She chatted flirtatiously with him for a few minutes, then asked him the question. “I have a niece in East Berlin, and I want to send her a pop record, but I’m afraid it might get damaged in the mail. Would you take it for me?”

“Yes, I suppose I could,” he said dubiously.

“I’ll give it to you tomorrow at breakfast, if I may. You’re very kind.”

“Okay.” He looked troubled, and Rebecca thought there was a chance he might hand over the disc to the Stasi. But all she could do was try.

When the wine had relaxed everyone, Rebecca was approached by Frederik Bíró, a Hungarian politician of her own age whom she liked. He specialized in foreign policy, as she did. “What’s the truth about this country?” she asked him. “How is it doing, really?”

He looked at his watch. “We’re about a mile from your hotel,” he said. He spoke good German, like most educated Hungarians. “Would you like to walk back with me?”

They got their coats and left. Their route followed the broad, dark river. On the far bank, the lights of the medieval town of Buda rose romantically to a hilltop palace.

“The Communists promised prosperity, and the people are disappointed,” Bíró said as they walked. “Even Communist Party members complain about the Kádár government.” Rebecca guessed that he felt freer to talk out in the open air where they could not be bugged.

She said: “And the solution?”

“The strange thing is that everyone knows the answer. We need to decentralize decisions, introduce limited markets, and legitimize the semi-illegal gray economy so that it can grow.”

“Who stands in the way of this?” She realized she was firing questions at him like a courtroom lawyer. “Forgive me,” she said. “I don’t mean to interrogate you.”

“Not at all,” he said with a smile. “I like people who speak in a direct way. It saves time.”

“Men often resent being spoken to that way by a woman.”

“Not me. You could say that I have a weakness for assertive women.”

“Are you married to one?”

“I was. I’m divorced now.”

Rebecca realized this was none of her business. “You were about to tell me who stands in the way of reform.”

“About fifteen thousand bureaucrats who would lose their power and their jobs; fifty thousand top Communist Party officials who make almost all the decisions; and János Kádár, who has been our leader since 1956.”

Rebecca raised her eyebrows. Bíró was being remarkably frank. The thought crossed her mind that Bíró’s candid remarks may not have been totally spontaneous. Had this conversation perhaps been planned? She said: “Does Kádár have an alternative solution?”

“Yes,” said Bíró. “To maintain the standard of living of Hungarian workers, he is borrowing more and more money from Western banks, including German ones.”

“And how will you pay the interest on those loans?”

“What a good question,” said Bíró.

They drew level with Rebecca’s hotel, across the street from the river. She stopped and leaned on the embankment wall. “Is Kádár a permanent fixture?”