‘I know that, Howard. Christina also. But it is not for her, she says, to put for you the obstacles to seeing Ben. We had the trouble with him when you came for the visit in December. Then too Ben he was looking forward to a party, when all the children play games together and eat special sweetmeats. It was Hans who gave to him the talking-to that his father would be lonely without him at Christmas.’

Chanukah, actually, Howard silently replied. He had brought with him gifts for Ben from all the family. Also a menorah and some little coloured candles.

While Lisl gazed pensively into space Howard’s mind returned to the day he and Ben had spent together in Karin’s flat, and lonely described it, despite his having his son with him. Ben had played listlessly with the toys sent by his British relatives. In the light of what Howard now knew, ‘dutifully’ was probably a better word.

When evening came Howard had lit the candles in the menorah and had sung for his son the Chanukah songs Jewish kids everywhere sang with their parents on that Festival. Ben mustn’t be allowed to forget the traditions from which his mother had removed him, Howard had thought. How else was he to grow up feeling himself part of his father’s family?

What an empty exercise that was in the context of a child’s life, he realized now. And what I’ve become for Ben is the person who disrupts his. Who turns up once in a blue moon and sometimes stops him from doing what he was looking forward to. If we lived in the same town, or even in the same country, and he saw a lot of me… A futile thought.

‘I appreciate Christina’s husband giving Ben that talking-to,’ he said in the same stiff tone that was all he seemed capable of right now.

Lisl replied, ‘Did you perhaps suppose that Hans, he was poisoning against you Ben’s mind? That has never been the case. Hans will not allow Ben to address him as “Father”. He would not think it fair to you.’

A snippet of information that implied Ben wanted to and another stab for Howard, though again it was as if he were anaesthetized.

‘Hans is the good father to your son,’ Lisl declared.

He could be a paragon of all the virtues and Howard would resent him nonetheless. Hans, not Howard, would share the ups and downs of Ben’s childhood, the good times and the bad. Kicking a ball around the garden with him on summer evenings and helping him build a snowman in winter, like the one Ben mentioned to me the last time I came to Munich. Cheering him on, on his school sports day. And ticking him off when he required it.