The birthday party occupied a long table by the window but they were too close for Werner to continue his account. So we chatted about things of no importance and watched the celebration.

Konrad brought our Pinkel and kale, a casserole dish of sausage and greens, with its wonderful smell of smoked bacon and onions. And, having decided that I was a connoisseur of fine sausage, his mother sent a small extra plate with a sample of the Kochwurst and Brägenwurst.

The birthday party were eating a special order of Schlesisches Himmelreich. This particular 'Silesian paradise' was a pork stew flavoured with dried fruit and hot spices. There was a cheer when the stew, in its big brown pot, first arrived. And another cheer for the bread dumplings that followed soon after. The portions were piled high. The ladies were tackling it delicately, but the men, despite their years, were shovelling it down with gusto, and their beer was served in one-litre-size tankards which Konrad replaced as fast as they were emptied.

Manfred, the red-faced farmer whose birthday was being celebrated, kept proposing joke toasts to 'celibacy' and 'sweethearts and wives – and may they never meet' and then, more seriously, a toast for Konrad's mother who every year cooked this fine meal of Silesian favourites.

But the party did not become more high-spirited as the celebration progressed. On the contrary, everyone became more dejected, starting from the time that Manfred proposed a toast to 'absent friends'. For these elderly Germans were all from Breslau. Their beloved Silesia was now a part of Poland and they would never see it again. I'd caught their accents when they first entered the room, but now that memories occupied their minds, and alcohol loosened their tongues, the Silesian accents became far stronger. There were quick asides and rejoinders that used local words and phrases I didn't know.

'Our Germany has become little more than a gathering place for refugees,' said Werner. 'Zena's family are just like them. They have these big family gatherings and talk about the old times. They talk about the farm as if they left only yesterday. They remember the furniture in every room of those vast houses, which fields never yielded winter barley and which had the earliest crop of sugar-beet, and they can name every horse they've ever ridden. And they do what these people at the next table are doing: they eat the old dishes, talk about long dead friends and relatives. Eventually they will probably sing the old songs. It's another world, Bernie. We're big-city kids. People from the country are different from us, and these Germans from the eastern lands knew a life we can't even guess at.'

'It was good while it lasted.'

'But when it ended it ended for ever,' said Werner. 'Her family got out just ahead of the Red Army. The house was hit by artillery fire before they would face the reality of it and actually start moving westwards. And they came out with virtually only what they stood up in – a handful of cash, some jewellery and a pocketful of family photos.'

'But Zena is young. She never saw the family estates in East Prussia, did she?'

'Everything was blown to hell. Someone told them that there's a fertilizer factory built over it now. But she grew up listening to these fairy stories, Bernie. You know how many kids have fantasies about really being born aristocrats or film stars.'

'Do they?' I said.

'Certainly they do. I grew up wondering whether I might really be the son of Tante Lisl.'

'And who does Zena grow up thinking her mother might be?'

'You know what I mean, Bernie. Zena hears all these stories about her family having dozens of servants, horses and carriages… and about the Christmas balls, hunting breakfasts, ceremonial banquets and wonderful parties with military bands playing and titled guests dancing outside under the stars… Zena is still very young, Bernard. She doesn't want to believe that it's all gone for ever.'

'You'd better persuade her it is, Werner. For her sake, and for your own sake too.'

'She's a child, Bernie. That's why I love her so much. It's because she believes in all kinds of fairy stories that I love her.'

'She doesn't really think of going back, does she?'

'Going back in time, yes. But not going back to East Prussia.'

'But she has the accent,' I said.

Werner looked at me as if I'd mentioned some intimate aspect of his wife that I should not have known about. 'Yes, she's picked it up from her parents. It's strange, isn't it?'

'Not very strange,' I said. 'You've more or less told me why. She's determined to hang on to her dreams.'

'You're right,' said Werner, who'd gone through the usual teenage dalliance with Freud, Adler and Jung. 'The desire is in her subconscious but the fact that she chooses speech as the characteristic to imitate shows that she wants that secret desire to be known.'

Oh my God, I thought. I've started him off now. Werner lecturing on psychology was among the most mind-numbing experiences known to science.

I looked across to where the birthday party was having the.dessert dishes cleared away, and ordering the coffee and brandy that would be served to them in the bar. But Manfred was not to be hurried. He had his glass raised and was proposing yet another toast. He nodded impatiently at Konrad's suggestion that they retire to the next room. 'The words of our immortal Goethe,' said Manfred, 'speak to every German soul when he says, "Gebraucht der Zeit. Sie geht so schnell von hinnen; dock Ordnung lehrt euch Zeit gewinnen." '

There were murmurs of agreement and appreciation. Then they all drank to Goethe. As they all trooped off to the bar, I said to Werner, 'I never feel more English than when I hear someone quoting your great German poets.'

'What do you mean?' said Werner, with more than a trace of indignation.

'Such ideas would win few converts in England at any level of intellect, affluence or political thought. Consider what our friend just proclaimed so proudly. In English it would become something like "Employ each hour which so quickly glides away… " So far, so good. But then comes '… but learn through order how to conquer time's swift flight.' '

'It's a rotten translation,' said Werner. 'In the context gewinnen is probably meant as "reclaim" or "earn".'

'The point I'm making, my dear Werner, is the natural repulsion any Englishman would feel at the notion of inflicting order upon his time. Especially inflicting order upon his leisure time or, as is possibly implied here, his retirement.'

'Why?'

'For Englishmen order does not go well with leisure. They like muddle and disarray. They like "messing about in boats", or dozing in a deckchair on a beach, or pottering about in the garden, or reading the newspapers or some paperback book.'

'Are you trying to persuade me that you are very English?'

'That fellow Henry Tiptree is in Berlin,' I said. 'He's that tall friend of…'

'I know who he is,' said Werner.

'Tiptree asked me if I was German.'

'And are you German?'

'I feel very German when I'm with people like Tiptree,' I said. Konrad came to the table brandishing his menu. He was looking at Werner with great interest.

'So if Tiptree starts quoting Goethe at you, you'll have a nervous collapse,' said Werner. 'Do you want a dessert? I don't want a dessert, and you're getting too fat.'

'Just coffee,' I said. 'I don't know what I am. I see those people from Silesia. You tell me about Zena's family. I look at myself and I wonder where I can really call home. Do you know what I mean, Werner?'

'Of course I know what you mean. I'm a Jew.' He looked at Konrad. 'Two coffees; two schnapps.'

Konrad did not hurry us to leave the dining room after he brought the order. He poured the coffees and brought tiny glasses of clear schnapps and then left the bottle on the table. It was of local manufacture. Konrad seemed to think that anyone who'd come from 'over there' would need an ample supply of alcohol. But I had to wait until we were quite alone before I could get down to business. I looked round the room to be sure there was no one who could hear us. There was no one. From the next room came the loud voices of the Silesians. 'What about Stinnes?'