‘What about the ones who don’t pass the tests?’

Mutti regards me vaguely. ‘Well, they… go to other places. Oh,’ she says, turning to me fully. ‘I nearly forgot, that boy called for you early this morning. I told him you usually walk the dog in the park on Sunday mornings, but that today you are unwell.’

‘Which boy,’ I ask, my breath catching. Walter called for me! He must have come here after I didn’t turn up. What a risk he took… surely, he wouldn’t have?

‘Oh, that old friend of yours from Volksschule, I forget his name. The unfortunate one,’ she adds, waving a hand.

‘Oh, you mean Tomas.’ My heart sinks. How stupid. Of course Walter wouldn’t call for me here.

‘That’s it. Tomas. What happened to him after… That awful business?’

‘You mean with his father. His uncle threw his mother and all seven children out. They live in Plagwitz now. Tomas had to leave school and get a job. At least he has an apprenticeship now.’

She tuts. ‘Well, he’s scrubbed up all right. Looks as though he manages a wash and a decent meal. Always so underfed, as I remember.’

Not Walter.

Just Tomas.

How wretchedly disappointing. Mutti’s pen begins to scratch the paper again. I wander over to the sofa and sink onto it, curling my legs beneath me.

‘Do you miss Karl terribly?’ I ask.

Mutti sighs. ‘If my right arm had been severed, I would miss it less,’ she says wistfully. ‘The house is so quiet and empty without him.’ She smiles at me. ‘Thank goodness I still have you.’

The unexpected intimacy is a warmth which spreads through me like soup on a cold day. It reminds me of how it used to be, before we moved to this house. Before she became so busy with her charity work; a satellite around planet Vati, and a distant presence to me.

‘Still,’ she says, ‘it is the passage of life. We prepare our sons to set them free into the world. That is the point of it all.’

‘And your daughters?’

‘Our daughters never really leave us,’ she laughs. ‘They may live in different houses, but they will always be around to share our grandchildren and take care of us when we are old.’

‘But what if I should want to work in another city? Or marry a man who lives far away, just like you did?’

‘That won’t happen. Besides, why would you want to?’ she asks, her forehead folding into a little frown.

‘I would like to travel the world. To do something more interesting and important than simply marry and have children.’

Mutti gives me a scathing look. ‘What can be more important for a woman than marrying and having children? Besides, you know Vati wants you to give up this notion of having a job. It isn’t appropriate for a girl like you to get a job, let alone travel the world.’

‘And is that what you want for me, Mutti? To marry young and give you lots of grandchildren?’