‘… science teaches us that inherited characteristics are more important than environmental influences…’ I slip off my soggy skirt and blouse. ‘… when we are no longer alive, our inheritance will live on in our children and children’s children. When we grasp this, we see that great river of blood flowing to us through the centuries, and that is in truth the German people. Each generation is a wave that rises and falls, replaced by the next one. As individuals, we are a droplet in this stream. Unlike the liberal-minded, we do not see ourselves as the centre of the world.’ I pull a clean blouse, pullover and skirt from my wardrobe and put them on. ‘… such understanding makes us modest. Unlike the liberal-minded who acts as though he has achieved all his accomplishments by himself, we know that everything we accomplish is not because of our own abilities, but due to our inheritance. We are the proud carriers and guardians of German blood…’

I click the radio off. I know what he will go on to say. That every race is different. Simply by educating the Negro, it can never turn him into the superior Nordic. As I walk back down the stairs, I can feel the pure, precious power of my good German blood, at least from Vati’s side, pulsing through my veins.

Bertha serves steaming bowls of goulash, each with a large, doughy bread dumpling. Just as we are finishing, Walter’s head, glistening and wet, appears at the door.

‘Ah,’ Bertha smiles at him. ‘Just in time for some pflaumenkuchen. Did you smell it? Come in, don’t dither on the doorstep,’ she chides, clearing our bowls away.

He sits next to Karl. I smooth my hair and straighten my back.

‘Have you written your history essay?’ Walter asks Karl.

‘No,’ he groans. ‘I’ll have to do it tonight. What was it again?’

‘To what extent can you draw a parallel between the symbolism of struggle and heroism in the medieval poem, “Nibelungenlied” with the current-day struggle of the German Volk?’ Walter takes a mouthful of plum cake. ‘This is delicious, Bertha.’

Bertha beams. I rest my head against the wall and imagine a time when Erna might be here too, and the four of us – Walter and Karl, Erna and I – would sit around gossiping about school, or this person and that, easy in each other’s company. I’m telling a story, and all three of them have their eyes fixed on me, nodding, listening and smiling at my amusing anecdote.

‘You coming then?’

‘Hmm?’

‘I said, are you coming to the treehouse with us?’ Walter’s looking at me expectantly. ‘I have Riesen caramel,’ he adds, shaking a paper bag at me.

I spring from my chair and follow the boys down the passageway, out of the back door and into the garden. The rain has stopped and I breathe in the rich smell of wet earth. I watch them climb up the narrow ladder and then, holding fast to the slippery rungs, I clamber up after them, pushing myself through the hole in the floor which straddles the trunk and the main fork of the tree. I roll over and swing my legs through. As I do, my skirt rucks right up to the top of my thighs. Quickly, I pull it down. But Walter isn’t looking.