Back at the house, Marta Gayer is sitting at the table with Nanna, both of them hunched over a teacup. Marta’s plump face, rosy with emotion, looks up a little guiltily when I come barging in. Who knows what stories Nanna has been pulling out of thin air to impress her so-called friend. I don’t believe there’s anything in tea-leaves except tea. Nanna shoots me a look: make yourself scarce. I don’t need telling. The Travester woman might be kind to us – when she could just as well turn her back – but she still makes me feel uncomfortable. Was it a neighbour like her who betrayed my mother all those years ago?

“You might as well know, there’s a change coming,” whispers Marta now, handing the cup over to Nanna, and I know she’s not talking about the tea-leaves.

“What kind of change?” asks Nanna, quietly.

“I’m not allowed to say,” Marta says smugly, “just something I’ve heard on the grapevine, but it might be positive for your people.” She likes to have secrets over Nanna, I think in disgust.

There’s a basket of apples on the bench that Marta must have brought, and my hand creeps towards them. Nanna, however, has eyes in the back of her head, and a certain way of communicating her wishes. The way she draws back her shoulders tells me to leave the apples alone. Besides, she will already have counted them. If I’m lucky, I might get a quarter tonight after our dinner.

I slouch out of the room and crawl into my cubbyhole. Linking my hands behind my head, I glare at the low ceiling. I hate the doling out of food. I hate being always hungry, the hunger chewing away at my insides like an insect. The Director won’t be hungry, that’s for sure. He’ll have the best of everything to eat, whenever he feels like it. He will have servants to cook him delicious meals, and an orchard full of apple trees. Other fruits, too; fruits Nanna has told us about, from the old days.

“Peach,” I murmur under my breath, testing out the word on my tongue. “Ap-ri-cot … Gorgeous.”

Footsteps. I close my eyes, breathing lightly.

“Leho,” says Marina, “you silly boy, I know you’re not asleep.” I open my eyes.

She’s on her knees and peering in at me with a crooked smile. “Look at you in your funny cave.” Her old outdoor hat, woven raffia trimmed with faded red velvet, is pinned onto her dark hair. I bet Emee wouldn’t be caught dead wearing something like that, yet it suits Marina.

“Leho, will you come with me to the House of Law?”

I give a fake yawn, though I’m actually feeling quite sleepy despite pretending. “What are you going there for?”