'Natalya?' She looked up at me through the tobacco smoke. So did the bearded man. 'Which Natalya?' he asked me, straightening. 'Natalya Fyodorova.' She went on staring at me without answering, her ice-blue eyes showing nothing at all. 'Who are you?' the bearded man asked me. I went on watching the girl. The man said: 'She doesn't want to talk to you.' I leaned over the table and spoke close to the girl, on the other side from the man. 'I'm a friend of Helmut's.' Her hands were on the table in front of her, and I saw them move slightly, coming together. As I straightened up she looked at the man. I thought she was wondering if he'd heard what I'd said. 'She doesn't want to talk to you,' he told me. 'Are you deaf or something?' He pushed his bowl of soup farther away from him, as if to give himself room. The girl looked up at me. 'Who are you?' Her eyes were still cool, but she was watchful now, involved. 'A friend of his. I'm trying to find him.' The sound level around me went down suddenly as some of the people stopped talking. I looked into the mirror above the brass samovar and saw two men coming in. They didn't greet anyone, but took up a position on the far side of the room, talking to each other but looking around them. In a minute the sound level went up again, but it wasn't as loud as before. I looked down from the mirror. 'Whose friend?' the bearded man asked me. He was leaning back, ready to get up if he had to. The girl was quite pretty, and I understood his reactions. I wondered if she'd noticed that he hadn't heard the first thing I'd said to her. It could be important. 'The trial's fixed,' said a young Jew at the same table. 'They're all fixed, we know that. All of them!' 'Shhhh!' a girl said, gripping his arm. 'To hell with them,' he said loudly, and looked across at the two men who'd just come in. The noise level dipped again and recovered. A woman laughed about something, to show that she didn't care. In the mirror I saw the two men watching her. Natalya stood up suddenly, taking her sealskin hat from the table, knocking against a bowl of soup; the man caught it in time. 'I remember him now,' she told him, 'he's in my office. This is work.' She came round the table, shaking her hair back and putting her fur hat on, glancing into the mirror through the haze of smoke. 'This isn't the time to work!' the man said, and got to his feet. 'Stay here, Ivan. I'm coming back. And get me some more solyanka.' As we moved away she asked me, 'What's your name?' 'We'll talk outside.' The two security men weren't watching us specifically but I didn't want to give them time to take an interest; in this city the faceless live longest. The militia men were still at the junction of the two streets when we went outside, stamping their feet in the cold; their breath clouded in front of them as they turned to watch us leaving the cafe. A black Volga was parked halfway along the block with its lights out. It hadn't been there before. The girl asked my name again but I said, 'It wouldn't mean anything to you.' She wanted to stop, but I kept going and she had to come with me; men on surveillance get bored and they'll question anyone in sight. We turned the corner and kept on walking; this street was clean and the Pobeda was parked in shadow between two of the lamps. 'How did you find me?' She kept swinging her head to look at me, frightened because I knew her and she didn't know me. I took her arm so that she'd keep walking; the two militia men would be watching us, simply because we were something that moved in a static environment. 'Gorsky told me where to look.' 'I don't know any Gorsky.' She tried to hold back and I tightened her arm in mine. 'Do you want to see Helmut again?' 'Yes,' she said on a breath. 'But they -' 'Then trust me, and do as I tell you. We've got to keep walking.' She quickened her step. 'You do know Gorsky. He's the upravdom at the building in Vojtovica ulica.' She was beside herself, Gorsky had told me, when she heard he'd been arrested. She kept coming back every day, asking if I had any more news . This was another thing right out of character with Schrenk: when you're in the field you do not take a girl to the safe-house; you don't take anyone. I'd