Odoyevsky—once Georgiy, like the noble armour-clad saint slaying the dragon on Moscow's coat of arms, now simply George, pronounced nasally, in the French manner—was striding through Paris on a March evening in 1927. Chilly rain washed over the darkening city, turning his footsteps watery and indecisive, imbuing the crowded cafes he passed on busier streets with a charmed warmth of steaming drinks, intimate conversations, an almost tangible happiness, plunging the deserted alleys of shuttered shop fronts into which he now turned into a sloshing, soggy gloom.

He walked quickly but without aim. His shoes were soaked through, and his upturned collar had grown heavy, yet he delayed going home: he owed two months' rent, and his landlord had recently acquired the nasty habit of lying in wait for his return, always emerging from his ground-floor lair in those detestable brown slippers of his, with that eternal cup of hot chocolate held in his pink, spotted hand with nauseating refinement, the little finger stuck out, at the precise moment when Odoyevsky, sneaking up the unlit staircase, his overcoat sleeves pulled down to conceal his cufflinks, would finally release his breath. He walked hardly noticing the rain, not thinking, yet abandoning himself, as he did so often, to a sort of involuntary wordless narrative of another, brilliant and joyous life in some parallel layer of consciousness, remembering other rains, the rains of his childhood, the rains of his youth.

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'Exile' will be printed in full in Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2. To subscribe to Granta and receive the entire issue free, or to buy a copy of Granta 97, click here.