Johan and Gemma looked at each other as a sadness fell over them. ‘We did use a sign language of our own invention for a long time,’ Gemma said. ‘But then Our Boy lost his boy in the war, and he became this broken thing. A parent cannot see their child in so much pain and not say something … Grief needs words.’

‘Tell the girl how we met, poppet,’ Johan said, after a pause, attempting to lighten the mood.

‘Oh, you’ll love that story. It is absolutely marvellous,’ Gemma said with the voice and cadence of a gifted storyteller. She took Saskia affectionately by the arm as if they were old friends, and Saskia let her, surprising herself by not feeling too uncomfortable.

‘It was a windy day in November and the year was 1920,’ Gemma said, leading Saskia to stand by the window overlooking the intersection of Borrow Street and Selborne Avenue. ‘I was a student at Eveline High School, straw hat and all, and he was a traffic conductor, white gloves and all … Kismet. A match made in heaven. A gust of wind blew my straw hat off, I went in chase, and he stood there … gazing. Can you picture it?’

Saskia could picture it. She could see them, both of them young, full of the vigour of life and ready to fall in love. Very easily, Gemma had cocooned her not only in her voice and story, but in her life as well. Saskia felt something she had not felt in a very long time – she felt safe. Suddenly discomforted, she, feigning a forgotten prior engagement, hastily left the company of Johan and Gemma Coetzee before they could finish their story. She dismayed herself by promising to visit again soon.

As she walked through the City Hall’s courtyard on her way back to The Chronicle’s offices, Saskia removed the Selous School for Boys 1942 yearbook that she had spirited away from Johan and Gemma’s flat. As Saskia flipped through the pages of the yearbook while walking, she found many images of Emil Coetzee in class, team and club photographs. She was somewhat surprised to find that he looked exactly like every other fifteen-year-old boy. His smile, although rehearsed for such occasions, seemed uncertain. Whether his hands were clasped at the back or his arms folded at the front, his puffed-out chest looked as if it was imitating rather than feeling the bravado it depicted. His feet-apart stance, calculated to make him look ready to take charge of the world, seemed unsteady and only succeeded in making him look stiff. In short, he was desperately trying to look the part of a self he was still unsure of. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about Emil Coetzee at fifteen. He was not mature or wise beyond his years; he was merely a boy of fifteen.

Saskia entered the editor’s office and easily lied: ‘The Emil Coetzee story is shaping up nicely.’