“–though not before he had picked up all of the mensha’s tears from the ground.” Jorzy leans forwards, looking around the table. “D’you know what they were?”

“Coins!” cries Babet.

“Gems,” says Ma.

“Sausages,” laughs Nanna, and in fact, it was sausages the last time Jorzy told this tale. But every time it’s different, and that’s part of the pleasure, to find out what the mensha’s tears have become.

“The mensha’s tears,” says Jorzy in a soft, dramatic voice, “had turned into … honey cakes.”

“Ah!” everybody sighs, and my mouth starts watering again.

Marina begins packing Babet off to bed then, to the side room off the kitchen – the mattresses visible through the jagged hole in the wall. It looks cosy in there, though I’m fine with my private cubbyhole.

“Goodnight, darlings,” says our mother as she stands and starts to make her way out of the room, her cane tapping on the ground. She doesn’t need a candle to see where she is going. Every night it’s the same – back to her room to pace in the dark, thinking her thoughts – and seeing her go, I feel a rackety sadness inside. I wish she had a nicer life, not one where any day the Black Marks might come for her.

Jorzy leans back and tamps a little more tobacco into his pipe. Marina’s low voice, murmuring a story to Babet, comes from the other room. Nanna also leaves the room, probably heading for the bathroom we share with the other two families on this floor. Muted sounds come from other parts of the building: the cranky plumbing that is constantly having to be repaired. But it’s all right, living in the heart of the building. You’re never alone, not really, like you would be on a desert island or if you were a hermit living in a cave.

I like these quiet moments, just me and Jorzy. You can tell he’s always got something going on in his head – clever like our father, and he’s tall like Papa as well. I hope there’s still growing left in me, so I can also be as tall as him. Jorzy is nineteen, though seems much older – a grown man – especially since our father was taken away. Across the table, he sucks at the pipe and blows a smoke ring to the ceiling. Then he peers into the bowl and throws me a glance. It’s a keen look.

“What’s the city been saying today, Leho?”

This is a question he usually asks when he’s thinking about how the Director now rules Ursa. Jorzy knows how I get around the city in ways that he himself can’t, working at the factory where he has to turn up every day, whether he’s sick or not. I think about what to tell him.

“It tells me it’s sad.”