conspiratorial and sexily challenging in an aloof way. As if she wished to keep a certain distance and yet make herself known. Possibly she noticed a particular interest in his brief glance, which seemed to read her in a flash before he looked away again. Perhaps she was flirting a little. It was too fleeting to reflect on more closely, it was just a glance, and he removed it so quickly. There was something modest about him, and she tightened the belt of her dressing gown, suddenly conscious of having nothing on underneath. She had just come out of the shower when he turned up, but then he must be used to that.

      He was downright clumsy, she discovered, when he looked around for an ashtray and happened to upset a box of powder over his elegant coat. He smiled and talked on while brushing it off with the back of his hand. There was not much of the gypsy king about him there in that messy dressing room. He spoke quietly and seriously in his deep, hoarse voice about the stage as a mental space in which we keep a tryst with our inner demons. Lucca took pleasure in listening to his voice and looking at him as he spoke. He sounded like someone who knew what he was talking about, someone who had paid for every single one of his insights.

      Now she understood why all the actors he had worked with spoke about him as they did. With the exception of Otto. When Harry Wiener now and then looked at her she felt he saw something she was not aware of herself, as if there was more in her than she realised. He spoke meticulously and hesitantly, searching for words, almost as if he were thinking aloud, while he looked down at the toes of his shoes or the cigarette between his tanned fingers. His hands were surprisingly delicate. He interrupted himself in the middle of a sentence and smiled apologetically as he asked if they were thirsty.