I breakfasted with Irmi in the cafeteria. No longer was she the bony girl last seen in Weimar. She had filled out, and had new freckles on her nose, and a bob cut at her jaw. ‘Kaspar,’ she said, ‘has led me astray. You should see him! He’s as dark as a gypsy.’

‘Did you have fun?’

‘In Berlin? It was wild. And Dresden?’

‘Not so wild.’ I laughed. ‘But it was fine. I’m now a dab hand at gluing plimsolls.’

Irmi said she’d found a summer job waiting tables at a ritzy hotel called the Kaiserhof, which served famous singers and writers and actors. Though I knew she didn’t want to talk about it, I also couldn’t resist asking her opinion. ‘I saw Walter last night at the studio. You know they spent the summer here? Together? All three of them?’

‘I heard.’

I couldn’t help myself. ‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘What do you think of that?’

She let out the air from her cheeks. ‘Well. He spent all summer with one person he hates, and one person he loves and can’t have, and pretends to be best friends with them both. It’s bizarre, but for someone like Walter, it also makes sense.’

‘Do you know what really happened at the Baths?’

‘Walter wrote to me. It was a bit of a shock, reading the details over my lunch break.’

‘Does Kaspar know?’

‘I assume so. We haven’t discussed it.’

‘Everyone knows,’ I said. ‘Even Mr Steiner. Is it not wrong to keep Charlotte in the dark?’

‘She’s happy, Paul,’ Irmi said quietly, ‘I know that’s hard for you. But I’d leave her alone. It would only make things difficult.’

I let this one go. ‘I just don’t see why Walter didn’t go somewhere. He would have had a remarkable time in Berlin.’

Irmi smiled mournfully and finished her breakfast. ‘Well, yes. People are strange.’

I wondered why Irmi was frustrated with me. I didn’t dare mention Walter’s painting, since I thought this might actually end her patience altogether. I was starting to think there might be an alternative drawing under its surface. Fresco painters had often made sketches of cherubs and saints on the intonaco. Maybe there was a ghosted image underneath: a naked Jenö; a grotesque Charlotte; some clue as to what might have happened while they were all playing nice in the woods. Perhaps, as Irmi would have me believe, the performance of goodwill was real, and Walter had been trying to make amends. But I didn’t believe it. Walter was too much in love with Jenö for a hot summer to have baked that dry.

At our second-year introduction meeting I shook hands with Jenö, and gave Charlotte a kiss. Kaspar squeezed me into a cuddle. Irmi was right: his tan had depth.