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Hauke was charged with more financial irregularities nobody was interested in explaining and hit with a fine three times the size of the last one, although he wasn’t taken to prison. Instead, Viktor graciously offered to act as a go-between and find a buyer for the family’s last assets.

‘It’s the only way to clear your debts, I’m afraid. But I’m not an unreasonable man – I don’t want to see you out on the streets.’

Noemi hadn’t truly understood what despair felt like until Viktor sat down in her father’s chair and smiled his oily smile. He dropped his gifts into their laps like a malevolent Santa Claus.

‘I’ve arranged for you to live in the flat above the café again, for a reasonable rent.

You lived there before your parents left you this delightful house, so I’m sure you’ll enjoy the return.

And obviously we don’t want to lose your skills, Frieda, so there’ll be a job for you in the bakery.

Not running it of course, but I’ve no doubt you’ll adjust. As for you, Hauke, the new owner of the Unterwald Hotel – who will be taking over the café – has very generously offered you a position as a porter and will take on Noemi as a waitress too.

It’s a very good solution all round to your troubles, don’t you think? ’

There were so many things Noemi wanted to say, and good wasn’t one of them. But she caught Hauke’s eye and caught hold of her tongue and let Viktor leave as if they were thankful to him.

‘We’ll be all right. We have each other. Nobody can change that.’

Her father needed her to be brave and steady so he could keep his head up, so Noemi stayed brave and steady. Until she saw him a week later, watching the Café Drachmann sign come down and the Café Edelweiss sign go up, with tears pouring unchecked down his face. She cried like a baby then.

‘I know you don’t want to see me, and I don’t blame you after everything that has happened between our families. But I’m leaving in the morning, and I need to talk to you before I go.’

Pascal had learned a little from their disastrous trip to the mountains, so he didn’t explain that he was leaving Unterwald to take up a place at Sonthofen, an elite officer training school, and what an honour that was.

He was painfully aware that even a few minutes alone with her was more than he deserved; he didn’t want to stack the deck further against himself.

Noemi’s world had fallen apart and, while he didn’t know if his father had instigated the attack on Hauke – and didn’t want to – Viktor had certainly profited handsomely from the Drachmanns’ fall.

Pascal was deeply ashamed by that, but he doubted Noemi wanted to hear his second-hand apologies.

‘Please, Noemi. Give me a chance.’

She didn’t answer, but she at least put down the tray of empty glasses she’d cleared a moment before from a table filled with the town’s new great and good, and followed him into a quiet corridor.

He was feeling almost hopeful, until she rounded on him with a, ‘Why should I?’ that was so curt, his heart curled up.

‘Because I’m going to be away for a long time.’

He paused. He’d been going to say that he might also be called on to fight in a war. There were rumblings in Europe, even though nobody had actively opposed Hitler’s recent annexation of Austria or the Sudetenland. Conflict wasn’t impossible.

And all that will do is remind her that I’m going to be a soldier, fighting for a leader she hates. She’ll walk away the second I say it.

So he spoke to her from his heart instead. ‘And I’m ashamed at what my father has taken from yours, and I need you to know that.’

She didn’t soften, but she didn’t leave. He took that as a good sign.

‘Did you get my letter? I know you said not to come and find you when I got back from Innsbruck, but I had to say sorry somehow. I should never have let you come back home by yourself.’

‘And that’s all you’re sorry for, is it?’

He’d misstepped again. Noemi brushed his floundering, ‘Well no, but…’ away.

‘What do you want me to say, Pascal? Yes, I got your letter. My mother found it, and she was furious when she read it. She’s got no forgiveness for you or your family. She wouldn’t let me reply, or see you, not that I wanted to. She’d never forgive me if I slipped back into our… friendship again.’

He kept on grasping at straws; he couldn’t help himself. He heard she’s got no forgiveness and decided that, because Noemi hadn’t said I’ve got no there was hope.

‘Is that possible? For us to be friends again?’

The scorn on her face stripped at his skin. He’d never understand how they could be the same age and yet she was so often years ahead of him .

‘How, Pascal? Never mind what you were doing in Innsbruck. Never mind that your father has destroyed mine. Never mind I don’t think I’ll ever trust you again.

Don’t you see what else Viktor has done to the town?

There’s curtains twitching everywhere; there’s noses in everyone’s business.

Just because you won’t accept what I am doesn’t mean the rest of Unterwald’s pretending I’m someone different.

It’s not safe for you to talk to me, to even look at me.

Don’t you get that? What will happen to your precious military school place if this conversation gets reported?

What will happen to me if Viktor finds out you still want to be my friend? ’

Pascal flinched at the sarcasm in friend .

And at the thought of what his father would do if he gambled so recklessly with the future Viktor’s connections had carved out for him.

She knew where he was heading; she’d always known everything about him.

She was also right. The way Viktor had profited from Hauke’s downfall had opened Pandora’s box.

Old scores had boiled up all over the town, and the police were happily stirring the pot.

Hauke wasn’t the only person who’d been dragged in for questioning on baseless charges, motivated by greed and a hope that their assets would be redistributed.

Unterwald had become a powder keg, as Noemi clearly knew all too well and was apparently determined he should face up to.

‘There’s nothing neighbourly about this place anymore – we’ve moved miles away from that.

There isn’t a day goes by here when I don’t hear gossip about somebody.

Most of it is so trivial – Herr Mansell at the newsagent’s reporting Herr Seger for cancelling his subscription to the Volkischer Beobachter and calling it trash.

Frau Berkel failing to display a portrait of Hitler in her hall.

It’s so petty, although it all ends up with an arrest.’ She glanced back at the dining room.

‘But some of it seems far more sinister. Doctor Brodmann’s in there now, talking about some “special arrangements” he’s made for a sick child, and the way he said it… ’

She shuddered. When she looked back at him, Pascal could see she wasn’t making any distinction between him and the rest of the town’s Party faithful at all, and he hated it.

‘This is the world we live in, Pascal, whether you choose to see it or not. Nobody outside the Party is safe in it, including me. And as to the possibility of the friendship between the “dirty Jewish girl” and the trainee Nazi hero carrying on without anybody caring? Forgive me, but I really can’t see it somehow. ’

She’s deliberately trying to hurt me so that I’ll leave her alone.

The first part had worked; the second couldn’t. It was his last chance to prove he wasn’t like the rest of them before she slipped completely through his fingers.

‘Don’t make us into those people, Noemi, please.

I won’t accept it. I’ve hated not seeing you, I hate that my father’s actions have hurt you.

’ He stopped; took a breath. Hoped he sounded like the man he was trying to be.

‘And I love you. I should have told you that in the Karwendelhaus, not run away.’

It was said. He couldn’t believe how light he felt. And she loved him too – he knew it. If she didn’t, she would have said so, not, ‘You can’t love me; it’s forbidden.’ That was the next chink his hopes needed. He reached for her and tried not to panic when she shrank away.

‘I don’t care about that. Nothing can change how I feel, not even a law.’

It was her eyes – it was always her eyes. He could fall into those and stay there forever. Especially now, when the light creeping back into them had to mean that she felt the same. And when she looked at him and told him that was true.

‘Then don’t go to Sonthofen, Pascal. If you truly mean what you say, don’t join the army. Let’s leave here together instead. Let’s go somewhere where nobody cares whether we’re Catholics or Jews or nothing at all. Somewhere we can be together and be in love without fear.’

It sounded so simple the way she said it; it sounded perfect. In that moment, it was all Pascal wanted to do. But his life wasn’t only about one perfect moment. It was about family and making his father proud of him. And about honour and service too.

If she can just understand that, we can have everything.

‘I want to, but I can’t.’

He hated the way her face fell. All he wanted was to make her happy and to make the world better. There had to be a way to do both.

‘Giving up my place at Sonthofen would break my father’s heart.

I don’t want to hurt him like that, any more than I want to hurt you.

But what if I went and used my time there to help us?

’ The second the idea jumped into his head, he knew it was right.

All he had to do was convince Noemi. ‘I’ll work hard and prove my loyalty, and I’ll rise through the ranks.

I’ll get to a place where the people who make the laws listen to me, and I’ll make them see that there are Jews who’ve earned their place in the Reich.

Decent ones like you and your family. I’ll help build a future that includes both of us. ’

He was so certain he could do it, he could see the Führer shaking his hand.

He grinned and waited for her to grin back at him.

But he hadn’t heard the arrogance or the cracked record stuck in its groove the way Noemi had.

She didn’t smile; she didn’t tell him how clever he was.

Instead, her face looked so bleak, it terrified him.

‘Dear God, can you hear yourself? You sound as if you think you can be the next Führer. I’ll make them see ?

Your father really has built you up in his twisted image, hasn’t he?

’ She shook her head before Pascal could answer.

‘Good Jews, bad Jews; Jews who’ve earned their place.

It’s always the same with you; it’s always wrong.

And it all leads the same way as the version where we’re a plague.

To ruined lives, to disaster. Until you can see that, and walk away from playing any part in it, there’s no more to be said. There’s no more chances for us.’

He stared at her open-mouthed, unable to understand where he’d gone wrong.

‘No, Noemi. You’ve misheard me; you’ve misunderstood. This can’t be our ending.’

But she’d already turned on her heel and walked away, and it was.