He was certain that she had more culture there than most people in New York City, who were so caught up in the daily struggle to survive that they couldn’t look left or right. His eye fell on an issue of Social Justice, and he pushed the paper under the coffee table with his foot as he continued to translate.

“‘At this point the printed newspaper has become widely established as a medium for conveying information. Its disadvantage, however, is the impossibility of disseminating information immediately, in statu nascendi so to speak; it can only ever do so with a certain temporal delay. Thus, in actuality, a newspaper is never completely current.’”

“Newspapers will die out at some point because the radio is faster.”

“Not if you become a journalist. Then the newspapers will hang on a bit longer!”

She gave him a faintly scornful look. “Your attempt to soften the blow is far too transparent.”

He felt his face turning red.

By way of conciliation she said, “And what’s this here?”

“Here the functions of the radio are described.”

“I see. And just what are the functions of the radio, Mr. Klein?”

“‘The dissemination of economic news; the broadcasting of sermons and prayers; the broadcasting of music, such as opera (without coughing and sneezing); issuing weather reports, storm warnings; the broadcasting of music for factory floors, mines, hospitals; the broadcasting of political speeches; promotion of understanding between nations.’”

“Music without coughing and sneezing—yeah, back in 1924 that probably was a sensation.”

She smiled, and he decided to smile back this time.

“May I?”

She turned on the transceiver and turned the tuning knob. Broken skin around her fingernails. Like his mother, who had worked for years in a tavern kitchen. Every night she took a brush and tried to get out everything that had gotten caught under her fingernails. Did Lauren have to scrub her hands like that at the hospital?

“If there’s a war, we won’t be allowed to transmit outside the country anymore,” she said.

“There’s not going to be a war.” The words slipped out of him. “That’s just anti-German propaganda.” Max said it all the time, then Josef argued, or thought he did at least, and now he was saying it himself.

Lauren tilted her head, as if to get a better look at him, this idiot sitting across from her. “And the arms buildup?”

He hesitated. “I couldn’t say. I haven’t been there for many years.”

“What difference does that make?”

“None,” he said grudgingly. “Whiskey? Scotch?” he asked.

“Water.”