by Dan Smith
‘Does it hurt?’ she asked. ‘Can you walk all right? Can you move your arms?’
‘He’s fine,’ Wolff said. ‘He’s a strong—’
‘He’s a child, ‘Oma interrupted him. ‘A twelve-year-old child.’
Wolff’s expression hardened. ‘He’s lucky to be alive. And you two have some explaining to do. A child of this age should be at school.’
Oma and Opa exchanged a look of worry.
‘His papa was killed,’ Oma said, as she wet a cloth and wrung it out. ‘His school and troop know about it. He needs time to—’
‘Whatever happened to his papa, he shouldn’t be out on the street where he can damage my car,’ Wolff said.
‘Of course,’ Opa agreed. ‘I’m very sorry. It won’t happen again.’
Oma’s fingers shook as she cleaned my cuts and bruises. Wolff strode around the kitchen, looking in the drawers as if he owned the place. He didn’t ask for permission, he just put his nose into everything. He seemed to fill the room, and the smell of his aftershave overpowered everything else in the kitchen.
He removed a tin from one of the cupboards, opened the lid and sniffed. ‘Coffee,’ he said. ‘Real coffee. And plenty of it.’
‘From Herr Finkel’s shop,’ Oma said.
Wolff looked across at Oma. ‘How is it that you have so much coffee and I have none?’
‘It’s from Herr Finkel’s shop,’ Oma repeated as she dabbed disinfectant onto my knees. ‘We paid for it with—’
‘Cigarettes, too,’ he said, taking four packets from the back of the cupboard. ‘German. Good ones.’
‘They’re from Herr—’
‘—Finkel’s shop, yes, yes, so you say.’ Wolff waved a hand. ‘How lucky that Herr Finkel’s shop is so well stocked. He must be quite a resourceful businessman. For me, these things are not so easy to come by.’ It was as if Wolff were trying to sound pleasant, but there was a suspicious and accusing edge to his voice.
Wolff put two packets in each of his jacket pockets and turned his hard, grey eyes on Oma. ‘We are becoming a nation of black-marketeers even without the Jewish influence,’ he said.
‘They’re not black-market,’ Oma protested.
‘You know, some people are already hoarding; filling their cellars like little hamsters,’ Wolff said. ‘It’s the kind of behaviour that undermines the strength of the Fatherland.’
‘You’ll find nothing in our cellar but old furniture.’
‘Hmm.’ Wolff stared at Oma for a moment, then put the coffee tin on the table and replaced the lid. ‘You are a member of the party are you not, Herr Brandt?’
‘Yes,’ Opa said.
‘Card and badge.’
Opa nodded and left the kitchen. Wolff looked around once more, then followed him, their footsteps receding along the hallway to the drawing room.
‘What were you thinking?’ Oma whispered when he was gone. ‘We were so worried about you. Why did you run off like that?’ Her voice was trembling.
‘I’m sorry.’ I’d never seen Oma look so frightened. ‘What’s going to happen?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, fumbling with the bandage she was putting on my knee, ‘but you’re all right and that’s what’s important. Everything else can be dealt with.’
When Opa came back into the kitchen, Kriminal-inspektor Wolff was close on his heels.
‘I want you to go upstairs.’ Opa was now wearing a Nazi party badge, pinned to his shirt, and I wondered why he hadn’t been wearing it before. ‘Don’t come down until we call you,’ he said in a near whisper. ‘And don’t be afraid. Everything will be fine.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘You have nothing to be sorry about,’ he replied. ‘Now; upstairs.’
I turned to do as I was told but Wolff blocked my way for a few long seconds, as if he wasn’t going to let me leave. He stared down at me with almost no expression at all, unblinking, his eyes fixed on mine.
I couldn’t look away from him. My mouth went dry and my heart quickened. He wasn’t a big man like Opa, but he seemed bigger, as if he could squash me with one swipe of his hand.
Then he grinned, showing me a flash of teeth, and moved aside so I could hurry upstairs to Mama’s room.
I wanted, more than anything, for Mama to comfort me but she was fast asleep and didn’t even move. I watched her for a moment, feeling lost, then went into my own room and changed out of my dirty uniform, putting my silver medal on the chest of drawers beside the photograph of Papa.
Wearing a white shirt and non-uniform trousers, I stood at the window and listened to the mumble of voices from downstairs. On the road below my bedroom window, Wolff’s Mercedes was hunched at the roadside like a sleek and brooding beast. The sunlight glinted from the silver-coloured bumper and I couldn’t see any scratches from here. There wasn’t much damage at all. My bike was in much worse condition. I’d probably have to ask Opa to help me collect it, because the front wheel was all buckled and I’d never be able to ride it in that condition. In fact, I might not be able to ride it ever again if I couldn’t find a new wheel.
I sighed and was about to move away from the window when Wolff emerged into the street. I pressed my face closer, pushing my nose against the glass so the top of Opa’s head was just visible too.
Wolff stood straight with his shoulders back and his head up. He was so stiff, he looked as if he might have a plank of wood stuck up the back of his suit jacket. As he spoke, he lifted his right arm and pointed a finger at Opa. He shook it as he spoke, punctuating each word, then he turned and strode to his car, yanking the door open.
‘I hate you,’ I whispered, remembering how he’d spoken to me when he knocked me off my bike. ‘I hate you.’
And he looked up.
Gerhard Wolff stood beside his gleaming car and looked up at the window and saw me when it was too late for me to pull away.
So I forced myself to stare back at him.
He kept his eyes on mine and grinned like before. Then the grin was gone, as quickly as it had appeared. It just fell from his face as if it had never been there, and he climbed into his car and pulled the door shut.
The engine started with a growl and Wolff’s car pulled away from the side of the road and sped along Escherstrasse. When it reached the end, it turned left and I stared at the empty road, hoping I would never meet Wolff again.
TROUBLE
When Kriminalinspektor Wolff had gone, I crept down to the kitchen. Oma was sitting at the table, still in her apron, staring at the tabletop like Mama had done when we received Papa’s death notice. For the first time in my life, I thought Oma looked old. I’d never known her so tired and grey.
Opa was standing beside her, hands in his pockets, also staring at the tabletop, as if there was something on it that was enormously interesting.
Oma turned her head and shifted her gaze to look at me, but the two motions didn’t happen together. She had to tear her eyes away, and she didn’t focus at first, as if she wasn’t sure who I was, then she shook her head and made a smile come to her lips. ‘Darling,’ she said, holding out both arms. ‘Come here.’
I thought they might have shouted at me, and her actions took me by surprise.
‘Come,’ she said again, so I went to her and let her hug me.
She crushed me against her bosom and I looked at Opa who smiled in a way that didn’t reach the corners of his eyes like it usually did.
‘Am I in trouble?’ I asked.
‘No, no,’ Opa said. ‘Everything’s fine. You’re not in any trouble.’
‘I shouldn’t have gone out,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Nothing to be sorry about.’ Opa, glanced down at the tabletop again.
Now that I was closer, I could see what he was looking at: his Nazi party membership card.
‘I didn’t mean to …’ My thoughts were all muddled. ‘I didn’t want to …’
‘It’s all right,’ Oma reassured me.
‘What did
he say?’ I asked.
Opa pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Well, he said that you will start at the school here in a week. And the Deutsches Jungvolk at the same time. Isn’t that good?’
I shrugged.
‘Aren’t you pleased?’ Oma asked. ‘I thought it’s what you wanted. You’ll be able to join the other children your age and—’
‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘Did you get into trouble?’
‘It’s nothing,’ Opa said. ‘I have to go to more meetings, that’s all.’
‘Meetings?’ My eye was drawn to the badge he now wore on his shirt. It was a perfect white circle surrounded by a red border that was fine-lined with silver and printed with letters proclaiming National-Sozialistische D.A.P. The Nazi Party.
Right in the centre of it all, black as coal, was a swastika.
‘The Party has meetings at the town hall,’ Opa said. ‘I haven’t been for a long time, so … well, I have to go and come back with a signed document. Then I have to report to Kriminalinspektor Wolff once a month to show that I’ve been.’
‘Why haven’t you been going? Don’t you want to?’
‘Don’t ever say that.’ Oma spoke quickly and quietly as if she were afraid of something. ‘Don’t ever say Opa doesn’t want to go to those meetings. Don’t ever say that. Of course he wants to go.’
Lunch was boiled potatoes with herring sauce and a small dollop of sauerkraut. I didn’t like any of it, and pushed it around my plate, not saying much.
‘Eat up,’ Oma said and I took a forkful, swallowing the sauerkraut without chewing.
‘And drink your milk. It’ll keep you strong. Mind you, I’m sure they’re taking out more and more of the fat. It’s getting more watery as the days go on.’
Picking up my glass, I looked across at them sitting side by side and thought about what it would be like if Oma and Opa weren’t here; if I were alone with Mama, silent and deathlike, upstairs. When I was at school with Ralf and Martin, the idea of people being punished for not following the rules felt right, but I wasn’t so sure now.
When lunch was finished, I helped Oma in the kitchen for a while, then tried reading a book in the drawing room but I couldn’t settle or concentrate on anything.
‘Is it all right to go outside?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ Oma said. ‘Opa is in the back—’
‘I mean out the front. I thought I’d sit on the doorstep for a bit.’
‘Watch the world go by?’ Oma asked.
‘It’s warm there. It’s right where the sun lands.’
Oma thought for a moment. ‘Well, I don’t suppose it can do any harm. You have permission not to be at school now for another week, so it doesn’t really matter.’
That’s what took me to the front step. I told myself it was because I wanted to sit in the warm rays and watch the cars and the people pass by, but there was another reason why I wanted to go out.
I wanted to see her.
I wanted to be sitting there when the dark-haired girl came home from school, so I could wave at her the way she had waved at me.
WOODEN FLOWER
Escherstrasse was long and straight, and right at the end of it, a white and black blur was coming towards me. That’s all it was – a blur – but as it came closer, I could see it was someone on a bicycle.
Closer still and I knew it was a girl in a white shirt and black skirt.
Then she was just a few metres away, and I lifted my hand and waved.
The girl slowed and came to a stop on the other side of the road. She raised a hand and waved back, and I thought that would be it. I thought she would knock on her front door, disappear inside, and that I’d wave to her again tomorrow morning. It hadn’t been that difficult.
She didn’t knock on her front door, though. She looked at it, but then she looked at me again. She climbed off her bicycle and leaned it up against the wall beside her front door.
And then she was coming towards me.
A girl.
I hardly ever spoke to girls. At school we were separated, and the Deutsches Jungvolk was just for boys. The girls had their own groups; Jungmädel for girls my age, then the Bund Deutscher Mädel for when they were older. We were even told not to mix with girls, so I didn’t know what I would say if—
‘Hello,’ she said.
I must have looked like a simpleton, the way I stared. ‘Uh. Hello.’
‘What happened to you?’ she asked, pointing at my bandages.
‘Oh. I … I fell off my bike.’
‘Not surprised, the way you rushed off like that. What were you doing anyway? If you want to skip school, it’s not a good idea to come and stand by the fence.’
Close up, her hair was even darker than it had seemed from further away. It was plaited into pigtails, just how most girls wore it at school. She had dark eyebrows and dark eyes, too. Her uniform was quite dirty and her socks were ruffled at her ankles, revealing shins that were covered in bruises – old and new. Both her knees were grazed, but not as badly as mine.
She stood on the pavement, with her hands on her hips, and looked down at me with her brow furrowed. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Karl Friedmann.’ I stood up with the step against my heels, stopping me from moving any further back. It felt as if we were very close and I could smell her. It was a mixture of soap and the outdoors.
‘I’m Lisa,’ she said.
I didn’t know what to say after that. ‘Umm …’ I thought for a moment. ‘Umm …’ I was stuck for something to say so I said the first stupid thing that popped into my head. ‘Are you a mischling?’ I asked.
Lisa’s face darkened as if a storm cloud had passed over it. ‘That’s a bit rude, isn’t it?’
‘I didn’t mean to … I just …’
‘No, of course you didn’t mean to. You’re just a silly boy who thinks girls are from another planet and doesn’t know how to talk to them.’
‘I …’ I looked at the pavement, feeling my cheeks flush. They grew hot and I was sure my whole face had turned beetroot.
Lisa sighed. ‘Well, Karl Friedmann, no I am not a mischling. Not even second-degree mischling, and if you’re going to talk to girls then you need talk to them exactly the same way you talk to boys.’
‘Sorry.’ I made myself look her in the eye.
Lisa waited for a moment, still with her hands on her hips, then the storm cloud vanished as if it had been wiped away. ‘I forgive you, Karl Friedmann.’ She put a hand in her pocket. ‘Do you have any money?’
‘No.’
‘Well, never mind. I’ve got ten Reichspfennigs.’ She pulled out two silvery coins and showed them to me, as if to prove it. ‘Come with me.’ She turned and began walking back along the road, in the direction she had first arrived from. ‘Come on.’
I looked from Lisa to the front door and then back again, wondering what to do. If I was going to go somewhere, perhaps I should let Oma and Opa know.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’re just going along here. It’s not far. It’s not as if you’re running away.’
So I jogged to catch up and we walked side by side with the warm afternoon sun on our backs.
‘It’s good to see you’re not wearing that silly uniform for a change,’ she said.
I tried to think of when she might have seen me. Oma and Opa had been so strict about keeping me inside that I’d hardly been out at all over the last few days.
‘I see you at the window sometimes,’ she said, as if she knew what I was thinking. ‘And when you went to the shops with your oma. She is your oma isn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anyway, I like the white shirt better. Your brother sometimes wears a blue one and it looks smart. Maybe you should get a blue one.’
‘What do you know about my brother?’ I asked.
‘He waves to me in the morning which is more than you managed. Until today, that is.’
‘I’m not supposed to be here,’ I said. ‘Oma and Opa are hidi
ng me. Or, they were until the Gestapo man hit me in his car.’
‘The Gestapo man?’ She stopped walking and turned to look at me. ‘You were knocked off your bike by the man from the Gestapo? Kriminalinspektor Wolff?’
‘Yes.’
Lisa’s face darkened. ‘I hate him,’ she said. ‘He’s a pig.’
I was shocked by her insult, and looked about to see if anyone had overheard, but the street was more or less deserted here.
‘Do you know him?’ I asked.
‘Everyone does. Someone at school said he worked for the baker when he was our age. Delivered bread on his bicycle before he joined the police. Now he’s just a Gestapo pig.’
‘Shh,’ I looked about once more.
‘What did he say to you?’ She lowered her voice.
‘Umm … he was just angry that I damaged his car, and—’
‘So do you have to go to school now? Is he making you go to school?’
‘He said I could stay off for a few days because—’
‘Lucky you.’ She turned and carried on walking.
I watched her for a moment, plaits bouncing on her shoulders, arms swinging, then I trotted to catch up. ‘Why?’ I asked her. ‘Why am I lucky?’
‘School’s boring.’
I’d never heard anybody other than Stefan say that and I looked round again to make sure no one was listening.
‘So why did he say you could stay off school? Is your mama ill? My mama said she looked ill when she arrived and that she hasn’t seen her since. Is she ill?’
‘I suppose. I don’t really know. She’s sad, I think.’
‘Sad?’
‘My papa died,’ I told her. ‘The enemy killed him.’
‘Oh, that’s horrible.’
‘We should be proud of him though,’ I said, remembering the words of my squad leader. ‘He was doing his duty for the Führer.’
Lisa looked at me as if she was giving that some serious thought. ‘Before he went away, my papa said the war was the Führer’s fault.’
‘Well, that’s not true, he’s winning it for us.’
‘Hmm. Mama never says it’s his fault, but I think she’s too scared.’
