She nods and taps my hand with her own.

There is a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ Mutti calls, sliding a final pin into the back of her hair and patting it.

Vera appears. ‘I have a letter for Fraülein Herta,’ she says, handing me an envelope. I recognise Tomas’s handwriting.

Dear Hetty,

I’ve not seen or heard from you since the night of the dance, but I’ve thought about you all the time. Day and night. I’d hoped you might write and soothe my nerves and let me know that I’m forgiven entirely for my mistake. I hoped you would come to see it as a compliment, because it demonstrates my passion towards you and the strength of my feelings, which are undented by your silence.

I went too quick for you and I shan’t make that mistake again. There is something wholesome and good and old-fashioned about waiting and I’ll wait, so you needn’t worry. So please say you will come for a walk with me on Sunday. You will be perfectly safe. Perhaps we could see a film together another day soon as well?

Yours devotedly,

Tomas

I fold the letter slowly and put it back in the envelope. I try to picture myself with Tomas, holding hands or kissing him, and my skin crawls.

‘Who is it from?’ Mutti asks, fixing her hat in place with a pearl-topped hat-pin.

‘Tomas.’

‘What does he want?’

‘To walk with me on Sunday. To take me to the cinema. Ultimately to become my sweetheart, which I don’t want.’

‘So, write to him and say no. Surely he knows you’re too good for him?’

I look at Mutti as she stares at herself in the mirror, hair perfectly arranged beneath her hat, her dress neat, an amber pendant hanging from a delicate chain around her slender neck, and in that moment, I realise fully the helplessness of us women. She, at the mercy of Vati, the sun in her universe, yet he loves and father’s children with another; I, forced to walk out with a boy because he has a hold over me through what he knows. Wissen ist macht. I shall never get away from it.

‘But Vati was your inferior, Mutti, and you married him.’

‘Don’t be silly! Look what he has achieved in life.’

‘He was just a poor farmworker’s son with no prospects.’

‘Not when I met him. He was already apprenticed at the newspaper, so it seems I chose well, in the end, doesn’t it?’

‘So, shouldn’t I give Tomas a chance? He’s an apprentice with ambitions. He’s going to join the Heer in September. Perhaps he will be more acceptable then.’

‘Herta…’

‘I shall tell him we are simply friends, Mutti. Don’t worry. I’ll make myself clear. Will it be all right for me to go?’

‘If you make your position absolutely clear, then yes. It can’t do any harm. You’ve known one another for a very long time.’ She stands and picks up her handbag.