They looked up from their notebooks. I knew this was the moment when they wondered if I would let them keep their work. I was more indulgent than Josef, and didn’t make them destroy what I had just asked them to create. ‘You can keep your things,’ I said, ‘but don’t sentimentalise them. We’ll do the gramophone work in a couple of weeks. You’ll notice I’ve given you double the time as usual. That’s on purpose. Only in boredom will you understand. Boredom is very helpful to the artist. And come down to the cafeteria, won’t you? You all need feeding up.’

Day to day, the Bauhaus operated just as it had done in Weimar. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were eaten in the cool expansiveness of the school’s modernist cafeteria (Marcel Breuer’s chairs; Marianne Brandt’s lighting). It was Charlotte and Jenö who could be found there most mealtimes, sitting away from the other Journeymen and students. Though Charlotte had never ceased to be the centre of our quartet (Irmi and Kaspar had gone to Berlin after graduating) I think the rest of the school found her standoffish. As Journeymen we were permitted to sit with the Masters, but when we did it only promoted the idea that our gang, by proxy, was a little aloof.

While Jenö and Charlotte were creatures of habit, Walter was ambulatory and carousing: king of the jailhouse; pals with everyone. Really he could have sat at any table and any students or Journeymen would have made space for him. He was even friendly with Marianne Brandt, the one female Journeyman in the Metal Workshop, who had a famous froideur with almost everyone.

‘What was today?’ asked Charlotte as we settled down with potatoes and sausages.

‘Twisty bits of cardboard.’

‘Ah; that one. Josef doesn’t like to change things too much, does he? Did you do the “eradicate” speech? About the war?’

‘Yes,’ I said, laughing. We had all heard this speech in one of his lectures.

‘I do that one too,’ said Jenö. ‘Did they understand?’

‘They looked bamboozled. I was rather hungry. I went on too long. But in a funny way they remind me of us.’

They both nodded. How alike they were. Being around them was like being with a brother and sister. Or twins, perhaps.

‘There’s a woman in my class,’ Charlotte said, ‘she’s just like me. She’s determined to fight it: the work, the loom, the wool. Everything she makes is rough and coarse. I haven’t worked out what to do with her: I want her to fight, but I also want her to survive. I think I should probably give her the order to surrender.’

‘Probably,’ said Jenö, putting a hand on hers. ‘Look at you, and Otti and Anni; none of you were naturals; at least, not to begin with.’