Finally, his father turned around. He bent down so that their eyes met. ‘I’ll say it more clearly this time, shall I?’ he asked. His mouth did something that might have been a smile if it weren’t for the coldness in his eyes.

Max swallowed and nodded.

‘Hermann, please,’ his mother said weakly.

Her husband ignored her. ‘You won’t see Elsa again, and you won’t see Leo again,’ he said to Max. ‘I forbid it. Is that clear?’

Max nodded even harder. ‘Yes, Father,’ he said.

Max’s mother was standing in front of his father now, reaching out to him. ‘Hermann, stop,’ she begged.

He shook her off. ‘No. I’ve had enough. He needs to get this into his head, even if I have to spell it out to him.’

‘He’s just a boy,’ she pleaded.

‘Well, it’s time he learned to be a man!’ his father barked. Then he turned back to Max. ‘Your friendship with people like them is over. You hear me?’

Max stared at his father in horror. He didn’t want to ask the question. He didn’t want to hear the answer. He’d been running away from it all day, maybe for weeks, months – but it was there and it was coming towards him.

Before he could stop himself, his mouth was forming the words. ‘People like who?’

His father spoke the word as if it were dirt in his mouth.

‘Jews.’

And with that, he turned away from his wife and son and walked to the table. Pulling out his chair, he unrolled a serviette and sat down for dinner, as though nothing had happened.

Max followed him without uttering another word.

He couldn’t eat his dinner, though. Every time he tried to swallow, he felt he might be sick.

LEO

I sat at the kitchen table, trying to do my homework while Mama made challah – the bread we had every Friday night – but I couldn’t concentrate. Elsa’s words played over and over in my head, round and round and round like a record on Papa’s gramophone.

Because we’re Jewish.

Because we’re Jewish.

Because we’re Jewish.

In the park, I’d said that my parents hadn’t told me it was dangerous – and it was true, they hadn’t. Not in so many words. But still, something had held me back from laughing like Max had done. Something had stopped me from insisting it wasn’t dangerous to be Jewish. Something to do with the tiny moments at home that I’d told myself I was imagining. Looks between my parents I’d pretended not to see. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but if I thought about it I knew that things had felt different recently.

Which was why I mostly didn’t focus on it. Because if I did, my gut would tell me that perhaps Elsa was right.