Magda wears dark glasses when they’re out on the boat so Lida only has the uniformly placid set of her smile to guess her mood by. Although it seems to Lida there should, unfortunately, be nothing very difficult about guessing that mood, everything about this trip has felt like a queasy sort of dream without logic and her stomach has been tightly coiled with nerves all day – even as she reclines; the picture of relaxation and leisure under a sun glaring highlights on the bright metal railings of the ship and on Magda’s hair, each flash of light slipping and shifting in time to the lazy bobbing of the waves.

Magda’s maternal softness and sweet familiarity of address are mirages that come and go. Thank heaven none of the children are here at least, no pointed, jealous dandling of little girls on laps, just the strangeness of Magda talking to her as though she were a child, or a simple little sister. Worse than when she talks of their duty to Joseph as though they were fellows. Equals even. That first time when Magda had clasped their hands together and spoken of how things ought to go on between the three of them all, Lida had thought she might weep for the both of them until she understood the sheer, vindictive venom behind it all.

How could there be fellowship in their suffering when her distress is Magda’s only consolation in all this? Though not to forget the torture of Joseph, who (when they are together alone) in turns rails against his wife and shies away from mentioning her at all, or makes black, oblique remarks with self-conscious glances and sighs, or smiles and says that things will be altogether perfect and very, very soon, the last often stated so beautifully that Lida can almost believe it.

Joseph, at the other end of the boat, is sunning himself like a lizard and watching the two of them with one eye always until Magda, all needlelike languor, instructs Lida to go fetch her a drink and then laughs as though it were a joke. A frigid little moment that causes him to put his fingers to his temple and says he must go lie down inside for just a moment or the heat is going to give him a migraine. He touches Lida’s shoulder briefly as he passes. She would like to go with him but it’s impossible.

“You’re no different you realize?” Magda says, only a murmur and Lida thinks about pretending she didn’t hear it.

“I’m sorry?”

“Than the others.” Magda slides her glasses down her nose an inch, gazes at her coolly. Her silver-grey dress compliments the look in her eyes.

Lida shakes her head. It comes off more like a shudder. The tightness in her belly spreads to her chest, a horrid, hot weight of shame. The denial is anaemic, though she believes it with all her heart (Joseph does love her, that’s the misery of it all) it only has to be bloodless since all her blood has rushed to her cheeks. It’s the thought of the gossip that humiliates her, the actual, almost tangible murmur of Berlin. She digs her thumbnail into the palm of her hand and turns back to face Magda since even in the ugliness of this scene she can find a streak of pride in meeting her stare forthrightly and cling to that. There’s gossip about Magda too isn’t there after all?

They’re both trapped sharing this stage. The wind skims the lake, touches them both with a fine mist of water. It does nothing for the heat in her face. Magda is beautiful. She holds her gaze steadily, composed; and though Lida has watched her stumbling tipsy, noticed  her carefully folding her hands and gazing forward slow-blinking back tears, heard her voice shrill and troubled, coming in tinny on the other end of a telephone receiver covered furtively by Joseph’s palm; still she feels no pity – she knows this woman could destroy her and never has she felt it more acutely than she does right now.

“You’re an expensive whore,” Magda says, as though they’re discussing a novel or a play – calm and almost as though she is testing to see if the opinion will float.

Lida keeps her mouth shut but tips her chin up, a little defiance despite knowing what her best interests are. But then her career has taught her a great deal about charm, its value and its currency and it’s already clear that charm will cut no ice here. Magda’s eyes drift to the diamond brooch pinned to her shirt. Without thinking Lida finds hers gaze flicking to the rings on Magda’s fingers. When she realizes what she’s doing she looks back up hastily.

“I can fetch you a drink if you would like,” she says, and tries not to look at Magda’s hands again, which seem keen to give off the impression that she’s never fetched her own drink in her life, though she’s no princess and they both know that.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Magda says.

Lida peers toward the shadowy interior of the little vessel and hopes she can imagine to life the shape of Joseph moving behind the glass, coming to return to them.  

“Liduschka.”

The voice is so close she almost shrieks. Magda sits down beside her.

She leans away on instinct, as one would step back from some dreadful sight and the dreadful sight is her own stricken face distorted in the reflection of Magda’s dark glasses. She would scramble to her feet but Magda’s hand is wrapped firmly around her wrist.

“I know exactly what he thinks he sees in you,” Magda says.

They’re on a level but she still manages to say it looking down her nose. The grip at her wrist is unwaveringly proprietorial. Lida feels her heart hammer in her chest and wonders dizzily if Magda can feel it too. Magda traces the line of her cheekbone, fingers warm and smelling faintly of talcum – a polished fingernail presses slightly at the delicate skin just beneath her eye.

“I just want to make it clear where we all stand.”

Magda’s smile is not broad or snarled, it’s dainty even; neat white teeth and a subdued, fashionable colour painted in tidy lines around her lips and absolutely savage at the basest  level as she takes her hand from her cheek and drives it between Lida’s legs. The heel of a thumb grinds her underwear hard against her, the setting of one of her rings, the facet of some stone, etches a cold, sharp line at the very top of her inner thigh.

“Don’t-”

She tries to pull Magda’s hand away but those elegant fingers twist into a curl of her pubic hair and tug at it painfully.

“It’s clear isn’t it?”

“Yes!” Lida gasps.

Magda’s fingernails pry past the gusset of her underwear and up into the folds of her sex, pinching and probing at her carelessly until she finds what she is searching for and crushes that most sensitive part of her between two merciless fingers. The pain so sharp and sudden and acute that Lida’s  still choking on the breath to squeal before Magda removes her hand as quickly as she began.

“Now you can get me that drink.” Magda looks at her hand with disgust. “And a wash cloth. Oh and try not to disturb my husband either, thank you, Lida.”