‘Please call me Vicky,’ Vicky said, shaking Miriam Schimmel’s hand and immediately realizing that here was a woman under immense stress. Though she smiled politely, everything about her was tight and drawn and, when her smile died, a corner of her mouth began twitching convulsively.

‘We’ve come to talk about arrangements,’ Hester said, not beating about the bush. ‘Documentation won’t be a problem. It’s the country of destination that will be difficult.’

‘But I thought America…?’ Mo Schimmel said, his anxiety palpable.

‘Game,’ Heini said, this time quite distinctly. He hugged Hester’s arm, trying to pull her from the room, his small eyes alight with good humour and mischief. ‘Game. Game.’

‘American quotas are very tight and near impossible if you have no relatives there, Mr Schimmel,’ Hester said, patting Heini’s hand and doing her best to stay put. ‘Even with an affidavit of support—and Vicky’s nephew, Paul, has taken out an affidavit of support for you—the waiting time would be too long when you have already been notified that Heini is scheduled to be sent to a special treatment centre.’

‘What is a special treatment centre?’ Vicky asked, looking from Mo to Hester.

Mo opened his mouth to answer, became aware that Heini was no longer intent on pulling Hester from the room to play a game but was instead now listening curiously, and said to his wife, ‘Take Heini to his room for some quiet time, Miriam. There are some sweeties in his dressing-table drawer.’

Still beaming from ear to ear and waving goodbye to them, Heini compliantly allowed his mother to shepherd him from the room.

Returning his attention to Vicky, Mo shrugged. ‘We don’t know. And we don’t know where it will be. It may not be in Berlin. It may be hundreds of miles away.’

‘But even if he has to go before you are given authorization to emigrate, he’ll be returned from the centre eventually and you can then leave the country as a family,’ Vicky said, trying to look on the positive side of things.

Miriam Schimmel re-entered the room and closed the door behind her. ‘Do you really think he will ever return?’ There was barely reined-in hysteria in her voice. ‘Do you really think if they take him away, we will ever see him again?’

Her husband tried to calm her by putting a hand on her arm, but she moved violently away from him. ‘Do you think this government are sending my Heini away because they care about him? Do you think men who have passed laws saying all mentally handicapped people have to be sterilized for the public good, have my son’s welfare at heart?’

She began wringing her hands together, tears streaking her face. ‘If he goes to a centre he will never come back! That is what will happen to him and to all the others who are deemed to be of no use.’ Her voice rose to a wail. ‘They will disappear! That is what will happen!’