“So,” he repeated, “you are the so-learned Mädchen from the museum. Did you get the letter, then?”

“You sent it?” I gaped at him. “But how—why?”

His smile stiffened into sobriety, though a spark of amusement remained in the depths of his eyes. “I mailed it, I did not send it. There is a difference.”

“You are right. There is a difference. I…Can I sit down?”

“Please.”

He picked up an oily rag and passed it carefully over a backless chair inches deep in sawdust.

“Thank you,” I said meekly. “Would you mind telling me how it happened?”

“It does not take long to tell. I was working late in the shop, as I often do. I heard the sounds from the Marktplatz. They were the sounds of death,” the old man said simply. “The car did not stop; it accelerated and went on. I had expected him, you see. He had said he would come that evening. I went as quickly as I could, but there were others there before me; they made a circle around him. I saw only one shoe. I knew it, and pushed through them. His blood soaked the snow and spread as I bent over him. He knew me. He had no breath to speak, but he moved his hand—pushed the letter toward me. I knew what he wanted. We had been friends a long time.”

He picked up his pipe and slowly tapped out the dead embers.

“I’m glad,” I said. It was a stupid thing to say, but he understood.

“Glad there is someone to mourn him? Yes. The only one. She…” He turned his head aside and spat neatly into the pile of shavings beside him. Then he went on in the same calm voice, “It happens to old men, even those who should know better. After Amelie died, he was verrückt—crazy with grief. A man needs a woman, and she knew how to use her advantage.”

“I’m sure she did. But…Do you know what was in the letter?”

“I do not open mail addressed to other people. It was so important to him that he thought of it with his last breath; that was enough for me. But I knew your name. He had spoken of you.”

“What did he say?”

His eyes glinted. “That if he were forty years younger he would go to Munich to see you—and perhaps to do other things.”

For some absurd reason I felt tears coming to my eyes. I gave him a watery smile. “If he had been forty years younger, I probably would have done them. He was a good man.”

“Yes, a learned man. Not like me; I am only an ignorant worker, with no more than Volksschule. But he liked to talk to me.”

“He never said anything to you about…” I didn’t hesitate because I didn’t trust him. I hesitated because I didn’t want his blood reddening the snow in the Marktplatz. “About why he might want to get in touch with me?”