Once her back was turned, Max’s father nudged him and, with the tiniest hint of a smile, he rolled his eyes. ‘Women, eh?’ he said in a conspiratorial sort of manner that filled Max’s heart.

His mother came back to the table with Max’s birthday cake. It was a Black Forest gateau.

Max’s friends gasped. ‘That looks wonderful, Mrs Fischer,’ one of them, Heinrich, said. ‘How did you get all those ingredients in wartime?’

Mrs Fischer laughed and pointed to her husband. ‘Being married to a senior SS officer has its uses,’ she said.

The boys all laughed in reply. Even Mr Fischer cracked a wry smile.

It was the best evening Max could remember having. Ever.

Except for… maybe one other evening. One time when the Black Forest gateau would have been a Viennese Sachertorte. When the tight discipline would have been replaced by carefree running around in a carriage high in the air. When the polite laughter was instead wide smiles captured in a photograph that he had not looked at or even thought about for years.

Stop.

What was he doing? What was he thinking? How could he insult his parents by even allowing a tiny part of his mind to go there?

Max forced himself back into the present moment. And for the rest of the evening he made sure to show his mother how much he adored her cake: the best he had ever eaten. He ensured he did nothing to anger his father. Max was the most generous and delightful host he could possibly be to his friends.

It was definitely the best birthday, he was absolutely sure of it.

But still, at the end of the evening, when the other boys had left and Max had helped his mother wash and dry the plates and his father had lit a fire in the lounge where he sat with a book, something tugged at a corner of Max’s mind. The corner that could not quite let go of that other birthday party.

He took himself off to his bedroom and opened his wardrobe. Kneeling down, he reached to the back for the shoebox he hadn’t opened since they had moved to Munich. He scrabbled through shoes and bags and mothballs that had never seen the light of day. And then…

There! He pulled the shoebox out, his arms doing the work without stopping to consult his mind. If they had, they would surely have known better.

He sat on the side of his bed and took the lid off the box. As he opened it, a smell of something from inside it climbed into Max’s heart. What was it? The books? The photographs? The old teddy bear he had completely forgotten about? It was hard to say, but the smell took him straight back to Vienna.