[...] Only when they’re drinking coffee does she notice that Hans is down. The radio station is being “restructured” as they’re calling it, but Hans doesn’t want to discuss it. He looks at her soberly, she looks soberly back. Are we finished as lovers, then? Why shouldn’t she look serious? When he told her lately, When I’m under pressure, I need tenderness from you, she shook her head at him in amusement, and that offended him. When all she meant to indicate was that she too had a right to independence and will. Are we finished as lovers? She looks at his ravaged face in January, in February, but she can’t help him. Sometimes he brushes the hair out of his eyes repeatedly in the wrong direction, without noticing. At the greengrocer’s he spends half an hour in search of frozen kale, they don’t have it here, don’t you see. But he absolutely must have his frozen kale now. He wanders around the tiny shop three more times. Are we finished as lovers?