by Louise Fein
“A world that will one day be ruled by you, my German youth,” and he points at the formation of HJ boys.
He is a magnet, impossible to resist, pulling me toward him. When he finally finishes his speech, my eyes, too, are filled with tears.
We stand together, we Germans.
Us against the world.
I am floating. High above the platform and the crowds. High over Augustusplatz and the great city of Leipzig. High over Germany itself. Higher and higher until I can see the great planet Earth as God sees it, spinning through space and time among the planets around the sun, and there in the center of it all, this blessed land, with its swaths of deep forests, rich farmland, and lakes teeming with fish. Its factories and coal mines and its army. I can see its people: good, honest, and hardworking, cruelly downtrodden for so long, rising together and turning to face the outside world. To show them who we truly are and to take back what is rightfully ours. It is a power; a force, like gravity, which cannot be resisted.
The band strikes up again, only this time the drumbeat is like that of an ancient warrior dance. It beats and pulses through my body as the mighty Führer leaves the square, standing in his car like a victorious Roman emperor in his chariot. Behind him marches an army of torchbearers. The lights in the square are dimmed, and through the sudden darkness the flames appear to flow like a river of fire through the center of Augustusplatz.
MUTTI AND I walk home from the city center in the dark, freezing night. Vati had to return to his office, and Karl stayed with his new group, his Hitler Jugend schar.
“When can I join the Hitler Jugend, Mutti?” I ask, my breath dense as smoke in the light of the streetlamps. The ceremony has burned an impression on my soul, like a footprint. I feel that Hitler has called to me and I must answer. He wants me to play a role in Germany’s great and glorious future.
“Don’t be silly, the HJ is for boys.”
“But there is a girls’ section, the Jungmädelbund.”
“Vati doesn’t approve of that sort of thing for girls.”
“Why not?”
“Because girls should concentrate on home things.”
“But I don’t like home things. I want to go camping and play games and sing songs and march, like Karl will get to do. Besides, I’m twelve!”
“And Vati would say that is even more reason why not.”
“But it’s not fair! All my friends are joining the Jungmädelbund. What will they think if I don’t?”
“Don’t exaggerate.” Mutti hunches her narrow shoulders. “Many people don’t think it is right for girls. Even Herr Himmler himself doesn’t agree with it. He says the idea of girls marching about in uniform with backpacks is ludicrous and it makes him sick. Oh, do come along, Hetty.”
Trailing behind, I say no more the rest of the way home.
You can’t stop me. I’ll find a way.
I climb the stairs and get ready for bed.
My limbs ache with weariness as I lie there, but sleep won’t come. I hear Karl arrive home and Mutti’s muffled voice from the hallway.
“My darling! How proud we are . . . The very best of boys . . . Will go far in this life, I know it . . .”
Karl’s bedroom door bangs shut, and I hear Mutti’s soft step on her way to bed. A heaviness settles over the house, but my bed becomes an unbearable mess of twisted sheets and blankets. I wrap a warm shawl around my shoulders and creep into my window seat, gazing out over the dark street.
All is quiet and still, the limbs of the cherry tree etched motionless against the night sky. A few wispy clouds scud in front of the moon. Soothed, I lean back against the wooden shutters and turn to peer through the dark at Hitler’s portrait above my mantelpiece. Mutti’s mutterings about enemies just make me afraid but He gives me courage. Whether I join the Hitler Jugend or not, I’m certain I have a part to play in this great new Reich. He doesn’t mind that I’m a girl, and nobody, not Mutti, not Vati, not Karl, can stop me.
A little niggle eats away at the back of my mind. Until now, I’d been sure my destiny was to become a doctor. But what if Karl is right? I think back to the ceremony, to the moment I met the Führer’s eyes and he spoke his words, those incredible words directly to me. And then I know it. I know what I must do.
I run to my bookcase and retrieve the journal Karl gave me so long ago, and in the moonlight, I write:
My Hitler, I devote my life to you. Make your plan for me clear, because from now on, everything I do, it is for you and you alone. I will make you proud that I’m your child. Oh great, great Führer . . .
I wake up with a start, my legs curled and stiff beneath me. The shawl has dropped from my shoulders and cold seeps into my bones. The soft purr of an engine rises from the street below. I look out my window. Vati!
He climbs out of the car and I raise my hand to bang on the window, but pause, knowing he’d be angry I’m not asleep.
Vati walks around to the other side of the car and opens the door. Another figure climbs out, a woman, her face obscured by her hat. They stroll together along the pavement and stop just below the streetlamp. Vati turns to face the woman. Slowly he places his arms around her waist and draws her into an embrace. She tilts her face up and in the circular glow cast by the lamp I clearly see Hilda Müller’s pale, round face. She closes her eyes and opens her mouth, a thick, red circle of lips. Then Vati, my Vati, bends down and kisses that horrible mouth. A long, slow kiss.
Pinned to the window, I can’t tear my eyes away. When finally it’s over, Fräulein Müller climbs back into the car and it pulls away. Vati stands for a moment watching it travel down the road, his hands in his pockets. Then he turns toward the house. The iron gate creaks shut behind him.
MY HEAD THROBS as I wake to strong morning light. I’d forgotten to close my shutters last night before crawling into bed. Coming downstairs, I see that I’ve missed breakfast and Mutti has gone out. A new worry awakens. Should I tell Mutti what I saw? The thought sends a wave of horror through me. Bertha makes me some warm milk and hands me a plate of sausage and bread from the store cupboard.
“Morning, sleepy,” Karl says as he comes into the kitchen.
“I need to talk to you about something,” I whisper when Bertha moves toward the sink. “In private.”
“Okay. Treehouse?” He raises his eyebrows.
We sit on the floor, sharing the bread and sausage, a blanket wrapped around our shoulders. Despite the temperature, it’s cozy in our secret nest, just the two of us.
“Should I tell Mutti?” I ask quietly, after recounting what I saw.
He shakes his head. “You must have dreamed it, Hetty. You have a crazy imagination.”
“But I was awake, Karl, I saw them. It was horrible.”
“You’re being ridiculous. It was the middle of the night. You fell asleep in your window seat and had a bad dream. Besides, why would Vati want to kiss Fräulein Müller? She looks like a heifer with those massive hindquarters.” He begins to laugh. “Moo,” he says blowing out his cheeks and making his eyes all big.
Perhaps he is right. I could have dreamed it. Suddenly, I have a picture of a brown-patched cow with Fräulein Müller’s round face and fierce plaits where its ears should be.
“Moo,” I say, giggling.
“Moo, Herr Heinrich, how about a kiss?” Karl laughs and curls up his top lip, just like a cow smelling the air.
I’m laughing so hard my eyes begin to water. Karl digs me in the ribs with his elbow.
“See?” he says. “See how silly it all is?”
Our maid Ingrid’s fair head appears at the base of the tree.
“Walter Keller is at the door to see you,” she calls up to Karl.
Racehorse hooves thud in my chest.
Karl’s forehead creases. I expect him to throw the blanket off his shoulders and bolt down the ladder, ending our private chat. But his body is completely still.
“Tell him I’m not here,” he shouts down to Ingrid. To my astonished face he
explains, “I have to go out soon anyway. Meeting some of my HJ friends.”
His serious face cracks into a smile and he pushes me onto the dusty treehouse floor, tickling me hard under the armpits.
“Stop it! I don’t want to play that game,” I yell, fighting him off.
“What’s the matter?”
“Why did you send Walter away?”
Karl shoves me in the shoulder and sits up.
“What does it matter to you?” he asks gruffly. “He was my friend, not yours. I’ve got new friends now. I don’t need Walter.”
He gets up and begins climbing down the ladder.
“See you later, Little Mouse.”
I sit for a long time, legs dangling through the hole, getting colder and colder.
Does this mean I won’t see Walter anymore? How can that be?
Well, Karl, just because you have new friends doesn’t mean you have to lose your old ones. I’m going to make sure I keep mine. Because friends are precious. Like jewels.
Six
February 11, 1934
The gray streets of Leipzig are hidden beneath a deep layer of crystal white. Delicate ridges line every branch and twig of the cherry tree, transforming it into the sugar-coated world of The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King.
It’s the first day of the school winter holidays and Tomas, thinly dressed for the weather, hops from foot to foot on the doorstep. His lips are tinged blue.
“Come out with me,” he says. “I hardly see you these days.” He wrinkles his nose and pushes his glasses up.
“I’ve a lot more homework now.” I hold fast to the doorframe. His eyes are too big for his thin face, and they protrude, like an owl’s. Behind me, the house is warm and Bertha is making zimtsterne cookies; the smell of hot sugar and cinnamon drifts from the kitchen.
“We could build a snowman in Rosental.” His breath fans and coils above his head. I think of how Karl has ditched Walter and how I vowed not to do the same with my friends.
“All right, I’ll come,” I say, and as he smiles, his eyes crinkle and disappear.
I pull on my boots and coat. Selecting a pair of warm gloves, I think of Tomas’s bare hands. There’s always a whiff of mold about him. A faint hum of sweat, grime, and misery. But we were once poor, and I mustn’t hold it against him. I pick up a second pair of gloves and a woolen hat, too.
“Here, you can use these.” I hold them out for him. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t give them back,” I add.
He takes them and strokes his fingers across the wool.
“Thanks, Hetty,” he mumbles, looking down. He pulls the hat over his ears and then puts on the gloves. “Warm as a hot potato now,” he says, clapping his hands together and giving me a shy smile.
Snowflakes peacefully float from a low granite sky, drifting onto the mounds piled against the railings. We cross Pfaffendorfer Strasse and walk toward the big iron gates at the entrance to the park. On the side of Tomas’s temple is the large, mottled, yellowy-green remnant of a bruise. I wonder, like an apple repeatedly dropped to the floor, if he is all brown and rotten on the inside, too.
“My father lost his job,” Tomas says as we kick our way through the fresh, untrodden snow.
“Oh dear. Has he got another?”
“There’s none to be found.” Tomas runs my glove along the top of a railing, the snow mounding in front until it falls off the end. “We’ve had to move in with my uncle’s family above his cobbler’s shop on Hallische Strasse. We couldn’t pay the rent for our old flat, so we got kicked out.”
“He could join the Sturmabteilung,” I say, remembering how Vati had talked of a big SA recruitment drive not so long ago. “The Brownshirts always need loads of men,” I tell him confidently.
Tomas half chokes, half laughs. “He’d rather we starve than join the SA. He’ll have nothing to do with those thugs.” He spits out the word. “Even though they have a uniform and weapons, like a proper army.” He looks wistful now, at the thought of weapons.
There’s trouble with Röhm, I recall Vati recently saying to Mutti. Two million hungry men. Out of control. It’ll need to be dealt with . . . If only I’d listened properly.
“What does your mother think he should do?”
“She doesn’t care, provided he puts food on the table. And he’s not even doing that at the moment. Just slouching about, like a good-for-nothing.” He sucks in a long breath.
We cross the road and walk between the tall stone pillars marking the entrance to the park. The wide expanse of Rosental stretches away so blindingly white, it hurts my eyes.
“Can’t he even get a job in a factory?”
Tomas shakes his head. “I told you. There’s none to be had. You’re so lucky to be . . . Wow, this snow is thick.” He kicks at it and ventures off the path into untrodden snow and sinks to the top of his boots.
We try to run and stumble. Laughing, we gather armfuls of the fluffy white powder.
There’s a swooshing noise and a snowball hits Tomas in the back of the neck with savage force. Gasping for breath, he scrabbles at the lump of snow and ice wedged between his bare skin and the collar of his thin coat. A second one, stingingly accurate, hits the side of his head.
“Ow!” He rubs the spot where it hit. Mouths open, whooping and yelling, four boys run from behind shrubbery, pelting us with hard lumps of gritty snow. I recognize the Brandt brothers from our old school. They’ve always had it in for Tomas. Just our luck to bump into them now.
The boys surround Tomas, nudging me out of the way. I stand outside the circle while they murmur in low voices. One of them kicks lumps of snow at Tomas’s skinny, bare knees. A knot of anger forms in my belly. There’s four of them and one of him. How’s that fair?
“Poor baby Tom Tom,” Ernst Brandt says. “His vati won’t let him join the Jungvolk.” He laughs. “He’d never survive it if he did. He’d get beaten for wetting the bed!” The other boys laugh too.
“I don’t wet the bed, stupid,” Tomas says, throwing his shoulder against Ernst, trying to shove his way outside the circle.
Ernst is on him in an instant, the other boys yelling encouragement. He’s twice the size of Tomas and anger boils in me, red-hot fury at the bullies who always pick on scrawny Tomas. In my mind, the months fall away and I’m back on the street behind our old block of flats with Tomas, when it was us two against the dirty swine who beat him to a pulp just for the fun of it.
I launch myself at Ernst’s neck, digging my fingernails into the soft flesh beneath his chin. The three of us drop to the ground, Ernst beneath me but reaching back to grab some part of me. He lets out an almighty yell and tries to push me off, but I’m clawing wildly at his face.
“STOP THIS AT ONCE!” shouts a woman’s voice, fierce and loud. Hands grip my shoulders and pull me away from Ernst. I’m spun around and the hands let go.
“Fräulein Herta! Fighting with boys like a dog! You should be ashamed of yourself.” Bertha, her cheeks blotchy purple, eyes looking like they might pop out of her head, stands in front of me. “What on earth would your mother think?” Her chest rises and falls as her breath puffs out like steam from the big, black kettle on the range.
Ernst and Tomas disentangle themselves and slowly get up, covered in snow. The other three Brandt brothers stand still, gawping at Bertha.
She shifts her gaze to Ernst and gasps. His face is a mess. My nails have dirt and bits of his bloodied skin beneath them. Tomas scrabbles in the snow, finds his broken glasses, and shoves them, lopsidedly, back on.
“Look what you’ve done to that boy’s face!” Bertha exclaims. “You’ve drawn blood!”
“But it was Ernst who started it, Bertha.” My mouth forms the words slowly, as though chill and shock have made it work at half speed. “He attacked Tomas. I was trying to save him. That lot”—I point at the other brothers—“they yelled encouragement and would’ve joined in, if I hadn’t . . . The odds were unfair.”
Bertha looks at Tomas. “Is this
true?” she asks crisply.
Tomas nods and stares at the ground.
Ernst dabs his bloodied cheek with his handkerchief and says nothing.
“Hmm,” she says with a grunt. “You should know better than to fight with a girl,” she goes on, looking at each of the brothers in turn. “You’d better get off home before I cuff the lot of you.”
Ernst thrusts his shoulders back and juts his chin out as he saunters off, his brothers trailing behind him.
“You’re pathetic,” Ernst hisses at Tomas as he passes. “Need a girl to fight your battles for you.” He spits on the snow.
Bertha watches him go, her arms crossed over her chest. She looks at me, her face softening. “That was brave, fräulein,” she says, “to stand up for a friend. But silly all the same. You’re a young lady, and young ladies do not go in for fighting. That’s all there is to it. Now, off home with you.”
Tomas and I, unlikely friends thrown together long ago through lack of alternatives, walk slowly back to my big house on Fritzschestrasse. From there he will carry on to the tiny flat above his uncle’s shop on Hallische Strasse.
“Thanks,” he mutters, when we reach my iron gate.
“S’alright.”
“See you tomorrow?”
“Maybe . . . Bye, Tomas.”
“Bye, Hetty.”
I take the steps two at a time and close the front door behind me. I lean against it for a moment, knowing Tomas is still standing outside my gate, looking at the air I just ran through.
Hoping I’m going to come back.
Seven
April 20, 1934
Happy birthday,” I whisper to the Führer’s image as I pad across the floor to throw open my shutters and let in the morning sun. The cherry tree has exploded with pink-tipped blossoms, reminiscent of candy floss. I open my window wide so I can hear the birdsong and climb back into my bed, snuggling under the covers where it’s still warm. I lean against my propped-up pillows and lock eyes with Hitler as he stares out from his position above the fireplace opposite my bed.
