I put the case on the table between us. I look at him, he nods, and I click the hinges. There are papers inside, yellow with age. I put them on the floorboards: there’s a river in charcoal, maybe the Ilm. There are the Dessau balconies. An unknown parkland. A beach and cliffs; possibly Rügen. The last picture is of our Buchenwald, I am sure: line upon line of beech, almost completely abstracted.

All landscapes. A genre Charlotte had never been interested in. The world as last balm, I suppose. There aren’t any of him. There aren’t any of me. I look at Jenö, and despite ourselves, we both smile.

‘They’re beautiful,’ he says.

‘Aren’t they? I didn’t expect this.’

‘Neither did I.’

We sit quietly as we look at them, spread out around us.

‘How did Walter get them?’

Jenö looks at me, his eyes frank. ‘Walter gave her the paper.’

I sense what is coming. That’s why Jenö gave me that look before. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Walter tried to free her. He did what he could with Steiner, then with the guards. But no money or favours could spring her. All Franz and Walter could manage were food parcels. Clothes. Paper. Pencils. Small things.’

And now I see the paper for what it is: it is Walter’s last gift. ‘Why did he not tell me?’

‘Did you ask him?’

‘He sent me letters. I didn’t respond. I blamed him for not getting her out.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Jenö says. ‘So did I. Franz told me at the funeral. No one knew.’

‘And me,’ I say, ‘did you blame me?’

‘Yes. But then I blamed everyone I could. Myself, the most. I just left, came to England, got on with life.’ He blinks at me; his voice astonished. ‘I just saved myself.’

Jenö does not stay much longer. We talk of the others: what happened to the Director, the Alberses, Franz, who has become a town planner, funnily enough, in Dresden. I ask him if I might keep one of Charlotte’s drawings, and he leaves me the one I ask for.

I wonder if he’ll give me one of those unexpected hugs as he says goodbye, but he doesn’t. As he gets in his taxi, I wonder if I’ll ever see him again. Probably not.

Not knowing what else to do, I go to the cliffs. There aren’t too many people around; the children have gone; the families are in their cottages. The tide is out, and I must walk some way down to the thin surf. My eyes: they sting. The world is blurred. I have been blind.