Brandt I've been trying to remember a boy I used to know when I was growing up in LÜbeck. Strange lad. Always rather solemn and serious. Not much fun in his life. Never quite enough to eat. No money. No friends. No father. Not much of a mother, for that matter. Brought up by his grandparents . . .

Guillaume And this boy was called Herbert Frahm?

Brandt Herbert Frahm. The name's as odd as everything else about him . . . Then one day, when he was nineteen years old, he vanished off the face of the earth. He set out from LÜbeck to go to Dresden, and he never arrived. Well, this was 1933, and my celebrated predecessor with the little moustache had just taken office. People had a habit of vanishing then, in one way or another. Not a good time to be a member of a left-wing party, as Herbert Frahm was. Not a good time to be going to its annual conference. Only one bit of Herbert Frahm ever arrived in Dresden. His old student cap. But now it was perched on the head of a young man no one had ever seen or heard of before.

Guillaume Willy Brandt.

Brandt That's the strangest thing of all about Herbert Frahm. The fact that I was him, and he was me. What was it like, being him? I look back, and all that time has vanished behind a thick grey veil, like the old LÜbeck waterfront in the fog on a winter morning. What became of him, when Willy Brandt took over his body and his student cap? Sometimes I catch a glimpse of him. Out of the window of the train. In a waiting crowd. A solemn boy, glancing up at me with a speculative look in his eye. What does he make of me? But then he turns, and goes away into some other life where I can never follow . . . You had a father, Herr Guillaume?

Guillaume Café pianist.

Brandt An honourable vocation.

Guillaume He was also a Nazi. And when he came back at the end of the war and found my mother with another man he jumped out of the window. It was a high window.

Brandt Two fatherless boys, wandering the world looking for . . . what are we looking for?

Guillaume I don't know, Chief. Women?

Brandt Günter! I'm shocked!

Guillaume - 'Günter', though! 'Günter'!

Bauhaus Sorry, Chief . . .

Brandt What is it, Uli?

Bauhaus One of the journalists is getting a bit impatient. Says you promised to do an interview before we get to Kassel.

Brandt Günter and I are talking. Tell him I'll do it tomorrow.

Bauhaus Her.

Brandt Her? Oh, yes. Her. Well . . . I suppose we have to keep the press happy.

Guillaume I'll be just the other side of the wall, Chief, if you need me.

Brandt I think I can manage a press briefing on my own, thank you, Günter. So she's . . . ?