Vaguely I looked to see if I could find Charlotte, but couldn’t. Irmi had assembled a Christmas tree from rolled-up newspapers, and I remembered Itten’s class, and Walter’s failure, that day. I tried hard these days not to think of Waldemar König. It only made me unhappy; the whole business of the Survey was still a bitterness, and I knew it upset Charlotte to think of what might have happened to so many people because of what he had done that summer.

‘Everyone said the Nazis would have a majority by Christmas,’ said Kaspar. ‘And yet here we are!’

‘Where are we?’

‘Hitler’s a postmaster. Berlin will never do it.’

‘Berlin doesn’t matter. It’s the rest of the country that’s the problem.’

‘Von Schleicher will resist.’

‘He’ll roll over.’

‘Well. I don’t know. Perhaps you’re right,’ Kaspar said, muttering something to himself which I didn’t quite catch.

I didn’t want to talk politics; it was all anyone ever talked about. A new record scratched before it settled. Near the ancient gasolier a couple shared some coke; the lines so thin we would have had them for breakfast in Dessau. I wondered what to do; where in the party to go; I couldn’t see where Charlotte had ended up.

I watched as someone put an angel, folded from a champagne label, on the top of the tree. I thought again of Walter: whether he was still at his glades and waterways. Though I didn’t care to admit it, it was also true that I thought of him often. Sharp-tongued, honeyed in his own selfishness and servant to his own crazy notions of Jenö’s love for him; Walter had been my best friend for so many years, and, yes, I missed him.

‘Do you ever hear from Walter König?’ I asked Kaspar, who had started dancing with Dacia before my question brought him back.

‘Walter König? Oh, Walter was never interested in keeping in touch with me. He dropped me as soon as you all moved to Dessau. Last I heard he was fucking some fat Nazi.’

‘A Nazi?’

‘That’s what Hannah said, anyway.’

Dacia pulled him away again. No surprise that Ernst – if it were still Ernst, and not someone else Walter had picked up along the way – should be a Nazi. Maybe Walter might even be one too. He’d look good in a uniform, I’d give him that.

I pushed my way through the crowd. I could hear Irmi’s laughter above everyone else’s, and I was cornered into the paper tree as the floor cleared for an expert couple who knew the latest dance. I saw Irmi with a handsome man who was so tall he had to stoop to talk to her.

A thudding came from the ceiling below; a broom banging.