‘The reason I say, monsieur, is that women’s clothing is a speciality of mine. If you can give me some idea of size … I’m the general manager of the Étoile du Nord. I would be honoured—’

‘Really, it’s not necessary. I’d better go. I have to catch a train.’

Nicolas makes another sally, but the boy is unbudgeable.

‘Before you go – your name?’

‘Leonard.’

Out of unsteady eyes, Nicolas watches him leave and orders one more for the road. Walking home he is assailed by a frantic grief. He thinks: my son’s dead. The earth seems to open beneath his feet. Later, trembling and hung over, looking at his bloodshot eyes in the mirror, he will remember Leonard’s affronted expression and wonder where he has seen it before: Volchkov, Alexander, Skobelev, someone, but when?

‘1917 brought further calamity.’

Seduced by the high rates of economic growth in Russia, but fearing the sporadic turmoil of its urban centres, Nicolas has invested in a huge farm outside the northern city of Vologda and spends more money acquiring the land that adjoins it. He intends to build an industrial dairy plant with refrigerators and automated milking machines. Whatever happens, he thinks, people will still need to eat.

He greets the March revolution with restrained optimism: perhaps this is the change the country needs. But after the Bolshevik coup in October, his land is expropriated. He makes a frantic and ultimately fruitless trip to Moscow at the end of 1918, where he embarks on a weary circuit of temporary offices, beseeching the new regime’s zealous young bureaucrats to return his property. Their reactions vary between open contempt and mere annoyance.

It is the last time he will visit his homeland. Osip has already left with his family for Palestine. The new Soviet Union is fighting for its life in a bloody civil war. At Kazan station, Nicolas observes Red Army recruits being mustered before setting off for battle against their White opponents.

In his rough, parade-ground shout, their brigadier tells them to stand easy. A special visitor has come. The whisper among the troops grows louder as a black Daimler pulls up on the station forecourt. Bodyguards in fur-lined leather jackets flank the figure who emerges. A cry of joy goes up from the assembled soldiers. ‘Lenin!’ The new country’s revolutionary leader is coming in person to address them! Hang on – he’s wearing spectacles. ‘Trotsky!’ Recruits nudge each other – in a way, this is better: Trotsky’s known for his brilliant oration. But wait – Trotsky’s skinny as a greyhound. He can’t have changed so quickly. Even the Politburo aren’t eating that well.

Clad in a hat of black astrakhan, wearing a red armband on his grey coat, the plump dignitary raises a brass megaphone to his mouth. ‘Representatives of the working class, vanguard of the proletariat, I’m afraid Comrade Lenin is unable to be here. He has sent me in his place. My name is Ilya Nevin, Commissar of Information.’