Her knees rose to her chin. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Can you get me a towel? It’s gone cold.’

She was wiping the water away with her palms when I came back. She wobbled on the floor as I wrapped her in the towel. ‘Do you see Jenö at the Bauhaus?’ I felt her body stiffen under my hands. ‘I saw you there, today.’

She gave me the same cool look she had given me at Rosenberg’s. ‘Did you follow me?’

‘No. Walter said you’ve been going there.’

‘Good old Walter.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘Let go, Paul, it’s too tight.’ She stood away from me. ‘The Director has let me use the looms, that’s all.’

‘Since New Year?’

‘Yes,’ she said, defiantly. ‘Since New Year.’

She left the kitchen and I followed her into our room. Her actions were quick in the cold, pulling on her fisherman’s jumper and black slacks, and towelling her hair.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Oh, why do you think?’

‘Do you speak to him? To Jenö?’

‘Please listen to yourself. I just wanted to work without suspicion. I knew you’d jump to conclusions. That’s why I didn’t tell you.’ She lifted her face to mine. ‘I haven’t been able to work for years! I’m not a painter, Paul. I need a loom. I need thread.’ Charlotte pulled me down to the bed with her. ‘I swear nothing’s happening between me and Jenö Fiedler.’ She saw that I had not softened. ‘Paul, what did Walter say to you?’

I was on the brink. To cross it would mean not being able to come back. I thought of Master Kandinsky: old man, sitting in his chair, doing nothing. ‘Walter said Jenö wants to take you to London.’

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘That.’

‘Well?’

‘He’s offered to pay my airfare, that’s all. As a friend.’

‘When did he ask you?’

‘Days. Weeks ago. I said no immediately.’

My body felt weak and insubstantial. ‘Do you want to go?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to stay here, with you. In our home.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because I didn’t want to have this argument. I thought the matter was over; it would have been, if Walter hadn’t got himself involved. Please listen to me: Walter König will drop poison into your ear no matter what. It will benefit him to get me gone. He has form, don’t you see? He constantly tries to outmanoeuvre me, to rob me of what I have.’

I wanted this to be true, so I let her talk and did not interrupt her.