We were still eating when Lothar came in. He threw his cap on the bed, shook hands with me politely but silently,  with a little bow, and took his place at the table. My presence did not appear to surprise or interest him in the least: his glance barely met mine. He was, I knew, only twenty; but he might well have been years older. He was a man already. Otto seemed almost childish beside him. He had a lean, bony, peasant’s face, soured by racial memory of barren fields.

“Lothar’s going to night-school,” Frau Nowak told me with pride. “He had a job in a garage, you know; and now he wants to study engineering. They won’t take you in anywhere nowadays, unless you’ve got a diploma of some sort. He must show you his drawings, Herr Christoph, when you’ve got time to look at them. The teacher said they were very good indeed.”

“I should like to see them.”

Lothar didn’t respond. I sympathised with him and felt rather foolish. But Frau Nowak was determined to show him off.

“Which nights are your classes, Lothar?”

“Mondays and Thursdays.” He went on eating, deliberately, obstinately, without looking at his mother. Then perhaps to show that he bore me no ill-will, he added: “From eight to ten-thirty.” As soon as he had finished, he got up without a word, shook hands with me, making the same small bow, took his cap and went out.

Frau Nowak looked after him and sighed: “He’s going round to his Nazis, I suppose. I often wish he’d never taken up with them at all. They put all kinds of silly ideas into his head. It makes him so restless. Since he joined them he’s been a different boy altogether…”