The February fogs gave way at last to the winds of March. Lena could see the days pass on the calendar at school and worked out that the twelfth would be a Wednesday. It didn’t matter how often she told herself that her father might not come because by now she was expecting him. Every strange figure who crossed the schoolyard could be him. Was he that tall? She couldn’t remember. Did he walk with a limp like that man? She didn’t think so. But one thing she did know. Stefan would come.

At midday she was too excited to eat the soup, though she filled her pockets with nuts as usual because Carina liked to roast them in the evening.

‘Look. The Squirrel’s taking extra nuts,’ said Emma.

‘Perhaps her mother’s expecting a caller,’ said Lukas.

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Lena, ‘my father’s coming. It’s my birthday, you see.’

‘I didn’t think you had a father,’ Lukas said.

‘Of course I do! He lives in Trieste. But he’ll be there when I get home.’

Lukas and Emma were silenced.

When she left school after lessons, she walked calmly, imagining what she would say to the newly arrived Stefan, who would probably be casting round the room, looking for somewhere to put down his suitcase. She’d have to ask him about his journey, but in truth she was more interested in what present he might have brought her. She’d liked the model boat, and it still sat above the fireplace; but what she wanted most of all was a doll, a creature that, unlike the animals in her book, was three-dimensional. Stefan would have understood that, and Trieste, because it was so big, was sure to have toy shops.

Lena climbed the steps outside their building, the muscles of her freckled legs tensing and sliding below the hem of her cotton dress. She pushed back her uncombed hair as she let herself in, smiling.

There was no one there. The kitchen-cum-scullery in the corner of the room had a couple of dirty plates, but she recognised them as the ones from which she and Carina had eaten the night before. Her mother’s bed was unmade and the low divan held only the imprint of her own body. She checked the washroom behind the curtain before going onto the wooden balcony and looking over the wharf towards the bend in the river, wondering if Stefan might have surprised them in choosing to come by water.

No. But it was still all right, she thought. Her father’s train was late and her mother had gone to meet him. Carina had said nothing of this because she wanted to surprise her. He was going to come.

Lena sat on the balcony for two hours, watching a boat unload. Its cargo was wheeled down a gangplank in barrows, then carried off through the double doors of the warehouse. Did the men who worked in the wharf have parents, she wondered. That young man, there, the one she liked with the dark blue shirt and the cap pushed back on his head, the one who sometimes whistled, did he have a father and mother or was he now too old for parents? Was the young one related to the old one with curly grey hair and the cigarette, the one she imagined was the boss? It was fascinating in a way to watch and think.