‘It most certainly is.’ Excellence of any kind always deeply gratified Charles Wallace. ‘Tell me all about the ski championship, Claus. Where was it held? We have excellent skiing country in western America. Perhaps we can persuade your parents to allow you to visit me in New York and then together we can make a trip to Utah.’

Realizing that, thanks to his aunt, his grandfather had now abandoned the American history inquisition, Claus shot her a look of deep gratitude and then said, ‘It was held in southern Germany, at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Grandfather. All our year at school went and we slept in wooden huts and at night we had log fires and it was all very gemütlich and great fun.’

Charles flinched slightly at the lapse into German, but bearing in mind that Claus had called him ‘Grandfather’ and not ‘Opa’, as Lotti persistently and annoyingly did, he overlooked it.

Paul, as aware as Claus that pigs would fly before Josef and Zelda allowed him to visit Utah, listened in as Claus managed to steer the conversation in other directions, reflecting that everything his aunt had said about his half-brother was true. Claus was not only a natural athlete but highly intelligent, which was just as well as Josef had already made it perfectly clear that Claus was destined to one day be head of the House of Remer.

As soup was served Paul reflected how fortunate he was no such future had been marked out for him. He was a free agent and, thanks to his grandfather, one without money worries. He was also very close with his aunt, and his great-uncle regarded him as if he were his grandson, not his nephew. His relationship with Max and Hugo was like that of brothers.

With Claus, things were a little different. Claus had a stumbling block over their difference in nationality, mainly, Paul suspected, because it was a reminder to him that their mother—now totally German in every respect but her looks—was American by birth. It was something Claus obviously found very difficult to grasp; that he had an American grandfather was, Paul knew, a concept Claus found even harder to come to terms with.

He was doing all right now, though, talking quite freely to his grandfather about the youth movement he belonged to. ‘We go hiking and camping,’ he was saying to him, clearly enthused about both activities, ‘and we have a uniform and sing songs and—‘

‘A uniform?’ Charles Wallace interrupted in some concern. ‘What kind of uniform? And what kind of songs?’

Paul held his breath, knowing from his Easter visit to Berlin that Claus’s youth movement wore a paramilitary-style uniform and that many of the songs they sang were fiercely patriotic.

‘A uniform like a Boy Scout’s uniform.’

Paul could tell from Claus’s voice that he wasn’t trying to deceive their grandfather; the idea of their grandfather not approving of the youth movement he belonged to hadn’t entered his head. ‘You have Boy Scouts in America, don’t you, Grandfather?’ he continued innocently. ‘And the songs we sing are folk songs and—’