He let go of me. ‘I cannot accept things with your God-awful equanimity.’

‘It’s not equanimity, Walter, it’s forbearance!’

He looked at me, down to my lips. For a moment I thought he might kiss me too. ‘I would rather be me than you, Paul Beckermann, a hundred times over.’

‘What is that meant to mean?’

‘Nothing. That’s your favourite word, isn’t it?’ He fanned out his hands as if he were playing cards. ‘Nothing, nothing, nothing.’

20

Weimar

Of course, there were times when nothing much happened. If my memory serves me well, I can’t enrich the next few weeks with much of relevance. I put in my choice for next year’s specialism, and went less and less to the studio. My argument with Walter and his cosiness with Ernst Steiner made me not want to go any more, and I left my skies to someone else.

I saw Ernst occasionally in the Swan, but he didn’t talk to me, and I was glad we didn’t have to make conversation. The end of the school year came into view. Some would stay for the Summer Exhibition; others would go. I had decided to head back to Dresden for the holidays; I couldn’t be around Charlotte and Jenö any more. I didn’t want to put on my public face every time I caught Irmi watching me, watching them, with something like – it was – pity.

Waiting for term to end, I roamed the warm city. Weimar was maddening in its prettiness: the palace, the castle, and the statues of its philosophers. But in the Bauhaus, with its aprons of cut glass, I couldn’t get any rest either.

Walter, too, became a ghost that May. Oh, one could find him easily enough: everyone in the Bauhaus knew that he was the man who could get you what you needed now that money meant nothing. But he sat elsewhere with a different crowd at the cafeteria and in class; Elena especially became his new friend. He gave her cigarettes, asking for nothing in return. I wondered if he hoped Charlotte would hear of his largesse.

At the cafeteria I would catch him looking at us. Charlotte, too, would watch him in return. She probably knew nothing of his claim to Jenö; I was sure Jenö hadn’t told her the truth. A man fainted. A man was beaten. This was still the Bath-house story.