‘Be quiet. Now.’ Beyond her, sitting at the table in the kitchen, were five Ivans. Her mother grabbed her by the collar, pulled her into the sitting room and slammed the door behind her.

‘Button yourself up.’ Her voice snapped the order. ‘And behave.’ Bette was trying not to cry, her mouth spluttering. Her mother had never hit her. Never. Ever.

‘So what was so urgent,’ her mother hissed, ‘that you had to yell it out to everyone?’

Bette breathed hard before she spoke.

‘Otto, Mutti,’ she said. ‘Otto’s dead. He’s lying there. On the street.’

Her mother’s eyes grew wide. She nodded, bit her lip. Her eyes softened. ‘All right,’ she said, glancing at the door. Then she added, ‘The chamber pot? Where’s the chamber pot?’

Bette looked at her hands, at the floor. ‘I left it.’ She began to cry.

‘You left it?’ Her mother was screaming. ‘How could you? Find it. Now.’

There was a wildness in her mother’s face that Bette had never seen before, fury, fear. She darted past her mother, out of the apartment, down the broken stairs, through the vestibule and onto the street. The chamber pot had gone. Of course it had. Everything was stolen now. Bette looked down the road. Otto’s body was still there, but the tea towel had been taken. A pigeon with a missing tail feather strutted beside his body. She ran up the street in the opposite direction. Whoever had taken the chamber pot couldn’t be far away. Please, she thought, please let me find it. Her mother’s moods were bad enough already. She said it was her nerves. Her nerves were playing up so they were all treading on eggshells. Everyone’s nerves were raw.

It wasn’t her fault she’d lost it. It was only a stupid chamber pot. Hardly more important than Otto. They’d have to use a bucket. So what? She hated war. She hated the Ivans who crowded into their kitchen, their arms laced with looted watches. She hated that there was no water, no light, no food. Nothing. That she wore Otto’s clothes and had her hair cut like a boy. The Führer said they were winning, but the last soldiers she’d seen didn’t look like heroes. They didn’t even look like men.

Old Herr Baumann was sitting at the table when she came back. She could see him facing her as she opened the front doors.

‘Bettelein?’ her mother said, her back to the hall. ‘Is that you?’

Bette’s eyes filled with tears and she stood still.

‘I’m sorry, Mutti,’ she called from the hallway. ‘The pot had gone and I couldn’t find it. I looked and looked and—’

‘Come in,’ her mother said. ‘Come closer.’