‘But no longer?’

‘Yes, all that has gone.’ After a moment, he added, ‘I know that you reckon I’m living the privileged life no longer possible for those out there.’

Did she have the nerve to ask: how come you live in this beautiful, requisitioned place? She didn’t and remained quiet. It didn’t matter because she was pretty sure he knew what she was thinking. She squinted up at him. She was pretty sure, too, that he would have asked himself the same questions.

‘It’s very nice of you to keep me company,’ he said at last. ‘You remind me of…’ He stopped himself.

Laure felt it was only polite to ask, ‘Of?’

‘Of myself,’ said Petr. ‘A long time ago.’

CHAPTER 13

SHE MADE IT HER BUSINESS TO GET TO KNOW THE BUILDING that housed the marionette theatre. Although it was well proportioned with many windows, it also had dark corners and shadows. Dirt filmed most surfaces and edged window frames and cornicing. Most of the rooms were empty of furniture. In some of them there were mattresses and sleeping bags that smelt of unaired clothes, sex and spilt booze. Backstage, there was a warren of rooms, including the one that did double duty as a kitchen and green room. The passage that led to it from the auditorium was lined with cracked mirroring, which had the effect of fragmenting the reflections in it.

If you come, said Tomas, you will never say anything of what goes on in here. That’s the promise you make to us.

The second floor was used by Anatomie to store their instruments – two guitars, drum kit, keyboard and a precious amplifier. ‘It’s treated like a new-born baby,’ said Milos, ‘because it’s impossible to replace.’

Which one was Tomas’s guitar? She longed to touch it but continued up to the attics, placing her feet in the depressions worn into the staircase. At one point, she put out her hand to steady herself on the wall. It was warm and slightly moist and she had an odd notion that she was being sucked back into time.

With few hitches – or, so it appeared – Laure was absorbed into the life of the company. Wearing the uniform of black jeans and a black T-shirt, she made her evening pilgrimage twice a week to the Old Town Square and brewed tea, cleaned and ushered.

As Tomas predicted, Lucia made it her business to address as few words as possible to Laure, but Milos had appointed himself her tutor, a role that pleased him. ‘I’m not allowed to travel,’ he said, ‘so you must tell me about things and places.’ Missing a couple of upper front teeth, he had a habit of clamping his top lip over his bottom lip to hide the gaps, which made Laure ashamed of possessing such good ones.