“What should I do?”

“You must ask him about it. He may admit it, he may deny it; but he’ll know that you know.”

“And then what?”

“What do you want? Would you divorce him?”

She shook her head. “I would never leave. Marriage is a promise. You can’t keep a promise only when it suits you. You have to keep it against your inclination. That’s what it means.”

“I did the opposite. You must disapprove of me.”

“I don’t judge you or anyone else. I’m just talking about myself. I love my husband and I want him to be faithful.”

Bernd’s smile was admiring but regretful. “I hope you get your wish.”

“You’re a good friend.”

The bell rang for the first lesson of the afternoon. Rebecca stood up and put her sandwich back in its paper wrapping. She was not going to eat it, now or later, but she had a horror of throwing food away, like most people who had lived through the war. She touched her damp eyes with a handkerchief. “Thank you for listening,” she said.

“I wasn’t much comfort.”

“Yes, you were.” She went out.

As she approached the classroom for the English lesson, she realized she had not worked out the lyrics to “The Twist.” However, she had been a teacher long enough to improvise. “Who’s heard a record called ‘The Twist’?” she asked loudly as she walked through the door.

They all had.

She went to the blackboard and picked up a stub of chalk. “What are the words?”

They all began to shout at once.

On the board she wrote: “Come on, baby, let’s do the Twist.” Then she said: “What’s that in German?”

For a while she forgot about her troubles.

She found the letter in her pigeonhole at the midafternoon break. She carried it with her into the staff room and made a cup of instant coffee before opening it. When she read it she dropped her coffee.

The single sheet of paper was headed: “Ministry for State Security.” This was the official name for the secret police: the unofficial name was the Stasi. The letter came from a Sergeant Scholz, and it ordered her to present herself at his headquarters office for questioning.

Rebecca mopped up her spilled drink, apologized to her colleagues, pretended nothing was wrong, and went to the ladies’ room, where she locked herself in a cubicle. She needed to think before confiding in anyone.

Everyone in East Germany knew about these letters, and everyone dreaded receiving one. It meant she had done something wrong—perhaps something trivial, but it had come to the attention of the watchers. She knew, from what other people said, that there was no point protesting innocence. The police attitude would be that she must be guilty of something, or why would they be questioning her? To suggest they might have made a mistake was to insult their competence, which was another crime.

Looking again, she saw that her appointment was for five this afternoon.