‘Our circus always had a storyteller,’ said Zamfir, ‘and the finest of them was the woman you knew as your grandmother. In the summer she would travel with us, telling stories that were acted by the clowns. One summer the storyteller brought a young woman with her. She was slight with snow-white skin. Her husband, the cabinet maker, had found another woman in a village further down the mountain and the storyteller hoped that after a few months away the young woman might find the strength to leave him for good.

‘One evening after a show when we were gathered for music and a meal, a stranger came and stood to look into the fire. It’s said he was a handsome devil – dark eyes, black hair – and the young woman couldn’t stop looking at him. He went to where she was sitting and said, “You will never have a child with your husband.” She had stood up, furious to be spoken to in that way, and went to slap him. The stranger was fast, he caught her arm and kissed her. Never had anyone seen such a startled expression on any woman’s face. The storyteller told him, “Enough of this nonsense.”

‘He didn’t move. The music stopped, all went quiet and he said, “Old woman, you will bring up the child. She will be like me, she’ll have the power to walk between two worlds.”

‘The storyteller raised her hands to the heavens when she saw the young woman walk away with him. But she was confident that in the morning sense and reason would return.

‘It didn’t. When it was time for the circus to move on the young woman said she was staying. After the summer the storyteller went back for her and saw straight away she was with child. And they went home.

‘Six months later a midwife called the storyteller to the house of the cabinet maker. His wife, the young woman, had died and the child was sickly and not likely to live. The cabinet maker wanted the storyteller to take the baby, saying girls had no value, they took land away from you and brought little in return. But the storyteller stayed and became your grandmother, and she poured her stories into you. Now,’ said Zamfir, ‘I’ve told you your beginning, tell me your end.’

Edith looked up at the myriad of stars and thought about the power of a story to define a past or predict a future, of the infinite possibilities of what lay ahead. One thing was certain: come the new day she would be leaving. The rest was unknown, except for the end of her story.

‘Do you really want to hear it?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said.

She was quiet for a while and when she did speak it felt to him as if the night itself was talking, all too aware of the dawn to come.