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It was an answer which rested in ties he no longer had any right to, and Noemi – whose head was spinning at the sound of his voice in a way it wasn’t meant to – refused to indulge it.

‘I’m not leaving. If your father’s sent you here to tell me to go away, don’t bother. I’m here to take back what’s mine, no matter how hard he tries to stop me.’

‘Good. It’s what he deserves.’

It was the last response she expected. It forced her to look at him. She wished she hadn’t – the longing in his face belonged to the boy she’d loved, not the stranger he needed to be, and it burned her to see it.

These are old flames, that’s all, rekindled from shock. You can’t trust them; you can’t act on them. You betray everyone who died if you do.

It was Hauke’s voice in her head; it was Frieda’s. There was a lilt that could have come from Matthias. But it wasn’t Noemi’s, although she badly wanted it to be. Which meant she had to stay on the attack.

‘Viktor denounced my family – did you know that? He as good as killed my parents himself, and he wanted to kill me too. You said you thought it wasn’t him, but he admitted it. He enjoyed telling me what he’d done.’

Pascal swallowed hard before he answered; Noemi refused to let her face soften.

‘I said a lot of things once with a certainty I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I defended him and for everything he did. I’m sorry I ever saw any decency in him. I don’t expect you to forgive me for that – or for anything. But I had to say it.’

It was clear from his reddened eyes that he was telling the truth, that he was no longer under Viktor’s spell.

But he should have broken free from that years before this.

She clung to her anger and carried on pushing him away.

‘I loathe your father and I always will, but it’s Carina I feel sorry for, not him and not you. Please God she saw sense and got away before he completely destroyed her life too.’

The pause stretched longer this time. Pascal’s voice fell to a whisper.

‘My mother is dead. She died not long after she helped you escape. I don’t know if the two things are connected – my father has always refused to discuss what happened to her, and I wasn’t there when it happened.

’ He paused as if he was replaying a different conversation in his head and the last drops of colour leached from his face.

‘But given something he stopped himself saying earlier today, I’m starting to wonder. ’

If my fool of a wife hadn’t interfered.

Noemi managed to stop herself blurting Viktor’s words out. Only the hardest heart could have heard the pain in Pascal’s reply and not grieved for him, especially given that his suspicions might well be true. And Noemi’s heart was frightened, not made of stone.

‘I’m very sorry for that.’ She managed to meet his eyes briefly, but she couldn’t linger there. ‘She was a kind, generous woman, and I owe my life to her.’

She didn’t add, And to you . She rubbed her eyes.

She’d cared for Carina very deeply, but she couldn’t bear to cry anymore, and she couldn’t cry near him.

The thought of Pascal reaching out and offering her comfort – which she instinctively knew he would do, whatever the circumstances – was impossible. So she struck at him again.

‘Viktor said you were a war hero. He said you worked at Dachau. You have no right to be here if that’s true. You have no right to speak to me at all if you worked where my father was sent to his death.’

That whip of the lash worked. His face froze.

‘I wasn’t a hero – that part’s not true.

I was a soldier, yes. I did terrible things on the battlefield, and then I…

I wouldn’t do what was asked of me next and Dachau was my punishment.

And I tried to do the right thing there too; I tried to help, but…

’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘No. I’m not going to do this.

I’m not going to try and paint myself to you as a better man, any more than I’m going to blame my father for the choices I made.

Never mind what else I did or didn’t do, Dachau was a living hell for every poor soul who was forced through its gates.

And yes, I was there, I was part of the machinery, although not when Hauke was, I can promise you that at least.’

He swallowed hard again and stumbled far less confidently on.

‘You asked me once where all the hatred would end… I was a fool then with no idea what you meant, but I know the answer to that now. It ended in Dachau. And in a pit in a village no one’s heard of, where mothers and children and old men were slaughtered for…

for not being us. That was the end. I was there at that, and I was there at the start.

I walked down that road and did nothing to change where it was going until it was far too late.

That’s the truth, and I won’t hide from it. ’

His words were filled with anguish. It was clear that his war had carried more layers than Viktor, or she, had allowed.

Noemi didn’t know what to say or think, or how to react.

When he suddenly caught hold of her hand and the shock of his touch exploded through her skin, she didn’t know which version of herself – the old one who’d loved him or the new one who didn’t want to – to be. And he sensed it.

‘I’m not him anymore, Noemi – I swear it.

I’m not that arrogant, stupid and blind boy who thought I could pick and choose which bits of Hitler’s masterplan to believe in and shape it my own way.

I hate that boy – and that man. I want to atone for everything he did.

Because I can’t find a way to live with him if I don’t.

And I can’t live with how much you – quite rightly – must hate me. ’

His honesty was as raw as his words. It flooded his face and the hand gripping too tightly to hers.

She wanted to believe him so badly it hurt.

But Hauke and Frieda were there in the room with her.

And Matthias. And the partisans she’d fought alongside, and all the broken souls she’d passed on the roads and the ones who’d never made it that far.

The room was so crowded with the weight of their ruined lives, she couldn’t breathe.

Pascal was sorry – she recognised that. He’d clearly tried to balance his life in some way she didn’t yet understand.

She didn’t know if that was enough. They had fought on opposite sides of the war.

She was Jewish. After what had been done to her people, she would always be Jewish. And Pascal was…

The love of my life.

‘I can’t do this. You have to go.’

She pulled her hand away from his. She refused to look up until the door closed. She sat without moving until Frau Hammerl returned, trying – and failing – to make sense of their meeting.

‘He was telling the truth, for what’s it worth.’

Frau Hammerl – or Ute as she told Noemi to call her – listened to Noemi’s explanation of their history and Pascal’s visit without comment until she finished. Then she made more tea – chamomile this time, for its calming properties – and began talking.

‘He tried to atone, or get punished, when the Americans came. I’m not entirely sure anyone, including him, knows which.

He told them he’d been in the Nazi Party and had served with the SS at Dachau and deserved to be in prison – or dead.

But some of the mothers whose sons he’d saved pleaded his case and they wouldn’t let the army take him. ’

‘What mothers? What sons?’

Noemi forgot about her cooling tea as Ute told her the story about the four boys who Pascal had talked out of blowing up American tanks in the last frantic days of the war.

‘And I think there’s more to his time in Dachau than he’s telling, which is another reason why the Americans never came back for him.

According to a woman I know in Munich, who works for them and has begun to collect testimony about war crimes, some of the survivors from the camp had help from a German officer.

Apparently, he encouraged them to carve out hiding places so they would escape the death march, or selections, and he also smuggled medicines in.

And according to her, the officer was Pascal.

If that’s true and he risked his own life to save theirs, isn’t he the last person who needs punishing? ’

Noemi didn’t have an answer. She closed her eyes. Who Pascal had been and who he’d become kept shifting, and she couldn’t settle on a shape. But when she opened them again – to find Ute openly studying her – she wasn’t ready to accept the better one.

‘Maybe the survivor testimony is true and it was him. But what about the women here? What if they only helped Pascal because they had things to hide too? There were plenty in the town who supported Hitler and went unpunished, including Pascal’s father. Did the mothers plead his case as well?’

Ute shook her head. ‘No, they didn’t. But nobody denounced Viktor either, so you’ve a right to be suspicious.

I don’t know why – maybe because times were harder here than they might appear on the surface, and Viktor…

’ She shrugged. ‘He had connections; he kept people fed. Sometimes that’s enough to keep people silent. ’

‘Despite the death camps and the ovens and the massacres?’ Noemi pushed her teacup away so hard it toppled. ‘How lovely that a full stomach is all it takes to settle a conscience.’

Ute collected the cups and mopped up the spill without comment. When she sat back down again, she sighed.

‘You’re Jewish, so perhaps that allows you to be quick to judge, but I’m not as sure about the rest of us.

’ She shook her head as Noemi flared. ‘Don’t misunderstand me please or make me your enemy.

I’m not trying to defend what’s been done; I’m sickened by it.

I’ve also examined my conscience, and it’s not clean.

I closed my eyes and ears with the rest, I’m as guilty of looking away as anyone and we’ve all got to take our share of the blame.

But I can’t condemn every person in the town, and I certainly can’t condemn Pascal, whatever you choose to do. ’

She paused. Noemi could feel her weighing her words carefully.

‘And what about your war, Noemi? I’m not judging you either, but are you the same person now that you were before?’

Noemi replied without taking the moment to reflect she sensed Ute wanted her to take.

‘No, I’m not. Never mind what happened to my parents and what that did to me, I was a partisan, and I killed people.

But I was a soldier fighting other soldiers in a war.

I didn’t target innocent civilians, I didn’t kill based on twisted notions of good or bad blood. I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.’

Ute’s smile was a gentle one, but there was a hint of sadness in it that spoke of losses she hadn’t yet shared.

‘I didn’t ask if you were ashamed. I believe there’s a difference between a battlefront and a gas chamber the same as you do.

And I don’t believe for a moment that killing came easily to you, especially not at first. I imagine you saw the parents and the wives standing behind the first soldiers you shot at and regretted the suffering that was coming for them.

But what I asked was if you were changed, and I know the answer is yes.

And I worry that the need for revenge that you’re harbouring now won’t help you rebuild your life, that it will destroy you instead. ’

‘So am I.’

It wasn’t the first time Noemi had faced that fear, but it was the first time she’d trusted anybody enough to voice it.

‘I’m afraid I’ll never be able to get past it. I’m afraid revenge is all I am. And I don’t know what will become of me if that’s true.’

Ute reached out for her hand. ‘I know. I hope you’ll find a way to forgiveness, if that’s what you want.

I don’t know if you can. I don’t think you’re close to it yet.

Not many of us can look at our neighbours – or ourselves – and say that we are either, however carefully we go through the motions.

But we have to find it one day, don’t you think?

If we don’t, we’ll be trapped by this war forever. ’

They didn’t talk anymore. The hour was late and the light was gone and Noemi was exhausted. She crawled into bed with her heart aching. Forgiveness. It was an easy word to say and an impossible state of mind to imagine. But trapped was surely worse.

And trapped is where I am.

It took a long time for sleep to come. When it did, her dreams were filled with barred doors and dead ends. With Pascal always out of reach. And Viktor watching her from the sidelines and laughing.