A tiny figure stands on the riverbank, waving both arms above his head. He is urging me to come down and join him.

Walter.

The breeze tugs my hair and the sun is warm on my face. The tang of freedom is in the air and I’m giddy with it. I close my eyes and tip forward until I reach the point where I cannot change my mind. I begin to fall, slowly at first, then faster, faster; the air rushes and roars. I’m arching forwards, but something isn’t right. I open my eyes and Karl is there, in a glider, sailing towards me, blocking my way…

I wake with a start. Pushing myself upright, I peer at the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece, but it’s only five thirty-five. I flop back onto the pillow, the vividness of the dream still with me. It isn’t too late. I could stay here, and everything will be the same. Or I can go, and everything will be different.

Be a good girl, clean of mind and body. Don’t stray into the path of evil. Be meek. Act only for the welfare of others. That’s what He would tell me. I lie still and wait for His voice. Nothing. I prop up my pillows and recline against them, looking towards Hitler’s portrait over the mantelpiece. It’s fuzzy and unclear in the half-light seeping around the edges of the closed shutters. Still nothing.

My mind is blank. Empty. Quiet. Blissfully quiet. Could that be permission? Really, what harm can there be? It’s just a walk with an old friend. Nothing more.

*

I’m early, of course. Ridiculously so. What will Walter think? That I’m too eager? I hope my long skirt, high-buttoned blouse and shapeless jumper will convince him otherwise. God forbid that he should know what thoughts have really crossed my mind.

I throw a stick for Kuschi. He brings it back, drops it at my feet and whines until I throw it again. I hurl it into the river and he bounds in, swimming hard against the current to grab it before it floats away. He has no fear of water.

A sound on the road – a stone clipped by a shoe, scattering across tarmac.

It’s him. Striding up the lane with his hands in his pockets, hat pulled low over his forehead. He looks up and smiles.

A million butterflies flutter in my belly.

‘You came,’ he says.

‘So did you.’

He laughs, I laugh, and everything melts. My insides; the nippy air; the trees and the hedgerows; the road; the bridge. All soften and bleed together, warmed and muted, running like wet paint on a canvas.

‘Let’s walk,’ he says, and we fall into step on the path. We follow the river through a wood where the roofs of scattered houses can be glimpsed through a dense tangle of branches, marking the edge of town. From here the river flows out into wide, undulating farmland. With each step, we put distance between us and Leipzig, and I feel a rising, glorious sense of liberty.