She was in a silk wrapper, toweling her hair. He looked at her, then cocked his head like the young GI at the Chancellery.

“How about I buy you a drink later?”

“With my clothes on? Can’t. I’m busy.”

“That was fast. Not young Ron?”

She grinned. “I wouldn’t have the strength.” She fixed the towel around her head in a turban. “Just business. Have to see a man about a duck. I’ll take a rain check, though.” She nodded at the tub. “Better run your water. It takes a while.” She gathered her things slowly from the stool, then sat down.

“Are you staying?”

“Jake? Tell me something. That business this afternoon-who was she?”

“Why a she?”

“Because it was. What’s the story? You know I’ll get it out of you eventually.”

“No story,” he said, turning on the taps. “She went back to her husband.”

“Oh,” she said, “that kind of story. She left you?”

“I left Berlin. Dr. Goebbels’ request. There was an attitude problem.”

“I’ll bet. When was this?”

‘ ’Forty-one. Did me a favor, I suppose. A few months later and I’d have been stuck.“ He waved his hand to take in the city. ”In all this.“

“So only she got stuck.”

He looked at her for a moment, then went back to adjusting the taps.

“She stayed with her husband,” he said flatly.

“I wouldn’t have,” she said, trying to be casual, a light apology. “Who was he? One of the master race?”

He smiled to himself. “Not too masterful. He was a teacher, actually. A professor.”

“Of what?”

“Liz, what is all this?”

“Just making conversation. I don’t often get you at a disadvantage. The only time a man will talk is when he has his pants off.”

“Is that a fact.” He paused. “Mathematics, since you ask.”

“Math?” she said, laughing slightly, genuinely surprised. “An egghead? Not very sexy.”