She put on her raincoat and slung her bag over her arm. Now she had to walk out of the building with stolen property, and her fear mounted again.

Frieda Franck was going at the same time, and they left together. Frieda had no idea Carla was carrying contraband. They walked in June sunshine to the tram stop. Carla wore a coat mainly to keep her uniform clean.

She thought she was giving a convincing impression of normality until Frieda said: ‘Are you worried about something?’

‘No, why?’

‘You seem nervous.’

‘I’m fine.’ To change the subject, she pointed at a poster. ‘Look at that.’

The government had opened an exhibition in Berlin’s Lustgarten, the park in front of the cathedral. ‘The Soviet Paradise’ was the ironic title of a show about life under Communism, portraying Bolshevism as a Jewish trick and the Russians as subhuman Slavs. But even today the Nazis did not have everything their own way, and someone had gone around Berlin pasting up a spoof poster that read:

Permanent Installation

The NAZI PARADISE

WAR HUNGER LIES GESTAPO

How much longer?

There was one such poster stuck to the tram shelter, and it warmed Carla’s heart. ‘Who puts these things up?’ she said.

Frieda shrugged.

Carla said: ‘Whoever they are, they’re brave. They would be killed if caught.’ Then she remembered what was in her bag. She, too, could be killed if caught.

Frieda just said: ‘I’m sure.’

Now it was Frieda who seemed a little jumpy. Could she be one of those who put up the posters? Probably not. Maybe her boyfriend, Heinrich, was. He was the intense, moralistic type who would do that sort of thing. ‘How’s Heinrich?’ said Carla.

‘He wants to get married.’

‘Don’t you?’

Frieda lowered her voice. ‘I don’t want to have children.’ This was a seditious remark: young women were supposed to produce children gladly for the Führer. Frieda nodded at the illegal poster. ‘I wouldn’t like to bring a child into this paradise.’

‘I guess I wouldn’t, either,’ said Carla. Maybe that was why she had turned down Dr Ernst.

A tram arrived and they got on. Carla perched the basket on her lap nonchalantly, as if it contained nothing more sinister than cabbage. She scanned the other passengers. She was relieved to see no uniforms.

Frieda said: ‘Come home with me. Let’s have a jazz night. We can play Werner’s records.’

‘I’d love to, but I can’t,’ Carla said ‘I’ve got a call to pay. Remember the Rothmann family?’

Frieda looked around warily. Rothmann might or might not be a Jewish name. But no one was near enough to hear them. ‘Of course – he used to be our doctor.’

‘He’s not supposed to practise any more. Eva Rothmann went to London before the war and married a Scottish soldier. But the parents can’t get out of Germany, of course. Their son, Rudi, was a violin maker – quite brilliant, apparently – but he lost his job, and now he repairs instruments and tunes pianos.’ He came to the von Ulrich house four times a year to tune the Steinway grand. ‘Anyway, I said I’d go round there this evening and see them.’