Every once in a while, she came into town for something – a bag of tea from Gephardts’ or a ball of wool from Greta Fahr’s shop, matches or fuel from Dortmund’s – and always at some point she’d alight on someone, Greta Fahr or Herr Gephardt or one of the Dortmund girls or one of our mothers if they happened to be in any of those places when she was there, and she would tell them in a confidential whisper what she’d done and sometimes, crouching down in her old black coat and her long skirt and her funny smock, she’d confide in one of us children as well.

We used to wonder what had made her do it, but she never told us that part. Whatever it was that had happened to her she’d never spoken about it. There was no gossip, no rumours or stories. Whatever it was, it was buried in some dark place, as secret and hidden as the heart she said she’d pulled from her body and locked away, out of sight and out of mind, and when we’d asked our parents, or Herr Gephardt or Fräulein Fahr, or any of the other grown-ups if they knew, they just shrugged and shook their heads and said she was just a poor creature who should have gone years ago to the hospital in Euskirchen where she could be looked after instead of living out in the woods in that little cabin by herself.

I didn’t hear her come in.

I didn’t hear her set down the logs on the floor next to the hearth, I didn’t hear her step onto the woven rug and walk up behind me. I didn’t know she was there until we were standing together in front of the mirror, the two of us, me in front and her behind, me and Magdalena Hirsch.