Kirsten died just after midnight, by which time I’d had enough anesthetic for it to feel just about bearable. The trams weren’t running so I walked back to the hospital, just to prove that I could do it like a regular guy. I’d seen her alive; I didn’t need to see her dead, but the hospital wanted it that way. I even took our marriage certificate. I figured it was better to get it over with before she stopped looking like a human being. It always amazes me how quickly that happens. One minute a man is as full of life as a basketful of kittens, and a few hours later he looks like an old waxwork at the Hamburg Panoptikum.

A different nurse met me, and a different doctor, too. Both of them were an improvement on the day shift. The nurse was slightly better-looking. The doctor was recognizably human, even in the dark.

“I’m very sorry about your wife,” he whispered with what seemed like a very proper show of respect, until I realized that we were standing in the middle of the ward, beside the night nurse’s desk, and surrounded by sleeping women who weren’t quite as sick as my wife had been. “We did everything we could, Herr Gunther. But she was really very ill.”

“Flu was it?”

“It seems so.” In the light of the desk lamp he came up very thin, with a round white face and pointy red hair. He looked like a one-man coconut shy.

“Kind of odd, though, wouldn’t you say?” I remarked. “I mean, I haven’t heard of anyone else who’s got the flu.”

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “we’ve had several cases. There’s a case on the next ward. We’re very concerned that it will spread. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the last serious outbreak of flu, in 1918. And of how many died. You remember that, don’t you?”

“Better than you,” I said.

“For that reason alone,” he said, “the occupation authorities are anxious to contain the possible spread of any infection. Which is why we’d like to seek your permission to order an immediate cremation. In order to prevent the virus from spreading. I appreciate that this is a very difficult time for you, Herr Gunther. Losing your wife at such a young age must be dreadful. I can only guess what you must be going through right now. But we wouldn’t ask for your full cooperation in this matter unless we thought it important.”