He sat for a long time without moving. His eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply. Just as I thought he’d fallen asleep, he started speaking again.

‘I’d like to ask something of you,’ he said. ‘It’s just a little thing. I brought you the chicken. There are eggs and turnips in the house. Take as many as you can carry. Take all of them.’

‘What do you want?’ I asked.

‘I want you to leave me alone for a moment with your daughter. Just go out of the shed. Nothing will happen. You can trust me. You see, I think it’s a gift. You found your way to me. And her presence is the gift I’ve waited for for so long.’ The farmer grabbed my arm. ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘I’m not a bad man. Please, trust me.’

What can I say? We were hungry. And there was something so sad about him. I wasn’t afraid that he might do something bad. And so I laid Lotte’s head on the straw, covered her, and went outside.

The night was cold and still. The fields lay in the moonlight, and I could make out the line of carts in the distance, stretching beyond the horizon. The smell of burnt wood hung in the air. I thought I would boil the chicken and the turnips. The eggs I planned to wrap in my woollen scarf and keep. Perhaps I would pack them in straw. That would protect them from the sun.

Not a sound came from the shed. I’d left the door ajar, but I couldn’t hear a thing. I thought of what the farmer had said: her presence is a gift. Another thought came to me, and for a few seconds I closed my eyes. I seemed to hear my heart beating. It was beating so loudly I thought surely it could be heard all around.

I crept back to the shed and peered through the gap in the door. It took a while for my eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. I saw the farmer’s shapeless bulk. He was kneeling, motionless, beside Lotte in the straw. His hands lay open on his knees. He was leaning over her, gazing into her face. I barely had time to think how peaceful it looked, this image of the kneeling man and the sleeping child, when I saw that Lotte’s eyes were open. In the shadow of his body I hadn’t seen her face straight away. But now I saw that she was staring at the man, and I saw the horror in her eyes.

I pushed open the door and screamed. I pummelled his back with my fists, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him slump aside with a faint whimper as I grabbed Lotte and ran with her into the open. I lifted her up to my chest and only stopped running when we got to the road, where I crawled under a cart and covered her with my body as best I could.