“Thank you, Marianne,” Ania said in an unfamiliar, penitent way, her eyes downcast. “He has been screaming . . .” Her voice trailed off. With her words, the threat of discovery hung over them both.

“Doktor Schaeffer said four drops mixed with water in the morning,” Marianne said. “Again in the middle of the day and then in the evening. And, if necessary, in the middle of the night. Not to be exceeded,” Marianne continued. “He was very strong on this.”

Ania lifted her eyes.

Not to be exceeded. In that instant, Marianne understood. She felt a rush of cold and then hot. How had she not grasped Ania’s intention from the start?

From the mattress the man hacked a horrible, airless cough.

She could feel Ania’s eyes, begging her for something—permission? Forgiveness? Marianne’s whole body recoiled at the thought.

“Marianne,” Ania finally said, “you are a good woman.”

Marianne did not respond.

But all the way down the hill her friend’s words repeated themselves in her head, not as a statement, but as a question.

And the following day, Rainer was dead.

It is not difficult for Marianne and Ania to extract themselves from the party. Claire is preoccupied with making connections. And when you are old, you can get away with anything.

Martin and Mary, their twin tugboats, guide them out of the throng and settle them in the library like children, with plates of snacks and glasses of water. Through the glass doors, Marianne sees them talking. Is Mary married? Divorced? She can’t remember. Mary throws her head back and laughs, dangly earrings swinging at her neck. Martin lounges against the exposed stone with his hands thrust into his pockets and his face downturned, smiling the bemused smile that has always made women want to please him. Gray hair aside, he looks like the teenage boy Marianne remembers. His father flashes before her eyes: the same stance, same smile, same way of looking—as Martin does now, with eyebrows raised—disarmingly incredulous. A bright flash of sun.

Soon the party will move to the music room for a concert. But Marianne and Ania will remain. This is the heart of what Marianne came here for, after all—this chance to talk with Ania, to set straight the past.

“Tell me about Anselm,” Marianne says.

“He is a pharmacist. But not happy.” Ania shakes her head.

“Why?”

Ania shrugs. It is an old Ania gesture—self-deprecating rather than indifferent. “I don’t think he can be. I never taught him how.”

“You gave him a good life,” Marianne says.

The real subject lurks between them—all the questions Marianne never asked.

“I don’t know,” Ania says. “I did what I thought was right. But I don’t think I’m a good judge of that.”

“Ha!” Marianne says. “Our whole generation, no?”

Ania shakes her head with this new air of tragedy that she has adopted in old age. She is too serious to laugh.

Slowly, they make their way backward through time.

Wolfgang lives in the north of Germany and has no children, only a stern and unfriendly wife. Anselm is married with two daughters and works in a pharmacy, rather than as the chemist he once dreamed of becoming. Fritz lives in Berlin and is as good-humored as always, with three children, a dog, and a pretty, artistic wife fifteen years younger than he is. Katarina, in Denver, teaching, Elisabeth, with her speeches . . . Marianne rattles through the information.