My Brother's Secret

by Dan Smith

  Stefan was first to reach the door at the top of the stairs. He barged into it with his shoulder, bursting it open into the corridor.

  ‘Stop!’ Wolff ordered.

  The door smashed back against the wall, then we were hurrying past the other rooms, heading for the front of the building.

  The first shot Wolff fired from his gun boomed in the confined space of the cellar and the sound bounced from wall to wall behind us.

  The bullet slammed into the door frame beside me, splintering the wood into tiny pieces that burst into the air at head height and prickled at my cheek as I escaped.

  My ears rang and my skin burned and my legs were injected with a fresh boost of energy. I would never have known I had the strength to keep going, but somehow I managed to take it in my stride. I ignored the sting of the splinters and reached out to slam the door shut behind me as I left the stairwell.

  A second shot cracked behind us, the bullet punching straight through the wood panelling. It struck the ceiling above, raining plaster dust over us as I sprinted along the corridor, right on Lisa’s heels.

  ‘Keep running!’ Stefan reached the front door and yanked it open.

  We burst out into the night without thinking. All that was in our minds was escape. Nothing else. Just run run run.

  There was no more shooting, but we knew Wolff was coming. Like a raging demon, he would be behind us, climbing those stairs as fast as he could, throwing open the doors, storming along the corridor with his blood boiling.

  We darted along the path and came out of the garden without slowing, Stefan leading us across to the other side of the road, then we turned right and sprinted along the street.

  ‘He’s coming!’ Stefan said, but I didn’t dare look back. I didn’t dare see the face of the man who wanted to kill me. I imagined him not as Wolff any more, but as a monster, slavering and growling.

  Our feet pounded the pavement as we ran.

  My chest heaved with exhaustion.

  I could hardly feel my legs, they were pumped so full of adrenaline. My vision began to blur and sparks burst in my head as fatigue tried to overcome me. My lungs felt as if someone were squeezing them tight, stopping enough air getting into them, and I knew I couldn’t keep running like this for much longer. I was using all my effort, giving every last drop of energy, and soon I would collapse.

  And then Wolff will have me.

  In front of me, Lisa was beginning to tire too. The beat of her footsteps on the pavement was slowing.

  ‘Keep going,’ Stefan said. ‘Come on. Don’t slow down.’

  I wanted to shout at him, to tell him we couldn’t run much further, but I didn’t have the breath. Instead, I looked across at the river, desperate for a place to hide, knowing we were too exposed. Wolff would see us cross the road and—

  The sound of a car engine started up and I was certain we were finished.

  We’ll never outrun his car.

  ‘Down here!’ Stefan shouted and he disappeared from view as he turned left.

  A few more paces and Lisa and I were following him into an alley, our footsteps echoing.

  Here, the wall rose on either side of us like a tunnel, and any moment now, Wolff would turn down the alley and chase us with his car. With no chance of outrunning it and nowhere to escape to on either side, he would mow us down or stop and shoot us in the back.

  I felt my pace slow despite the fear and adrenaline. I couldn’t keep running for ever. I could hardly run for another ten seconds.

  ‘The cemetery,’ Lisa said between breaths.

  ‘What?’ Stefan asked, looking back.

  ‘The cemetery,’ she said again, and I knew she was right. There were a million dark places in there. Gravestones and shrubs and trees and shadows that had hidden me once and could hide me again.

  Knowing there was somewhere to go, somewhere to rest, gave me a small burst of energy and I pushed harder.

  I can make it to the cemetery. I can make it that far. Then we can hide and rest.

  As if to shatter that hope, however, the alley was suddenly flooded with the sound of Wolff’s car. A deep growling that grew louder and louder.

  He was coming.

  ‘We’re almost there!’ Stefan called back and I sensed that even he was growing tired now – and if strong, brave Stefan was tiring, what hope was there for Lisa and me?

  ‘Keep … going …’ he panted as we reached the end of the alley.

  I stayed right behind Lisa as we ran out into the street.

  Wolff’s car was gaining on us, picking up speed.

  ‘There!’ Lisa managed to shout and she held out a finger to point.

  Not far away, to the right and on the other side of the street, the iron railings that surrounded the cemetery stood uniform along the side of the road. A little further, and we would be at the entrance.

  In the near distance, the silhouette of the church was visible, the vague orange glow of the dying fires from Feldstrasse shimmering about it.

  ‘Hurry!’ Stefan shouted and led the way, feet pounding across the road to the pavement on the other side and then on towards the cemetery entrance.

  Behind us, Wolff’s car growled like a beast, the engine gunning hard as he reached the mouth of the alley. He came out into the street with a fresh burst of speed and hurtled along the road, just as we made it to the cemetery gates and were swallowed by the darkness within.

  We veered away from the road as soon as we could, and ran across the grass, where Wolff would not be able to follow us in his car.

  I could hardly see Stefan ahead of me as we darted among the trees and the gravestones, moving deeper into the darkness, heading towards the far edge of the church grounds.

  Lisa ran alongside me, the sound of her heavy breathing threading with mine, so it seemed as if we were taking the same breaths.

  ‘Get down,’ Stefan said as he led us behind a low rectangular, tomb.

  I took Lisa’s hand and, together, we ducked down beside Stefan, taking cover behind the stone memorial.

  I sucked air into my lungs, desperate to feel normal again. My chest was on fire, and my legs trembled beneath me.

  On the road, Wolff’s tyres squealed as he turned into the entrance of the cemetery and came to a standstill, the idling engine chugging in the night.

  He must have known we were gone now. His anger would be rising higher and higher.

  ‘We’ll go further back.’ Stefan turned and began working his way deeper into the cemetery, moving from one gravestone to the next.

  Lisa and I followed him, using the same cover, making our way even further away from the road until we came to a stone outbuilding close to the rear of the church. We made our way round to the back and squatted in a line with our backs against the wall.

  More than a hundred metres away, Wolff gunned his engine once more.

  ‘He’s leaving,’ Lisa said.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Stefan replied. ‘He knows who we are and where we live. He doesn’t need to look for us; he just has to go to Escherstrasse.’

  ‘Mama.’ A cold shiver ran through me when I imagined what Wolff might do to her. ‘Oma and Opa.’

  ‘This is such a mess,’ Stefan said. ‘What were you two thinking?’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  There was fear in Lisa’s voice and I wanted to comfort her, but there was nothing we could do.

  There was no way out of this.

  ‘I just wanted to be like you,’ I said to Stefan. ‘They killed Papa and I wanted to be an Edelweiss Pirate like you, to show them what I think. But now they’re going to arrest Mama and Oma and Opa and it’s all my fault.’

  On the road, Wolff’s car accelerated through the cemetery and I knew he was heading to Escherstrasse. Everything was lost. There was no hope.

  Then, from somewhere down on the road, came the hollow sound of metal hitting metal.

  A dull clank that had no echo.

  With that sound came an image that fla
shed into my mind like a bolt of lightning. The silhouette of an object half buried in the ground.

  Before that image could fully form though, the unexploded bomb in the road became an exploded bomb. It detonated a fraction of a second after Wolff’s car struck it, and the world was filled with noise.

  DEATH IN THE CEMETERY

  The blast from the bomb swept across the cemetery, flattening shrubs and ancient gravestones. It rushed around tombs and battered the side of the church and the building we had used for cover.

  If we had stayed behind the tomb closer to the road, we would surely have died. The shock waves alone would have crushed us.

  Behind the stone building, the air was sucked from my lungs in one violent rush, and then more streamed in, hot and heavy with dust. My ears popped, my eyes bulged, my joints screamed in pain, and the cemetery was smothered in a cloud of destruction.

  Dirt and branches and pieces of Wolff’s car battered the side of the outbuilding like a hurricane. The tiles blew off the roof above us, breaking into pieces as they disappeared into the storm like a thousand deadly knives. Wreckage smashed against the side of the church, shattering the stained glass windows and bouncing back from the walls, filling the night with a whirlwind of debris.

  For that moment, there was nothing but noise and pressure and violence and madness.

  It was difficult to tell exactly when the effects of the bomb subsided.

  I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t breathe properly, I couldn’t hear, and my whole body hurt.

  Dust swirled in the air and my mouth felt gritty, so that when I opened and closed it, I could feel the crunch between my teeth.

  The first thing I knew was that someone was shaking me. I was sitting with my back to the wall, hunched into a ball.

  The shaking came again and I turned to look at Lisa.

  I had to think hard about moving my head. The effort of it was massive. My mind was numb and empty, and when I looked at her, I blinked hard.

  She was leaning close and saying something, but all I could hear was a muffled noise and a high-pitched whining. No words. If I hadn’t been so stunned, I might have been afraid that I had lost my hearing, but I was too dazed to think much of anything at all.

  Lisa leaned closer and shouted in my ear.

  ‘… alive?’

  I stared at her and focused my thoughts. I wiped my eyes and shook my head.

  Lisa spoke again and this time the words were clearer.

  ‘Are we still alive?’

  I nodded and reached out to touch her shoulder, then turned to look at Stefan.

  My brother was lying face down on the ground, not moving.

  I stared at his body, then shifted forward and crawled towards him.

  ‘Stefan,’ I tried to say, but my mouth would hardly work. ‘Stefan.’

  My arms gave way when I came to him, and I fell forward, pressing my face to his shoulder.

  ‘Karl?’

  I stopped, not sure if I’d actually heard it. My ears were ringing and it might have been my imagination.

  ‘Karl. You’re hurting me.’

  In one sudden movement, I sat back and an overwhelming sense of relief swept over me. ‘Stefan? You’re all right.’

  My brother rolled onto his back and looked at me. ‘What the hell just happened?’

  RETURN TO HEADQUARTERS

  There was a large crater in the road, and what was left of Wolff and his car was crushed against the trunk of a sturdy oak, but we didn’t stay to inspect the damage. It took us a while to recover from the blast and by the time we were on our feet, some of the men from Feldstrasse had come to investigate the explosion.

  We left the way we had come in, all of us stunned, our ears ringing and our bodies aching.

  ‘What now?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘Home?’ I replied. It seemed like the only thing to do.

  ‘I feel like … like I should … I don’t know,’ Lisa said. ‘Like I should feel worse. That Wolff’s … you know.’

  ‘Dead?’ Stefan said.

  Lisa nodded. ‘It’s our fault.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  ‘But if we’d reported the bomb …’ she said. ‘I don’t feel bad though. Is that wrong?’

  ‘I don’t feel bad either,’ I said to her. ‘Anyway, you did try to tell him, remember? When he caught us outside. You tried to tell him and he should have listened to you.’

  Lisa nodded again.

  ‘So let’s go home.’ I reached out and held her hand.

  ‘You have to take me back, first,’ Stefan said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You have to come back to Headquarters with me. You have to lock me back in the cell.’

  ‘No. We—’

  ‘Don’t you see, Karl? I can’t be out of that cell. They’ll think I escaped and then I’ll have to hide and you’ll still be in danger, and Mama and Oma and Opa …’ Stefan shook his head. ‘I have to go back.’

  ‘I won’t lock you in.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Lisa said.

  ‘But what if they do something to you?’

  ‘I can’t just run away, Karl. They’ll come after me. After you too. And Mama. You need to lock me up so they can release me like they released the others.’

  ‘What if they don’t?’

  ‘They will.’

  I couldn’t help thinking about how he had been taken away the last time, though. Maybe, if they took him away again, he wouldn’t come back.

  ‘No one knows what just happened,’ Stefan argued. ‘No one but us. Don’t you see? If I run away, they’ll come after me, but if you lock me back in the cell, no one will ever know what happened. They’ll just think Wolff went out in his car and hit an unexploded bomb. You’ll all be safe.’

  I tried to argue, but as always, Stefan was right. So we headed back to Gestapo Headquarters and went down into the cellar. Stefan hugged me and returned to his cell.

  The key was still in the lock, and the bunch jangled when Stefan helped close the door. He turned and looked at me through the bars.

  ‘Lock it. Then get your things from upstairs and leave the keys. No one can know you were here.’

  ‘What if they don’t let you out?’ My mind was filled with doubt. ‘What if they do something to you?’

  ‘Like what? They’ve already beaten me and shaved my head. What else are they going to do?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Now.’

  ‘Come on.’ Lisa took my arm and pulled me away from the cell. ‘Before someone comes.’

  I nodded and wiped my eyes, and followed Lisa up the stairs. At the top, I stopped and turned to look at my brother for what I thought might be the last time. I wanted, more than anything, to let him back out, but that would only lead to trouble for everyone.

  He looked so brave when he raised a hand to us and we left him.

  ‘Get our things,’ Lisa said, heading straight to the front door. ‘I’ll keep watch.’

  With a heavy heart, I jogged to Wolff’s office. The Führer watched from his picture on the wall as I collected my bag and shoved everything inside. My hands were shaking and I was fighting back the tears. I couldn’t stop thinking about Stefan in the cell downstairs.

  When I had collected everything, I turned to leave, but stopped when something caught my eye. There, on the corner of Wolff’s desk.

  Three brown folders.

  I hesitated, looking from the folders to the door, then back again.

  Take them.

  I ran to the desk and grabbed the folders. I flicked each one open, seeing the arrest forms we had signed, then stuffed them into my bag along with everything else.

  And that’s when I had an idea. If only there was enough time.

  Do it.

  Rushing around the desk, I pulled open the top drawer on the left and rummaged through the empty brown folders and documents.

  Nothing.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Lisa shouted.

  Witho
ut pausing, I slammed the drawer shut and yanked open the one below it. Another pile of papers nestled in there, but they were of no use to me.

  ‘Karl!’

  I tugged open the bottom drawer and immediately saw the forms I was looking for. I could hardly believe they were real.

  ‘Karl! What are you doing?’

  I snatched one from the top of the pile and put it on the desktop as I kicked the drawer closed. Leaning down to look at the document more closely, I reached out for Wolff’s pen.

  This was my chance to do something right. Perhaps—

  ‘Quick!’ Lisa ran back from the front door. ‘Someone’s coming. We have to go.’

  ‘One minute.’ It was a risk, but there might just be time.

  ‘Now!’ she hissed. ‘I can hear them coming!’

  A KNOCK AT THE DOOR

  We managed to slip from Headquarters without being seen. The soldiers were returning from Feldstrasse, tired and dirty, and we hid in the shadow of the thorny hedge until they had disappeared inside the Gestapo building.

  When everything was quiet, we sneaked away from that awful place and Lisa and I finally made it back to Escherstrasse, but our street felt like a different place now. We felt different.

  As soon as I was home, I washed my hands and face, and hid my dirty clothes before climbing into bed. I didn’t sleep at all. Lying there, staring at the ceiling, ears ringing, I couldn’t shake the fire and explosions out of my mind, and I kept seeing images of Stefan locked in that horrible cell. His bruises and the dried blood on his face. I was frightened that putting him back behind bars had been the wrong thing; that maybe he would be taken away and I would never see him again.

  The next morning, Oma put breakfast on the table in the kitchen. She talked with Mama and Opa about the bombing, and about Stefan, but I kept quiet. I didn’t say a word about what had happened to me last night, even though it pressed down on me like a terrible weight.

  I picked at my bread, not feeling hungry. I was too scared to eat anything. Too scared to say anything. All I could think about was poor Stefan, and how I had locked the cell and left him in that horrible prison.

  When three knocks came at the front door, my heart jumped.

  Everyone looked round at each other, worry and fear clear in their eyes.