The bottle was finished and the lieutenant called for another. Both Madame Ariane and the major seemed offended by the lieutenant’s incoherent rambling about the human slaughter on the eastern front, for different reasons. Madame Ariane had turned her head away and was looking fixedly at the shaggy bushes of box that marched in pairs up the slope of the garden. The major once again broke in on the lieutenant’s discourse.

‘But these were easy to recognise. Much worse is the Jewish virus that lives in Germany and France in disguise, sapping the strength and morale of the people like a parasite. I never participated in one of the special treatment operations, as the lieutenant has. My own very modest contribution to the effort of making the Reich Jew-free took place before the war, when I was in Berlin and had to call at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I was passing through an office on my way to an appointment when I saw a man whom I had known in my youth in Bavaria. I knew that his mother had been Jewish, or at least half-Jewish. This foolish man, who was Aryan by half his heritage, compounded his situation by marriage to a Jewess. I had lost touch with him for some years, but I recognised him at once. He had clearly succeeded in hiding his true identity and, at a time when Jews had been removed from the Civil Service, was working at the heart of government. When he saw me, he recognised me also, and he knew that justice would overtake him. Naturally, I informed his superiors and when I enquired later, I heard he had been removed to Dachau.

‘True power,’ he continued, reverting to his preferred generalisations, ‘is a moral force, not a physical one. It is one to which the people submit willingly, recognising its inevitability. When I was fifteen I was taken to a rally at Nürnberg and I saw there the joyful surrender of a people to its leader, the subordinate submitting to the power of the superior, as his nature obliges him to do. Just as when a woman surrenders to a man: it is what nature intends. The role of the German people in Europe and in the world is that of the superior. We are natural leaders and this war will impose that understanding on others. Like a horse that struggles, or a woman who resists, people have to be forced to do what their own nature requires.’

Suzie closed her eyes for a moment. She could feel Sabine stirring beside her, bored by the monologues in a foreign language and the evident disengagement of her stepmother from the Germans. The officers were rising from their seats. Madame Ariane stood up too, and holding onto the back of her chair she said, ‘I shall wish you goodnight.’

‘Wait,’ the major said, abruptly. ‘Lieutenant, I shall join you for coffee in the petit salon in a moment. Please tell the steward to serve it at once.’