The children lunged at the rolls, shoving them in their mouths, sinews charged like feral dogs over a carcass, eyes wild and murderous. Bette knew that look, could have killed for food herself once, cut off another’s arm for the sake of a mouthful. There was a bowl of broth in front of her with chunks of fat and vegetables. Bette hadn’t seen real food for months, not hot food, not like this. She wrapped her arm around the bowl, shovelling the stew with her spoon, licking her lips as it dribbled out and down her chin, watching that the other children didn’t snatch at it. She wouldn’t share this. She mopped the sides with her roll, stuffing the bread in her mouth, Waltraud bla-bla-ing in her ear about better to die of hunger than let a soldier starve. Waltraud might have been one of the BDM leaders, but she had grown fat on it too. Who’d die for hunger? The Jungmädelbund was so long ago now. She’d liked the sports, mind, had been good at running, swift as a greyhound. She shut her eyes. She’d run enough today. She was very tired.

§

Most of the children couldn’t read, nor knew how to sit still, nor keep in order, but there was a blackboard on an easel, and chalk. Someone had drawn a crude picture of a head with zigzag lines around it, eyes wide, mouth open. Bette knew that fear, the kind that exploded, the thunder of terror. A small child got up from her desk and slipped her hand into Bette’s. Bette looked down at her and the child smiled. She’d lost her front teeth.

‘Bitte,’ she said, her voice light and breathy. ‘Are you my sister?’ Bette swallowed. She knew that neediness, too. Fräulein Schneider shooed the child away.

‘You mustn’t encourage them,’ she said. ‘They must forget. That’s the only way. Put it behind them, forge a new life.’ She looked at Bette. ‘That’s how we civilise them again.’ The child was no more than five or six. ‘We must all forget. Don’t talk about the past.’

Bette wondered what had made the Fräulein so harsh. Perhaps she’d been an orphan once too, for Bette could see how that would build a brittle wall from thorns and fear. Had these children been cherished once? How long had they lived unloved and alone, fending for themselves like wild creatures, attached to none but the pack and the instinct to live? Wolf children with cowed, snarling faces.

§