‘Perhaps it’s best if I leave you now, Lena. I won’t give up, though. I can’t. Because you’re all I want. If you despise me now, I can bear it. I’m still young and so are you. But please believe that I acted in good faith, always. I believe these things will become clearer when we die. I know that you and I are bound to one another in a way more subtle and more true than I can explain.’

‘I don’t want to wait until I die before I understand. I just want not to be alone. While I’m living on this earth.’

Rudolf opened the door and twisted his head round to look at her a final time; then with what appeared to be an effort of will, he turned and walked away.

Lena stared at the wooden panels of the closed door as if she could set fire to them with the focus of her eyes.

7

‘Thank you for finding time for me,’ said Anton. ‘Shall I sit here?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Martha. ‘Or take the armchair. Most people do. Make yourself comfortable.’

Anton settled in and looked across at Martha, who remained behind the desk. He felt ashamed of the way he had described her in his article, though he could never quite rid himself of the feeling that she was too young for the role she had been given.

Putting appearances to one side, he reminded himself of their conversations in the past and of the quality of mind they had revealed in her; it was this seriousness, after all, that had led him to believe she could help.

She looked at him over the top of her glasses and smiled, but said nothing.

‘Well,’ said Anton. ‘I liked your lawyer friend. Herr Plischke. Charming. Has he gone now?’

‘Yes.’

‘My father wanted me to be a lawyer.’

‘Why?’

‘He never thought I could make a living by my pen, as he put it.’

‘Your book was a success, wasn’t it?’

‘To a point. Have you read it?’

‘Not yet. Tell me about it.’

Anton breathed out. ‘Where to begin? I’d travelled a fair amount before the war – to America, to Panama, to Paris, England, Germany. I’d even spent a week in Moscow. At first, the book was not much more than adding in the background to reports I’d sent. When you write for a newspaper, you have to put all the important bits in the first paragraph in case the reader gets off their train at that point. He needs to know at least the name of the new president or which horse won the race. With a magazine you can take a bit more time. But only a little. So a lot of subtlety gets lost.’

‘And the book was made up of all the bits that went missing?’

‘It started that way. But I began to see that most of the places I’d been to and most of the things I’d reported had something in common. I didn’t see it at the time. It was only after the war and everything I experienced there that I saw a kind of pattern.’