Would the telephone and the gas be working? And had people thought about trivia like this a hundred years ago – on their way back to Moscow after the defeat of Napoleon?

The truck came to a stop not far from their house. Once again the Shtrums saw the front door, the four windows of their flat with the blue paper crosses that had been pasted on last summer, the linden trees on the edge of the pavement, the sign saying 'Milk' and the board on the janitor's door.

'Well, I don't suppose the lift will be working,' said Lyudmila.

She turned to the driver. 'Can you help take our things up to the second floor?'

'Why not? You can pay me in bread.'

They unloaded the truck; Nadya stayed to watch over their things while Viktor and Lyudmila went up to their apartment. They went up the stairs very slowly, somehow surprised that everything had changed so little: the letter-boxes were still the same, the door on the first floor was still covered with a piece of black oil-cloth. How strange that streets, houses and things you forgot about didn't just disappear; they came back and there you were in the midst of them again.

Once, too impatient to wait for the lift, Tolya had run up to the second floor and shouted down to Viktor: 'Ha ha! I'm home already!'

'Let's stop for a moment on the landing. You're out of breath,' said Viktor.

'My God!' said Lyudmila. 'Just look at the state of the staircase! I'll have to go down tomorrow and get Vasily Ivanovich to have the place cleaned.'

There they were, husband and wife, standing once more before the door of their home.

'Perhaps you'd like to open the door,' said Viktor.

'No, you do it. You're the master of the house.'

They went inside and walked round all the rooms without taking off their coats. Lyudmila took the telephone receiver off the hook, blew into it and said: 'Well, the telephone seems to be working all right.'

Then she went into the kitchen. 'We've even got water. We can use the lavatory.' She went over to the stove and tried to turn on the gas. It had been cut off.

Lord, Lord, it was over at last. The enemy had been halted. They had returned to their home. That Saturday, 21 June, 1941, seemed only yesterday. How much – and how little – everything had changed. The people who had just entered the house were different. Their hearts had changed; their lives had changed; they were living in another epoch. Why was everything so ordinary, and yet such a source of anxiety? Why did their pre-war life, the life they had lost, seem so fine and happy? And why was the thought of tomorrow so oppressive? Ration cards, residence permits, the electricity rental, newspaper subscriptions, the state of the lift… And when they were in bed, they would hear that same old clock striking the hour.

Following at his wife's heels, Viktor suddenly remembered how he and pretty young Nina had had a drink here in the summer. The empty wine bottle was still beside the sink.

He remembered the night after he had read the letter from his mother that had been brought by Colonel Novikov; he remembered his own sudden departure to Chelyabinsk. This was where he had kissed Nina; where a pin had fallen out of her hair and they hadn't been able to find it. He felt suddenly anxious. What if the pin suddenly turned up? What if she had forgotten her powder-puff or her lipstick?

Just then the driver came in. Breathing heavily, he looked round the room and asked: 'And all this belongs to you?'

'Yes,' said Viktor guiltily.

'We've got eight square metres for the six of us,' said the driver. 'My old woman sleeps during the day when everyone's out at work. During the night she just sits on a chair.'

Viktor went over to the window. There was Nadya beside their heap of belongings, dancing about and blowing on her fingers.

Dear Nadya, dear helpless daughter, this is the house where you were born.

The driver brought up a sack of food and a hold-all full of toilet things, sat down and began rolling himself a cigarette.

He seemed to be obsessed with the question of living-space. He at once began to regale Viktor with stories about the official hygiene recommendations and the bribe-takers at the local accommodation bureau.

There was a clatter of pans from the kitchen.

'A true housewife,' said the driver, winking at Viktor.

Viktor looked out of the window again.

'A pretty kettle of fish,' said the driver. 'We'll give the Germans a good thrashing at Stalingrad, people will start coming back to Moscow, and it will be even worse. Not long ago, one of our workers came back to the factory after being wounded twice at the front. His home, of course, had been blown up, so he and his wife moved into some awful cellar. And of course his wife was pregnant and his two children had . And then the cellar got flooded – the water came right up to their knees. They put wooden boards on top of stools and used them as bridges between the stove, the table and the bed. Then he started making applications. He wrote to the Party committee, he wrote to the district committee, he even wrote to Stalin himself. In reply they just made promises. And then one night, together with his family and all his gear, he moved into a room on the fourth floor that was kept for the district Soviet. Then things really did start to happen. He was summoned by the public prosecutor. He was told he must leave the room within twenty-four hours or he'd get five years in a camp and the kids would be packed off to an orphanage. What do you think he did then? Well, he'd been decorated at the front, so he stuck his medals into his chest, right into the flesh, and tried to hang himself in the lunch-break – there in the workshop. The other lads at work found him, cut the rope and had him rushed to hospital. He got his flat straight away, before he was discharged. Yes, he did well for himself. It's not spacious, but it's got all they need.'

Nadya came in just as he finished.

'What if the baggage gets stolen? Who'll be to blame then?' the driver asked.

Nadya shrugged her shoulders and went off on a tour of the rooms, still blowing on her frozen fingers.

As soon as Nadya came into the house Viktor felt angry again.

'You might at least turn your collar down,' he said.

Nadya paid no attention and shouted towards the kitchen:

'Mama, I'm terribly hungry!'

Lyudmila was extraordinarily active that day. Viktor thought that if she had deployed this energy at the front, the Germans would already have retreated at least a hundred kilometres from Moscow.

The plumber turned on the heating; the pipes were still working, even if they weren't very hot. Getting hold of the gas man was more difficult. Lyudmila finally got the director of the gas board to send someone from the emergency brigade. She lit all the burners and placed irons on top of them. The gas was very weak, but they could at least take off their coats now. After the labours of the driver, the plumber and the gas man, the bag of bread had become extremely light.

Lyudmila carried on working until late at night. She stuck a rag on the end of a broom and started dusting the walls and ceilings. She cleaned the chandelier, took the dead flowers out to the back staircase and assembled a huge heap of rags, old papers and other junk. A grumbling Nadya had to carry three bucket-loads down to the dustbin.

Lyudmila washed all the plates from the kitchen and dining-room. She set Viktor to dry the knives, forks and plates, but refused to trust him with the tea service. She started doing the washing in the bathroom, thawed out the butter on top of the stove and sorted through the potatoes they had brought from Kazan.

Viktor tried to phone Sokolov. Marya Ivanovna answered.

'I've just put Pyotr Lavrentyevich to bed. He's worn out from the journey, but I can wake him up if it's urgent.'