Summary

Chapter 1 opens in Hamburg, Germany, in September 1946. First, the narrator introduces a German orphan child named Ozi, the leader of a gang of “ferals” fighting for their survival and scrounging for food and safe places to sleep (4). The narrator then turns to the novel’s protagonist, British Colonel Lewis Morgan, who is in charge of the postwar reconstruction and de-Nazification process in Hamburg. He is assigned a large mansion on the Elbe river to live in. According to procedure, Lewis will requisition the house and turn the current owners out. The narrator then introduces Herr Lubert, a polished, cultured former architect, and his angsty 15-year-old daughter Freda. His wife Claudia died in the 1943 bombings and Freda resents the British for the loss of her mother. When Lewis arrives at the villa, Herr Lubert gives him a tour of his beautiful, modern house. Lewis feels...