I laugh, because I don’t know if he is joking.

‘It’s lighter now.’ He looks around. ‘People will soon be passing by – let’s walk.’

We leave the bridge and take the path between the bank and the river. It’s narrow and we have to walk in single file for a short distance. When the path widens, he comes alongside me and takes my hand. Our step is in time, easy and natural, it’s as if we’ve been walking step by step together for a thousand years.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘about the other day. I don’t want to argue, and I hate that you think badly of me. It’s so hard to know what to think about… everything.’

‘I’m sorry too. I was angry. Things are hard and I took it out on you – and I shouldn’t have. It’s not your fault. And I could never think badly of you.’ We walk on a few more paces in silence. ‘Do you remember that day I fished you out of the lake when you couldn’t swim properly?’ he asks suddenly.

‘The day you saved my life, you mean. How could I possibly forget?’

‘You were quite small,’ he laughs.

‘You don’t forget almost dying, Walter, nor the person who rescued you.’

‘I remember it like yesterday. I relived it enough!’

‘What do you mean?’

He looks away, as if embarrassed.

‘I dreamed about it afterwards. Nightmares, really. That I didn’t save you. I kept diving down, looking for you, but you weren’t there. Or I did get hold of you, but you’d slip through my fingers and I’d watch you sinking down, staring up at me, fingers outstretched, but I just couldn’t get to you.’

‘Oh, Walter, that’s horrible! Why didn’t you say?’

He smiles. ‘It was silly really, because I did get to you. I suppose it shows just how much you meant to me, even then.’

I pass my arms around his waist and squeeze him tight.

‘And I thought you never even noticed I existed.’

There is a deep sense of peace in the air.

‘You were right, the other day,’ I sigh. A confession. ‘About Herr Bäcker. I mean, he shouldn’t have said the things he did, but it was right to keep quiet.’

He gives me a squeeze this time. ‘I was shocked when I thought you’d reported. But I shouldn’t have doubted you.’ He smiles. ‘I know you would never do such a terrible thing.’

Kuschi rushes off ahead, chasing rabbits in the woods, his black shape flashing between the trees. The shadow of Tomas’s father crashes to the ground.

You don’t know what I once did.

The trees begin to thin as we reach the edge of the fields. Walter’s face is illuminated as he walks through a patch of sunlight. His eyes are full of hope.

If only it could just be him and me in the world. Adam and Eve. Beginning afresh.

‘Do you really think we could?’ I ask on a whim.