sneaks—Sashenka.”

Olenka was now staring at Raj with astonishment. “Cunning?”

Pela tugged Annie closer to the bureau. “There,” she insisted. “Look.”

“I can’t see a scratch,” Annie said.

Pela put her face right up to the wood.

“Could have been a hair,” Raj suggested. “If a hair gets on the surface it can look like a scratch.”

Olenka was still staring at Raj with amazement. “Take him out for run. I love the way they move, his rumps.” She opened out and see-sawed her little hands. “Is like ocean. Ocean used belong us.”

“Not ocean, lake,” Pela corrected.

“Lake belong us and we has servants belong us.”

“Olenka,” Pela cried out, as if something wonderful had just occurred to her, “why don’t we have tea?”

“We have to get going,” Annie softly protested, but Olenka hurried out and Pela dragged Annie over to the davenport and almost pushed her down. Pela gestured for Raj, who also sat. A second later Olenka reentered with a tray of tea things that had clearly been at the ready.

Pela opened the display cabinet. Carefully she unwrapped and stood up each of the objects, which were figurines: a half-broken Humpty Dumpty, a King Charles spaniel, and a little black boy in a turban. On the top shelf she unwrapped and stood up a large horse.

“Has you seen our horse?” Olenka said.

“Very nice,” Raj said.