He slowed his pace and smiled politely. ‘I also saw you. It is not unusual for the Jewish tourists who keep kosher to make use of the restaurant upstairs.’

‘We just dropped in to have a look at the place,’ she told him.

‘And what, if I may ask, was your impression?’

‘As Jewish community centres go, I found it somewhat posh,’ she answered with a laugh.

‘Posh?’

‘Well, let me put it to you this way,’ said Jake. ‘I’m from South Africa, though I now live in England. I also do a lot of travelling, and few of the centres I’ve seen could be called show-pieces.’

‘Perhaps,’ said the lad, ‘that is what, in addition to its functions, the Berlin centre is. A testament to a new beginning I wish that my parents had not made!’

‘You speak very good English,’ Marianne remarked while he simmered down.

An untoward warmth then lit his expression. ‘But it is Hebrew that I wish for my language, and before too long I hope never again to speak what is unfortunately my mother tongue. I have been accepted to study the Torah at a seminary in Israel and there I shall remain.’

They had paused on the corner before parting and Marianne noted the boy’s uncovered head. ‘In the centre you were wearing a yamulke—’

‘And you are wondering perhaps why now I am not? I could not be more orthodox. I am also forgetful. Today I was late to see my dentist and in the hurry I forgot to put on my hat—’

‘Please don’t bother explaining to us,’ Marianne said with a smile, ‘I ought not to have passed the remark I did.’

He went on nevertheless, his horn-rimmed glasses enhancing his earnest expression. ‘I am never without a yamulke in my pocket, but to walk in the streets of Berlin wearing a skull cap I could not bring myself to do.’

‘What do you suppose would happen to you if you did?’ Laura asked.

‘I am not afraid, please do not think that. In some districts it is not impossible that I might be abused, with words or fists, but it is not that.’ He paused as if carefully considering. ‘It is just that in Germany we do not draw attention to ourselves.’

He shook hands with them and departed.

‘I wouldn’t like to live with the implication of that,’ said Jake as they joined the throng enjoying the spring sunshine on Kurfürstendamm.

‘It could be all in his mind,’ said Laura.

‘Exactly,’ said Marianne, ‘but what we live with in our minds is liable to be damaging. And if that lad is an example of his generation of German Jews I’m sorry for the lot of them and not surprised he’s escaping to where he can be himself.’