But – it was odd, I knew that even then – as soon as daylight came, the dilemma would disappear. Charlotte would be fine. Nothing would happen to any of us. After a strong coffee, my mind would clear. And the days – it embarrasses me to say this – would even turn out tolerable. I just ignored the question (remarkable that I could suppress it; that this is the way the mind works). After I kissed Charlotte on her way to the Bauhaus, flinching at the man’s suit which I no longer commented upon, I put myself to work and my mind went to blankness. That week I became like one of Charlotte’s Dessau weaves; a Beinahe Nichts, an Almost Nothing, with the occasional streak of such vibrant anxiety at three in the morning that I wondered I didn’t pull her arm from the joint and drag her to Jenö’s on foot.

But there: the mind of the liar is a spotless place aside from where dreams rise.

I have called myself perverse. I am. It’s my special gift: this knack I have, of lying to myself. In the days I was able to bury the part of me that knew Walter’s words were true. And when it became too much I walked out into the city’s snow and tried to forget.

Porcelain days; porcelain city.

New bodies were fished from the Landwehr that week. More snow came. A Star of David was painted on Rosenberg’s shopfront. We saw our friends, and walked Berlin, Charlotte wove at the Bauhaus, I painted (my overabundance; it was almost pathological).

We even went to the theatre. Dacia had come across tickets to see a Russian ballerina who’d come to dance for the St Petersburg émigrés. Charlotte wore a dress, possibly the most feminine thing I’d seen her in in a long while. It gave her skin a bluish note; like a painted woman in a Sargent or a Hammershøi. Before the show we found Dacia and Kaspar, who was smoking a clove cigarette in the foyer.

Charlotte told him about Jenö’s offer of London, and a seat for her on the plane. ‘He’s such a worrier!’ Kaspar said, pushing the cigarette’s spiced cloud away. ‘Always overreacting!’ he said. ‘Think nothing of it. You stay here with us. You can’t go to London. What would you do in London without us?’

‘Marry an aristocrat?’ Dacia said.

Kaspar shot her a look. ‘That’s not helpful.’

I squeezed Charlotte’s hand. Still she looked worried.

The theatre inside was golden. Charlotte kept on checking the entrances, and I wondered who she thought would join us. The government box was so far empty.

‘Will you come to the Bauhaus tomorrow?’ she whispered as the curtains opened. ‘I want to show you something.’

‘What is it?’

‘A secret.’

I couldn’t bear the idea of any more secrets. ‘Tell me now,’ I whispered.