‘These postcards show the Schloß and the park at Charlottenburg – we went there all the time. It was a beautiful place. I gather the palace was badly damaged in the war, I don’t know how it is now.’ She stares at the postcards. ‘You should go and see for yourself, it’s in West Berlin, you know. You could see how the Mommsenstraße looks these days.’
‘I wish we were in touch with my grandfather’s family. I find it odd, that you broke off relations like that.’
Dorothea avoids her daughter’s look. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘No. There’s a lot I don’t understand, Mum. You’ve become so English, you don’t talk about things seriously. I don’t understand why you married Daddy, to be honest. Or why you stay with him. You don’t seem to have anything in common.’
‘Pandora, don’t speak to me like that.’
‘It’s true, isn’t it? I think you’re unhappy in this flat, doing nothing, feeling depressed, waiting for a man to come home who bores you.’
Dorothea sits very still. Her daughter realises she is crying, and puts her arm round her mother’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I shouldn’t. . . but I love you, I’d like you to be happy.’