Eve

Ever since she had first become a refugee, Eve had moved around a lot. But, wherever she was, she always managed to find a garden to work in. Her own, someone else's...

I ran her for a while in Moscow in the eighties. We used to meet in one of the city's parks and, while we talked about trade delegations and military manoeuvres, she would prune shrubs using a pair of shears that she produced from the pocket of the man's overcoat that she wore.

The last I heard, she had settled down in California. She had a place by the ocean. A small, Spanish-style villa but it had a big garden.