She feels lost. How to explain? How to begin to explain something that is so obvious?

Sarah sends over her specialty: a five-layered Viennese torte. “Welcome back to Prague,” she had scrawled on a visiting card.

Hannah hurries over to Sarah to thank her. Sarah greets her with a kiss on both cheeks.

“I’m glad you have not yet fallen back into the formal ways of town. Much better to simply go visiting whenever the feeling arises. Now, come in out of the cold.”

Hannah enters and hands her coat to the servant. “My husband does not know what he has done to deserve it,” she says.

Sarah clucks. “As if he has done a single thing. Why do the men assume that the gift is for them? I sent it for you.”

Hannah laughs.

“Come now, I would love to put up my feet, but you know how it goes, no peace for the wicked. I’m in the kitchen, making stew.”

“Where’s Hilda?”

Hannah follows as Sarah strides through the house towards the kitchen. “Hilda? As if she can make a good stew.”

In the kitchen — how refreshing, just like home, to sit and talk in the kitchen — she perches on a wickerwork chair. She watches Sarah. Fried onions, paprika, two pounds of beef wrapped in paper and covered in the butcher’s kosher sign. Barley. A handful of beans.

“Stew indeed. You are making cholent.”

Sarah turns and winks. “During the week, it’s called stew.” She stirs the pot and adds another shake of paprika. “So how is your husband?”

“Ernst?” Hannah thinks. “He is happy for me to be home of course. A little unsure of himself for some reason.”

“He’s just checking that you have not turned back into Chanalle.”

“Perhaps.”

“And what of Emmy? Did the trip do her any good?”

Hannah hesitates.

“Come on, you can tell me.” Sarah picks up a potato and begins to peel.

“It certainly took her out of her own little world. But—”

“What?” Sarah puts down the potato and regards her.

“She has come up with a new idea that is taking up much of her thoughts.”

“Which is?”

Hannah stands up and take a potato from the pile on the counter. She holds out her hand and Sarah gives her a knife. It’s easier to talk when you do not have to look someone in the eye.

“She wants to find my sister.”