He looks at me earnestly through his spectacles, and lays his hand on mine. ‘Not if it’s making you ill, Lotti. It sounds like a very dangerous place.’

I look round nervously from side to side and frown at him. ‘It’s OK, I can write an Eingabe.’

‘What’s one of those when it’s at home?’

‘A citizen’s petition. All you Westerners think we don’t have any freedoms here, but we do. We can write Eingaben – petitions – to the government, and then the government responds.’

He looks at me, thoughtfully. ‘That sounds like a good idea, then, Lotti. You have to do something. Perhaps I can help. Through my contacts at the university, I might be able to find other studies, other evidence. We need to get you out of there and we need to get you proper treatment.’

There’s fire in his eyes. A burning desire to do something to help me. As he looks at me, I hope he’s saying all this for the right reasons. That it’s not just pity for an old friend.

*

Of course, we don’t spend the whole evening talking about my work and problems. Arnie’s also very excited about his own research. He says he’s uncovered something ‘mind-blowing’ that might help people like me – people whose lives were ruined by the bombing in 1945.

That’s the point when I kick him under the table. At first, he grimaces, moves as though to rub his leg. Then slowly it dawns on him. He shouldn’t be talking about that here. We’ve been talking in English – though sometimes we switch between English and German, both of us at approximately the same level in each other’s second language – but even so, I could detect a lowering of conversation round us when he began to talk about the ‘terror bombing’. All right, most East Germans learn Russian as their main foreign language at school. But there’s plenty like me who’ve tried to improve their English in their own time. I did it for my own reasons – the hope that one day I would see him again.

That stilts the conversation for a while, but as we down more glasses of Sekt we’re soon gibbering away again, although we keep the talk on safer ground.

*

In the alcohol haze that accompanies the evening, I rather lose track of time. It means Arnie and I have to run to the Hauptbahnhof so that I can try and get the last train to Pirna. I know I’ll look a sight – the sweat will play havoc with the make-up on the bad side of my face – but we’ve been having so much fun, I don’t really care.

‘Quickly, Lotti,’ urges Arnie, after I drop some coins on the floor while scrabbling in my purse to find my ticket. ‘You’re going to miss it.’