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front of the booking clerk. Every quarter of an hour or so a multitude of people stampeded towards the desk and she was swallowed up, to reappear again when the hordes had receded, a solitary, argumentative figure standing on tiptoe. The English guests sat on a narrow bench in the anteroom to the lobby, and waited.
    After an hour had passed the interpreter, noticeably tense, led them into the main hall and informed them that Mr Karlovitch had been telephoned but was no longer at home, and now she was trying to contact the minister for cultural affairs. The whole business might take a considerable time to sort out. It was a matter of the smallest scrap of paper imaginable.
    She gestured towards the restaurant and suggested that they should have tea, but first they must remove their coats.
    ‘I don’t want to,’ said Enid. The massive doors leading from the snow-filled street were constantly opening and closing and she was far from warm.
    Nina said she must do as she was told. No one was allowed to go anywhere in their outdoor things. Not indoors; it wasn’t permitted. She knew that from the last time she was here. The brain specialist had kicked up an almighty fuss about it, to no avail, and he was a man not often thwarted. She drew Olga Fiodorovna on one side and entreated her not to feel too badly over the delay. ‘We British,’ she assured her, ‘are used to hanging around.’
    ‘You are very kind,’ murmured Olga Fiodorovna. ‘It is not a good day for me. I have many problems, many things on my mind. It is not just a question of papers.’
    When Bernard took off his mackintosh Ashburner was impressed by the suit he was wearing. It was made of corduroy and had a matching waistcoat. Of course the colour, being a pale and impractical shade of honey, was a bit on the arty side, but the jacket was extremely well cut. There wasn’t a speck of paint on it. Ashburner himself was wearing his third-best office suit and school tie. He hadn’t dared pack his best suit because his wife might have thought it an odd thing to fish in. If Bernard was going to strut about attired like a peacock, it was probably just as well his suitcase had gone missing. He couldn’t compete. All he had to change into apart from a fairly decent pair of flannels was his old tweed trousers. Not that Nina was in any position to throw stones. Ashburner had never known her to dress so peculiarly. She was wearing a voluminous kind of blouse, badly creased, and what he could only describe as a kilt, complete with a large safety pin attached above the knee.
    The interior of the restaurant was the size of an aircraft hangar and decorated in the Chinese style with oriental screens, a lacquered ceiling of scarlet and black, and numerous pillars entwined with writhing dragons. Though it was difficult to see into the far recesses of the room – the windows were heavily draped and the Chinese lanterns unlit – it appeared to be deserted save for a score of waiters, who for some seconds stared insolently at the new arrivals before disappearing into the shadows. Bernard and the women thought the restaurant was marvellous and said so. The colours, the gloom! It was a work of art. Ashburner didn’t know whether they were joking or not. In his opinion, which he kept to himself, the place was absolutely hideous and could do with a couple of coats of whitewash.
    ‘Shall I go after them?’ he asked, peering in the direction of the vanished waiters. He was parched for a cup of tea.
    Nina advised againt. Perhaps it wasn’t opening time yet. It would be best if they waited for Olga.
    A sudden uproar was heard at the end of the room, and from behind a screen painted with butterflies thirty or forty men emerged, broad-shouldered and fierce-eyed, some wearing moustaches, all shouting and jostling against each other as they tramped noisily past the group at the table. Booting open the swing doors, they swaggered out into the hall.
    ‘They looked very alive,’ said