He caught the train from Munich and settled back as they rattled slowly northwards across the American and then Soviet-occupied ruins of Germany. Gazing out of the window as the afternoon wore on into evening, he looked dispassionately on the unspoilt hills and forests and farmland, interspersed with the rubble of towns, the casually scattered burnt-out tanks and artillery pieces and war planes, the tangled wreckage of bridges and factories.

As the train clattered on into the night, he tried to make sense of this devastated but still beautiful country. The country of Bach and Beethoven, Schiller and Heine, Einstein and Goethe. What had got into these great and civilised people that they should turn into a nation of ravening beasts?

Fellow passengers came and went. At Leipzig an old German man with one arm and a walking stick entered his carriage and sat opposite him. He grinned at Heck and pointed at the sling and bandaged arm. ‘At least you still have your arm, soldier,’ he said in broken English.

‘Where did you lose yours, old man?’ Heck replied in German.

‘Verdun, fighting the French.’ As the train pulled out of the town, he indicated the ruins outside the carriage window. ‘Your bombers did quite a job.’

‘So did yours. Go and have a look at London.’

‘Yes, I know.’ He was silent for a couple of minutes and tears began to well up in his eyes. ‘My son was in the Luftwaffe, shot down and killed by your Spitfires. What a waste. What a crazy waste. No more wars please, Englishman.’

‘I’m not English, I’m Dutch. I’m a Jew.’

‘Then I apologise twice over to you.’

‘What did you do to bring down Hitler?’

‘What could I do? I am a brewer by trade. We were powerless.’

‘Then I can’t accept your apology.’

The old man nodded slowly. ‘I understand.’

‘You are all guilty. You should have stopped them.’

They spoke no more until the train arrived in Berlin. The old man hung his head as he prepared to depart, but Heck stopped him. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I can’t forgive you, but at least you tried to apologise, and I am sorry for your loss.’

‘Thank you, sir. That means a great deal to me.’

*

Maria Dienstag was sweeping the floor of the church. At first she shrunk back alarmed at the arrival of a man in uniform, but then she recognised him.

‘Mr Heck, why are you here?’

‘I came to see you Frau Dienstag, to see how you are.’

‘Me? Oh I get by. I have food, though not much, and I have a bed to sleep in.’

‘And the priest, he looks after you well?’

‘Not bad. He is a kind man, but he works me hard. Not that I mind. I am used to work. It’s better than thinking.’

‘You look well, much better.’