It was a statement that had sent time running down to nothing. It had stood still and then run backwards. She’d been twenty-six again, standing within the circle of Berthold’s arms on the station platform with Josephine already aboard the train, Hugo in her arms, and Paul and Max leaning out of the open train window. Max and Hugo had been too young to understand the nature of the parting that was taking place, but Paul had known and he had been crying.

She had been crying too, hating the war that was dividing their little family.

And now there was a terrible possibility that their much bigger family was about to be divided by war yet again. And if it was, it would be far more terrible for them than it had been in 1914, for Max and Hugo would, she knew, immediately volunteer for one of the armed services, as no doubt would Claus and Nicholas.

The thought of her children and Zelda’s children being on opposite sides in an armed conflict made her feel so physically ill that as she laid the rolled-out pastry over the top of the pie, her hands trembled.

Emily Elise didn’t notice. ‘Can I trim the edges, Mummy, and put the slits in the top?’ she asked eagerly. ‘And then can Heini and I take Tinker for a walk down by the woods? There’s lots of blackberry bushes down there and if we take the pail we collected the elderberries in, we’ll get enough blackberries to make both a pie and some jam.’

‘Yes, but don’t let Heini go too near the river. I know he can swim quite well now, but he still needs to have Daddy or Paul near by when he does so.’

As Emily Elise ran happily out of the room, Vicky crossed the red-tiled floor to the long window, its sill made gay with pots of late-flowering geraniums.

‘You’re taking a huge risk travelling as a family to Germany when war could be announced at any minute,’ Josephine said, rising from the rocking chair and taking the bowl of shelled peas across to the sink in order to rinse them.

This time, with no Emily Elise in earshot, Vicky said quietly, ‘I know, Josephine, but it matters very much to Ilse that we are all there and I feel the same as Hester—if war does break out it could be years before we are all together as a family again.’

She didn’t add, ‘If ever,’ but she thought it as, hands clasped tightly, she watched Emily Elise and Heini running away from the house in the direction of the woods, Tinker at their heels.

‘I’m agreeing to you taking Emily Elise only on certain conditions,’ Adam said grim-faced as he sat beside her on the sofa in the drawing room that evening. ‘The most important one is that you promise not to bring any Jewish life savings or jewellery out of the country with you on your return.’