Bette wrapped Mutti’s dressing gown round her when she went to sleep at night, buried her face in her mother’s smell, let it seep through her blood and course around her heart and lungs. The scent was fading now after so many weeks, but if she sniffed hard, Bette could catch its echo. Lieselotte had cut up a black slip and made armbands for them. Not that it mattered. Everyone in Berlin had lost someone and no one took notice anymore.

The day after Mutti died, Lieselotte had had to report to the Rathaus, along with Waltraud and Frau Weber and all the other women in their building. She said that the Russians were taking everything they could lay their hands on, not just watches. Machinery and cars, rail tracks and cables, engines and presses, and the women had to scavenge for the scraps left behind so they could be loaded up and carried away too. Convoys of trucks stalling under the weight, teetering with the height.

She came home that day, sat on the stool staring at the service door with the broken lock and the kitchen chair wedged against it. Her clothes were dusty, the seam of her shirt ripped, her eyes puffy and grey. The days were long but the evenings were balmy. The gas had even come on for an hour, and there was a rumour that the S-Bahn would be working. Perhaps the water, electricity.

‘Do we have food, Bettechen?’ she said. ‘Can you prepare it tonight? I’m exhausted.’

‘What were you doing?’ Bette said.

‘Rubble. We have to clear the rubble now.’ She leaned forward, her head in her hands. ‘Stood in a line passing stones from the front to the back. All. Day. Long.’ She looked up, half smiled. ‘Why is it always the women who have to pick up the pieces?’

She stretched her arm across the table, squeezed Bette’s hand. They looked at each other. Nothing said, nothing needed. Lieselotte’s fingers were chafed and raw and Bette wished they had some Vaseline to rub into them. The sound of an accordion wafted through the open window.

‘What’s that?’ Lieselotte said.

‘A squeeze box,’ Bette said, shrugging.

‘No, listen. What’s that?’

Tread upon tread, echoing through the well of the service staircase. First flight. Second. Lieselotte groaned.

‘Oh no,’ she said, shutting her eyes. ‘Please God, no. Not again.’

‘Hide,’ Bette said. ‘I’ll say you’re out.’

‘He’ll find me. Then he’ll be angry.’

Boris walked in through the service door. He was clean and freshly shaven, his uniform pressed, his cap brushed, its visor gleaming. His boots were blacked and shined, and he wore a pair of leather gloves. The sounds of the accordion drifted up through the opening. Vasily had been left outside. Boris removed his cap when he saw their armbands, held it against his chest, his head bowed.