“I’ve been fired,” she said.

Grandma Maud put down the newspaper.

“That’s crazy!” Walli said. “The boys in your school say you’re their best teacher!”

“I know.”

“Why did they sack you?”

“I think it was Hans’s revenge.”

Walli recalled Hans’s reaction when he had seen his model smashed, thousands of little matchsticks scattered across the wet pavement. “You’ll regret this,” Hans had yelled, looking up through the rain. Walli had regarded that as bluster, but a moment’s thought would have told him that an agent of the secret police had the power to carry out such a threat. “You and your family,” Hans had screamed, and Walli was included in the curse. He shivered.

Grandma Maud said: “Aren’t they desperate for teachers?”

“Bernd Held is frantic,” Rebecca said. “But he was given orders from above.”

Lili said: “What will you do?”

“Get another job. It shouldn’t be difficult. Bernd has given me a glowing reference. And every school in East Germany is short of teachers, because so many have moved to the West.”

“You should move west,” said Lili.

“We should all move west,” said Walli.

“Mother won’t, you know that,” said Rebecca. “She says we must solve our problems, not run away from them.”

Walli’s father came in, dressed in a dark-blue suit with a waistcoat, old-fashioned but elegant. Grandma Maud said: “Good evening, Werner, dear. Rebecca needs a drink. She’s been fired.” Grandma often suggested that someone needed a drink. Then she would have one, too.

“I know about Rebecca,” Father said shortly. “I’ve talked to her.”

He was in a bad mood: he had to be, to speak ungraciously to his mother-in-law, whom he loved and admired. Walli wondered what had happened to upset the old man.

He soon found out.

“Come into my study, Walli,” said Father. “I want a word.” He went through the double doors into the smaller drawing room, which he used as his home office. Walli followed him. Father sat behind the desk. Walli knew he was to remain standing. “We had a conversation a month ago about smoking,” Father said.

Walli immediately felt guilty. He had started smoking to look older, but he had grown to like it, and now it was a habit.

“You promised to give it up,” his father said.

In Walli’s opinion it was none of his father’s business whether he smoked or not.

“Did you give it up?”

“Yes,” Walli lied.

“Don’t you know that it smells?”

“I suppose I do.”

“I could smell it on you as soon as I walked into the drawing room.”

Now Walli felt a fool. He had been caught out in a childish lie. This did not make him feel any more friendly toward his father.

“So I know you haven’t given it up.”

“Why did you ask me the question, then?” Walli hated the petulant note he heard in his own voice.

“I was hoping you’d tell the truth.”

“You were hoping to catch me out.”

“Believe that if you wish. I suppose you’ve got a pack in your pocket now.”