‘But you put your life on the line, it could become so difficult that it’ll be a sort of death.’

‘Who was it who said there’re many kinds of death? Giving in is one. Jan Palach chose his way. We must find another.’

Despite the heat, she shivered. ‘I can’t bear it.’

‘Is there a choice but to breathe?’ He backed her over to the mattress.

‘But how?’

‘There’s music. There’s the marionettes who mock ghosts and ghouls to make them bearable. There’s pricking goons like your employer but so cleverly they don’t realize it.’

But they do, she wanted to cry out.

Wincing, he made her raise her arms and peeled off her T-shirt. Like his, her skin was slick with sweat. He leant over and licked her shoulder. ‘Salty. Lovely.’ He drew her down onto the mattress.

‘If my life is in danger,’ he said, placing his hand on her breast, ‘I will remember this. And you.’ He gazed into her eyes and she read in their expression a glow of love, melancholy and lust. ‘The danger makes it all the sharper. You’ll find that.’

She had a terrible intimation that he was half in love with martyrdom. Or that it beckoned from a flower-strewn field. She reached down and cupped his head between her hands. ‘But your duty, your absolute duty, is to survive.’

Eva was not getting any better. ‘It’s the heat,’ she maintained. ‘It never agreed with me.’

The heat could be blamed. Over the last few days, its quality had changed. It was heavier, more pervasive. Stickier. It pressed down, soaking clothes and burning exposed skin.

The high temperatures were a challenge but, with Eva, more was at play. Anyone with half an eye could spot the bags under her eyes, her waxy skin and her struggle with any form of exertion. On a couple of occasions in the past few weeks, she had disappeared into hospital overnight and returned with bruised arms and a needle mark at her elbow.

At those times, Eva was forced to stay in bed and, if Petr was out, Laure sat with her after the children were asleep. The two women didn’t talk much apart from some exchanges about the children and Laure was far too occupied thinking and dreaming to be worried by the silences.

On this evening, she went to check on Eva who was lying flat on her back in the main bedroom, both arms flung out as if she was being crucified. Laure was touched to see that she was wearing one of her Parisian nightdresses, a confection of ivory silk and lace, over which Laure had laboured with the iron.