My mother had been sick all week, and that afternoon, feeling somewhat better, she lay in the sun.

‘Tomorrow I’ll start knitting you a summer sweater,’ she promised me. My father lay silently smoking a cigar, the book on his lap closed.

In the garden shed I had found a tennis racket and a ball and began practising against the wall. The ball kept flying over it, which meant I had to open the garden gate and go look for it in the street. Sometimes the ball ended up behind the fence. Between our garden and our neighbours’ there was a narrow ditch with a fence on either side. You could stand almost upright in it without being seen. While I was searching for the ball, my father came over to take a look.

‘That’d be a nice hiding place,’ he said.

He climbed over the fence and we crouched behind a tree that belonged to neither us nor the neighbours. Our feet sank into the soft soil that smelled of rotting leaves. While we sat there, hidden by the semidarkness, my father gave a short whistle.

‘Hello!’ he then called out.

‘Where are you?’ asked my mother. Apparently, she had dozed off.

‘Can you see us?’ my father called out.

‘No,’ my mother answered, ‘where are you?’

‘Here,’ said my father, ‘behind the fence. Look closely.’

We peeked through a crack and saw my mother coming nearer.

‘I still can’t see you,’ she said.

‘Good,’ said my father. He straightened up and jumped nimbly over the fence.

‘Stay where you are,’ he said to me, then motioned to my mother to try and climb over it too.

‘Why should I?’ she asked.

‘Just try it,’ he said.

My mother had to do it again several times before my father felt that she was doing it smoothly. Then he climbed over the fence himself and the three of us crouched in the ditch.

‘No one would think to look for us here,’ he said. ‘Let’s stay here for a while to see how long we can remain in this position.’

But I discovered my ball among the leaves. ‘I’m going to practise my backhand,’ I exclaimed and jumped into the garden.

My father and mother remained in the ditch.

‘Can you see us?’ yelled my father.

‘No,’ I yelled back, ‘I can’t see a thing.’ They then reappeared. My mother dusted herself off.

‘I’m absolutely filthy,’ she said.

‘Tomorrow I’ll hollow it out a little more and rake away the leaves so we can sit more comfortably,’ said my father.

That evening, after dinner, I stood by the window and looked outside. There wasn’t a soul in the street. It was so quiet that you could hear the birds singing.

‘Please move away from the window,’ said my mother.

‘There’s nothing to see,’ I said. Still, I turned around and sat down. My mother poured tea, moving quietly between my father and me and the tea table.

‘Perhaps it would be better if we didn’t drink tea,’ said my father. ‘Then, if they do come, we can go more quickly into the garden.’