It pleased him that her lips gave a small twitch in response. ‘No.’ She allowed her napkin to be settled onto her lap by the waiter while Petr ordered goulash and cabbage for both and endeavoured to wrestle a bottle of wine out of the waiter. ‘I’m afraid it will have to be beer,’ he said, having failed to do so.

‘It’ll go with the goulash and cabbage.’ She sat back in the chair. ‘You can’t spend Tuzex crowns here.’

‘Stop it,’ he said gently.

Laure was needling him. In the latter years of the regime, those favoured by the Party, including the Kobes, had access to the Tuzex stores, which sold unimaginable luxury – jeans, Lego, almonds, sneakers, Milka chocolate and the odd Hershey bar.

‘Didn’t it bother you that it was the biggest, baddest form of black market going,’ she asked, ‘and controlled by thugs? A gateway to organized crime? I used to ask myself why the authorities allowed it until I realized that’s precisely what they wanted to happen.’

‘The government needed hard currency,’ he pointed out. ‘There’s an East German equivalent. I’m sure there’s a French and British one.’

‘And why did they need hard currency?’ she asked, lightly. Ironically.

If he had had any doubts, which he didn’t, this was not the Laure of old.

He watched the band assemble at the other end of the room. They looked weary and underfed and their first notes were discordant.

Laure leant forward in her seat. ‘On the twenty-eighth of November 1989, the Czechoslovakian Communist Party announced it would dismantle the one-party state. Barbed wire and other obstructions were removed from the borders with Germany and Austria. On the tenth of December, a largely non-communist government was appointed and, in 1990, the government agreed to liberalize prices.’

‘As a result of which, unemployment went up and benefits had to be introduced,’ he intervened drily.

‘What I’m trying to say is that life must have changed for you, Petr. Frighteningly? Yes? You were no longer in power. Did you hang on to the apartment in the Malá Strana?’

‘For a while.’

For many reasons, he shied away from thinking about the apartment but, from time to time, its memories became almost unbearable.

Eva getting out of bed, making her way down into the courtyard and into the street. Making for the river.

The waiter had appeared with plates piled high and Laure waited until he had settled them in front of them. ‘Did you get married again?’

‘No.’ He tested a mouthful and grimaced.

She watched him. ‘Have you heard from the children?’

‘I’ve spoken to them and they’re intrigued that we have met up. Maria says that if you are ever in Paris, she will come and see you.’