“As far as I’m concerned, ‘sleep’ is just a nice word in a fairy story. I’d like to believe in it, but experience and the Ivans have taught me different.”

“Maybe we should get together for a drink one night and see who yawns first.”

“It won’t be me. I’m wide awake. You’re the most interesting thing that’s happened to me since I arrived from Berlin.”

“Don’t you like Königsberg?”

“As a matter of fact, I love it.”

“It’s my hometown. I used to live here.”

“And now?”

“You call this living?”

“It’s better than the alternative, perhaps. Well, now I know it’s your hometown I love it even more.”

“It was a nice place to live before the English decided to redecorate it.”

“Let’s not think about that now. What do you say we get a boat and you let me row you around Castle Pond?”

“Why would you want to do something so arduous on a warm day like this?”

“I don’t particularly, but I can hardly offer to show you around your own hometown.”

“Why not? Frankly, your guess about where anything is now is as good as mine. Yesterday I went for a walk along Copernicus Strasse before I realized it was Richard-Wagner-Strasse. I feel like a stranger here myself.”

“It doesn’t matter. The streets are all going to have Russian names soon. This time next year Richard-Wagner-Strasse will probably be Tchaikovsky Prospekt, or Borodin Street.”

“That’s a pleasant thought.”

“Sorry. I’m an intelligence officer, but sometimes you really wouldn’t think it.”

“I think it’s best to know the worst that can happen.”

“That seems to be my job description.”

“We could talk about it over dinner.”

“That’s the most pleasant thought I’ve heard in a long time. Where would you like to go? The safest place for dinner used to be the Blutgericht in the Castle courtyard basement.”

“I know. Until they bombed it.”

“Which leaves the Park Hotel.”

“There’s another place I know near the zoo on Erich-Koch-Platz.”

I shook my head. “It can’t be the Stadtkeller. That’s closed, too.”

“No, this is somewhere else.”

“Not the naval nunnery.”

Nunneries were what we called the dormitories where most of the women’s auxiliary services were housed.

“No, but it’s somewhere quiet, candlelit, with just the one exclusive table. Mine.”

“I like the place already.”

“After the bombing my parents left their apartment and went to live at their country house in Pillau. I stayed on. The auxiliary service commander thinks they’re still living there.”

“Which means that you don’t have to keep the service women’s curfew.”

“Exactly.”

“Nice.”

“So. You’re invited for dinner. It’s canned stuff, mostly. But my father did have quite a decent selection of Mosels.”

“Suddenly I seem to have quite an appetite.”

“Shall we say eight o’clock?”