He bought an evening paper from a news-stand. In Bruck an der Mur, in Styria, near his birthplace, the metal workers had taken over the town and were fighting Government forces.

As he let himself into his apartment building, he saw a letter for him on the hall table, written in a hand unknown to him.

He took it upstairs and opened it in his sitting room. The address of the Schloss had been crossed out and replaced by that of a street not far from the Imperial Hotel.

Dear Anton

This is Lena, the girl at the Schloss, the one with the drawings, the one who chose your shirts for you. I’m writing because I have something to tell you.

You know me from before. Can’t you remember?

When you came here to do your article I recognised you at once. I don’t want to describe how we met because I feel ashamed.

What I remember is the white scar on your back, on your ribs, and how you found it difficult to breathe. The thing is what I want to say is that I am in love with you. It’s hard for someone like me to know exactly what these words mean but I know what I feel.

To begin with when you came I was just scared that you’d tell on me and I would lose my job. I liked working here but I had so many secrets about what I’d done before, and if Fräulein M found out she would get rid of me.

But I know different now because I’ve talked to her and she says she understands. In any case I don’t feel so bad now about what I was and what I did.

When we were in the clothes shop and I heard you talk to the man about the shirts and I knew your heart was not in it – it was somewhere else. I know how to find your heart because mine is lost too.

The time we met before was on the top floor of an old hotel and there were candles round the room because I was shy and that’s all I can tell you to remind you. I want to hold you in my arms and stroke the scar on your back.

You can reply to me if you want but you don’t have to. It doesn’t matter because I will always love you anyway.

From Lena

At the bottom of the envelope was a small package wrapped in tissue paper. Inside was a long, pearl-headed hat pin.

Lena walked up from the station and let herself into Rudolf’s apartment. She dropped her suitcase on the floor.

Anton must have had the letter for a few days now. She should ask the porter if there had been any callers.

She would be all right in any case. She was not the girl who had first come to Vienna; she knew how to survive. Presumably she would have to leave the apartment when Rudolf’s affairs were sorted out and the lease was sold. Until then, she had her own room. She was not afraid of what might happen to her. She preferred not to revisit the past because it felt like giving up on the future, but Martha had made it plain that she would be welcome at the Schloss Seeblick; and perhaps if she trained as a nurse, it would seem less of a backward step.