He remembers a world verging on war. On one where war is already at their doorstep, and where he remembers nothing of those who starve where Mother Russia has left them to the cold, the thought of his country coming in second to the Americans left his stomach feeling all kinds of wobbly.

"We have made it to moon?" he asks, eyes wide in the consideration of what seems to him more wonderful and awe-inspiring than the idea of witches. Of the world he knows, one in which a man could walk in space seems too much to imagine. He repeats 'Cosmonaut' aloud in awe and fascination, walking as close to the other boy as he thinks he can manage (without risking being close enough to earn a fist in the teeth or between his ribs, as he is already too familiar). We have cosmonauts? Men who walk among the stars?"