His name freezes in my throat and I shrink back against the shop window. Everything blurs. Sounds merge and fade. All I can see is Vati embracing the woman. She shifts slightly, and I spot what I missed a moment ago. A little girl, perhaps two or three years old. She is propped up on the woman’s hip, staring at me over her mother’s shoulder. She has enormous bright blue eyes and loose blonde curls, fine as silk thread, tumble about her angelic face.

Vati says something to the woman, but I don’t hear his words. He turns his attention to the little girl. She pulls her eyes from mine and reaches up towards him. He tenderly takes her in his arms.

How strange that Vati would want to hold a child. He’s never been interested in children. I can hardly remember receiving so much as a hug from him.

The girl wraps her fat little arms around his neck and whispers something in his ear, giggling. Such an intimate thing for a child to do. It’s as if she knows him.

All at once, in a terrible moment of realisation, I understand. I slap a hand over my mouth to stop myself from crying out.

The woman wears a tight black skirt and, although I can’t see her face, in that instant I know who she is. The fat behind gives it away.

It never crossed my mind to wonder why Fräulein Müller had disappeared as suddenly as she arrived, replaced with an older, middle-aged secretary with glasses and a grey bun.

Fräulein Müller was pregnant with Vati’s child.

I gag. Swallow the vomit in my throat.

No, no, no!

I cannot bear to see any more. Jaw clenched, I turn away before either of them notice me and merge into the crowd streaming in the opposite direction.

People, stinking strangers, press their bodies against me. There is no air. They’re squeezing tighter and tighter and I’m suffocating. I elbow and push my way through, desperate to get out onto the street, and away, far away, as fast as possible. I stumble out of the crowd and into the path of cars in the road. Horns honk and vehicles veer around me. I dodge a horse, and a man on a bike swears at me. The buildings close in. All I can see is the little girl’s big eyes staring at me and the way she snuggled so comfortably into Vati’s arms. I can’t go home. How can I? Mutti will be sick with worry, and Vati angry that I’m not home for dinner, but I don’t care. I will not go home and look Vati in the eye, not after what I just saw.

Mutti!

Poor, poor Mutti.

Can she know?

Should I tell her?

I walk and walk without any idea where I’m going, or what I’m going to do. I pass through alleyways and streets, past churches, shops, schools and apartment blocks. Daylight fades and the lights of the city illuminate my path. Time loses all sense of meaning. The shadow of Vati’s contentment with that bundle of strange child in his arms hovers everywhere I look.