He turned towards her on the bench. ‘I have thought about you, Lena.’

‘Have you?’ said Lena. ‘Have you really? It’s been a long time.’

‘Yes. On many long nights. I have lain there in bed, thinking. And I feel there is something unfinished. I feel as if I need to make amends for something.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘Surely you believe in redemption?’

‘I’m not sure I know what it means.’

Rudolf said, ‘You are so … pure. So uncompromising. I’ve never known anyone like you. You say and do exactly what your instinct tells you.’

‘What?’

‘I think in some ways you’re already living on a higher plane. Enlightenment is not all about reasoning, or intellect. If you read any of the early mystic writers … There was an English nun, a recluse, who—’

‘What are you trying to tell me, Rudolf?’

For a long time, he looked at the ground, at the patches of bare earth where the grass had been worn away by the feet of those who had sat on the bench before them.

He stood up, as though he had shrugged off the burden of his thoughts. He smiled at her with the same expression she had seen on their first meeting, when he had waved and almost fallen off his crutches.

‘Come back to Vienna,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t have to live in that little top-floor room any more. I’ve got a spare room in my apartment. It’s in a nice part of town, three minutes off the Ringstrasse, behind the Imperial Hotel.’

Lena was too taken aback to speak. She stood up and began to walk towards the Schloss.

Hurrying after her, Rudolf took her elbow. ‘You don’t have to answer now. Take your time. Think what life could be like in Vienna, in a beautiful apartment.’

‘I know what life is like in Vienna.’

‘Can we just say that you’ll think about it?’

‘You can say anything you like. I’m going to my room.’

‘Tell me you’ll think about it.’

‘Please don’t let other people here see that we’ve met before,’ she said.

‘I won’t embarrass you,’ he called after her. ‘I promise.’

That evening at dinner Lena found herself serving soup to her former lovers, who were seated at the same table, three places apart.

Rudolf met her eye with a look of exaggerated blankness, as if to say, I’m keeping my word.

Anton smiled and thanked her by name. Had she told him what she was called that time in Vienna? She couldn’t remember, but since Lena was such a common name it would barely have registered in any case.

She had prepared herself for the evening by drinking a glass of wine from behind the wardrobe in her room. It had helped to stop her hand from trembling when she set the soup bowls down, but did nothing much to quell the fear she felt. It was hard to say what she dreaded most. Losing face, perhaps, losing the goodwill and trust of Martha, showing herself to be anything but ‘indispensable’. More like a failed line girl, really, someone who took money for favours but had only made love properly twice.