That night I gave in and went through her bag while she was in the bath. There were metro tickets to Steglitz she’d not bothered to hide, and, because of Irmi’s advice, that I had not looked for. Foolishly I expected to find an air ticket to England. I found nothing. I tallied the cost of our lives: rent, bills, food. Not a pfennig left to take us from Berlin, never mind Germany. Half of my savings I’d spent on the Oriental shirt. Still, what could that have got me? A train ticket to Hanover. Nothing more.

The copper tub was in the kitchen. Inside it she was knotted up like a child, and she was singing one of her Czech nursery songs. Voices came from the apartment next to ours. I could see her breasts in the water, small spikes floating. Had it been Jenö I’d seen her kiss? In the Bauhaus this afternoon? She tipped her head; her neck open in the steam. I remembered the heavy swing of my gloved hands, and how I had felt I might do something with them.

‘This couple have been arguing all evening,’ she said, her voice funny with her head upside down. ‘I wonder why they stay together.’

‘I saw Walter König today.’

She knocked her head back. ‘Walter-from-Weimar-Walter?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Where on earth did you find him?’

‘Charlottenburg. He’s living with Ernst Steiner. They’ve moved to Berlin together.’

‘Oh.’ I could see her thinking. ‘What did he say?’

‘Not much. I just found out what he was up to.’

‘Which is what?’

‘Mostly being Ernst’s boyfriend.’

She began soaping herself. ‘Walter König. I’d never have thought of him as a Berliner. If you become friendly with him again, you’ll tell me, won’t you? I don’t want to see him by surprise. Or if he starts seeing Irmi or Kaspar, you will warn me, won’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘I don’t care what he did, but I don’t want to see him again.’

I was faced with a choice; I didn’t know what to do; and Walter’s words were boiling in my head: You must persuade her to go. Charlotte has to be on that flight. ‘Do you ever wish we had more money?’

‘Why? No. Do you?’

‘Sometimes I wonder if you might want more.’

‘We’re fine. Aren’t we doing all right?’

A red light flew through the fogged window.

‘Would you leave? If you wanted to go, would you?’

‘Leave? Where would I go?’ She looked at me sharply. ‘What did Walter say to you, Paul?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You mean leave Berlin?’

‘I mean leave Germany.’

‘No.’

‘What if things got very bad?’

‘Then I don’t know. Yes. Maybe.’

‘You can go. If you want to go, you should go.’