My Brother's Secret

by Dan Smith

  Opa looked down at the badge and shook his head. ‘Yes, I …’

  ‘You don’t like him,’ I said. ‘Hitler. You don’t like him any more.’

  Opa didn’t say anything. He went to the cast iron stove and put a pan over the hotplate.

  ‘I won’t tell.’

  Opa looked over his shoulder at me, then took a wooden spoon from the drawer and used it to stir the contents of the pot.

  ‘I don’t mean about my eye,’ I said. ‘Though, I won’t tell about that either. I mean about anything.’

  Opa stopped stirring and stood with his back to me.

  ‘About the flower. About Papa not wanting to go to war. About what you really think of the Führer.’

  Opa turned around and stared at me.

  ‘I promise I won’t,’ I said. ‘And … and I don’t think I like the Führer any more, either. He makes everyone scared and that isn’t right. We shouldn’t be scared, should we?’

  ‘No,’ Opa said, ‘we shouldn’t.’

  When lunch was ready, we sat at the table with a bowl of watery broth. It didn’t taste of much, but there was a piece of sausage left so Opa cut it into tiny chunks and dropped it in. The chewy little lumps sank to the bottom and added only a hint of flavour.

  We had hardly started eating, when there was a knock at the front door and Opa put down his spoon to answer it. As soon as I heard Stefan’s name mentioned, I went to the window and looked out to see Opa standing on the step talking to two boys. I recognised them straight away as the two I’d seen earlier that morning. The same two who had put something into the petrol tank of the truck.

  Opa was shaking his head as he spoke to them but I couldn’t hear what he was saying, so I went to the kitchen door and looked out just in time to hear Opa say, ‘And don’t come here again,’ before he stepped back inside and closed the door.

  ‘Stupid idiots,’ he said as he turned around and saw me standing behind him.

  ‘Who was it?’ I asked.

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Are they Stefan’s friends?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter; they won’t come here again. Now come and eat your lunch before it gets cold.’

  Back in the kitchen, Opa switched on the ‘people’s receiver’ wireless that sat on the sideboard where Oma kept the plates. We had one at home that looked exactly the same. They were specially made so that everyone could afford to have one and listen to the news and programmes the Reich put on for us.

  There was traditional music playing when we sat down for lunch, but when the song was over, something else came on. I wasn’t really listening to it until I heard his voice. It was one of the Führer’s speeches, something I’d heard lots of times before because they made us learn it at school, but they always played this one part that seemed to be more and more important as the war went on.

  ‘Mr Churchill may be convinced that Great Britain will win. I do not doubt for a single moment that Germany will be victorious. Destiny will decide who is right.’

  I knew the words by heart, and I still felt my pride swell when I repeated the words in my head.

  Germany will be victorious.

  But with the pride, I felt confused. I hated the enemy. The Russians had killed my papa and the British flew over us and dropped bombs and blew up our houses. I wanted Germany to be victorious and I was proud to be German, but at the same time, I didn’t love the Führer any more. I used to think he sounded excited, but now his voice just sounded angry.

  ‘Let’s see if there’s something else on,’ Opa said, getting up from the table. ‘Music is so much better for the digestion, don’t you think?’

  APACHES

  Mama and Oma noticed my black eye as soon as they came home that afternoon, but Opa and I had already agreed on a story. We told them we fixed the bike together, using the old one from the cellar – which was true. Then we told them that once it was working, Lisa and I went out for a ride – which was also true. The only lie we told them was that I had lost my balance and fallen off my bike, resulting in the black eye.

  Oma wasn’t completely convinced and I suspected she would question Opa about it later, but Mama just looked worried. She hugged me and told me to be more careful. When she did that, my heart lightened and I was happy just to have her almost back to normal.

  When Stefan returned from work, though, he wasn’t so easily fooled. He kept looking at me all through supper but didn’t say anything more about it until everyone had gone to bed.

  ‘So what really happened?’ he asked. ‘Who hit you?’

  It was dark and I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.

  ‘Was it Hitler Youth boys? Deutsches Jungvolk? Tell me and I’ll make them pay for it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I touched my face and hated those boys for hitting me.

  There was a part of me that wanted to tell Stefan what had happened, so he would go out and find them, but he would only get into trouble, so I kept quiet and we lay in silence.

  Not even the slightest sliver of moonlight broke through the blackout curtains, but if I pressed my fingers into my eyes for a few seconds, I could see bright circles floating on the ceiling. I watched the circles and wondered about Edelweiss Pirates.

  ‘You know, sometimes I wish I was your papa,’ Stefan said. ‘Then maybe you’d tell me what happened to you. And I’d have stopped all that Deutsches Jungvolk nonsense, too. Mama should never have let you go.’

  ‘I have to go. It’s the rules.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Stefan was quiet for a moment. ‘But you don’t have to believe it all so much.’

  ‘I don’t. Not any more.’

  ‘What changed?’

  ‘Everything,’ I said. ‘Papa. You. Lisa. The leaflets from last night.’

  ‘The leaflets?’ There was an edge to his voice. ‘What do you know about those leaflets?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I couldn’t tell him that I had one, secreted away inside my copy of Mein Kampf. He’d make me get rid of it.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘if it was older boys who hit you, I can get them back. I have friends who—’

  ‘Edelweiss Pirates?’ I said, almost without thinking.

  ‘What? Where did you hear that?’

  ‘I’ve seen the words on the walls. The flowers, too, like the one in your pocket.’

  ‘You can’t tell anyone about that.’ He sounded worried.

  ‘And Lisa found a badge after some boys ran away.’

  ‘It’s best you don’t know anything about it,’ he said. ‘If you don’t know anything, you can’t tell anyone.’

  ‘You still think I’ll go and tell the Gestapo?’

  ‘It’s not that, it’s … well, it’s just that all your friends are in the Deutsches Jungvolk and you’re so … into it all.’

  ‘Not any more. I told you that.’

  ‘But if you said something by accident and—’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Stefan sighed. ‘All right, look,’ he gave in, ‘the Pirates are just people. There are a few groups with different names, but they’re all Edelweiss Pirates. There was a group in the city called the Navajos—’

  ‘Like the Indians?’

  ‘Exactly. And we’re called the Apaches—’

  ‘So you are one? That’s what the flower in your jacket meant?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But you’re not a criminal? I heard they’re criminals.’

  ‘No, we just like music and having fun.’

  ‘And writing on walls.’

  ‘Well, there’s that too, and sometimes people get into fights with the Hitler Youth, but mostly we just play music and sing songs and hang out with girls. You remember Jana? The girl you saw me with? She plays guitar and sings with the best voice. You mustn’t tell anyone, though, that man from the Gestapo would arrest the lot of us.’

  I remembered what Wolff had said about someone throwing bricks at the factory window. He had said it was Edelweiss Pirates and I couldn’t help wondering i
f Stefan had been involved.

  ‘Do you really think he does … things to people at Headquarters?’ I asked.

  ‘You mean torture?’ Stefan replied.

  ‘Yes. At that place by the river?’

  ‘Of course. That’s what the Gestapo is for.’

  I tried not to think about the soldiers dragging Herr Finkel away. I pushed it out of my mind and stared at the ceiling. Instead I concentrated on what Stefan had just told me; I had finally managed to get him to tell me about the flower. I felt as if I had won just a little of his trust.

  I told him about seeing the boys put what I thought was sugar in the petrol tank of the truck when Herr Finkel was arrested, and said that they had come to the house to call on him.

  ‘I know them,’ Stefan said, ‘but they do things even I would never do. I don’t hang around with them.’

  ‘Are there many of you?’ I asked.

  ‘Not that many in our group, only about twelve in all, but some of the groups are bigger.’

  It would feel good to be part of a group. That was one of the things I liked best about being in the Deutsches Jungvolk – being with all those brothers – but now I’d decided I didn’t love Hitler any more, it would feel good to be in another group. I imagined myself surrounded by friends and going out to find the boys who had been at the parade. I imagined we found them and confronted them and fought them so hard they begged us not to hurt them any more.

  ‘How do you join?’ I asked.

  ‘You don’t,’ Stefan said. ‘You’re too young.’

  I pressed my fingers into my eyes once more and watched the coloured circles floating like miniature searchlights on the ceiling.

  Maybe Lisa and I could make our own group. Our own Edelweiss Pirates.

  NIGHT EXERCISE

  The next two days were the best I’d had for a while. The weather was perfect, so Lisa and I went for long bike rides in the evening sunshine. Stefan continued to work at the mill and walk home with Jana, the two of them leaving a cloud of flour behind them. Mama looked healthier each day and even seemed happy sometimes.

  There were no air raids and the radio told us that our tanks had broken Soviet defences and would soon be in Leningrad. They were advancing on Kiev, too, and it was only a matter of time before the Russians would surrender. After that, the war would be won and everything would be back to normal.

  To make things even better, I didn’t see Kriminalinspektor Wolff once – though I did look over my shoulder from time to time, just to see if he was following us.

  However, all of that calm came to an end one night when I heard Stefan moving about in the bedroom. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was still dark and felt like the middle of the night. It sounded as if he was getting dressed.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I sat up. ‘Is it another raid?’ My heart started thumping just at the thought of it, but there weren’t any sirens going off and I couldn’t hear any planes.

  ‘There’s no raid,’ he whispered. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘Not now.’

  Stefan tutted and crept over to me, patting the end of my bed as he felt his way in the darkness. ‘Look,’ he said, sitting beside me, ‘I’m going out.’

  ‘Outside?’

  ‘Yeah, but I’ll be back soon. And you can’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Is it something to do with the Edelweiss Pirates?’ I asked. ‘The Apaches?’

  For a moment, Stefan didn’t say anything, then he sighed. ‘Yeah, it’s something to do with that.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  ‘No you can’t. Now promise you’ll keep your mouth shut.’

  ‘Are you going to get into trouble?’

  ‘I might if you don’t keep your mouth shut.’

  ‘Then tell me what you’re doing.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Karl …’ there was an urgency in his whispering. ‘Look, I’ll tell you tomorrow, but I haven’t got time now. I have to go.’

  The weight lifted from the mattress and I saw a vague hint of him standing there in the gap between our beds. It wasn’t exactly his silhouette, more like a darkness within the darkness. He was just a black smudge, moving away from me, melting into nothing.

  The bedroom door opened with a gentle click, then, a second later, came the click of it shutting behind him. This was followed by the gentle sigh of his footsteps on the staircase, accompanied by the creaks and groans of the wood beneath his feet.

  I strained to hear him reach the bottom, but there was no way of knowing; his sounds faded into nothing, just as his shadow had done when he left the bedroom.

  I couldn’t help feeling afraid – I didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do – but there was also an excitement that niggled at me. I had the strong sense that I was missing out on something.

  I could follow him.

  My heart jumped at the thought of it. Even just the idea of sneaking out in the night was exhilarating. Last year we did a night exercise in the Deutsches Jungvolk, and it had been one of the best things we had ever done. The darkness had made it even more exciting than usual, and that’s how I felt now, thinking about following Stefan.

  I leaped out of bed, threw off my pyjamas and pulled on my trousers and—

  You don’t have a key.

  The thought came like a shot of disappointment. Of course I didn’t have a key. Stefan had one because he went to work every day, but I didn’t. If I went out, the door would lock behind me and I wouldn’t be able to get back in unless I was with Stefan – or unless I rang the doorbell.

  I stood there for a moment, half dressed, heart sinking, when a different thought came to me. This time it was a picture instead of words – a picture of the small table by the door, with Opa’s key sitting inside the glass ashtray. A dull, silver key.

  I can take it with me.

  With renewed excitement, I pulled on my shirt, just as I heard the door open downstairs. It was hardly much more than a crrrick, a long moment of quiet, then a second crrrick as Stefan pulled it shut behind him.

  I hurried to the window and tugged back the curtain, letting the moonlight flood into the room. I pressed my nose to the glass, and saw Stefan’s silhouette standing by the front door. He paused there for a few moments, then turned right and headed past the alley that ran along the side of the house, and continued down Escherstrasse.

  Quick. I told myself as I let the curtain fall back into place. I have to be quick.

  Still fastening my buttons, I crossed to the door and let myself into the hallway. Creeping downstairs, I kept my feet to the very edges of the steps, trying to avoid any that might creak. Once at the bottom, I jammed my feet into my boots and tightened the laces as quickly as I could. I grabbed my jacket and snatched the key from the bowl, sticking it in my pocket alongside my new penknife.

  Then I opened the door and slipped into the night.

  For a second I felt like a freed animal. I was both thrilled and afraid. I shouldn’t be out in the night. Stefan would be so angry if he knew I was out, and if the police caught me, they might think I was some kind of spy – or up to no good, at the very least. And if the air raid sirens started up their screaming and the enemy came and the planes dropped their deadly bombs, what then? I would be killed for sure.

  Adrenaline raced through my veins, both hot and cold, and I hardened my resolve. There was no going back now.

  I walked quickly to the end of Escherstrasse and passed Herr Finkel’s boarded-up shop without seeing any sign of Stefan. When I turned the corner, though, there was a group of figures further along the street, close to the wall. I stopped and drew back around the corner, leaning out just enough to watch them.

  They made no sound at all, but stood huddled together like ghosts waiting for someone to scare.

  So I waited, too.

  The night was cooler than I had expected, and I shivered as a gentle breeze nestled around me. The moon was not much more than a fingernail, but the sky was cl
ear of any clouds so it gave enough light to illuminate the streets with a silvery grey shimmer. There were white lines painted around the base of the lamp posts and along the centre of the road. There were some on the pavements, too, to help people find their way during the blackout, and they seemed to glow in the moonlight.

  Still the figures didn’t move, and I began to wonder if it was even Stefan at all. Perhaps he had taken a different route. Maybe this was someone else. Maybe this was—

  Footsteps.

  On the pavement behind me.

  Someone was coming.

  RUN!

  The shape was heading towards me along Escherstrasse. Whoever it was, they were alone and trying to walk quietly, but the night was so silent I would have heard a mouse on the pavement.

  Wearing my dark jacket and pressed hard against the bricks, I was almost invisible from this distance, but the figure was coming closer and closer, and soon they would be almost beside me. Whoever it was, they were sure to see me in just a few seconds.

  It might be a soldier or a policeman who would drag me home by my ear. Or it might be Kriminalinspektor Wolff.

  Just thinking his name was like an electric shock running through me and I started moving right away.

  Keeping close to the wall, I slipped around the corner and edged along the street towards Herr Ackerman’s butcher shop. His doorway was set half a metre or so into the wall, forming a small porch that was shrouded in darkness, providing the perfect hiding place.

  The figures remained huddled ahead as I crept along the street, then turned, peeling myself away from the wall and slipping into the shadow. I crammed myself into the near corner of the entrance to Herr Ackerman’s shop and crouched low.

  Then the footsteps came around the corner and someone was right there, close enough for me to reach out and touch them. What surprised me, though, was that it wasn’t a pair of trousers I was looking at, but a skirt. And a pair of girl’s legs.

  I looked up and watched her walk past quickly and quietly. On her back, she carried what could have been a satchel, and it jostled up and down making a swish and bump with each step.

  I knew who it was. I couldn’t see her face very well, but the moonlight reflected off her golden hair that had been left loose, and I just knew that it was Jana – Stefan’s girlfriend.