He paused and stroked her hair. ‘When I said I wouldn’t know if it rained often in Munich – well, what I was really saying was, how often have I been here? My visits to Ben haven’t amounted to more than about four a year. And I sometimes ask myself how I’ve come to care for you the way I do, when the times we’ve been together don’t even add up to the number of trips I’ve made here—’

Karin broke away from him and went to lean against the desk. ‘Trips you have made to see Ben. Not to see me. And please, Howard, do not construe what I have just said as jealousy of your child. It is not that at all.’

‘Then what, exactly, are you saying?’

‘What I am saying concerns why I have not bent my life always to be in Munich when you come here.’

‘My impression of you isn’t that you’re the sort of woman who plays hard to get.’

‘I nevertheless have my pride.’

‘And that’s what we’re talking about?’

‘Partly, yes. But there is more to it than that. I have known from the start that you have no respect for German Jewry and have found myself being defensive on that account. I made clear on the day we met that I do not find it easy to live here. The attitude of those Jews who would not has turned those of us who do into a community of apologists. Why else would I have told a stranger on a plane my father’s personal reason for returning?’

‘I’m finding this difficult to relate to what we’re discussing.’

‘Very much related is that if it were possible for you to take Ben to England, you would turn your back on Germany.’

‘But not on you.’

A pause followed while traffic sounds drifted upward from the street and a clock on one of Munich’s baroque buildings chimed three. Howard had intended taking Ben tomorrow morning to see the Glockenspiel. The clockwork figures adorning the town hall danced twice daily and were a delight to children. Well, that was now out. And momentarily it was for Howard as if he had no sense of time or place, but was isolated with Karin at the point of no return.

‘What would your answer be, Karin, if I asked you to marry me?’

She replied unhesitatingly, ‘That I love you, but I cannot think just of myself. My parents – they are growing old, and my father could not run the business without me. I must also consider my children, whose education would suffer if they were uprooted from their schools and to a country where their basic knowledge of the language would be for them a setback.’

‘You have it all worked out, haven’t you?’ said Howard.