‘Well. This is it,’ I tell Stanley. ‘I want you to have a good life. And I want you to know that I love you, and always will. I hope that somehow this awful prospect of war will go away, and that, very soon, I shall find a way to come for you. And I will come for you, my darling boy. I promise you that. I will come for you.’

Cuddling him close, I plant a kiss on his forehead and drag my eyes away to look out of the window. It is a glorious view. Higher than most of the surrounding buildings, I look eastward out over rooftops, trees and squares. The sun has not yet appeared over the horizon and the clouds, drifting away from the pool of yellow light are lit red, then pink; fading to deep purple and charcoal where the rays have not yet reached.

The light in the sky grows quickly, becoming ever more intense and changing the colour of the clouds as I watch. They become paler, pink and fluffy, then white where the light is strongest. Suddenly, the top of the sun appears, a brilliant curve of shimmering gold, its rays finally penetrating the very edges of darkness in the sky. It grows above the horizon with incredible speed until the whole sky is lit for a moment, like a pool of yellow fire.

The birth of a new day.

Epilogue

June 1994

My Dear Walter

I realise that this letter will come quite out of the blue, so I hope you are sitting down. It has taken me almost five years to trace your whereabouts. Well, and two years of thinking about it and not really knowing where to start, if I’m completely honest. It’s been a long story of false starts and dead ends, but I’m persistent, if nothing else, and with the aid of – can you believe it – a Jewish charity in America, I’ve found you at last.