‘I don’t think many Germans do,’ Hester said sagely, thinking about her own parents, who most certainly didn’t like new experiences and for whom present-day Germany was becoming very difficult.

She said tentatively, broaching the subject she’d wanted to broach ever since Nancy’s arrival, ‘My father has hardly any work now. All his patients are going elsewhere.’

Nancy looked disbelieving. ‘I think you must have got that wrong, Hester. Your father’s a children’s doctor. Children’s doctors always have work, because people are always having babies.’

‘Well, he does still have some patients, because Jewish mothers still bring their children to him, but he’s lost nearly all his others. It’s not very easy to be a Jew in Berlin. There’s too much anti-Jewish feeling. People don’t like us any more.’

The swinging of the hammock was beginning to make Nancy feel a little queasy and she jumped down from it, sitting on a garden chair instead. The table with the jug of lemonade was near by and she refilled her glass.

‘If you’re talking about horrid brown-shirted stormtroopers, we ran into a group of them at the zoo yesterday and Aunt Zelda said they were rabble and that we weren’t to take any notice of them—so you mustn’t take any notice of them either.’

Hester chewed the corner of her lip. It was all right for Nancy to be so off-hand about stormtroopers. She didn’t live in Berlin, she only visited it and, even more to the point, she wasn’t Jewish. She was, though, usually quite knowledgeable about things, or liked to think she was.

‘Did your aunt tell you that Jews now get blamed for everything?’ she said, persisting even though the subject was distressing her. ‘Even the war is said to have been our fault.’

‘Well, there you are, then! My aunt was right. Taking any notice of such a statement is downright ridiculous and you shouldn’t do so.’

‘But there are fights in the streets, Nancy. Jews are being beaten up just for being Jews.’ Hester couldn’t believe that Nancy was so unaware of what was happening.

Nancy couldn’t believe it either. She drained her glass of lemonade, determining to speak to her father about the Sturmabteilung, which was the correct name for the brown-shirted stormtroopers. And if the facts were as Hester said they were, she would speak to Aunt Zelda and, if necessary, disabuse her of her presently held opinion that they were people it was possible to ignore.

Zelda stared at Josef in blank disbelief. ‘Lotti being friends with Hester Dresner can have no possible repercussions on a family like ours. How dare Heinrich Kirchner make such a suggestion to you? And no, I will not ask Lotti to cease seeing her.’

They were alone in the dining room, Berthold having taking his children and theirs to a Russian restaurant for a treat. For once, Josef didn’t pay her any heed. ‘Kirchner isn’t a fool, Zelda,’ he said tightly. ‘Lotti’s friendship with a Jewish girl may seem trivial, but it’s been noted. If it hadn’t been, Kirchner wouldn’t have mentioned it. When the next elections are called the National Socialists are going to gain a huge majority. You may think they are a negligible party. Men like Kirchner don’t. And as Hitler’s star rises, so will the House of Remer’s—if we play our cards right. And if playing our cards right means my becoming a party member and ensuring that my family have no social relations with Jews, or any other racial riff-raff or miscegenates, then so be it.’