Jordaan bridges, a twenty minute walk from most of the centre, and evenings arranged by whichever of you has the free afternoon.

The partner with the open days is usually the one who writes, and she treats that as the ordinary way an evening here begins. Portuguese and English, and she will hold a conversation in either while the other half of the couple is still hunting for coffee. Twenty-three, and better at the first fifteen minutes of a room than most people are at a whole hour. Her quarter is full of narrow stairs, which she mentions beforehand so that four flights surprise nobody. Nothing about what a session holds is settled in advance; that part is hers, and she says where it stops before anything starts.

Celeste decides which bookings she takes and may decline any of them; she sets the limits for what a session includes, says what they are, and may end a visit at any point, as the terms set out.