Most of their good furniture had been shipped out. Uschi missed her piano.. stepping gingerly around what few household items remained. Where the piano should have been there was an enormous empty space. It was odd. like living on a stage where one set had been stripped and nothing was ready for the next act.

They were all waiting for visas. The visa that would fix everything.

The new edicts ordered them to disconnect their phone, sell the cars, and dismiss the servants. Uschi missed the coffee houses, the restaurants, the casino in Baden-Baden with its gilded columns. But most of all she missed her beloved Ottilie.

She began to prepare what she called her going-away outfit. She wanted to be ready when they came. She’d take her low-heeled, navy suedes with the alligator insets. She loved the alligators. And her new navy frock with the red polka dot inset and matching bolero jacket. In the end she forgot to take many things, including her umbrella with the initialled silver handle, a gift from her favourite uncle. She’d never be able to buy another.

Finally, long hours of sleep and daylight dreaming blurred together. Only fantasy, her last indulgence, remained. She made furtive forays, anxious and hurried, across the pretty tree-lined plaza to her favourite cinema. During intermission, reality returned abruptly when the houselights came up and the brownshirts foraged the aisles with their collection boxes while Uschi tried to sink deep into her plush seat. Later, to beat the curfew, she’d race home through the twilight to an evening of brooding or squabbling with Michael. Uschi had been to her friends’ "going away Parties". In the end there was no party for Uschi.

Uschi’s father seldom spoke of the future now, going about his business as usual, walking carefully through the spacious and nearly empty rooms. He played poker with the other trapped men at the only hotel still accessible to them. Her father was like a man caught in a revolving door, unable to stop, a man between trains, with nothing but his watch and old timetable…