You can’t stop me. I’ll find a way.

I climb the stairs and get ready for bed.

My limbs ache with weariness as I lie down, but sleep won’t come. I hear Karl arrive home and Mutti’s muffled voice from the hallway.

‘My darling! How proud we are… The very best of boys… Will go far in this life, I know it.’

Karl’s bedroom door bangs shut and I hear Mutti’s soft step on her way to bed. A heaviness settles over the house, but my bed becomes an unbearable mess of twisted sheets and blankets. I wrap a warm shawl around my shoulders and creep into my window seat, gazing out over the dark street.

All is quiet and still, the limbs of the cherry tree etched motionless against the night sky. A few wispy clouds scud in front of the moon and, soothed, I lean back against the wooden shutters and turn to peer through the dark at Hitler’s portrait above my mantelpiece. Mutti’s mutterings about enemies just make me afraid but He gives me courage. Whether I join the Hitlerjugend or not, I’m certain I have a part to play in this great new Reich. He doesn’t mind that I’m a girl, and nobody, not Mutti, not Vati, not Karl, can stop me.

A little niggle eats away at the back of my mind. Until now I’d been sure my destiny was to become a doctor. But what if Karl is right? I think back to the ceremony, to the moment I met the Führer’s eyes and he spoke his words, those incredible words directly to me. And then I know it. I know what I must do.

I run to my bookcase and retrieve the journal Karl gave me so long ago, and in the moonlight, I write:

My Hitler, I devote my life to you. Make your plan for me clear, because from now on, everything I do, it is for you and you alone. I will make you proud that I’m your child. Oh great, great Führer…

*

I wake up with a start, my legs curled and stiff beneath me. The shawl has dropped from my shoulders and cold seeps into my bones. The soft purr of an engine rises from the street below. I look out my window. Vati!

He climbs out of the car and I raise my hand to bang on the window, but pause, knowing he’ll be angry I’m not asleep.

Vati walks around to the other side of the car and opens the door. Another figure climbs out, a woman, her face obscured by her hat. They stroll together along the pavement and stop just below the street lamp. Vati turns to face the woman. Slowly he places his arms around her waist and draws her into an embrace. She tilts her face up and, in the circular glow cast by the lamp, I clearly see Hilda Müller’s pale, round face. She closes her eyes and opens her mouth, a thick, red circle of lips. Then Vati, my Vati, bends down and kisses that horrible mouth. A long, slow kiss.