Dora waited as the sun sank low. She watched the sky turn deep as the devil’s lapis and the jagged kaleidoscope on the floor retreated into shadow. Finally the door opened and a man came in, white coat, stethoscope. He pointed to the bed.

‘Lie down.’

He was rougher than the nurse.

‘Sit up.’ Clamped the stethoscope to her chest and back, pulled back her lips, studied her teeth, peered into her eyes. The nurse showed him the ledger and he studied it.

‘Aryan,’ he said. Nodded, left the room. ‘Sicherlich nicht jüdisch.’ Certainly not Jewish. ‘Proceed.’

‘Come,’ the nurse said. Dora followed her into a small room that led off the surgery. Dresses hung on rails, meticulously ordered by length, colour and, Dora guessed, size. The nurse pulled out a red one, a cocktail dress with flimsy straps and a fishtail skirt. She pointed to a sink underneath the window. ‘Wash. Then put this on.’

The dress was tight, and Dora had to step into it and pull it up. There was a row of buttons on the side, covered in the same slippery fabric as the dress. Dora’s fingers fumbled as she did them up.

‘They say strawberry blondes shouldn’t wear red,’ the nurse said. ‘I disagree.’ She spoke without a smile or warmth, although, Dora thought, it was such a womanly detail to share. Intimate, almost, after the cold intricacies of the medical examination.

‘Shoes.’ She pulled out a pair of high heels. ‘They should fit.’

They returned to the surgery. ‘A photograph.’ The nurse pulled down a screen, turned on the lights. ‘Stand.’ She fished in her drawer, pulled out a small box camera. An Agfa, Dora knew. Her father’d had the same.

‘Face me.’ She took her time adjusting the lens. Click. ‘To the side.’ Click. ‘The other side.’ Click. ‘Follow me.’

‘I have no underwear,’ Dora said.

The nurse sniffed.

She led her into a room at the end of the corridor, with thick flock wallpaper, a large bed, and velvet curtains that hung in swags. There was a rug on the floor, a console table with bottles of schnapps and scotch and brandy, a large mahogany wardrobe and a tallboy. The fireplace was marble and in front of it was an embroidered fire screen, like the one that sat in Miss Besson’s parlour, a picture of a country cottage out of place in the high-class opulence of this room. An ornate sofa upholstered in red brocade faced the fire and Dora knew, in that moment, what kind of use Knackfuss had in mind for her.