At the start of the novel, Gittel is living in The Hague, the daughter of a hapless businessman who goes on to lose all his money trying to get rich quick in Berlin. On the very first page, Simons treats us to a delightfully matter-of-fact account of how young Gittel regards the blazing rows that erupt between her parents on Sundays and public holidays: ‘Although relations between them were reasonably amicable otherwise, tensions mounted on the double helping of public holidays that is the lot of Jewish families. It therefore became a matter of the greatest urgency for me to ascertain at the earliest possible opportunity the days on which our holidays would fall in the coming year.’

The tone is set: in light-hearted yet determined fashion, Gittel relates the trying circumstances in which she at­tempts to make a life for herself. After every matrimonial slanging match, mother runs off to her parents’ home in Antwerp with Gittel in tow. There Gittel’s loyalty is taxed by a surfeit of relatives. Much to her delight, she makes the acquaintance of the well-to-do Mardell family, who allow her to practise on their Steinway. Gittel feels that she is taken seriously by Mr Mardell, the head of the household, and by thirty-year-old Lucie Mardell, whom she adores. When these friendships turn out to be nothing but an illusion, Gittel learns her first lessons about trust and betrayal.

This intimate portrayal of a familial rite of passage is set in the inter-war period and in the shadow of the Shoah. The writer says little about the turmoil and tragedy that awaits her characters, yet succeeds in giving the reader a sense that the novel is about more than a young girl’s loss of innocence. In a fluid, almost casual style, Ida Simons has written a masterly and timeless ode to a relatively carefree interlude in a dark and dramatic period.

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