At twenty-two years old, Lena was excited by her life in the capital. The shop where she worked was larger than Herr Thaller’s and she had less responsibility, but the pay was enough for her to buy white wine and drink it in her room. The shop provided soup and rolls at lunch for the six girls who worked there and she bought cooked food from a stall to eat in the evening.

Twice a week there were dinners with Rudolf. He was her companion, her true friend; and as the weeks went by and she began to feel at home, she thought she saw in him the chance of a life that could be different. At the meetings of Rebirth, she noticed that the few young women present looked at him admiringly, while the men nodded agreement when he spoke. His enthusiasm never flagged; his devotion to the cause made his eyes shine as bright as the flames in the sconces outside the Opera. Lena wanted to be part of the world he was bent on creating; she wanted to be close to his vital force.

Rudolf’s response to the admiration of the others was, to her, mysterious. He seemed modest to the point of not caring what anyone thought. He had no wife and no lover, so far as Lena knew, and on the nights he was not with her he attended further meetings or went home to read.

She herself was the only person in whom he seemed to confide. And so she came to believe that Rudolf loved her.

Her reflection gazed from the mirror. She lifted her glass of wine. It was hard to believe, yet there was no other way of looking at it … Rudolf had not confessed his feelings because he was worried about the difference in their positions: he didn’t want Lena to think that he was taking advantage of her. So it was her job to move their friendship on to a truer place.

She heard Sophia’s dismissive voice: ‘You say the first thing that comes into your head.’ All right. So she would do exactly that.

After they had had dinner one Friday, she asked if he could come back to her room and help her move the chest of drawers.

‘I see you’ve settled in all right,’ he said, looking at the flowers she had bought at the market that day. Her clothes hung on a rail she had borrowed from the shop.

‘Yes, I like it. I was lonely at first, but I like it now.’

They pulled out the three drawers and put them on the bed, Lena feeling ashamed of the underwear, which was mended in several places.

When they had manoeuvred the chest to its new place beneath the window and put back the drawers, Lena leaned up and kissed Rudolf on the cheek.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘It was nothing.’

She held on to his forearms. ‘I think I love you,’ she said.