‘I can’t go through with this, Erna! I can’t let them take my baby. They’ve planned it all!’ My voice rises as panic seizes me. There’s a vice-like grip around my throat and I can’t breathe. Black stars dance in front of my eyes. ‘They’re throwing it in an orphanage, a Jewish orphanage. And then what?’

‘But you always knew—’

‘I hoped, prayed, that Tomas would change his mind. It’s all he has to do. Let me keep my child. It solves everything, doesn’t it? I’m happy because I have my baby and it is safe because people will think it’s Tomas’s. He’s happy because he has me. Vati is happy because nobody can ever know the truth and his reputation is saved. Mutti is happy because she has a grandchild to love and care for…’

The speech exhausts me. I collapse into a chair, heaving air through my narrowed throat.

‘But Hetty, right from the beginning Tomas said he wouldn’t let you keep it.’ Her tone is gentle, but her words, the harsh truth, stab all the same. ‘To him, this child is abhorrent. It would be like welcoming the enemy into his own home.’

‘You’re defending him!’ I choke. ‘How can you say such—’

‘No! I’m not defending him, never! But you have to be realistic. From his perspective there is no benefit in him keeping this baby. It’s far better for him to have it out of the way. He’s never going to let you keep it, Hetty.’

‘You’re right.’ I watch Erna pace the room, deep in thought. ‘Of course you are. I’ve been so stupid – so soft and pathetic. I’ve made it all too easy.’ I sit up straight. ‘I’ll refuse to marry Tomas unless he lets me keep the baby. I’ll threaten to go to the press. Expose Vati and his affair and his worthless daughter who went with a Jew!’

Erna looks appalled. ‘You can’t do that. You know what would happen to you then.’

‘What?’ I challenge, but I don’t need to ask. We both know I’d end up in a camp; Vati, for his part in the cover-up, would likely be stripped of his position, his house, his beloved newspaper.

‘Your child wouldn’t survive, Hetty,’ Erna says, her face grim. ‘Truth is, they would take it to a room and smother it. What you’re proposing isn’t an option.’

‘What has this nation come to? That they would take babies and smother them…’ My anger has dissolved, replaced by an overwhelming weakness, the feeling of hopelessness.

Erna is nodding, tears in her eyes. ‘They would, Hetty. I’m so sorry, but they would.’ She comes to me then, looks into my eyes and says, ‘You’ve no choice but to go along with their plan, for now. I’ll – I’ll try to think of something. I promise.’

20 May 1939

My wedding day. The dress, pale yellow, is laid out on the chair next to my bed. It’s all folds and layers. Mutti cleverly designed it to distract the eye from my bump. It doesn’t feel real, somehow, this day, this marriage. How do I feel, I hear you ask? Well, my darling, I suppose I’m resigned to it. It’s not the day I imagined. That fairy tale of white sequins and handsome prince with the happy-ever-after is not for me. I think about you and wonder: should I not be jealous, or angry, that you’ve got away from all this? No. Not a scrap of it. I’m glad you have escaped. That I helped to save your life. Somehow, that thought makes this day bearable. And now I just have to do the same for our baby. So for the present, I go along with this grotesque plan and hope for a miracle.