On the day of the Nazi rally there was general consensus between whoever was left that we’d stay in the quarters of the Bauhaus, which stretched to the Georgium Park and the Masters’ houses, but no further. This land was ours; we didn’t think they’d come here. But when I saw Charlotte heading into Dessau I asked if I could go with her. She didn’t say yes or no, but walked on.

Dessau was empty; not a jackboot or Stahlhelm in sight. I wondered if we had missed the rally or whether we’d hit it as we came out. Possibly, everyone was already holed up, knowing that home was the safest place to be. The theatre was still open, however, and we had the cinema to ourselves.

The film was a horror flick: a monster preying on local women, and the hero an unlikely professor type in spectacles. I began to relax. Watching Charlotte was more interesting than watching the picture: whenever anyone spoke, she moved her lips along with the actor’s voice. She had dropped the watchful expression she’d worn since the Metal Ball, and instead her face tracked the actor’s emotion, so that her expression cleared and changed with every cut to a new character. It was as if in the lit rays she was able to feel all the emotion she had decided to put away during the split from Jenö. It was both childish and heartbreaking. As the monster in the lake zoomed into view, the shadows and the light were the only things animating her face. Then the actress, on her knees in a torn dress, screamed, ‘Help me!’ and Charlotte whispered those words too.

Under Anni’s guidance that spring Charlotte’s weaves – she had returned to the workshop with added zeal – had developed an almost sculptural form. (Anni was an altogether different weaver to Charlotte, although they showed the same preoccupation with restraint and repetition.) Though the colours didn’t change – they were still immutably dark – Charlotte started braiding in horsehair, and uncut stones, and milk glass and bones, so that her new pieces had a little colour and shape. Anni said they were beautiful, and she was right.

After the trip to the cinema we found Josef and Anni up at the Weaving Workshop, sharing a cigarette out of the window. ‘Did you see the rally?’ Anni shouted.

‘Not a soul! Town’s deserted!’

‘Oh good,’ said Josef. ‘We might win yet!’

Otti emerged as a third head. ‘Come up later?’ She had her curly black hair wrapped up in an Eastern-style scarf. ‘I’ve found some gin!’

‘We will!’

Anni whispered in Otti’s ear, and Otti gave us a thumbs-up. ‘Hurrah for liberty, and all that. Charlotte, I want to show you my new piece when you’re done with him,’ she said, and then Otti, too, disappeared.