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this so often that their words no longer had much effect on her, just as a child born near a volcano never thinks about a possible eruption until the day he sees it happen with his very own eyes. The two dangers were pogroms and cholera.
    They talked about them in the same way, Ada thought: voices lowered, slowly shaking their heads while sighing and raising their eyes towards heaven. When it was extremely hot and even more people died than usual in the lower town, where the mortality rate was already high; or in springtime, when pilgrims appeared with their vermin and diseases, or when there was a famine, or a drought, everyone would murmur: ‘We’re in for it this summer . . .’ And whenever any sort of political event happened in Russia, whether good or bad (peace, war, a victory, a defeat, the birth of a long-awaited Imperial heir, an assassination, a trial, revolutionary uprisings or a great need of money), the same anxious voices would whisper: ‘We’re in for it this year, or next month, or tomorrow, or this very night . . .’
    Ada listened to them with so little attention that when the pogrom finally happened, she didn’t realise it; for over a week, they’d been talking about unrest, massacres, shops pillaged, women killed, young girls being . . . At this they bowed their heads, andLilla put an extraordinarily innocent look on her face: ‘What are you talking about?’ it seemed to say. ‘I’m not listening to you, and besides, even if I was, I wouldn’t know what you meant.’ Lilla was getting prettier every day. She had started to wear her long curls in a chignon, low at the back of her neck; her hair softly billowed out over her temples and small forehead. The contrast between her pale skin and dark hair with its bluish sheen was eye-catching. Her hands were slender and delicate. Despite her secret rendezvous in the town’s various parks, despite the few kisses she’d bestowed, she was still a good girl, thought Aunt Raissa, who was experienced enough to know.
    Aunt Raissa placed all her hopes in Lilla . . . Lilla was so sweet, so feminine, with her pale skin, her elegant walk and her innate desire to be loved, which made each of her soft, shy gestures graceful and appealing. Charming Lilla . . . Everyone loved her. ‘She’s a silly goose,’ Ben would say, ‘but a pretty little goose, sweet and innocent . . .’ Then he’d add, ‘a goose you’d happily eat up.’ At nine, Ben knew more about life than his sister, who was fifteen. Lilla inspired a kind of respect in her mother, mixed with anxiety, in the same way that the owner of a stable of racehorses feels kindness tinged with anxiety towards a pretty young filly who hasn’t yet shown what she’s capable of; one day she would doubtlessly fulfil the hopes placed in her – if she didn’t break her leg at the first hurdle, that is.
    Aunt Raissa indulged in the most extravagant dreams when it came to her daughter. It wasn’t enough merely to think she’d find a good husband. No! Such things were good enough for other girls, but Lilla . . . a different destiny awaited Lilla. She would be an actress or a dancer . . . Or a great singer at the Opera House. She was so docile, so malleable. Her mother could shape her as she wished. It wasn’t as if Ada was going to fulfil any expectations. What a child! Taciturn and insolent by turns, rebellious, her head always in the clouds . . . No, she couldn’t worry about Ada. She had enough tothink about with her own children. As one of her favourite Russian sayings went: ‘The shirt you own is closer to your body than your neighbour’s suit.’ But when Aunt Raissa said, ‘The children . . . my children . . .’, she was really thinking only of Lilla. And so when the trouble started, Lilla was sent to stay with the family of one of her classmates. They were Russian Orthodox, so their home was safe. As for Ada and Ben, they would have to see.
    That year, Ada discovered her