‘You’ve seen … Other girls.’

‘Yes. I’m afraid so. I don’t know their names, most of them.’

‘You can see me again if you like.’

‘That’s not the point. I don’t want a—’

‘You wouldn’t have to pay.’

He laughed, then raised his hand to her cheek and stroked it, ‘You’re a funny girl,’ he said.

‘People always tell me that.’

Lena got off the bed and put on her slip. She poured some white wine for them both. The man was still naked under the sheet as she handed him the glass.

‘What happened to her?’ said Lena. ‘Did she die?’

‘I don’t know. I imagine she’s alive somewhere. It was the war.’

‘Did you love her?’

‘Oh yes. She was … There was only her.’ He coughed and caught himself, as though remembering his manners. ‘Have you known someone like that?’

‘I think so,’ said Lena. ‘I think so. But perhaps I’m too young to be sure.’

They talked for another hour, after which he said he had to go.

‘Please come and see me again. I meant what I said about not paying, I think we … we could fit together well.’

But she could see from his eyes that he had already left, and was adrift again on some private sea. He was gathering up the women’s clothes from the floor and from the bed, stuffing them back into the leather bag.

‘It wouldn’t be fair on you,’ he said. ‘I’m a hopeless case. I’ll burn out the disease one day. Cauterise the last of it. Until then …’

He kissed her, gently – fondly, she thought – and then she heard his footsteps on the landing, more reluctant than Rudolf’s, yet still leaving with no intention of return. She turned back into the room and saw that he had left another banknote on the chest of drawers, a tip.

A week later, as she was returning from work, she saw on a table in the hallway of her building that there was a letter for her.

Dear Lena

I’m afraid I have bad news. I am writing because I am the only one who has your address. Your mother died on Wednesday. I believe she did not suffer. There is to be a funeral on Saturday.

I trust that life is treating you well in Vienna. We miss you at the shop.

Yours sincerely

Ludwig Thaller

The problem was that she had no money for the train.

She walked in the alleys of the Stadtpark, wondering how it had ended for Carina. Never having seen someone die, she had little sense of what it entailed, but in her imagination Carina had been kneeling on the balcony, looking out towards the river, confessing her sins to God when her soul was taken up to heaven, leaving her outer body, the shell, to collapse.

Lena felt aggrieved that Carina hadn’t somehow warned her. She must have sensed that an end was near; she could have asked Herr Gustav or Herr Thaller to write.