She tucked her ash-blonde bob behind her ears and frowned. ‘I do wonder about the cost, though. Both of you got your first choice. It’s not exactly fair.’

‘I know, I know,’ Jenö said, putting an arm around her, and placing his forehead against hers.

If I were any other man I’d have been able to simply observe Jenö’s tenderness, but it was in these moments that my ancient feelings flared. ‘Where’s Walter?’

‘With Franz,’ said Jenö, ‘I think.’

‘Is he in one of his Weimar moods?’ she asked. ‘I haven’t seen him since Sunday.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A big one.’

‘I don’t know why he continues there,’ said Jenö. ‘It plunges him into a depression every time.’

‘Someone has to pay his school fees. Why not Mr Steiner?’

‘His school fees! He should just take whatever diploma he can get.’ Charlotte’s mouth turned flat. ‘What do you make of him?’

‘Ernst Steiner?’

‘Franz Ehrlich.’

‘Oh; I don’t know. Walter seems very attached to him all of a sudden. Apparently he’s an excellent Print student.’

We’d first met Franz when he’d been a Bauhaus baby. He had so enjoyed being baptised in the city fountain that, drunk, he’d gone for a swim in its shallow waters. He had that kind of reputation. Instead of taking the staircase, for example, he’d slide down the bannister with his legs in a V. His intelligent eyes were always on the move, trying to find what fun could be had in the most ordinary of situations. I knew that Walter had had his eye on him all autumn: here was someone who might provide diversion. And, after the moody conversation at the river, Franz and Walter were suddenly best friends. I didn’t begrudge him it. Walter had had a tougher time than most.

‘Did you know Kaspar and Franz know each other?’ said Charlotte, who was a regular letter-writer to Kaspar. ‘Something to do with Berlin. Kaspar says they didn’t get on, as kids.’

‘Franz gives me the creeps,’ said Jenö.

‘You’re just jealous,’ said Charlotte, giving up on her food. ‘You’re used to being Walter’s star. You don’t know what it’s like to be in the shade.’

26

Dessau

Dessau was a small town, and well kept for working people. It had none of Weimar’s classical beauty, but it was a little more honest, and this drew me in. It had a church, a square, a shopping arcade, and a cinema of silent movies, where the workers from the Junkers factory spent their money; as well as the Lamb, where I liked to drink, sometimes with Walter, sometimes with Walter and Jenö, on the fine boulevard of Cavalierstrasse.