Crossing to the other side of the street, I find a place to hunker down so I can watch without being seen. There’s a dark doorway, with steps leading up to the foyer of an apartment building. Two stone lions stand guard on either side of the steps. I pull myself up behind one of the lions so I’m on a level with the ground-floor windows opposite.

What a brilliant sight. There’s a long room filled with Travesters. Men buttoned into grey coats with gold braiding. Light gleams off the bare, powdered shoulders of the women, jewels glittering around their necks, hair worn high. One woman – I can’t believe what I’m seeing, even though my eyesight is sharp – has got what looks like a golden cage worked into her hair, and inside the cage is a tiny blue-green bird on a swing. A live bird. It takes my breath away. Something to tell my mother later. What a scene. It’s like that glass ball I once saw in a shop window. It had a little picture inside – a deer in a forest – and I saw somebody shake the globe to make it snow.

The music … what kind of instruments? The only music I know is played on whittled recorders, or on Jorzy’s viola. But this, this music is delicate as ice on a puddle, and quick as a fox running through the night, and as light as a breeze blowing through linden trees. And just like the mensha, I’m mesmerised.

Then something else in the room catches my eye. In the middle of all this finery, there’s a girl. A girl in a plain grey dress with a white collar. Around my age, maybe. And she’s carrying a small animal in her arms. Maybe it’s a dog, again my mind can’t believe what I’m seeing, because there aren’t dogs that small. A puppy? A woman turns and smiles at the girl, except it’s the kind of smile you’d give a servant. The girl does a little hop and a skip, like she’s pleased to be noticed. Though I think she looks bored more than anything. She keeps walking, weaving in and out of the people, who are mostly ignoring her. I find myself wondering what she’s doing in there with all those fancy people. She’s the odd one out.

Then a long black automobile pulls up to the building, and men get out. My breath catches in my throat. There’s only one automobile like that in Ursa – it’s new, made in another country, people say. The Director, it must be!

Inside the room the music has stopped, and the people seem nervous, excited. Some run to look out the windows.