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sign of her. I wondered whether she had thought better of her strange request for my help. The idea that she might have forgotten all about our lunch was passing through my head when she stepped out of the bookshop close by and, seeing me, waved. I waved back, my heart lifting like a nervous schoolboy’s.
    â€˜Sorry,’ she mouthed.
    Her face, I noticed, was flushed. She smiled broadly and touched my arm in a friendly manner.
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was browsing in the bookshop.’
    â€˜You found a book?’ I asked.
    She slipped a book from its wrapping and showed me. It was Conrad.
    â€˜You’ve read it?’ she asked.
    â€˜Yes,’ I said.
    â€˜Did you like it?’
    â€˜You know, I find it hard to get beyond the fact that it was a book by a Pole writing in his third language being read by me translated into yet another language.’
    â€˜But isn’t that fascinating,’ she said. ‘To feel that you have to dig through all those layers of language to get to the heart of what it is about?’ She had taken my arm gently and we walked up Gedimino to the crossing.
    â€˜Some things are better left buried,’ I said, thinking of the paper that I had left in my typewriter with the one line typed across the top of it.
    â€˜Do you think so?’ she said, her face alive, vivacious.
    She slipped Conrad into the bag that she had slung over her shoulder. We waited for the cars to pass and then crossed the cobbled street. On the other side we turned up Jogailos Street.
    â€˜Do you really think that things should be left buried?’ she asked again when I did not answer her.
    â€˜Why should we keep on exhuming things once they are dead?’ I said. ‘After all, we’re not dogs that we need to keep on digging up bones.’ I did not like the turn that the conversation had taken and wished I had not initiated it.
    She was vigorous and animated when she looked at me. She reminded me of the students that I had at the university, lively in their desire for knowledge, before experience had taught them that it was better to bury than to dig up.
    â€˜Just because we dig things up doesn’t mean that we are dogs,’ she said. ‘After all archaeologists dig things up. How would we understand our pasts if we did not dig things up?’
    We understand and that is why we are so keen to bury, I thought, but I did not answer. Instead I rather crudely changed the subject. ‘I thought that we could go to Lokys,’ I said.
    â€˜Really?’ she said. ‘I’m not really dressed for it.’
    I looked at her. She was wearing a black dress that reached down below her knees. Over the top of this she wore a rather plain jacket with its collar turned up. Around her neck she had tied an orange scarf carelessly. Her hair was swept back and held behind her head with a large clip.
    â€˜You look perfect,’ I said, without a trace of flattery. She smiled and blushed a little, perhaps detecting how much I felt those words.
    We made our way back into the ghetto by the narrow lanes, winding, crammed with parked cars. She did not seem to be in a hurry and I did not want to hurry her. The sun broke through the grey clouds and illuminated the spire of St John’s Church, giving us a taste of brilliance in the dark shadows of the back streets. We chatted about Vilnius as we walked, commenting on the face-lift the city was enjoying. She was positive, not missing at all the dark crumbling buildings, or the spiked ribs of the fallen-in roofs of the houses. She approved of the modern shops and the new plaster and the bright colours that had transformed our city. I did not broach the subject that had got us together. She did not mention the help she had asked for either.
    Lokys was quiet. One other couple were sat at a table, leaning close to each other. I pulled out a chair for Jolanta and she sat down. We scanned the menu in silence. After a