‘Aha, but we are here together,’ Jelly declared, ‘so wherever we are, that is already the best.’ She pushed open the swing door and Ulli noticed the warmth of the waitress’s greeting, and the way Jelly chattered to her as she led them to a favourite table in the window. The décor was plain, the typical English oak and beige, but the tablecloths were clean and white and the whiff from the kitchen seemed appetising.

‘Jelly, there is so much I’d like to ask you, I don’t know where to start,’ he said, once they were settled. Opposite him, Jelly’s face was bowed over the menu, her bobbed dark hair swinging across her cheekbones.

‘Start by choosing some food,’ she smiled. ‘The lamb chops are extremely good. With mint sauce.’

‘Mint sauce?’ English food. Sweet mint with meat that was bound to be overcooked. ‘Fine, I’ll try it. Did you never think of staying in Hungary, or moving somewhere a little less far from home? Why London? Why not Vienna or Berlin?’

‘Fortunately we did not choose Berlin,’ Jelly remarked. ‘We like it here. Adila liked it best from the beginning – I think because Onkel Jo was here often and spoke of it to her – and it just… worked. I’m not sure why we came or why we stayed… but now it is home, absolutely. But Ulli, tell me things. Where do you come from? Why do you play the piano so well?’

‘I was born in a little village not far from Mainz. My father was killed in the war, so then it was just me and my mother. Later I went to Berlin to study the piano.’

‘And who was your teacher there?’

‘Professor Schnabel.’

Jelly gave such a cry that heads turned at the next table. ‘How amazing! Artur Schnabel, he is a genius, the best, the very best!’

‘That’s what I thought too. I still see his face every time I play a Beethoven sonata. Now I play only for my own enjoyment. I really wasn’t good enough.’

‘But Schnabel, he doesn’t take just anybody. You must be good. And you sound good, extremely good.’

‘The fact is, I didn’t like performing, all the nerves. And then… ’ Lotte and her parents wanted him to get a proper job. By the time she died, he had one.

‘Something happened? Something difficult, I can see.’

How sensitive she was. She reminded him of a fine piece of gold leaf conducting an electric current, shimmering with its own receptivity. He told her the sorry history, and watched her face soften and her eyes brim with sympathy.