‘Hey, come on! I’ve proved myself already in the HJ. You don’t rise to the rank of Oberscharführer by being a soft layabout.’

Vati nods his big head and leans back in his chair, wiping his greasy plate clean with a hunk of bread. He rings the little bell on the table.

‘True, but believe me, you’ve seen nothing of the world yet, boy. The Hitlerjugend is merely children playing. This will be for real. One day soon there is going to be a war. You will have to be harder than you believe possible. Total brutality is the only way to win. Anything less will fail. And such a failure is unthinkable.’ He takes a wooden toothpick from the pot in the centre of the table and pokes pieces of food from between his teeth.

Ingrid enters the room and we fall quiet again. She stacks the plates and leaves.

‘Well,’ says Mutti, breaking the silence once more with a false cheerfulness in her voice, ‘let’s not put the boy off before he has even started, eh?’

‘I’m not put off,’ Karl says, his eyes fixed on Vati. ‘I’m more of a man than you think me, Vati, and I will make you proud. You’ll see.’

Vati grunts and Karl’s shoulders slump a fraction.

‘I want to play my part too,’ I chip in. ‘Karl, do you remember how I dearly wished to be a doctor when I was younger?’ Karl nods and smiles. ‘Well, I was thinking, if there really is to be a war, then surely we’ll need as many doctors as possible, to treat the injured?’ Mutti, Vati and Karl all stare at me. ‘So,’ my voice falters but I push on, ‘perhaps I could study medicine abroad?’

Vati’s mouth tightens and Mutti raises her eyebrows. Nobody speaks.

‘It’s possible,’ I press on, ‘to do this in other countries and my grades are good—’

‘Don’t be preposterous, Herta,’ scoffs Mutti. ‘That’s absolutely out of the question.’

‘What Hetty means—’ Karl begins.

‘But why?’ I cut in, frustration and anger surging up, like an unstoppable wave. ‘I want to do something important.’

‘It is important,’ Vati’s voice is caustic, silencing the rest of us, ‘that you learn to be quiet and know your place. No daughter of mine will have a job, let alone travel abroad. We will find you a worthy husband, but first you need to curb your tongue, or no man will want you.’

‘But—’

‘Hetty!’ Mutti gives me a warning look.

The air in the room thickens and it’s hard to breathe. Perhaps I could run away with Walter. Out of this stifling house where Karl will no longer live and away from Vati, his Moral Crusade and his big, fat hands, squeezing the life out of me.

‘A toast!’ Vati says, lifting his glass of wine, blood red under the light of the chandelier. ‘To Karl, at the start of his career in the Luftwaffe.’

‘To Karl and the Luftwaffe,’ Mutti echoes, raising her glass too, and they both take a mouthful of wine, their eyes never leaving their son.