To understand her,” I say, “you have to understand what she was trying to do. Dora was... a verb.

My body floated, loose from spent pleasure.

We were being offered exile on condition that we were silent about the reason we needed it. The silence chafed; it made us feel we were betraying those we had left behind. The British government was insisting on dealing with Hitler as a reasonable fellow, as if hoping he’d turn into one.

All day long they hold what look like philosophical discussions, gesticulating slowly with their free hands and clasping tins of beer with the other. They seem to share knowledge of a world where each of them once had a place.

Q: What does the human spirit do after ten days without sleep, and ten days of isolation tempered only by nocturnal threat sessions? A: It dreams up a solution.

Perhaps because of all the money poured into this, the things behind the spanking displays look old and crummy, like articles from a time that has been left behind. I slap down the stairs in my sandals. I am annoyed that this past can look so tawdry and so safe, as if destined from the outset to end up behind glass, securely roped off and under pressure-button control. And I am annoyed at myself: what’s the problem? Isn’t a museum the place for things that are over?

Miriam is upset. Her voice is stretched and I can’t look at her. Perhaps they beat something out of her she didn’t get back.

This was perfect dictator-logic: we investigate you, therefore you are an enemy.

Per capita the East Germans drank more than twice as much as their West German counterparts.

They didn’t need as many external rules as we did because they had internalised the standards of decency.