No one could believe the threat of police action had been removed so quickly. It was a triumph. All around the room the message travelled quickly: Jenö and Walter would avoid jail! Merely questioned by the Director, and didn’t the Director think Jenö, especially, a fine and fee-paying student, who ought to stay? There was general consensus in the ateliers, in the Craft Building and the Prellerhaus, that Walter and Jenö would be all right, and that the Bauhaus in general would emerge unscathed.

They were not yet scot-free, but to see Walter’s face over breakfast that morning, well, it was as if the future had been wiped clean. In fact, he seemed more positive and less melancholic than he’d been all week. ‘It’s all working out!’ he said.

Over breakfast, which I ignored, we discussed Jenö and Walter’s approach to the tribunal. There was the question of whether to mention that Master Itten had initiated the fast, and therefore whether it had been ‘sponsored’ by the faculty; whether Jenö should deny the previous brawls in Munich, should the Director have got wind of them; how Mr Sommer should be treated with the utmost courtesy and even deference – and that the fullest apology should be made within the Director’s earshot: Jenö ultimately would own all responsibility for the brawl. Then it would come down to what was out of our control: the Director’s mercy. Jenö was a good student, but he was also one of Itten’s acolytes, and there was an awareness that perhaps the Director might take the opportunity to purge the school of its more eccentric, or at least expressionistic, elements.

Charlotte asked me if I wasn’t thrilled. Of course I was: I said they’d sail through the tribunal, since that’s what I’d overheard Hannah saying to Eve. I couldn’t admit to her that the prospect of losing Jenö had looked increasingly attractive, that in the past week I had wondered whether it might not be a good thing if he were on his way. If he had done this before, might not he do this again? And if it were done again, wouldn’t it plunge our group into even more serious peril? But these were impermissible feelings, and impermissible questions, and I pushed them away. Jenö was my friend. I should do right by him. Charlotte gave me a watchful look, then left to go to class.

‘Not hungry?’ asked Irmi, when the conversation between the others was tailing off.

‘Lost my appetite.’

‘You should eat. It’ll keep your energy up.’

‘What are you doing with your curfew?’

‘Me? I’m cross-stitching chapels.’ This was a joke. Irmi’s work at the loom was modern and geometric. Her woven work was as fabulous as skyscrapers. ‘Women’s work. Nothing ever came of stitches in fabric.’ Irmi raised her brows. ‘What about you?’

‘Oh, nothing much. Sketching lots.’

‘And you’re not fasting?’