As children David had been their leader, the one who knew the answers and understood the struggle. It had been David who told them of Babi Yar, and none of them past eleven years of age. It was not a place their parents spoke of, not talked about by the rabbi, but David had led them to the ravine on the edge of the city's suburbs and told them what had happened there, of the machine-gunning of the Jews, told them there was no monument to commemorate the place because those who had died there had been Jewish. David had pointed to where the Germans had set up their machine-gun tripods, marked the spot for them, explained how the columns of the condemned came without thought of flight or resistance, spoken of the meek and pallid acceptance of the orders to wait patiently, to file forward, to kneel down, not to move, not to obstruct the soldiers' aim. Then he had shown them the refuse of the suburb that had been thrown into this place, and walked with them to the broken jars in which the brave placed flowers at night, when they were safe from view, and which were destroyed in the morning by the boots of those on their way to the trams and the buses. The trio listened as David explained their position in life, their heritage. For a boy of his years he knew so much, had the patience to tell them, when they wanted to play the games of children, the matters with which they should concern themselves.

The group had become inseparable. At school they had sat together, at home they had worked together – because David said they must be cleverer, with better grades, better diplomas than those they sought to emulate. But they were being prepared for a life of conformity and inaction, inevitable in its way, until the day that David had come to Rebecca's house with the radio set.