Instead, there came two further blows. The government reintroduced conscription. It applied in the first instance to men of 18 to 25, who all had to spend six months in military training; but should matters deteriorate, should there be war, and everyone thought Hitler intended this, Ulli knew he might find himself drafted. Then, with the announcement of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935, he understood – with horrified incredulity – that for a German to marry or even have intimate relations with a Jewish or partly Jewish woman had just been made a criminal offence. He had dithered first for reasons of caution or ‘honour’, but now, if he pursued her, it could cost him both his job and his liberty.

‘I’m living in some kind of nightmare, some dystopian film,’ he said silently to Wagner’s bust one blustery November morning.

‘You had better get used to it,’ came the answer within.

*

‘Ah, Ulli… ’ Willy Strecker blew in through the outer door, shaking dry an umbrella. ‘Just the man. Pop in for a minute, will you?’

Upstairs, Ulli hung up his coat, then followed Strecker into the biggest office, festooned with framed composer portraits and pages of historic autograph manuscripts.

Strecker settled behind the desk. ‘Ulli, we’d like you to go to Paris next month and make sure the music shops are still stocking our material. If they’re not, try to charm them. And while you’re there… it would be nice if you could drop in on a certain recording session and mention to the soloist the shadowy existence of a Schumann violin concerto.’

Ulli listened in incredulity. ‘The Schumann? But what about Jel – Miss d’Arányi?’

‘There’s no reason she wouldn’t play it. But this concerto is a bigger concern than one violinist. We need as much ammunition as we can amass. As our Führer might put it,’ he added, with a certain sarcasm, ‘we need to re-arm.’

‘Who is the violinist?’

Strecker lowered his voice. ‘Yehudi Menuhin.’

‘Menuhin?’ Ulli tried not to squawk with amazement. ‘But he is a… ’

‘He is, isn’t he?’ Strecker sat back in his chair, smiling, circling his thumbs around each other. ‘Ulli, there’s a world out there that doesn’t have race laws, and Yehudi lives in it.’

Ulli rose, clicked his heels softly together and went, dazed, to ask Fräulein Kammerling to book him a room at the Hôtel Lutetia, Paris.

*

‘Strawberry ice cream!’

Yehudi Menuhin’s face shimmered, pink, white and sweaty, in the candlelight. At the Brasserie Flo in Paris a waiter was carrying towards the party a tray on which stood an outsized glass piled with pink stuff, one extra-long silver spoon at the ready. As he set it in front of the young violinist, the entire gathering gave a cheer.