‘I’m sorry to hear that. I never got the chance to thank you.’

‘There’s no need.’

A sound in the lane; bicycle wheels. I clutch the leash tighter. It passes by.

‘No, Hetty, it was brave, to run out of school like that. To say those words to Freda and me. Especially after Karl cut me off. It meant…’ He takes a long breath. ‘So very much.’

I shrug. I was just a child. I had no concept of what I was doing, at the time. I didn’t want Walter to be a Jew. But he is.

‘I mean,’ Walter is saying, ‘especially coming from your family. It must be hard. To think differently.’ He looks at me and I meet his gaze. That flipping sensation again. Electricity pumps through my veins. ‘You do still,’ he says quietly, ‘think differently?’

His eyes pull me in and I’m nodding.

Herta Heinrich. Do not forget who you are. Those who serve Adolf Hitler serve Germany. Those who serve Germany, serve God.

I look away. My hands tremble.

‘What did happen to you?’ I ask out of curiosity. ‘I never saw you again. Or Freda.’

Walter sighs and picks at some grass, letting it fall to the ground through his fingers. ‘We had to move. Someone daubed Out with the Jews over our front door and the landlord said we had to go – didn’t want to risk his windows being smashed in. Besides, we couldn’t afford the rent when he put it up. Business isn’t exactly booming for my father.’

‘A lawyer, isn’t he?’ I ask, remembering. It was only Walter, his mother and father. I met him once. He was small and thin, compared to Vati, at least. Quietly spoken. Bookish. He’d been reading the day I met him. What a useless occupation, I remember Vati commenting, although now I wonder if that was in relation to the reading, or the lawyering. I recall feeling sorry for Walter. No siblings and quiet parents – no wonder he spent so much time with Karl and me.

‘He was. Banned in thirty-three. Since then he has worked in my Uncle Josef’s fur trading company on the Brühl. I work there too, in the warehouse. Not really what I want to do, but there’s no choice. It’s a struggle – nobody wants to buy or sell from a Jew and the banks won’t lend to us. We still have the remnants of an export business, but it’s hard going.’

‘Where did you go to school, after the Gymnasium? What about university?’

The questions fall out.

‘Me?’ he laughs and shakes his head. ‘There’s no opportunity for someone like me, Hetty. I went to the Jewish school – the Ephraim Carlebach School. I’ve left now but Freda’s still there. As a Jew, I wasn’t permitted to take the Abitur, so I’ve no qualifications. We live in my grandmother’s house on Hindenburgstrasse, together with Josef, his wife and three children. It’s a large house and luckily my grandmother owns it, so we can live rent-free. It saves the cost of three homes.’