‘Could what?’

‘Run away together.’

He laughs.

‘Where would we go?’

‘Paris, or New York. Switzerland. It wouldn’t really matter, would it, if we could be somewhere together? Properly together.’

‘We could check into swish hotels.’

‘Or a cosy guest house.’

‘Or rent a chic apartment on the Champs-Élysées.’

‘I would fetch you breakfast in bed and then go make my fortune writing love poems.’ We laugh at that idea.

‘We’d have to take Kuschi,’ I say after a pause. ‘I couldn’t leave without him.’

‘Sure – why not? Do you suppose he speaks French?’

I dig him in the ribs and he wraps his arms tight around me.

‘If we were to run away together, Hetty Heinrich, I should never, ever let you go. Not for a single minute.’

*

We part at the bridge and only then do I glance at my watch. It’s almost ten already – damn! I run with Kuschi all the way back to Fritzschestrasse. Gasping for breath, I slow down when I’ve rounded the corner past Walter’s old flat and only then do I notice the figure leaning against the railings beneath the branches of the cherry tree, all gangly arms and legs. Tomas. What’s he doing here?

His face lights up when he sees me. ‘Ah! There you are. I was hoping to catch you before you went out. I should like to walk with you today – if you would like to, that is.’ His Adam’s apple rises and falls visibly through the skin of his throat as he swallows.

‘It’ll have to be another time – I’ve already walked this morning.’

‘You’re flushed.’ He peers closely at my face.

‘I’ve been running,’ I reply quickly. ‘I’m late, and I’ll be in trouble if I don’t go in now.’

‘Or, we could just talk? We don’t have to walk – we could go to a café or—’

‘Another time, Tomas. Today just isn’t convenient. Next week, perhaps?’

I don’t give him time to answer as I pull Kuschi through the gate and up the steps, leaving him standing on the pavement, watching me as I close the front door.

*

There are two sides, or more perhaps, to every thought. Every action. We only ever want to see one. But you alone, Walter, you make me see there can be another. Or another. Or another. You make me see the world is so different to what I thought it was. To what I have always been taught it is. I know you were only joking when you talked of running away, but I can’t help but think of it. You asked me once to imagine life in a free country where I could be anything I want to be. I can picture so vividly being in some foreign city. I imagine the streets, the houses, the people and the way they might behave. But most of all I imagine living with you, darling Walter. It is a place where nobody knows or even cares that you are a Jew. They don’t care if we walk hand in hand in the street or sit at the same table or watch the same films or dance together, shocking and free. Would that really be so wrong? And I can’t help myself, but I imagine living in sin with you, doing all the things lovers do together. The idea is both exhilarating and terrifying. But I know it will never happen, so instead I write it here, in my journal where nobody but I can see.