His name, she discovered from a girl in the office, was Rudolf Plischke, and he was nineteen years old. When the surgeon had taken off his plaster and he had strengthened the leg with some exercises, the notes said, he would return to his father’s house in a village above the Worthersee.

By postponing her break from work, Lena found herself in the courtyard two days later when Rudolf was taking his exercise.

‘Hello, little girl. I’m not falling over today. Not to please anyone. What’s your name?’

‘Lena.’

‘I won’t shake your hand, for obvious reasons. My name is Rudolf.’

‘I know.’

‘Well, do you now? And how come? Have you been in the ward at night, looking at my fever chart?’

‘No. A girl in the office told me.’

Rudolf laughed. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Lena. Aren’t you rather young to be working in a hospital? Shouldn’t you be at school?’

‘I’m fifteen. I left school because I was no good at lessons.’

‘Education doesn’t stop when you leave school. I’m going to sit down on this bench now and have a cigarette. As you noticed, I need another hand to manage if I’m standing up. A third hand.’

He was very jolly, Lena thought. No one had spoken to her like this before. He sat down and pulled a cigarette from his pocket. He struggled with the matchbox and the crutches.

‘Let me.’ She lit it for him, and he sat back and puffed.

‘I’ll be off soon. Back to my parents’ house. I broke my leg working on a farm. My father thinks I spend too much time reading so he makes me do outdoor work in the summer. He’ll think twice about that now.’

‘What sort of work?’

‘Cleaning out pigsties. Making hay. Feeding cattle. Anything the farmer asks.’

‘I’ve never seen a farm. Well, I saw one once, from a train window. On my way to Trieste.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘We went to see my father.’

‘Is he Italian?’

‘Partly. Is yours?’

‘No, my father is as Austrian as they come. He’s a lawyer in Klagenfurt. He draws up agreements for landlords and drives poor tenants out onto the street.’

‘He sounds—’

‘I’m exaggerating. Most of what he does is making wills for old ladies. I’m studying to be a lawyer myself. In Vienna. But I don’t really like it.’

‘So why do you do it?’

‘So I can make money one day. And … God knows, Lena. Why do I do it? I’m only interested in politics, really.’

Rudolf pulled his good leg up onto the bench beneath him and stuck the broken one straight in front of him, the plaster heel in the gravel.

‘Tell me about your family.’

Lena looked away. ‘My father … My father is the captain of a ship. He sails the Adriatic Sea. To foreign countries.’ She wondered where the word ‘Adriatic’ had come from.

‘And your mother?’

‘My mother … is a dressmaker.’