The German Girl

by Lily Graham

  Jürgen grinned in response, a dimple appearing in his freckled cheek. ‘Like a girl – or worse, actually, even you don’t scream that badly. But no, he didn’t wet himself, unfortunately. Maybe next time?’

  And the two laughed so hard they could barely breathe when they entered their flat.

  When they got inside, their father was waiting for them, and the laughter died quickly in their throats, the air turning to lead as it sank into the pits of their bellies.

  ‘Did you have a good day?’ he asked Jürgen coldly.

  ‘Er—’ began Jürgen.

  ‘Well, it sounds to me like you did – as I was called out of surgery to discuss your antics at the school.’

  ‘Papa – I—’ Jürgen began. His eyes were wide with fear.

  ‘It was my fault, well, my idea to buy the tarantula,’ said Asta. ‘Punish me, not him!’

  Papa shook his head, then took a sip of whisky. He looked tired.

  ‘You kids – it’s time you grew up. We’re hanging here by a thread, don’t you understand? It’s not the time to act like fools.’

  They blinked.

  ‘But, Papa,’ said Jürgen, ‘it was just a silly prank and Herr Weimar has said that now I must clean the bathrooms for a whole month – I mean, that’s not fair, Udo Van der Welt tripped a boy, who fell on his arm—’

  Their father stood up. ‘You know, maybe I’m the fool. I am quite sure that I never gave you the impression that this world was fair but if you haven’t been listening to the news – if you haven’t figured out that things are about to get a whole lot more unfair, well… then I don’t know what to tell you. Except, maybe… think. Use your head. Maybe your brain will start working when you start cleaning those toilets.’

  Then he turned on his heel to leave, saying over his shoulder, ‘And if I ever get interrupted during a surgery for something like this again, cleaning toilets will be the least of your worries.’

  As predicted, the boys turned the bathrooms into a virtual pigsty, bringing in things – from marbles to dolls’ heads – to block the pipes. They smeared mud on the walls and piled rubbish into the sinks at the end of each day. As the news of his punishment spread, Jürgen started to go in an extra hour earlier to clean, and he always had an audience, with lots of the boys arriving earlier too to be a spectator and offer some advice. ‘Don’t forget to really put your elbows into it this time,’ said one as he used the plunger to sift out a doll from one of the toilets, masking his nose with his other hand as the foetid smell rose. He flung the doll’s head into the bucket then frowned, giving a low whistle.

  ‘What?’ asked the boy.

  ‘It’s mad – come see.’

  The boy hurried forward to look inside, then pulled a face at the soiled doll’s head covered in excrement.

  ‘It’s just a doll’s head,’ said the boy.

  ‘But it looks just like your mother!’ said Jürgen.

  Luckily the janitor intervened before a fight broke out. ‘Out – out of here, boy, get to class.’

  Then he smacked Jürgen over the back of his head. ‘You want to get another month of this?’

  Jürgen shook his head as he moved on to the next blocked toilet, the bile rising in his throat. ‘No.’

  ‘Then keep your stupid trap shut from now on.’

  Which he did. It was the longest month ever, but by the end of it even the boys had stopped coming in early and few bothered taking the time to make the bathroom more of a mess than it already was. The joke had become stale.

  But not for Jürgen, who had learnt his lesson at last.

  In April, things went from bad to worse. The news came on the radio that the schools were closed for an extra month, and at first Jürgen and Asta, like all the others, were excited at the prospect of an extended holiday. Except that when they returned, both their schools were now run by the Nazi Party. And Like Udo Van der Welt had predicted back in January, all the Jewish staff had been dismissed. Including Jürgen’s head teacher, Herr Weimar, who was married to a Jewish woman, and was now being called a ‘half-Semite’.

  In fact, it was uncertain if the twins would even be allowed to attend the schools themselves. Things had started to escalate since March, with storm troopers marching into cities and terrorising the Jewish population in an attempt to segregate them from the rest of society. They’d attacked shop owners, and those in civil service, dragging them into the streets and making them perform humiliating acts. Local police were powerless to stop them and when news of their behaviour leaked into the overseas press, painting the Nazis in less than a favourable light, it only made them persecute the Jews even more. On 1 April, there was a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned business, with the word ‘Jude’ or the Star of David painted on windows. They marched through towns, inciting hatred and terror which led to spurts of violence. The boycott didn’t work, as people continued to shop at the businesses in the days that followed, but the tone had been set, and six days later a new law called the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service dismissed Jews from public service unless they could prove their non-Jewish parentage. Similar laws that affected lawyers and doctors soon came into effect.

  At home, the mood was apprehensive. Both Mutti and Papa could be faced with dismissal… and then what would happen to them all? Neither of them could claim non-Jewish grandparents.

  In the end, President von Hindenburg intervened suggesting that these new rules shouldn’t apply to those Jews who had fought in the First World War, and Hitler reluctantly agreed.

  ‘So, you’ll be able to keep your jobs, then?’ Asta asked her parents, sitting across from them at the dinner table, their chicken and sauerkraut untouched. Papa had been in the war; he’d fought with his two brothers, but only he had survived. His only surviving sibling was his sister, Trine, who lived now in Denmark.

  ‘For now,’ agreed Papa, stabbing a piece of chicken with his fork. ‘But your mother might not.’

  They stared at her in surprise. ‘I don’t think it applies to the spouses of war veterans. It’s okay, I might be able to get a job at the Jewish clinic – a former colleague who works there has hinted that there might be an opening if I want to come on board. But at least one of us will definitely get to keep their job. It’s a good thing – a relief,’ she said, though it sounded like she was trying to convince herself of that.

  Papa looked at her in disbelief. ‘Is it?’ He shook his head, and put down his fork, which clanged onto his plate, then stared out unseeing at the streets of Hamburg below their apartment. ‘You’ve worked hard for that hospital – and you’re excellent at it but despite that, you must leave, just like that? Just because we don’t have Christian grandparents. Maybe it would be better if we had no alternative – like the Rubensteins.’

  The Rubensteins were their neighbours – both worked in the civil service, government office jobs, and now were looking at emigrating to England.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ said Mutti, who had picked up her wine glass only to set it down with a thud, slopping red liquid onto the crisp white linen. ‘Hana Rubenstein is beside herself, she’s been crying every day since it happened. Her whole life is here – and she can’t even speak English properly. All I have to do is work for another hospital. In some ways it will be better – less responsibility. They’re only going because her husband can, and they have a friend who is willing to put them up – but can you even imagine how horrid it will be for them – it’s not like the English are that fond of Germans, after the war…’

  Papa snorted. ‘Worse than here? As foreigners, they will have more rights there than in their own country. As long as he gets the right visa and pays his taxes, they will be fine. I think we should think of doing the same.’

  Mama blinked. ‘Leave Hamburg?’

  He stared at her. ‘Germany.’

  ‘And go where?’

  ‘Denmark, maybe. We can go to Trine – she’s already suggested it; she has a small cottage by the sea, but she has
a big barn which she has offered us.’

  Mutti’s eyes widened in shock. ‘A barn? You can’t be serious! We don’t need to flee – we aren’t destitute, or about to be like the Rubensteins, we don’t have to go! I don’t want to leave my friends, give up working…’ She started to cry, her gaze falling on their stylish flat in the heart of the city, with its polished herringbone wood, high ceilings and touches of luxury from fine art to hand-made antiques. ‘… to live in a barn.’

  The twins looked stricken. They didn’t want to leave either. This was their city, their home, with its vast network of canals. Things were bad for now, but surely they would get better?

  Papa sighed. ‘I don’t relish the idea either but we might have to at some point. Maybe it’s better if we did it fast. It’s just… I’ve been thinking it’s like a bone, a clean break often heals the best – but if you keep injuring it, the longer it takes to recover.’

  7

  Since Asta could remember, Jürgen was usually found with a sketchbook in hand. He was forever drawing something he’d seen: scenes of daily life in Hamburg, from canals to people at cafés and restaurants or sitting on benches. He drew dogs roaming free, as well as Asta and their adventures. There was a playfulness to his scenes, a way of looking at the world and finding the humour, along with the shared humanity.

  He kept a daily sketchbook, like his idol, Adolph von Menzel, had. ‘You know, Asta, they say he had eight pockets in his overcoat and they were filled with sketchbooks – he said he couldn’t understand how an artist could be without one.’ Menzel was known for his paintings and his patriotism, but it was his sketches and his work processes that Jürgen respected most. Like Menzel, Jürgen’s drawings were full of empathy, particularly for people who were finding it harder to be acquainted with luck.

  On their tenth birthday, Papa and Mutti, presented them each with a single gift. It was unusual, as often in the past there had been several for each, but times were tougher, and more uncertain. Yet it was this very simplicity that made each of their gifts so special. Asta’s was an introduction to veterinary science – a first-year anatomy textbook for university students, and Jürgen’s was a handsome leather sketchbook, that had his initials stamped in gold foil. J.S.

  Jürgen began to fill his immediately, sketching his sister, as she pored over the anatomy textbook with fervour.

  She was arranging different coloured pencils around her while she began taking notes, a look of satisfaction on her face, as she studied an illustration of the muscle network of a dog.

  He grinned, catching her feet, ankles crossed, while she lay on her front. ‘You know, Küken, you are a bit weird, really.’

  She had a pink pencil in her mouth – the perfect shade for tendons – as she looked up at him. She didn’t get offended. Her violet eyes danced. ‘I know, but then, I suppose we are all a bit weird, deep down.’

  He nodded. She was probably right.

  He stifled a smile as she began to learn each and every muscle, bone, and tendon. Later there would be colour-coded notes, which would be stuck up all over her wall, or placed into the pocket of her school jacket, so that she could test herself.

  And then soon – like the way she had once studied several maps of all the hundreds of Hamburg’s canals – she would know it all by heart.

  Jürgen looked up as a shadow moved over his sketch of the former Jewish teacher, Frau Hinkel, who had passed by the school gate, shoulders weary.

  ‘See, you’ve got it all wrong,’ said a whiny voice that Jürgen recognised as Udo’s. He looked up and the boy was peering at his sketch with intensity. Jürgen made to stow away his sketchbook, but the boy was quicker, and snatched it, taking out a pencil from his pocket. ‘I’ll fix it for you, shall I?’ he said. ‘The nose should be at least two or three inches longer – and you missed the bump,’ he said, looking up at Jürgen. ‘You all have them,’ he said, and drew a cartoonish mountain over Frau Hinkel’ s nose. ‘Also, the eyes – they have small beady eyes, like rats, like you…’ he said, drawing a line to cut the woman’s eyes in half.

  Jürgen stood up quickly, his hands balled into fists at his side.

  Thankfully, before anything could escalate, a teacher named Herr Staeler intervened. He snatched the sketchbook from Udo and looked at it.

  ‘I was just fixing it,’ said Udo, a smirk on his face. Frau Hinkel’s face, despite his graffiti, was recognisable. The teacher shrugged, then nodded, and handed the sketchbook back to Jürgen. ‘Good job,’ he told Udo, his eyes daring Jürgen to object.

  Jürgen didn’t say anything, though his eyes spoke volumes.

  ‘Leave, Schwalbe,’ dismissed the teacher, finally looking away.

  There was more talk that year of moving but for the moment it was only that. The twins’ parents were often arguing, stressed and anxious.

  ‘I flat out refuse, this will blow over and then what – we will have smashed up our lives for nothing,’ argued Mutti.

  ‘I promise you, if that is the case, if it’s all nothing, we can move straight back,’ implored their father.

  ‘Don’t be silly, we won’t get any of this back – not our jobs – it was a miracle I got in at the clinic as it was, with so many Jewish doctors and nurses out of work, or our home – besides, what do you want the children to do – go to school in Denmark, learn a whole new language while we live in some barn in the middle of nowhere?’

  ‘Is that really such a bad idea?’

  ‘To live in a barn? She keeps her horse there – and she hasn’t even offered to get rid of it.’

  ‘She will, I’m sure.’

  ‘Mmmh,’ said Mutti, who wasn’t convinced. ‘Besides, it’s cold in Denmark.’

  Papa snorted. ‘It’s not much different than here. It’s beautiful too.’

  Mutti shook her head. ‘Could we even get work there? I wouldn’t know how to be anything but a nurse – and would they let us when we don’t know the language? It’s just too much to decide. I still don’t think we need to yet. Six more months, then we’ll make that call – if things get worse.’

  But six months came and went and there was no more talk of leaving. The twins were relieved. They didn’t want to have to move. Though one sunny June afternoon, Asta changed her mind.

  Jürgen found her at home, crying on her bed. ‘Hey – where were you, I waited for you outside your school but they said you left early, what happened?’

  From her prone form on her small single bed, Asta groaned. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  Jürgen frowned, then took a seat next to her, almost on top of her knees. ‘Budge up,’ he said.

  She didn’t, so he hovered over them. She sighed, then shifted over. ‘Go away,’ she sniffled.

  ‘Nope.’

  She flung herself the other way around, and from under the curtain of her light hair, she asked, ‘Did they do that thing with the rulers to you yet?’

  He frowned. ‘Rulers?’

  She nodded, tears filling her eyes. ‘Frau Klein, our biology teacher, measured my head. She told me it’s smaller than an Aryan’s – that it shows how weak Jews are and how… inferior.’

  Jürgen frowned. ‘Did she measure the others’ heads?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I’m the only Jewish girl there.’

  He made a huffing sound, like he disagreed.

  ‘What – it’s true.’

  ‘Yes, I know that’s true – but how would she know your head was smaller than any of the others’ unless she measured theirs too?’

  She frowned. ‘Well, she’s a biology teacher so maybe she knows how big Aryan heads are.’

  ‘And they’re all exactly the same?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Let’s ask Papa.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Why not? He’s a surgeon – I’m sure he knows more than some biology teacher.’

  ‘A surgeon of bones.’

  ‘So – they have bones in the head!’

  Asta wiped her eyes; sh
e wanted to be like Jürgen, to just dismiss what her teacher had said, but the woman had been so sure, so convinced. Asta was someone who lived her life in facts, in science, in biology. So it had hit her harder, because she so admired the woman. The teacher was even rather sympathetic, patting her shoulder afterwards and saying, ‘It’s not your fault you were born inferior – it’s just a condition of birth, you couldn’t help it. Other than that, I think you are quite clever, really.’

  Of course, that had only made things worse.

  She didn’t know exactly why she didn’t want Jürgen to tell their father – perhaps in some small way that didn’t quite make sense, she feared he would see her as inferior too.

  Unfortunately, their father was on call that night. At dinner, though, Jürgen was not to be deterred.

  Their mother paused, a piece of mashed potato poised on a fork before her mouth as he relayed the tale despite Asta’s scowling face.

  Then she blinked. ‘She measured your head?’

  Asta nodded, not meeting her mother’s eyes.

  ‘And she said it made you inferior?’

  Asta didn’t respond.

  Jürgen interjected. ‘You know it’s nonsense, Mutti – she didn’t even measure the other girls!’

  ‘Because they are Aryan, she didn’t have to,’ said Asta.

  ‘I see,’ said Mutti, putting her fork down. Tears splashed down Asta’s face and onto her plate.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mutti.’

  Mutti blinked. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for. I can assure you that there is nothing inferior about you at all.’

  Asta didn’t say anything. Mutti stared at her for a long time. Then she said, ‘Tomorrow you’re coming to work with me for the morning, and in the afternoon, we’re going to find you a new school.’

  Asta looked up in surprise. Their mother’s face was grim, determined.

  ‘In the morning, we’re going to visit my old hospital and the children’s ward – where we will measure some heads ourselves, and you’ll see that your teacher is nothing but an idiot. Then in the afternoon I will have the satisfaction of telling her so before we enrol you both.’