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shouted, her voice quivering indignantly. With that knowing feminine instinct that can aim straight at the vulnerable place in a man’s heart, she had sought, and found, the worst insult. (Ben was small for an eight-year-old boy.)
    ‘He’s at least that much taller than you,’ she said, lifting her hand up to Harry’s height, ‘and he’s stronger too! He knows things you don’t. He knows how to ride.’
    ‘Have you seen him riding?’
    She didn’t want to say anything untrue, so she just nodded.
    ‘You’re lying!’
    ‘No I’m not!’
    For a few seconds they shouted ‘are too’ and ‘am not’ at each other, their faces contorted in anger. They screamed at the top of their voices. When they stopped, hoarse and exhausted by the violence of their shouting, they could hear Nastasia singing wistfully in the kitchen. Aunt Raissa had gone to buy a few things from Alchwang, the tailor who dressed the city’s middle classes; the men were out at work and Lilla was at school.
    ‘Swear then!’ Ben said finally.
    Ada swore like Nastasia did: she quickly crossed herself.
    ‘I swear on the Holy Cross!’
    ‘It’s not hard to ride a horse,’ said Ben after a moment’s silence.‘What’s hard is to buy a horse. But he wouldn’t know how to climb up the back of a tram, hang on and get around town like that, without being seen by the police, or how to lead a gang of kids from the Jewish quarter against a gang from the marketplace, or how to fight one against ten . . .’
    ‘And you fought one against ten? When?’
    ‘More times than you’ve had hot dinners,’ Ben replied, deeply resentful, imitating the biting reply Nastasia had made to her rival, the woman who sold herrings, who’d accused her of never having had a marriage proposal from any of her lovers.
    But they were tired of shouting and getting upset, so Ada and Ben fell silent. Night was already falling: it was the early dusk of winter. A cockroach slowly crossed the room, twitching its feelers; others climbed up the wall, attracted by the warmth from the wood-burning stove. They were never chased away: they were a sign of wealth in a house. Through the frozen windowpane, they could just make out the shoemaker’s sign next door: a boot made of golden metal, decorated with spurs, all covered in snow and lit up by the low flame of a gaslight in the street. Everything was still, but it was an empty, joyless stillness. Ada buried her cheeks and forehead in the pillow and closed her eyes. Beneath her lowered eyelids, she pictured a long road in the dead of night, but it was a summer’s night, warm and dark. She was walking with Harry. Harry was tired and he was leaning against her; Harry was hungry and she gave him food. Then she was the one who was afraid, who was cold, who was in pain, and Harry consoled her, reassured her, took care of her. The game transformed into a dream: the images were detailed, but bathed in a peculiar light, pale and grey, like the first breaking of dawn, and the sounds (the voices of the children who were running away with them, Harry’s laughter, their footsteps along the road), all the sounds were clear, yet somehow muffled, distant. Harry! What a wonderful name . . . The name of a true prince . . . That name alone would have beenenough to make her fall in love, even if she had never seen his face or his house . . . To be allowed inside, even just to cross the threshold, to see Harry’s room, his toys . . . He might let her touch them. He might even take books, coloured crayons, balls and pile them into Ada’s arms, saying, ‘Here. We can share.’
    She thought she could almost hear him whispering in her ear. She sank deeper into a feverish sleep. She could feel her imaginary friend’s cheek next to hers, a cheek as cool and soft as a piece of fruit. She took his hand and fell asleep.

6
    The Jews who lived in the lower town were religious and fanatically attached to their customs; the Jews in the wealthy areas