'What do I have to do at this meeting? Did they tell you that in your orders?'

He wrenched his mind away from the cakes. 'They said you would know.'

'Is it a Russian?'

'I say I don't know. This is the truth; I don't know. Soon we will be there.' He was disappointed that his thesis on pastries had been so coolly received. Perhaps at some other time I would have enjoyed his dissertation, even joined him for a Kaffeeklatsch tour of the city. But not today.

The clouds were dark and in the dull light the distant mountains loomed unnaturally large. Everything was grey: the sky was grey, the mountains were grey, the farm buildings were grey: even the snow was grey. It was like a poorly printed snapshot: no black nor white anywhere. Life in Eastern Europe was like that nowadays. Belief had gone. Communism had faded but capitalism had not arrived: everyone muddled along, complying but not believing.

On and on we went, slower now that the road was bad. We came to a road junction where two khaki-coloured trucks were parked at the roadside. Three men in camouflaged battle smocks and netted helmets stood by the tailboard of the rearmost vehicle. As we got closer I could see one of them was an officer, the other two were NCOs with automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. They turned to watch us pass.

It was at this junction that we turned on to an even worse road. Soon the green car stopped and pulled aside so that we could pass. As we overtook it the men inside stared at us with a curiosity seldom displayed by such people. Staiger seemed undismayed. The road climbed and we bumped and rattled along a pot-holed path where muddy pools were glazed with patterned ice. In the fields, islands of ancient snow had shrivelled to reveal the hard earth. Birds circled in the sky, already deciding where to spend the night. Snow remained everywhere. Alongside this remote and narrow track, drifts of it piled high, its surface shone with tiny diamonds of ice and showed none of the accumulated carbon stains that passing traffic deposits.

'They're there,' said Staiger. 'See the tyre tracks.'

'Yes,' I said.

'Or perhaps it was the debugging team.'

'Did you bring anything to eat?' I asked.

'I thought we'd have time to stop on the Austrian side. I didn't expect we'd be this late,' he said with solemn regret. He lifted his hand from the wheel to indicate another farm ahead.

Built in some ancient time when a farmer's life was punctuated with the role of warrior, it was sited to command a field of fire upon the full extent of the wide valley behind us. The cluster of buildings included two enormous barns, their roofs covered with snow. There was an entrance gateway of considerable grandeur, whose sculptured coat of arms had been deliberately chiselled away but not entirely obliterated so that a decapitated lion clung precariously to half a shield. Tucked away from the wind on the lee side of the ruined gate lodge there were two Czech traffic policemen sitting astraddle motorcycles. They watched us pass.

After the gate a long approach road led past wooden troughs, which steamed gently, and corrugated iron pigsties, to what once had been the central building of a fortified farmhouse.

The car only just squeezed through the low narrow archway, bumped over the cobbles into an enclosed yard and stopped at the back door of a farmhouse upon the walls of which the floral patterns of folk-art paintings could barely be discerned. The yard was big, a huge piece of farm machinery was quietly rusting away in the corner, and some chickens – flustered momentarily by the car – resumed their search for sustenance between the stones. There was a smell of rubbish burning or perhaps the stove needed cleaning.

Scrambling about on the roof there were two men, each equipped with powerful binoculars. Two more men, in short leather overcoats and large boots, sat on a bench in the yard. Hats tipped forward over their eyes, they sprawled like drunken sunbathers, but I noted the relaxed postures of men who remained still for long periods. And I noticed the undone top buttons that would make it easy for them to pull something from a shoulder holster in a hurry.

Without moving they watched us from under lowered eyelids. I got out and waited for Staiger as he carefully locked the doors of his car.

Suddenly a large black mongrel dog came flying out from a doorway, barking and snarling. With reckless speed, and suicidal disregard for its leash, the hound threw itself at my throat. But as the long chain reached its fullest extent the dog choked and toppled sideways, its bark strangled. Tugging ferociously at the chain it crouched low and continued to snarl and bare its teeth, making an exaggerated display of aggression as many creatures do when their anger is constrained.

The men seated on the bench had hardly moved during this display of canine fury. Now Staiger laughed nervously and made sure his hat was balanced on his toupee. 'Go in,' said Staiger. 'I will be waiting for you.'

By that time I had begun to guess what was to come. Inside, the farmhouse was dark, its tiny windows set low in the thick walls. The floor was rough worn tiles and there was not much furniture except a refectory table, pushed back against the wall because it was so big, and some old chairs with rush seats.

She was standing in the gloom. She spoke in a whisper. 'Bernard!' My first impression was that Fiona was shorter and thinner than I remembered. Then, with a twinge of guilt, I realized that this was because I'd been with Gloria so long.

'What bloody mad game are you up to now?' I said. The words emerged as a mumble, revealing I suppose my confusion. I still loved her but I was wary of her, unable to decide what she wanted of me, and unwilling to provide for her another chance of duping me in some way or other.

'Don't be angry.'

'Don't be angry,' I said wearily. Her deliberate passivity fuelled my rage and suddenly I shouted, 'You stupid devious bitch. What are you up to now? Are you raving mad?'

She looked me up and down and smiled. Who knows what kind of animosity lay concealed within her? If she was equally angry with me, she disclosed no sign of it. She waited for the steam to go out of me, as she knew it would, and smiled again. She still had that wonderful smile that had devastated me the first time I met her. It was a humorous smile, with a trace of mockery in it, but it was an invitation to join her in her view of the world about us, and it was an invitation I never could resist. 'There is nothing to eat here. Nothing at all. I knew you'd be hungry.' Her voice was flat, perhaps deliberately so, and even though she was my wife I could not tell what emotions were in her mind. It had always been so. Sometimes I wondered whether this enigmatic quality was what made her so attractive to me and I wondered to what extent she failed to understand me in return. Not much I think.

'Bernard, darling.' She tried to put her arms round me but I shrank away.

She said, 'How are the children?' and I was burned by the warmth of her body; overwhelmed by a perfume I'd almost forgotten.

'They're fine. They miss you.' I amended it: 'We all miss you.' Her eyes mocked me. 'Billy is so big. As tall as you perhaps. He has a craze for motorcars; posters, models and even a big plastic engine that he keeps taking to pieces and reassembling.'

'Was that your Christmas present?' she asked, demonstrating her remarkable intuition. It was madness to try to keep any secret from her, and yet I still tried.

'Yes. It was labelled "educational toy",' I said. She gave a little laugh recognizing our long-standing joke that I fell prey to anything so labelled. 'Sally has been chosen to play Portia at school. I believe Billy is a bit jealous.'

She smiled. 'Yes, he would be. Billy is the actor. Portia: The Merchant of Venice ?'