Amos’s voice kept rumbling on in the humid little room. He wore a red neckerchief above his collarless but clean white shirt. It was knotted so tight it seemed to make his eyeballs bulge, as though he had just stopped someone on the point of throttling him. His eyes were red round the rims from the cement dust that came out of walls they drilled. Yet his tone hardly varied, even when he described a man spiralling off a plank to his death on the lock floor, ‘where the blood run deep as the waters when they let ’em in to carry the big ships up’.

Emerald sat gazing at her brother, while Anton’s hand struggled to keep up in his notebook. The rain, the sweat, the church services on Sunday, the heatstroke, the riding of the steam shovels in the belly of hell … That was the story he would dedicate himself to telling.

Anton carried Delphine’s most recent letter with him and reread it at idle moments.

My dearest Anton,

Thank you for your letters from the tropics. They are not like your magazine articles at all. They show the passionate side of you that perhaps only I have seen here in Vienna. Will your professional even-handedness return when you come to write your account for the magazine?

I like the sound of this Emerald, but I wouldn’t want you to be become too attached to her. May her God watch over both of you.

Perhaps by the time this reaches you, you’ll have made your way across the isthmus, found out all you need and will be thinking of your journey back. I don’t know how I can wait that long, but I suppose I’ll have to find a way.

Katrin is making such good progress with her French that I’m afraid her father will soon think my work is done. I have to make sure we never speak French in front of him. Erich has asked after you and I told him you’d write if you had a moment. I have taken over some of your tutoring duties. He’s a dull child, isn’t he?

In answer to your question, yes, I am still playing the piano every day, looking for what lies beneath the keys. Sometimes it rises up to greet me, sometimes it hides its head. And sometimes it turns into the ‘afternoon bagatelle’ you despise. I haven’t been to a concert or a play once since you were gone, though a business friend of Erich’s father did invite me. I gave him what you call my headmistress look.

I have visited your rooms and dusted them. I’ve also left money with the landlord as we agreed. He gives me a curious look and clearly doesn’t believe I’m just your music teacher. But he makes no fuss and pockets the money at once. I take off my shoes and lie on the bed and imagine you there. Speaking of which, I’ve thought of some new lessons you can be taught. I hope you will find them instructive.

As a treat, I had lunch yesterday at that place at the top of Schottengasse that you like, with boiled beef and horseradish and the spinach purée with so much nutmeg and salt. It made me think of you when you wolf it down.

The newspapers continue to talk only about unrest in Serbia and other staples of life in the Balkans. I know you are utterly tired of all that. I’ve also read of exchanges between Moscow and Berlin. Statesmen do like to trumpet, don’t they, like elephants in a jungle.

And talking of jungles … please be careful of the mosquitoes. Sleep beneath a net, or do whatever the Americans do to stay healthy. I don’t want you in some terrible hospital with all the men moaning and feverish.

Hurry home to me. Send me news soon. Tell me you’re on the ship home. Please.

Je t’embrasse même plus fort,

Ta Delphine