‘That’s my parents’ house. Father recorded everything: the empty site, then the start of the building work, then the day the house was topped out, and eventually the finished house. It was very simple and charming, with its red tiled roof.’
‘It looks quite small.’
‘They thought it offered the essential minimum for civilised living: Wohnzimmer, as we used to say, Eßzimmer, kitchen, scullery. Upstairs there was a bedroom for each of them, and my room, and Gretchen’s. Well, well, I hadn’t realised how many pictures we had of the house. It was a little inconvenient, he was perhaps not the most practical of architects. Look, isn’t that a lovely photo of Mother? She designed the garden, it was as pretty as can be. We were very happy there.’
‘I wonder who’s there now.’
‘I expect it’s divided up into two or three dwellings. It really was our home, more than the Mommsenstraße. Maybe you’ll go there one day, my darling. Imagine your mother as a little girl, playing on the swing and shaking the apple trees in the hope the apples might fall off.’
Pandora smiles. ‘And did they ever fall off?’
‘No,’ says her mother, ‘they never did.’
‘Apples don’t always fall off, you have to pluck them. Mum, just tell me something: why did you give up everything when you were married – your job, and your writing?’
‘It seemed the right thing to do, and there was the war, there was no time for writing, we just had to survive. And your father was away in his beastly prison camp. . . Why do you ask?’
Pandora hesitates. ‘Don’t you ever want to start writing again?’
Her mother does not reply.