The situation didn’t improve once the war ended. Harry took over the role of chief baker once more, Herman and Kurt reopened the garage and rejuvenated an old car to do a taxi service, but nothing was the same. A silence built up around them. They struggled on for three years then, after the death of Mrs Krauss, the men decided they needed a new start. They put the businesses up for sale.

Oriwia saw her opportunity. She bought them out.

Herman and Kurt changed their names to Henry and Kevin Crowe, though their father remained Harry Krauss. His sons went to work for motor firms in Auckland until they were able to start their own workshop again. Harry worked in a restaurant kitchen, planning to save enough money to return to Germany. However, he never did go back to his homeland because he had New Zealand grandchildren by then and didn’t want to leave.

Dulcie changed her name by marrying a local farmer. The two met when the man and his fiancée came in and ordered a cake from her and asked her to do the catering for his first wedding. Dulcie was pleased to have the work and asked Oriwia to help her. But since the new wife didn’t take to mud, pigs and early mornings, the cake lasted longer than the marriage.

Oriwia had never worked so hard in all her life. With Paa, Taana, Dorothea and the help of the girls, she was still growing and selling vegetables. Now she had a bakery, a garage and a taxi business to run. Paa came and helped with the bakery and soon decided that he could be the taxi driver as well, even though he didn’t have a driver’s licence. He didn’t need one, he said, because he could drive very well. Oriwia thought it was probably true that his being without a licence wouldn’t cause problems for anyone. Paa was kind of untouchable.

In the early days, Harry’s sons had taken Aki’s cousin Lou as a trainee, but a year before he completed his apprenticeship Lou left to go to war. When he returned, he went back to the garage but didn’t last long. There was too much flak about how he had fought the Hun in the war and now he was their lackey in peacetime. He couldn’t cope with it and just disappeared one day without a word to anyone.

Oriwia went looking for Lou who, once she found him, took over the garage while she looked after the books for all parts of the business. She was happy with that for the time being.

‘Remember what Aki said,’ Oriwia asked, ‘about me coming to Wellington to meet him off his boat to tell him off about – ?’

‘Silly thing and good at starving?’

‘Yes. And that I had a present for Ela’s family?’

‘He didn’t know what.’