I held her hand. ‘What am I meant to do on my own?’

‘Oh, I’m sure you can keep yourself occupied.’

‘Where do you go? In the curfew? With your bag and hat?’

‘Are you spying on me? That must mean you’ve broken the curfew too.’

I shrugged. ‘I got bored,’ I said, hoping the lie would cover Irmi’s tracks.

‘Nowhere. I haven’t been going anywhere. Tell Irmi to mind her own business.’

Evidently not. ‘Can you come around tonight? Keep me company?’

At which point Jenö let out a deep, rumbling snore.

She laughed. ‘I will if I can wake him up. If not, tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow I’m at Steiner’s.’ I added: ‘With Walter.’

‘Well. We’ll work something out.’

I kissed her goodbye, and it was then that I could smell the bar-room off her. And I was so busy in my realisation that the chemical smell wasn’t the chlorine from the Baths, but alcohol, that I forgot to pick up my note. As I walked down the spiral staircase, my mind was alive with this new knowledge: they weren’t fasting: they were, in fact, both drunk.

I don’t know which one nettled me more that evening as I spent another night alone: that my message would expose me even more as completely uncaring of Jenö’s situation, or that I had left him alone, and sleeping, in her rooms.

As if in confirmation of my feelings, overnight the fast’s expansiveness disappeared. I slept badly. I kept on obsessing about the note and how much I wished I hadn’t written it. If there was one thing she believed in – in this she was so like Kaspar, always wanting us to stick together – it was our sacred six. We should not be put asunder. She would not want dissent. The note exposed that I didn’t care.

Her lantern swayed above the bed. I don’t know why it bothered me, but it was keeping me awake. Unwiring it made it collapse: all the rooms folded in. I laid it on my desk.

It was very cold when I opened the window. Even with the first brushstrokes of light there was a guilty air to the streets: there might be thugs lurking, or a band of Kozis looking for a fight. Maybe I’d see Charlotte, with her bag or cap, or see Jenö skulking as I had done outside the baker’s. But no one was around. Even the whores had gone to bed.