Abraham is dimly surprised, but not entirely unhappy, to have his offer taken up. Few enough have approached him who weren't men like him, lonely and hungry as winter-starved wolves, clustering together in grim shared dismay at their lot in life. This man seems to be, at least at first glance, both handsome and pleasant. Not the type to befriend a strange Jew in the shelter of the icy shadows.

He hands the flask over with a nod and a flip of his hand that indicates that the stranger should have as much as he wants. As he does so, he casts a thoughtful eye over his new companion, marking the elegant lines of his clothes. He recognises one word of the man's speech, and the language of shared cigarettes is, of course, as ancient and universal as an outstretched hand.

Lighting the match against his thumbnail, he reaches out to set it to the end of the stranger's cigarette before attending to his own, then shakes it out and tosses it over the side into the black waves far below.

He digs into the cobwebs of his knowledge of French and comes up with something vaguely serviceable. "Du froid," he says, then makes a mime of shivering and clutching at himself.