An orchestra is playing beside one, in a bandstand. As he approaches it he realises that the seated musicians are arranged in a heart shape; also that the mausoleums are in fact not mausoleums: they’re pavilions housing fountains. People stroll from one to the next, holding their glasses out beneath the jets until they’re full, then slowly sipping as they move on. A group of kaftaned Jews with beards and side-curls chat in Polish and Yiddish as they drink; two Russians talk to one another loudly, gargling and spitting between sentences. A French couple discuss the music:“Mais c’est Debussy, n’est-ce pas?”“Non, non: c’est Brahms …”Serge doesn’t have a glass. He cups his hands and holds them out into the fountain. The water’s not particularly cold and, bizarrely, doesn’t feel particularly wet either. It’s got a kind of sooty feel to it. He draws his hands up to his face and looks at it: it’s cloudy, slightly dark, with bubbles in it. He takes a sip: it’s cloudy-tasting too, and a little bitter.
