‘It’s hush-hush. I’m supposed to say it’s to do with embassy business. The truth is, I’m looking into your boss’s financial affairs.’

‘Rachkovsky?’

‘Yes. It seems he’s embezzling. The tricky little Jew.’

For a moment, Nicolas finds himself folded into an origami shape of moral confusion, which he has to unpick: yes, Rachkovsky’s an embezzler, but it’s not because he’s Jewish. Yes, Skobelev is an anti-Semite, but he’s also generous-hearted, honest, and a war hero.

‘The Jewish thing is neither here nor there,’ says Nicolas. ‘Someone said that anti-Semitism is the template for all forms of intolerance.’

‘Really? Who said that?’

‘I think it was Saltykov-Shchedrin.’

‘Shchedrin-Schmedrin. The trouble with the Jew,’ pronounces Skobelev, ‘is that he’s only loyal to his own kind. We Slavs are free-hearted people. We’re easily taken advantage of.’

Nicolas sees that the conversation is straying once again into difficult territory and suggests dessert.

The sweet-toothed general polishes off a knickerbocker glory and fills Nicolas’s glass with the last of the brandy. ‘What do you say? Let’s order another bottle and get green-snake drunk.’

‘I should head home after this,’ Nicolas says through a mouthful of cheesecake. ‘My wife’s pregnant and due in a couple of months.’ Nicolas is saddened by the lazy anti-Semitism, by the pitiable state of the general, and doesn’t want to witness him coming apart in his cups again. The two men have a good-natured tussle over the bill, and Nicolas promises to pay next time.

Just before they part, Skobelev gruffly mentions that he’s brought Nicolas a keepsake. ‘A memento,’ he says. It’s the general’s regimental hip flask, battered from service, and engraved with a tribute from the men he once commanded. ‘It won’t see action again with me, but I thought you might need it one day.’ The general’s pink eyes glisten in the candlelight as he pats Nicolas’s hand. ‘Think of me next time you do battle with the Turk.’

Nicolas doesn’t know what to say. He looks down at the flask. By some trick of the light, the Skobelev Nicolas sees reflected in the scratched silver is still the White General in his prime. ‘Thank you,’ says Nicolas. ‘I’ll treasure this.’

Afterwards, he worries that he was so overwhelmed with gratitude that his thanks came out as gauche and hasty. His sense of confusion is compounded by a feeling that his loyalties are divided between Rachkovsky and the general, between the kind of glamorous Jew he wishes might have been his father and the kind of frail old man who was.

The following morning, Rachkovsky comes in late. ‘How was dinner with the general?’ he asks Nicolas.

Nicolas looks up from his work – a series of reports on anarchist activities in Manchester, England. ‘It was fine, but you know why he’s here?’

Rachkovsky cocks his head at an angle that says: surprise me.

‘He’s looking into the way the department’s funded. If I had any questionable sources of income, I’d be careful while he’s around.’