Dear Herr Heideck

This is the only way I can get in touch with you. I saw your name in this magazine so I hope they will send on the letter to you.

If you are a different Anton Heideck, please throw away this letter, though I would appreciate a reply. My name is Claudia Hartung and I have recently taken charge of a religious retreat in Lower Austria near the village whose name you will see at the top of the page.

I first came to work here in 1915, when I was thirty-five years old. The retreat was for women only and was well known in Bavaria and Upper Austria as well as here. People came from far and wide. After the outbreak of war, the village was used to house people from enemy countries. I believe that one of them, a French woman, may have been known to you.

Her name was Delphine Jacob and I believe her date of birth to have been the year 1876. The foreigners, of whom there were about two hundred, were not kept behind barbed wire, but their movements were restricted and they were not allowed to correspond with their homes. They were required to do some work in the village, mostly in the farms. Madame Jacob came to work at the retreat, where she helped in the office and gave lessons in French and English and at the piano.

Anton was interrupted by a hand pulling at his sleeve. He looked up to see Lena, her faced flushed and pleading.

‘Herr Heideck, I wanted to show you this.’

She held out a drawing of two figures.

‘This is not a good moment, Lena, I—’

‘Please look. This is you, and this is me.’

The drawing was not well executed.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘In Vienna, when—’

‘Please leave me. I can’t deal with this now. Tomorrow maybe. Now please go.’

‘Anton, I beg you. Please.’ She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.

‘Not now, Lena! Leave me alone.’

He stood up and walked away from her, his head flaming, towards the water’s edge. He began to read again.

In 1916, she entered the retreat herself. You must understand that we are not nuns here. There is no uniform and few rules. There is a chapel and a garden and a workshop. We are a Christian community that observes silence except for one hour each day, when people are encouraged to talk about their lives. It was the habit of my predecessor to keep a note of what was said at these meetings, in broad outline.

While going through the papers I have inherited, I came across half a dozen of my predecessor’s notebooks, with records of these conversations, and saw your name mentioned several times. I also discovered a diary kept by Madame Jacob.

I am reluctant to say more in case you are not the Herr Heideck in question or in case you don’t wish to revisit the past. Kindly let me know. Our space for storage here is limited, and I am not minded to keep documents for which there is no need.