‘Exactly.’ Granddad nods. ‘The other side of the Berlin Wall. They took me to see my father; he was even thinner and had so many bruises I could not see the white of his skin. My father said I should not believe the commander’s promises, that no matter what I did, he would be tortured in prison for ever. Then my father made me promise him one thing – that when I was on the other side of the Wall, in West Berlin, if I got the chance to escape I should run away and join my sister. I told him I didn’t want to, but he said my mother and I would never be released either, that we might go to prison too. I should try to escape to the West now, because I might never get the opportunity again.’

‘But you’d have to leave your parents behind?’

‘Yes.’ Granddad swallows hard and reaches into the box. He shows me a picture of a man in an army uniform with lots of medals. It looks like he’s in a hotel foyer surrounded by other men in uniforms and dark coats. Just like in Pawn Sacrifice.

‘This is the hotel where we played. To get there we had to drive through Checkpoint Charlie. It was a border point where the East of Berlin met the West. I sat in the car that followed the commander. There were guards with guns up on the watchtowers, and even more standing on the border, in front of the Wall with the barbed wire on top. We stopped at a barrier where the guards checked our papers. For a moment I thought we weren’t going to be let through, but then the barrier lifted and we drove on. The Wall was now behind us and at that moment I felt so sad because I realized that if I did as my father asked, I may not see him or my mother again . . . So this . . .’ Granddad’s finger shakes as he points at the picture. ‘This is the commander . . . And this . . . this is me.’

I peer at the crowd in the background and see Granddad as a boy looking back at me. He looks so nervous and lost in the crowd.