Of course he wouldn’t have punished his son. How could a father discipline a child for the infraction of expressing a wish to share his food with the hungry? Wilhelm was now at an age when he noticed the desperate want of others around him. He saw it in the hollow faces of the children and their mothers on the playground where Hans took him to ride the carousel, and on the metro when he and his aide went to the cinema, on the occasions when he caught his morning tutor slip tea pastries into her pockets—“for my grandchildren,” she would explain with an embarrassed smile. For now, Wilhelm accepted that Herr Bauer and Herr Wagner were underfed because they were poor. The poverty that Germany had inflicted on the French people was a daily shame to Konrad, and he wished to keep Wilhelm ignorant from his people’s role in it as long as possible. He was proud of his son’s empathy for the misfortunate and of his desire to share with them the bounty that he enjoyed every day. He had inherited that quality from his mother.

Konrad had explained that he must not monopolize Herr Wagner’s and Herr Bauer’s time. Their Sundays were sacred to them, and as fond as they were of Wilhelm, they did not wish to spend their one unobligated day with the boy and old man with whom they had dined only yesterday and would see later in the week. His tutor and soccer partner were young men, handsome and single, and perhaps they wished to spend their Sunday in the company of a lady companion. Wilhelm understood that, no?

He did not. “But they are hungry,” he declared. “I know it. I hear their stomachs rumbling when we’re together. Food is more important than a girl!”

“Well then, the next time they come, you must ask Hans to serve them tea and sandwiches. Now let’s say no more about it,” Konrad ordered, sterner than he wished.

The main reason that he had refused his son’s request was that he did not want to include Herr Bauer in the invitation. Wilhelm thought of his tutor and soccer mate in pairs, and to exclude one would have resulted in another tantrum, but Konrad had become unsure of Herr Bauer.