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‘She’s back. Your little Jewish pet’s dodged the death camps and come home.’

Pascal normally ignored whatever his father said to him, not that Viktor said much to him nowadays.

The fight the two men had finally had in the days after the Americans arrived had been a long time coming and brutal enough to end in blows.

Pascal had won that one; he hadn’t wanted another.

Now the two men kept their distance from each other and were rarely in the farmhouse at the same time.

But this was different. He forced himself to ignore the cruelty of dodged the death camps , but he couldn’t ignore she’s back .

It sent too much hope surging through him.

His mistake was in letting Viktor see that.

‘Dear God, you’re as pathetic as she is. Still holding on to feelings I should have crushed out of you both long ago. Well, at least that’s done with now on her part.’

‘What do you mean? What’s done with?’

Pascal clenched his fists as his father’s contempt spilled through the shabby kitchen.

Viktor saw him square up and grinned. ‘It means I’ve put paid to that nonsense on her side this time, and you need to stay clear. She was meant to be gone for good, so let’s hope she disappears again. The last thing I need’s a Jew sniffing round causing me trouble.’

Viktor flung himself into a chair and reached for the bottle of schnapps he lapped at like water from morning to night.

Pascal watched him, weighing up how to respond, wondering what revelation was coming next.

Trying to hold his brain and body together.

Noemi was back. Noemi was alive. His heart didn’t know whether to soar or to crash.

How could he face her? How could he not?

In every dream he’d had about her returning, he’d never moved past the first sight of her face.

He’d always stopped there, in that moment of perfection before the ugliness he carried could touch her.

But now the impossible had happened and she was here, and Viktor had got to her first.

But I can’t blame him for poisoning the well. I did that myself years ago.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to stay calm until he knew exactly how much extra damage he was dealing with.

‘What have you told her about me?’

Viktor took another swig from the bottle; he’d given up on glasses long ago. ‘I told her the truth about your heroic war. And I suggested you might be able to tell her some stories about Dachau, to fill in the blanks about what became of her dear departed parents.’

Viktor wasn’t drunk enough. Pascal wasn’t quick enough. By the time he grabbed the bread knife from the kitchen table, his father had pulled a gun from behind the cushion on his chair and pointed it at his son.

‘Don’t think I won’t shoot you. I’m not getting caught out by you again.

And don’t think I’d get into trouble for it either if I did.

The town will easily believe it was self-defence – most of them already think you’re mad.

Throwing yourself at the Americans, begging them to take you away.

I should have let them do it, but I couldn’t trust you not to bring us all down with your ridiculous need to confess or atone, or whatever the hell it was you wanted.

I should have shot you then – or on the day you first raised your fists at me. ’

Pascal gripped the knife harder as Viktor ranted, wondering how much damage he could do before a bullet hit him.

‘Not enough.’ Viktor’s laugh grated across Pascal’s ears.

‘I know what you’re thinking. I know you don’t care if you live or die.

Well that makes two of us. You’ve been a thorn in my side ever since you refused to give up on that girl and…

’ He stopped. ‘Well, let’s leave that for now,; let’s just say it’s been a long time since I had reason to trust your loyalty.

And I was proved right, wasn’t I? You’re the reason why Unterwald surrendered.

If those boys had done what I told them to do and kept the American tanks at bay, we might have beaten the enemy back.

But oh no, not you. You couldn’t leave well alone.

You waded in with your lies and turned us all into cowards. ’

Pascal stared at his father, at the drunken apology for a man he’d become, and couldn’t fathom how he’d ever seen a single drop of goodness in him or why he’d been so desperate to follow in Viktor’s footsteps.

He didn’t say that. He wasn’t going to lay all the blame for the man he’d become and the path he’d chosen to walk on his father. That was too easy a way out.

He sowed the seeds, but I watered them. I drank in every promise Hitler made. I thought he was going to cover Germany – and me – in glory. That we’d win the war with honour under his guidance. And I hung on to that dream long after it rotted.

Honour . How much of his soul had he sold for a word he’d never truly understood? He put the knife down and felt stronger without it. He no longer cared about Viktor’s gun.

‘That’s where you’re wrong. I never turned you into anything: you were always a coward, but I pretended you weren’t.

I pretended that everything you did was for the greater good.

None of that was true, and I doubt you ever loved my mother the way she deserved.

You’ve always been a bully and a fool – Hauke got that much right. ’

Viktor wasn’t listening. The gun slipped from his hand as he took another swig of schnapps and carried on muttering about all the ways Pascal had let him and the Party down. But his interest rallied when Pascal swallowed his pride and his fury and asked him where Noemi was now.

‘She’s at Distel’s farm, which is a nice touch given that’s where she ran from in the first place.

Why? You’re not going to see her, are you?

’ Viktor tried to clap his hands in a mock salute when Pascal failed to answer, and spilled schnapps all over the chair.

‘Dear God, you are. Have you no sense left in you? You were a Nazi. In her eyes, you’re still a Nazi – I made sure of that.

Unless you’re hoping she’ll be the one to put you out of your misery, is that it?

What’s she going to use, Pascal? Her body – or a bullet?

Are you going to let her choose her weapon? ’

He burst out laughing as Pascal headed for the door.

Pascal refused to ask his father how he knew the details of Noemi’s escape.

He kept walking and refused to react at all.

Noemi had come back, which must have taken a great deal of courage; everything else could wait.

He guessed she’d done it in the hope of finding her parents.

He guessed from causing trouble that she wanted her family’s property back.

And he didn’t know if she’d want to see or speak to him, but he had to speak to her.

He owed her… An apology wasn’t a big-enough word to cover all the wrongs that he’d done, but an apology had to be the start.

And he owed her his loyalty in whatever new struggles she was facing.

If she’ll only give me the chance I’ve never deserved.

‘Pascal Lindiger is here. I doubt he’s come to see me. I’ll be out in the barn if you need me.’

Frau Hammerl – who had inherited the farm from her father but not a scrap of his mean spirit – slipped out of the back door seconds before Pascal knocked at the front.

Noemi’s first instinct was to run after her, as fast as she’d run away from Viktor.

She’d only known the woman a few hours, but it was already clear that her watchword was kindness.

She hadn’t asked questions when Noemi had appeared with a tear-stained face and her clothes covered in the dust she’d kicked up from the road.

She’d made her a cup of rosehip tea instead, and fetched hot water and clean towels and sent her for a long, calming bath.

The only thing she’d said was, When, or if, you need to talk, I’m a good listener .

The knock on the door came again.

He won’t leave easily if I ignore him. If he does, he’ll only come back. I might not know him the way I did anymore, but I know that much.

Noemi got slowly up and walked what felt like a meadow’s length to the door.

She couldn’t remember how to breathe when she opened it.

Four years. It was a lifetime – and nothing.

Pascal had grown taller, his shoulders were wider than she remembered, his frame had filled out with new muscles.

He looked like the boy she’d loved and a man she didn’t know.

And he didn’t look well. There was a milky tinge to his skin that suggested he no longer lived the outdoors life they’d both loved.

There were deep purple shadows pressed under his eyes.

He looked as if he understood what suffering meant.

But he doesn’t know it from the same side as me. He wore their uniform. He carried out their work at Dachau. He’s nothing to me now but the enemy.

She couldn’t imagine there was anything he could say or do to change her mind about that; she wouldn’t allow him to try. So she let him in, but she turned her face away from his and refused to listen to her treacherous heart’s dancing beat.

‘Why are you here?’

She sat down as she spoke, determined not to ask him how he was or give him an inch of herself. She tried to throw a sting through her words. But Pascal couldn’t – or wouldn’t – hear it.

‘Because I wanted to be the one who told you what happened to your parents. I owe you that much.’

Noemi shook her head. ‘I already know what happened to them, and you owe me far more than the telling.’

She thought that might stop him. It didn’t.

‘I know. And I don’t know where to start, or if there’s even a starting place. But the truth is I’m here because you are. And I’ve waited so long for that.’