May offered him the coffees. ‘Anyone would think you weren’t pleased to see me. However, I’m here on unfinished business.’

She turned to Laure. ‘You asked me once what I would bring to the museum. Here’s my answer.’ She stood to one side and beckoned to someone outside the door.

‘I deny absolutely that I come from a bourgeois background,’ said a voice in thickly accented English.

A second figure was now framed in the doorway.

A tumult began in Laure’s ears.

‘But Spejbl…’ she said trembling, her chair screeching over the floor. ‘But Spejbl, your father was a well-known shop owner. You mustn’t tell lies in front of visitors.’

Nic was staring at Laure as if she had gone mad.

The man was approximately Laure’s age, dressed in a denim jacket and jeans. He had a set of white teeth, pepper-and-salt hair and a receding hairline that enlarged his forehead.

The teeth were very much in evidence as he smiled broadly. ‘Don’t you mean, don’t tell lies in front of people you know. Visitors won’t know if you are lying and, therefore, won’t care.’

And she was there again, backstage at the marionette theatre, peering over the backdrop, on fire with lust, love and the joy of being part of a resistance.

Nic’s face was a study as Laure steadied herself on the desk. ‘Milos?’ she asked. ‘Milos, is it you?’

She put out her hands. He put out his and they clung together.

‘A long time,’ he said.

‘Where? Where have you come from?’

‘Prague. Your colleague here found me and ordered me to come. She doesn’t understand the word “no”.’ He added, ‘We can travel now, you know.’

‘I know. I know.’ To Nic’s obvious consternation, Laure began to cry. Noisy, wrenching sobs.

May slid her arms around Laure and Nic said, ‘I’m going to put the kettle on.’

Laure mastered herself sufficiently to ask, ‘Are you well? Is your life OK?’ She gestured to the chair. ‘Please sit.’

They gazed at each other silently, mentally traversing the black holes and rocky terrain of their history.

‘I am changed.’ Milos spoke first. ‘You not so much. Smarter and more beautiful. And you have this…’

‘I have this,’ she echoed. ‘And you have?’

He was finding his feet in speaking English. ‘A marionette theatre in Prague. I have a family. I married Lucia.’

Laure was dumbfounded. All she could think of to say was, ‘I hope she wore the veil.’

‘It was destroyed when the authorities shut down the theatre.’

‘I want to know everything,’ she said. ‘Everything.’

The noises of Paris could be heard through the open window. Cars, vans, the calls of the vegetable vendor.

‘How did May find you?’