Max

by Sarah Cohen-Scali

  The house is large and beautifully furnished. The old owners must have been very rich. We’re staying on the ground floor because the upper levels were damaged in the bombings. I’m in the children’s room, where everything is still in place. The boy left without taking anything: his clothes are hanging on the back of a chair, the wardrobe is full and his toys are all over the floor. I reckon he is either Kaput, or he’s been taken prisoner.

  I don’t like staying in this room; I prefer exploring the upper floors, among the rubble and debris of collapsed floorboards. It’s fun jumping around, over a gaping hole, or crouching under a broken window, like a sniper taking aim before shooting—so many great ways of keeping up my Draufgängertum. It’s far better than doing colouring-in, as advised by Frau Lotte, the Brown Sister looking after me. She’s not the same one who was in the Mercedes during the trip, but she’s just as ugly and just as old. And stupid to boot. Colouring-in! What does she take me for? I can already read and write; Josefa taught me. I can even do arithmetic. For example: a bag holds thirty sweets, a Jew steals twenty-five, how many sweets are left in the bag? Five—too easy!

  Standing straight as a ramrod in her uniform, Frau Lotte looks a bit like Josefa. And she’s always keeping an eye on me, lecturing me. I have to show respect, but inside I’m raging. I’ve had enough of being surrounded by women, especially when I thought this trip to Poland would change all that. I’m not a baby anymore; I’m a Pimpf now! So I’d like to have some Pimpfe comrades.

  I feel better about the fact that Lotte is not here simply to feed me, help me get washed and dressed—I’m going to do that myself from now on—but also to get me ready for my mission, to serve our Führer, to serve our homeland. The first stage of this preparation consists in learning a few Polish words and pronouncing them with as slight an accent as possible. At first I had trouble—it’s a barbaric language—but I practise every day and I’m getting much better. I already know two whole sentences that I can recite fluently and without a mistake, just like a real little Polack: ‘Dzien´ dobry! Mam na imie¸ Konrad. A ty? Chcesz sie¸ ze mna¸ pobawić?’ Which means: ‘Hello, my name is Konrad. And yours? Do you want to play with me?’

  Over the next few days I have to learn: ‘I’m four years old. And you? Do you have brothers and sisters? Where do you live? Do you live alone with your mother?’ And lots of other stuff as well. I’ve got my work cut out. But I like it and anyway…I’m not stupid.

  Even if Frau Lotte didn’t want to tell me any more about my mission, everything leads me to believe that it’s going to involve meeting children.

  I can’t wait.

  Here we go! It’s starting!

  Today’s the day. Frau Lotte has given me some warm clothes and heavy boots, because it’s cold outside. It’s snowing and there’s enough wind to mess up my nice blond mop of hair. Lotte has put on her uniform again: a long dark-brown dress like a potato sack, with a white ruff and white cuffs. Over the top she’s wearing a sort of grey apron with a large pocket in which she has stuffed a whole jumble of sweets, blocks of chocolate and bread rolls. (I’ve finally understood what Brown Sister means: it’s the uniform. The Sisters want to be seen as religious sisters, which is not at all the case. But why? Another mystery.)

  We don’t use a Mercedes but a black Volkswagen, a more discreet car, more suited to our secret mission. Another Sister accompanies us, wearing the same uniform and carrying a huge wicker basket full of sweets, as well as a satchel full of index cards. Our chauffeur is an Unterscharführer.

  After leaving Poznan, we pass through a series of small villages, most of them reduced to ashes. Nothing much is left of the farms, the barns are piles of charred ruins, just like the churches. Everything stinks of burnt flesh.

  As we come into a village that looks more or less intact, the Schwester tells the driver to slow down, open the roof and slow to a crawl. Seems silly to open the roof in this weather, but it’s fun and I like the cold on my face, and feeling the snowflakes melt on my platinum hair. Snow on snow…

  We drive slowly, quietly, until we get to a school, where we stop and park a few metres from the entrance, hidden behind a stand of trees. There’s silence in the car; no one gets out, no one moves. What are we waiting for? What’s the point of stopping if we can’t get out and walk? The Sister tells me to stay still and be patient. Soon some women turn up and wait outside the doors of the school.

  Okay, I understand I have to keep still, but I can’t keep holding my breath like this. We can see the women chattering but they don’t know we’re here. It’s like we’re spies, in a strange game of hide and seek.

  A bell starts ringing, the doors open, and kids swarm out. Some of them run towards their mothers and they leave together, others gather in groups of two or three to walk home, and a few head off alone in different directions. They’re the ones the Sisters focus on, staring after them, squinting—which just exacerbates the wrinkles on their faces. They’re like vultures, or jackals checking out their prey. They’re only interested in the blond children. And there are a lot of those, which surprises me. How come? So blondness is not unique to Germans and Norwegians?

  ‘That one should be fine,’ announces Frau Lotte.

  ‘No, his eyes are too Slavic.’

  ‘What about that one?’

  ‘The forehead is not high enough…There, the one on the right!’

  Frau Lotte gets out of the car and follows the child pointed out by her colleague, who stays still. Holding me by the arm, she indicates that I should keep still, too. I obey, as usual. I’m programmed to obey, but I’m impatient! Something tells me that I’m about to get in on the action.

  Lotte approaches the child, taps him on the shoulder so he turns around, then runs her hand through his hair in a seemingly affectionate gesture. But it’s not for real. Well, they don’t do that to me. I’m pretty sure she’s casually trying to find out if the little Polish boy’s skull is dolichocephalic. From where I am, I can tell by the movement of her lips and by the way she’s waving her arms around that she’s asking him questions. She’s trying to get him talking, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Stock-still on the footpath, the little boy can’t grasp a single word. Not even when she shows him the treasures in her big pocket and urges him to take his pick. The kid looks both terrified and tempted. Terrified by the Sister—and I’m with him on that. Her brown uniform makes her look like a scarecrow, and her smile is a leering grimace. Tempted by the contents of the big pocket he’s staring at with eyes so wide (and blue, another surprise for me) they might pop out of their sockets. I wonder which will prevail: fear or hunger?

  Fear is stronger. Without taking his eyes off the goodies, the kid starts to retreat slowly, walking like a crab. In a minute he’ll take off.

  That’s when I come onto the scene.

  ‘Remember what we’ve taught you! Off you go!’ says the Sister who had stayed with me in the car.

  I get out straightaway and, cool as a cucumber, skip over to the Polish boy. I say hello to Frau Lotte as if I had just met her and, after asking permission (in Polish), I stick my hand in the pocket of her apron, pull out a block of chocolate and take a big bite out of it. Then, while the Polish boy is looking at me enviously, I offer it to him, along with a big smile. (And my smile is not a grimace.) He responds with an even bigger smile.

  The little Polack literally leaps on the block of chocolate and gobbles it up in a few seconds. Then he starts stuffing himself with sweets and biscuits. So, easy-peasy, I just recite my Polish phrases: ‘Hello, what’s your name? Where do you live? How old are you?’ He doesn’t stop gorging himself and replies without batting an eyelid: he’s five, lives alone with his mother, his father is dead, he has two brothers, eight and six, and he gives me his address.

  Frau Lotte writes it all down scrupulously on one of her index cards and then says goodbye, tapping us both on the head. I smile to pretend I like it—it’s an effort because I hate being touched, and I particularly hate this gesture,
just like patting a dog. I keep walking a bit with the kid who now won’t stop talking. He’s a real chatterbox. I have no idea what he’s jabbering on about—I only know the few sentences I learned by heart—but I nod. After a while, I pretend my house is in the opposite direction and sneak back to the car where the Sister is waiting for me.

  ‘Do widzenia!’ Goodbye!

  I wish I could have stayed with him, he’s much nicer than the Sister. Unfortunately, duty calls.

  The rest of the morning is the same: hanging around the school to pick out more blond children with blue eyes, approaching them, talking to them. All afternoon we prowl around the playgrounds, the local parks—what’s left of them after the bombings.

  I was wiped out when we got back. Too tired to play sniper games or even to play with Thor’s hammer. I could barely manage dinner I was so full after having to eat all that chocolate.

  The next day we set out again. And the days after that. And the same thing for weeks.

  Of course, in the meantime, I found out what was going on, by eavesdropping behind Herr Ebner’s office door in the evenings during his meetings. Now I know what I’m here for, and I know what happens to the children I’ve had to chat up.

  Here’s the lowdown: at the end of the day, the Sisters gather the index cards with the children’s addresses and give them to a special squad of SS soldiers who then go and get the children. Not just the ones I’ve chatted up, but also their brothers and sisters, if they’re under six years old and if they fit the criteria: blond, blue eyes. I’m pretty sure they have to take them by force.

  It’s the famous ‘Operation Something-or-Other’, in which I’m a lynchpin: the kidnapping of the elite Polish children, in order to Germanise them, to make them as perfect as the German children, like me, produced in the Lebensborn program.

  It’s Reichsführer Himmler’s idea: ‘By whatever means, we must Germanise the racially viable foreign children,’ he announced, ‘even if we have to steal them. We have to take in whatever we can of the enemy’s better quality progeny.’

  It’s a huge operation. The German youth army will be doubled, tripled, quadrupled; its numbers will be unsurpassable. We can’t just rely on the mothers in the Homes anymore, even with the addition of the recently requisitioned Norwegian and Danish women, unless each of them were to give birth to between twenty and forty children, which is impossible. Whereas, by stealing children who already exist, the sky’s the limit. Such a brilliant idea! A bit like a blood transfusion. New blood for Germany, while weakening the enemy.

  The prospect of having that many Pimpfe buddies really motivates me, so I try even harder. Doctor Ebner is very happy with what I’m doing and always congratulates me, so much so that my status as a mascot is even more enhanced. Thanks to me, ‘Operation Buddies’ (I invented my own code word) has really got going after a slow beginning. They’ve already adjusted the procedures. In the beginning, SS soldiers were the only ones taking the children, from wherever, snatching them out of the arms of their mothers, which caused a huge panic. Then they added the Brown Sisters, to sweet-talk the children. Things were okay for a while but sooner or later, same deal, the Brown Sisters were seen as birds of ill omen. As soon as a kid saw one, he ran off.

  Whereas my angelic looks not only stop them in their tracks, but actually attract them: they all want to be my friend.

  Everything went well for a few months, then rumours started. People connected me with the Brown Sisters. It’s so annoying. (They’re not just ugly; they’re real bitches.) More importantly, it means I became less useful.

  But Doctor Ebner, my protector, always finds a way.

  So long, Brown Sisters. From now on I’ll be working with Bibiana.

  Bibiana.

  In Polish it means the ‘Lady of the Lake’, from the Arthurian legend. I like it and I’m sure it’s somehow connected to my destiny: I’m like King Arthur, the child warrior who would one day drink from the Holy Grail and attain immortality. I couldn’t wish for a better companion than the Lady of the Lake.

  So much for my personal take on her; the reality is much less poetic.

  Bibiana is an informer.

  Frau Lotte didn’t use that term when she introduced me on the first day; she talked nonsense, full of innuendo and lies: ‘Konrad, darling, come over here! Put your hammer down, please. You’ll end up taking someone’s eye out with that thing…Say hello to Bibiana! She’s just joined our team and you two are going to play a new game together. You’ll pretend she’s your mother, you’ll go out with her, and make lots of new buddies…Just look at the costume I’ve brought for you. Pop it on now, and no grumbling. Oh, I know it’s dirty and full of holes, but that’s so you look just right! You’re getting dressed up like a real little Polish boy!’

  Blah-blah-blah. What a load of rubbish. I knew exactly what the deal was.

  Even though she speaks German well, Bibiana is Polish. She comes from the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The Sisters must have waited a few days before introducing her to me, so she could put on a bit of weight and look less like a walking corpse. She’s still really thin: her dress hangs off her like a sack; her arms are scarcely bigger than mine; and her chest is completely flat, as if her breasts had been sucked inside her body. Her head was shaved to get rid of lice and now she’s hiding her bald head under a scarf. But nature was kind to her: she’s tall, blonde, with eyes as blue as mine and—it’s a bit weird—she definitely looks like me. That was her salvation. They offered her a deal: she could leave the camp on condition that she came here, to Poznan, and pretended to be my mother, going from village to village, making friends with single women with blonde hair and blue eyes, and getting their addresses to pass on to the Brown Sisters.

  Between betrayal and death, she chose betrayal. It’s understandable. Even if it is cowardly. I’d never betray. But, there you go, informers are useful. There are a lot of them working at the town hall with Herr Doktor Ebner and Herr Tesch.

  The thing I picked up from Frau Lotte’s spiel was that my mission has now become dangerous: I, Konrad, the prototype-child-typical-of-the-pure-Aryan-race, the child-elect, soon to be five years old—so defenceless—I am now going to be spending my days with a prisoner. It’s a bit like the episode Josefa described to me countless times: the dissident-whore-who-had-sex-with-a-Jew, who kidnapped me when I was only a tiny baby, who tortured me, starved me, and almost killed me.

  Of course, this time it’s different; precautions have been taken to guarantee my safety: a car driven by an SS soldier will follow us wherever we go, and Bibiana has been warned that at the slightest false move the soldier will shoot her in the head. But I guess the car will be following us at a distance, so as not to arouse suspicion, which will leave me at Bibiana’s mercy. What if, on a whim, she feels guilty and decides no longer to betray her compatriots? What if, just before dying, she directs her hate at me and strangles me? Or pushes me into a ravine? Or drops me down a well? It would only take a minute or two, if that. And then, it’s all over! Raus, kaput, Konrad! Died in the service of his country.

  The prospect of danger doesn’t frighten me. On the contrary, it excites me, intensifies my boundless Draufgängertum. My superiors’ trust in me has gone up a notch. I’m no longer a spy, I’m an infiltrator!

  So I’m happy to play the game and wear the stinking rags Lotte hands me. I slip off my navy blue Bermuda shorts, my brown shirt with the armband, my tie and my cap, and I swap them for a baggy sweater full of holes, a crumpled pair of pants that has to be held up by a piece of string around my waist. Not very attractive, but very amusing. And from now on, not much washing: a quick top and tail on my face and bum, that’s it. It doesn’t matter if I have filthy nails, yellow teeth and foul breath.

  Off we go, Bibiana and I, out along the Polish country roads. But it’s quite awkward: the problem is that we’re wary of each other. Bibiana more than me. She’s scared to death and it’s as plain as the nose on your face: a tantrum from me means she heads strai
ght back to camp.

  ‘Bibiana was horrible today! She was really mean to me! She said I was a dirty rotten son of a Kraut’s prostitute!’

  Lotte won’t budge until we get home and that’s the sort of thing I could report to her.

  Oh, yeah, I can make up whatever the hell I like! That Bibiana didn’t give me anything to eat, that she didn’t get someone’s address because the woman was a friend of hers. And whatever else…Lots of kids my age lie, right?

  So Bibiana is on her best behaviour. She addresses me formally, lowers her eyes as soon as I look at her, always walks a short distance behind me, or else on the road, leaving me the footpath, as the Poles have to do if they see a German. When it’s lunchtime, she watches me eat and doesn’t dare touch the provisions in the basket Lotte provides; she eats my leftovers, a bit of chewed bread, mashed vegetables I’ve stuck my dirty hands in, stewed fruit I’ve spat out. In the end, it’s obvious we aren’t the real thing and, even after a few days, no one’s taken the bait.

  We get back empty-handed. Not a single address.

  Things are not going well at all. The Sisters have faces as long as a wet weekend. Things don’t look good for Bibiana or for me: she could get sent back to camp and I could be demoted. Back to colouring-in with Frau Lotte in the bombed-out house.

  So, one morning, Bibiana decides to take action. She gets straight to the point. ‘Konrad,’ she says, uttering my name for the first time, ‘no one will believe I’m your mother if you don’t let me hold your hand.’

  I’m grateful to her for speaking frankly, for articulating the problem we’re up against. I’ll ignore her disrespect in speaking to me so intimately, but really…hold hands? That’s a bit much, isn’t it? I’m not going to sully myself like that, am I? I stare at her with my big blue eyes that make such an impression on people, and this time she doesn’t look away like she usually does. (Which is normal, really, as I’ve noticed that my eyes only disconcert those with dark eyes, whereas Bibiana’s are extraordinarily bright. Not the slightest fleck of anything around the irises. They’d get top marks from Doctor Ebner.) She’s got a little smile at the corners of her mouth as she waits for my answer. I give a sidelong glance at the car, which is on the road some distance off, on the edge of the field we’re standing in. I wonder…I weigh up the pros and cons. It’s true: when I hung around the school gates with the Sisters, I saw how the children reached for their mother’s hand as soon as they got out of school. Her suggestion was worth considering.