“Look, Elisabeth, there’s nobody left in Berlin I can really trust. If it comes to that, there’s no one left I even know. And I need a favor. If there was anyone else I could ask, I would.”

“Go ahead and ask.”

I handed her an envelope. “I was hoping I could ask you to deliver this. I’m afraid I don’t know the correct address, and I thought—well, I thought you might help. For old times’ sake.”

She looked at the name on the envelope and was silent for a moment.

“You don’t have to,” I said. “But it would help me a lot.”

“Of course I’ll do it. Without you, without that money you sent, I don’t know how I’d ever have hung on to this place. Really I don’t.”

I finished my coffee and then my cigarette. I must have looked as if I was about to leave, because she said, “Will I see you again?”

“Yes. Only, I’m not sure when. I’m not living in Berlin at the moment. For the foreseeable future, I’ll be staying in Göttingen.” She looked puzzled at that. So I explained: “With the VdH? Göttingen is near the Friedland Transit Camp for returning POWs. They’re there for only a couple of weeks, during which time they receive food, clothing, and medical aid. They’re also given army-discharge certificates, which they need to obtain a residency permit, a food-ration card, and a travel warrant to get home.”

“Poor devils,” she said. “How bad was it, really?”

“I’m not about to sit here and tell any woman from Berlin about suffering,” I said. “But maybe, because of it, we’ll know how and where to find each other.”

“I’d like that.”

“Do you have a telephone?”

“Not here. If I want to make a call, I always use the telephone at the club. If you ever need to get in contact with me, that’s the best place to do it. If I’m not there, they’ll take a message.” She found a pencil and paper and scribbled down the number: 24-38-93.

I put the number in my empty wallet.

“Or you could write to me here, of course. You should have written before to let me know you were coming. I’d have prepared something. A cake. I wouldn’t have been in my dressing gown. And you should have sent me an address in Cuba. So that I could have written back to thank you.”

“That might have been a little difficult,” I confessed. “I was living there under a false name.”

“Oh,” she said, as if such an idea had never occurred to her. “You’re not in any trouble, are you, Bernie?”