Except that the sun doesn’t really come out at that moment. Memory, it turns out, is unreliable. All on its own, your memory gathers up helpful details that match your recollection of an event, whether or not those details actually existed at the time. But does it matter? For Elfriede, the sun comes out when the Englishman arrives. That’s how she remembers it. Sunshine, and the smell of roses.

Anyway, one of them is talking, Elfriede or Dr. Hermann, it doesn’t matter which one, and they both fall silent at the clatter of hoofbeats and cartwheels. “A new arrival?” Elfriede asks, after a moment.

“Yes, a lung patient,” answers the doctor. “Pneumonia.”

“How awful.”

“He’ll be kept in the infirmary wing, of course. There is no danger of transmission.”

“I meant, how awful for him.”

Dr. Hermann nods and makes a note in his little book. He makes notes continually during these sessions—conversations, he calls them, as if purely social—and Elfriede feels sometimes like a laboratory experiment, an unknown specimen of plant or animal, something abnormal. “How do you feel about this?” he asks, still writing, and for a moment Elfriede isn’t sure what he means, the note taking or the new patient. When she hesitates, he prompts her.

“I don’t mind at all,” she says. “I hope he recovers quickly. Why should I mind?”

“Indeed. Why should you mind?”

“I don’t know. But you seem to think I should.”

“What makes you say that?”

Another thing about Dr. Hermann, he never answers a question except with another question. He wants Elfriede to do all the talking, Elfriede to reveal herself. It’s the very latest treatment for nervous disorders such as hers, and really, as compared to some of the others, it’s not bad. Dr. Hermann is a large, soft-edged, round-shouldered man who folds his long limbs into normal-size chairs without the smallest irritation that they weren’t designed to accommodate him. There’s something malleable about him. Even his brown hair has a pliant quality. In later years, Elfriede will realize she never noticed the color of his eyes, nor can she recall his face. Just the soft, even shape of his voice, asking her questions.

She makes her answer as clear as possible, so he can’t find another question in it. “When I said How awful, you told me there was no danger of infection. So you must have thought I was afraid of that.”

Dr. Hermann adjusts his spectacles on the bridge of his nose. “Have you ever felt afraid of sickness, Elfriede?”

“No.” She stands up. “I’m going to take a walk now.”

Admission to the clinic is voluntary, and Elfriede is free to come and go as she likes, no restriction on movement, no requirement to stay. She could leave at any time, in fact.