‘But should they later marry,’ she continued her diatribe, ‘what is to become of their children? They will not be brought to this centre, and more strength will be lost to us.’

Though Jeremy rather fancied her, he changed his mind about asking could he see her again, such was her intensity – and all of it political, it seemed! ‘That’s what the rabbis in England are saying about what intermarriage is doing to British Jewry,’ he said.

‘It is not intermarriage that we are discussing,’ she flashed, ‘it is the special responsibility that German Jewry must honour.’

‘If that’s how you feel, why do you intend deserting German Jewry and emigrating to Israel?’ A.P. inquired.

She flared at him as she had to Jeremy. ‘In your opinion does that make of me a traitor? I am going where I shall not be undervalued.’

The conversation then turned to the build-up of tension on the West Bank.

‘The Arab unrest, and how Israel is dealing with it, is having its effect on British campuses,’ Jeremy put in. ‘Well, certainly on some of them.’

‘When,’ said Karl, ‘did what happens in Israel not affect Jews everywhere?’ His accompanying sigh seemed that of a weary old man.

‘Any excuse will do, for those with a mind to, to have a go at us,’ Jeremy declared.

Later, when he and A.P. emerged to the main road where Howard had told them they could catch a bus, he found himself drawing a breath of relief.

‘Do you think the people we met tonight ever think or talk to each other about anything else, A.P.?’

‘Well, they certainly seem what one might call obsessed with their situation.’

Jeremy paused to consider. ‘It isn’t a happy situation, is it? The feeling I got about some of them was that they feel trapped in Germany by circumstances—’

‘And that girl in the white sweater came over as a caged tiger!’

‘Leaving the cage out of it, she would sure be a tiger in bed!’

‘And I was aware that you wouldn’t mind bedding her. Lindsey’s that sort, too, isn’t she?’

‘Since you couldn’t have failed to hear through the wall, from your virgin couch in that dump in St Ives that passes for a flat, you doubtless have grounds for making that remark,’ Jeremy replied with a grin.

‘Not many would make the sacrifice you did for a pal,’ he added as they walked past a darkened florist’s shop and crossed the street.

‘It was no sacrifice, Jeremy, which isn’t to say the duplicity it entailed didn’t go against the grain.’

‘I’m hoping you’ll return from this trip initiated into the rites of passion. Doesn’t it bother you that you’re the only male virgin either of us knows? And that probably goes for all the females of our acquaintance, too—’