Walli had questions, too, especially for Alice. While she was answering them, Lili looked around the table. This was her family: her parents, her sister, her brother, her niece, and her oldest friend and singing partner. How lucky she was to have them all together in the same room, eating and talking and drinking wine.

The thought occurred to her that some families did this every week, and took it for granted.

Karolin was sitting next to Walli, and Lili watched them together. They were having a good time. They still made one another laugh, she noticed. If things had been different—if the Berlin Wall had fallen—might their romance have been rekindled? They were still young: Walli was thirty-three, Karolin thirty-five. Lili pushed the thought away: it was an idle speculation, a foolish fantasy.

Walli retold the story of his escape from Berlin for Alice’s benefit. When he got to the part where he sat all night waiting for Karolin, who did not show up, she interrupted him. “I was frightened,” she said. “Frightened for myself, and for the baby inside me.”

“I don’t blame you,” Walli said. “You did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong. The only wrong was the Wall.”

He described how he had driven through the checkpoint, busting the barrier. “I’ll never forget that man I killed,” he said.

Carla said: “It wasn’t your fault—he was shooting at you!”

“I know,” Walli said, and Lili knew from his tone of voice that at last he was at peace about this. “I feel sorry, but I don’t feel guilty. I wasn’t wrong to escape; he wasn’t wrong to shoot at me.”

“Like you said,” Lili put in, “the only wrong is the Wall.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Cam Dewar’s boss, Keith Dorset, was a podgy man with sandy hair. Like a lot of CIA men, he dressed badly. Today he wore a brown tweed jacket, gray flannel trousers, a white shirt with brown pencil stripes, and a dull green tie. Seeing him walking down the street, the eye would slide over him while the brain dismissed him as a person of no account. Perhaps this was the effect he sought, Cameron thought. Or perhaps he just had bad taste.

“About your girlfriend, Lidka,” Keith said, sitting behind a large desk in the American embassy.

Cam was pretty sure Lidka was free of any sinister associations, but he looked forward to having this confirmed.

Keith said: “Your request is denied.”

Cam was astonished. “What are you talking about?”

“Your request is denied. Which of those four words are you having trouble understanding?”

CIA men sometimes behaved as if they were in the army, and able to bark orders at everyone below them in rank. But Cam was not that easily intimidated. He had worked at the White House. “Denied for what reason?” he said.

“I don’t have to give reasons.”

At the age of thirty-four, Cam had his first real girlfriend. After twenty years of rejection he was sleeping with a woman who seemed to want nothing but to make him happy. Panic at the prospect of losing her made him foolhardy. “You don’t have to be an asshole, either,” he snapped.