She pressed on through the dark, trackless forest, bumping into unseen branches, stumbling over roots, sometimes falling over: but always she was driven on by her single-minded resolve. She wasn’t far from the railway station, but she was frightened to go there. She had reached the point where she thought our enemies capable of anything. Perhaps they had sent her description through to the station, a description that was easy enough to recognize: a tall, heavily pregnant woman. So she carried on feeling her way through the forest, further and further, until she had left the village behind her. Then she struck out for the road, found it, and carried on along it, finding the going a little easier now. It was the same road that I had travelled a few weeks earlier in the ‘jalopy’. She also passed the spot that I’ll never forget as long as I live, where I was supposed to get out and where I had to fight for my life. I had seen it in the sunshine, and will always see it bathed in sunshine, with the thin poles of the scrawny pine trees. She walked past the place at night, it meant nothing to her, and her heart did not beat any faster on that account. It’s a strange planet we live on, and those who are closest to each other still live a long way apart.

It’s not that far from our village to the town of Fürstenwalde, not much more than ten kilometres, but for a heavily pregnant woman with a three-year-old child in her arms it is a very long way indeed. For weeks on end she had just been sitting in the house and getting no exercise: now she had to step out and keep on going. Sometimes the boy would run along beside her for a bit, and then she would sit down on a milestone and rest for a while. She was also thinking about the two babies she carried inside her, of course, and told herself that all this agitation, worry and over-exertion couldn’t possibly be good for them. But it didn’t help at all. And it didn’t help at all that every kilometre felt like a mile, and that her feet hurt terribly from all the extra weight she was carrying. Nor did it help that she was fretting and worrying about me and about what the future would bring for us. But she was driven on by sheer willpower, and she travelled the road that she had to travel; rough or smooth, she had no choice. The night was all around her, perchance the stars were up above her head, and a wind helped her on her way. But as she was walking she also thought about the people whose actions had brought her to this, having to creep around in secret at night like some tramp. She thought about the men who had seized control in Germany, destroying at a stroke the freedom of the individual in every area of personal life, inviting every kind of arbitrary abuse and putting people at each other’s throats. But it helped her to think like that. It taught this kind, forgiving heart how to hate, it made these eyes, which otherwise only ever looked for the good in life, clearsighted, and not once in the ten years that followed, not for one second, did she ever falter in her hatred. She knew these men are evil, and want only what is evil. It may be that here and there along the way they do something good, but since they want what is evil, it doesn’t count, and their downfall is certain. What is acquired by evil means cannot stand. And now hopefully the hour is nigh when the whole evil edifice will collapse in ruins!

She reached Fürstenwalde, by then it was already morning, and she went to the railway station. She used the washroom to freshen up herself and the child, and had a bit of breakfast. Then they went to visit me, she saw me again, healthy and in good spirits, and both of us felt our hearts a little lighter. As for what to do next, the only word of advice I could give her was: ‘Go and see Rowohlt, good old Rowohlt – he’ll know of a way out!’

And so she went to see him, the man who stood by his authors when they were in any kind of trouble, and he knew what to do.