‘Hetty?’ Concern, now, added to the anger in Mutti’s voice.

‘I need some water.’

‘Bertha – please.’ Mutti’s hands are on my knees. She crouches down and tries to look into my face, but I can’t meet her eyes. ‘I don’t understand,’ she says. ‘Why do you punish me like this? I’ve lost one child, I can’t lose you too.’ She grips me tight.

Bertha hands me a glass of water. I drink it in gulps. It’s cool and refreshing, a salve to the bitter burning in my throat. Then she hands me a warm, damp cloth to wipe the dirt off my face.

‘You may go,’ Mutti tells Bertha coldly. ‘I’ll deal with you in the morning. I can’t face it tonight.’

‘Yes, Frau Heinrich.’ Bertha sniffs and heads for the stairs.

‘What did she tell you?’ I ask when she’s out of earshot.

‘That she sent you out to borrow some ginger from Frau Weber across the street because we’d run low and you didn’t come back. She was frantic with worry, but she should never have sent you out. Just because Ingrid wasn’t here – how dare she use you as a maid!’

‘It isn’t true,’ I say quickly. ‘She’s trying to protect me. I lied to her. I pretended we’d run out. I begged her to let me go and she didn’t want me to, but I needed an excuse to leave the house. It’s not her fault, Mutti. It’s entirely mine.’

‘Why?’ She rocks back on her heels in shock. ‘Vati’s right, you have become a wild thing. What with Karl… I should have paid more attention.’

‘No, Mutti. It’s not you.’ I twist the cloth in my hands. ‘I hate being cooped up in this house. I want to join in the fight for Germany. It isn’t fair that the boys have all the fun.’

Mutti regards me with a look of disgust.

‘That’s it? That’s why you ran off? Getting Bertha into trouble because you want to fight like some stupid boy? Vati forbade you to leave the house. You went directly against his orders, Herta. What on earth has got into you?’ Her eyes are full of anger again. ‘Go and get properly cleaned up and then go to bed. When Vati returns, he will decide what to do about you and Bertha.’

I shut myself in the bathroom and scrub at the filth until my skin hurts. Once alone, the enormity of the evening’s events hit me like the full force of a wave. The death of that man and the violence and destruction around Leipzig… I’ve done nothing whatsoever to help Walter. In fact, I’ve probably made his situation worse. The desperation on the face of his mother and his young cousins. What if Vati finds out where I’ve been? As for poor Bertha, what is to become of her? Whatever it is, it will be my fault. Whatever I touch, turns sour. I laugh out loud. I used to think I was chosen for great things. That I was somehow better. How foolish. People, good people, like Bertha and Walter, have risked so much for me and, in return, with blundering foolishness, I let them down when they need me most.