They had discovered that the officers now often sat outside on the terrace at the back of the house after dinner to finish a bottle of champagne that they had requisitioned from the cellar. Madame Ariane’s nightly duties now extended beyond the cutting up of the major’s food and being present through dinner. She was obliged to accompany them onto the terrace and sit in the long pale evenings while the major drank and talked.

‘He likes an audience,’ she told the aunts, ‘for his lectures.’

In pursuit of their prey, Sabine and Suzie were watching an after-dinner meeting. Suzie had protested that they couldn’t expect anything to happen under the eyes of the batman and the lieutenant, and Sabine couldn’t understand anything that was said, if they talked at all, which they hadn’t much last time. However, Sabine’s hunting instinct was aroused.

‘They are inhuman because they can endure extremes of cold, hunger and pain beyond the limits even of trained and hardened SS troops …’ The major droned on. He was a theoretician; he liked to generalise his personal experiences so that they fitted his ideology. Madame Ariane sat so still, showing no reaction to what was being said, that she appeared to have drifted into a trance, lulled by the interminable stories of the eastern front.

The steward came out to pour more champagne for the officers. It was at least the third time that he had done so, Suzie noticed. Madame Ariane’s glass remained untouched. The major sipped his wine and the lieutenant began to talk. He had no time for philosophising. He only recalled reality, mostly descriptions of battle. Today, he was talking about hunting. Suzie only gradually understood that the ‘special operation’ in which his panzer company had been involved had been the hunting of humans. He was indignant that his troops had been used for such work, not because he objected to it, but because it was not what tanks were built for. In the open, on the streets of a town, no one could outrun his machine. He would give chase, knock down his victims, trample over them, grinding them into the earth; an enjoyable game. But the hunted would try to hide where the tanks could not operate. He was describing how the rats were beaten out of the cellars and granaries, vermin killed. Tough work, which only the strongest and most dedicated could undertake.

Madame Ariane sat, stony-faced, making no comment. The major cut him short by unexpectedly pouring him more champagne.

‘The barbarism of the Russians is simply underlined by their refusal to sign the Hague Conventions,’ he remarked repressively.

The interruption only made the lieutenant’s need to talk more insistent. He described his revulsion from the pests he had seen killed, the boys’ corkscrew curls, the men’s bushy black beards, the women’s shaven heads. Suzie had a flash of recognition. She had never met a Hassid, but she had seen pictures in a book, and could hear Maman explaining that the little boys were forbidden to cut the hair in front of their ears, so that it grew long and curly, longer than Suzie’s own hair. And the men wore beards and the women wigs. But he could not mean these people. They were, Maman had said, very pious, good people.