The thought of Walter warming me up makes me giggle and I no longer care about being soaked to the skin. What is it about him that brings this lightness; this frivolity; this downright recklessness to my spirit? It’s a side of me I never knew existed.

We take the path by the river. Around us, the trees and fields are distilled through a glistening, rain-wet filter as the morning light grows stronger. Everything appears more beautiful than before. I curb the urge to break into song.

We reach the barn and Walter pushes open the door. I hesitate in the entrance – there’s a musty, damp smell in the air and it’s gloomy inside. I make out some bales of old hay in one corner and piles of rusting farm machinery in front.

‘It’s fine, Hetty. I’m not going to – to take advantage, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ Walter says softly. ‘I mean, we don’t have to go in. I just thought it’d be nice to be out of the rain.’

‘Oh!’ I look down at my shoes, mortified that he should think I might think… ‘I trust you.’

‘Good.’

I follow him inside. Take advantage. Is that what it’s called. But what if I want it too? Are those images of the two of us that play in my head normal? I’m not supposed to want it. Not the way a man does.

Walter climbs up on the hay bales and spreads out his coat. He leans down with a grin and offers me a hand, helping me up next to him. Kuschi whines at us from below.

‘Oh, come on, you too, dog.’ Walter pats the hay next to him and in three bounds, Kuschi is up and nestling himself next to Walter. I sidle closer on the other side and Walter slips his arm around my waist, pulling me in tight. ‘Relax.’ I feel him smile. ‘Are you warm enough?’

‘Yes.’ I rest my head on his shoulder.

After a moment’s pause, he says, ‘I never thought sitting on mouldy old hay, in a falling-down barn, damp from the rain, could feel like a piece of heaven. But it does. Anywhere with you feels like that.’

I laugh. ‘Don’t tease!’

‘It’s true. I can forget who I really am.’

‘What do you mean?’

The air stills. We breathe. In, out, in, out, in harmony with each other.

‘I don’t know where to start,’ he says.

I reach for his hand. ‘Start from the beginning.’

‘I miss our flat,’ he says. ‘I miss home.’

I remember the first time I went to Walter’s flat, not long after the Almost Drowning. Coming from our rundown apartment, where the stench from the outside toilet was so bad you could smell it from the street, Walter’s flat had seemed like a palace. Behind the smart, white façade was an elegance beyond my then imagination. As a treasured only child, Walter had always been destined for the Gymnasium. He’d befriended Karl because the two had been the brightest in the class at Volksschule. Had Vati not done so well at the newspaper, enabling him to afford the Gymnasium fees, their friendship might have ended there.