“OK… Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll go back home and tell my parents the truth. It’ll just take one phone call to the specialist college and everything will be sorted. Chances are, I won’t even have to set foot in school again. It’s just bad luck, that’s all. The loss of concentration towards the end of a concert – it’s the biggest pitfall for a musician! The most banal, but the most dangerous!”

Her voice cracked. She bit her lips, leaving little teeth marks.

“To start with, give me your lipstick. That’s it … very good … that’s better … very pretty. Even when defeat’s staring you in the face, you need to look presentable! Now I’m going to tell you something: my Dad watches a lot of historical documentaries on TV. I watch them with him, because we’ve always done everything together, but that would take too long to explain. Once I saw a documentary about the Jews. The Nazis wanted to put them into these camps and then kill them. This isn’t fiction, it really happened. To start with I didn’t believe that they made soap out of their fat and pillows from their hair, but Dad explained it was all true.”

“I know.”

“You knew already?”

“Of course I did. But why are you telling me this? You really are weird sometimes.”

“No, listen, there’s a connection. Some of the Jews realized straight away that they were going to be transported and even killed. They understood the danger and escaped to all different parts of the world!”

“Yes, OK, and so?”

She didn’t seem to understand.

“Are you dumb or what?” I yelled.

I shook her shoulders. She was as light as a doll.