by Liz Kessler
‘What’s so wrong with them? I’ll tell you what’s so wrong with them. They’re—’
‘NO!’
Max’s mother broke in so sternly it made Max jump.
‘No?’ his father replied. ‘You say “no” to me?’
His mother held her husband’s eyes as she lifted her chin. ‘The boy is eight years old.’
Nearly nine, Max wanted to say, but it didn’t feel like the right time to interrupt.
‘He can play with whoever he wants to play with,’ his mother continued.
Max swallowed as he felt the air fizz and crackle between his parents. Eventually, his father gave a short nod. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘For now, he can. For now.’
The three of them ate their lunch together in silence.
As Max chewed his food, his mind went over the same question, over and over. The question his mother had stopped his father from answering.
What was so wrong with Leo and Elsa?
1937
ELSA
Mutti and Vati tell me the news as soon as I get home from school.
I’ve only come home to change out of my school clothes before going back out to meet Leo and Max as usual. But my parents stop me the minute I come in, sit me down and tell me.
No ifs, no buts, no arguing. It’s happening.
I stumble to the bathroom and stand in front of the mirror, saying it out loud, trying to believe it. Trying to imagine saying it to the boys. I can’t.
‘Are you all right in there, Elsa?’ Mutti asks from the other side of the door.
I wipe a tear from my eye; they won’t stop falling. ‘Just a few more minutes, Mutti.’
She gives me a hug before I go out to play with the boys. She knows how I’m feeling without me having to tell her. Of course she does. She feels the same way.
‘It’s for the best, Elsa, sweetheart,’ she says as she strokes my hair. ‘You understand, don’t you?’
I nod. But I’m lying. I don’t understand at all. All I know is that it isn’t fair. But Mutti already looks so sad and I can’t bear to make her feel any worse. So I don’t say anything.
I wheel my bicycle down the hallway and Vati holds the front door open for me.
‘One hour,’ he says. ‘Okay?’ He’s so strict nowadays. Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe.
‘Okay, Vati,’ I agree, then I hop on my bike and cycle to the park to meet the boys.
The park is beautiful. The sun is shining and blossom is coming out on the trees. Pink leaves bloom all along the path to the green where we always meet. The boys are both there already. They’re playing games with toy soldiers.
‘I win!’ Max shouts, shooting dead Leo’s soldier and raising his hands in the air in victory as I arrive.
I lean my bike against a tree and go over to join them.
‘Come on. Now that Elsa’s here, let’s play tag,’ Leo says. Before I have time to reply, he slaps Max on the arm, shouts ‘Tag!’ and runs off.
‘Not fair!’ Max protests. ‘We hadn’t even said we’re playing yet.’
‘You’re just complaining because I’m faster than you,’ Leo retorts over his shoulder as he runs.
‘No, you’re not,’ Max replies grumpily.
‘Come on, then, catch me!’
Max takes a step towards Leo. Then he glances at me. A glint comes into his eye and he switches direction.
Before I know what’s happening, he’s grabbed me around my waist. ‘Tag, you’re it!’ he shouts.
‘Let go of me, then!’ I squeal.
Max still has his arms around me. ‘What if I don’t want to?’ he asks.
I push him away. ‘Then I’ll tag you back,’ I say.
I can hear Leo creeping up behind us. I hold Max’s eyes and silently count to five – long enough for Leo to think he’s safe – and then I twirl round. ‘Tag!’ I shout, grabbing Leo’s sleeve as he swerves so I fall on to the bench.
He flops down beside me.
‘Okay, one tag each,’ I say. ‘That’s enough.’
Max is standing in front of us. ‘Let’s go to the pond. I think there should be tadpoles in there by now.’
Leo jumps up from the bench. ‘I bet there will be. There was a whole load of frogspawn last week.’
Both of them walk over to pick up their bicycles.
‘Boys,’ I say. ‘Wait.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Leo asks, looking back at me.
I take a breath. This is it.
‘I…’ I begin. Something is clogging up my throat. I swallow and start again. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
The boys stop and stare at me.
‘What’s wrong?’ Max asks. ‘Are you ill?’
I shake my head.
‘Has something happened to your parents or Otto?’ Leo asks.
‘It’s nothing like that,’ I reply.
They walk back over, concern on their faces. Leo sits down beside me again while Max stays standing in front of us. ‘What is it, then?’ he asks.
‘We’re leaving,’ I say simply.
‘But we’ve only just got here,’ Leo says. ‘We don’t have to go yet. Surely you’ve got time to come and see the frogs before we have to—’
‘Leaving Vienna,’ I say, cutting him off.
Leo’s mouth falls open.
‘Careful, you’ll catch flies,’ I say, trying to keep my voice light.
Max folds his arms. ‘Where are you going?’ he asks. ‘Are you going on holiday? How long will you be gone?’
‘We’re going to Czechoslovakia,’ I say. ‘To live.’
‘To live?’ the boys blurt out in one voice.
I nod. I don’t trust myself to speak. As I look down at my lap, a tear falls on to my dress. I swipe the back of my hand across my eyes. I don’t want them to see that I’m crying.
Leo takes my hand in his. ‘For good?’ he asks.
I nod again.
‘You’re leaving Vienna for ever?’ Max asks. His voice is husky. ‘But why?’
A funny feeling snakes through my insides before I reply. I don’t want to say the words that Mutti and Vati told me. They sound silly. But I don’t have any others to offer. I look up at Max. ‘My parents say it’s not safe here any more.’
Max looks around at the park. ‘Not safe how?’ He points at our bicycles. ‘Has anyone stolen our bicycles?’ He waves an arm at the lanes behind us. ‘Is anyone acting suspiciously? How can it not be safe? What do your parents mean?’ He sounds cross.
Leo isn’t saying anything. He’s stopped holding my hand and his presence beside me seems to have hardened in some way.
‘Not safe for us,’ I reply in a quiet voice.
‘Us?’ Max echoes.
I shake my head. ‘Not you,’ I say. Then I point at Leo and back at myself. ‘Us.’
Max’s forehead is creased as he frowns at me. ‘I don’t understand.’
I hold his dark eyes. A feeling of embarrassment washes over me as I reply.
‘Because we’re Jewish.’
MAX
Max burst out laughing.
Now he understood what was going on. They always did this to each other. The game was that you had to keep a straight face long enough to convince the other two of what you were saying. As soon as you knew they both believed you, you revealed the joke and won points for tricking them.
Elsa wasn’t usually very good at the game. She wasn’t like Max and Leo. She was a girl, after all. They were made of sugar and spice and all things nice. They didn’t have it in them to play tricks.
Whenever she tried to trick them she ended up giggling almost straight away.
She wasn’t giggling today, though.
Even so, she wasn’t going to win any points off Max. What she’d just said was too ridiculous to believe even for one second.
He plonked himself down on the bench and leaned back. ‘You nearly had me there for a minute,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ Elsa asked. Her voice was
all quiet and tinny. Oh, she was playing a blinder today.
‘Saying you were leaving Vienna. I nearly believed you.’
‘It’s true,’ Elsa insisted. Her voice was getting smaller and smaller every time she spoke. ‘We’re going on Saturday.’
‘But – but—’ Max’s thoughts were moving too fast for his words to keep pace. Something horrible was coming towards him from the back of his mind. A voice he didn’t want to hear – a voice that sounded like his father’s – was saying: You know this, Max. You know it is true.
He refused to listen. ‘But that’s ridiculous,’ he insisted. ‘Your religion isn’t a reason to leave Vienna!’
Elsa shrugged. ‘My parents say maybe it is.’
Max clutched at the only straw he had left. ‘But you’re not even properly Jewish! You don’t even go to church!’ he said.
‘Synagogue,’ Leo mumbled.
‘Synagogue, then,’ Max went on. ‘Your mother doesn’t wear a wig, your father doesn’t wear one of those little hats. You don’t pray differently. Even if your parents are right, how would anyone even know you are Jewish?’
‘What about my family?’ Leo asked Elsa. ‘We go to synagogue. We say Shabbat prayers every Friday night. My parents haven’t said it’s dangerous.’
Elsa spread her arms out in a helpless shrug. ‘Look, I don’t know. I don’t think it matters how much we pray or if we go to synagogue. We are Jewish and my parents say that means we have to leave.’
Max stared at his friend. For the first time, he noticed her eyes were red. Had she been crying? Was it really true? She was leaving? ‘And you’re really going this Saturday?’ he asked.
Elsa nodded. As she did, her eyes went all glassy.
‘But your parents are mad!’ Max looked at his other friend, desperate for one of them to stop that voice in the back of his mind from coming any closer. ‘Leo, tell her. What’s being Jewish got to do with anything? How can being Jewish be dangerous?’
Leo was chewing on the side of his thumb. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I suppose sometimes I think…’ He shook his head and then turned to Elsa. ‘Did your parents really say that? It’s dangerous?’
‘They both said it,’ Elsa insisted. ‘I know it seems ridiculous but they’ve got these stupid ideas in their heads and it’s all decided. We’re going and there’s nothing I can say to change their minds.’
Max could feel something welling up inside him. It felt like a rock. A huge, bright red boulder, glowing with fire, pushing on his chest. His eyes stung with tears that were trying to get out but he blinked over and over as hard as he could, trapping them inside.
Boys don’t cry.
That’s what his father always said. He’d said it only a few days ago. A bird had flown at the kitchen window, hitting it so hard that it died instantly. Max had tried to revive it. He couldn’t help the tears falling as he ran his fingers over its broken body.
‘Do not cry over the death of a bird!’ his father had yelled at him. ‘Boys do NOT cry. You hear me?’
Max had rubbed his fists against his eyes and wiped his runny nose on the back of his hand.
‘Be a man,’ his father had growled as he snatched the bird away and threw it in the bin.
Be a man. Be a man. How many times had he heard this from his father? He was not even ten years old yet. How was he meant to be something he wasn’t?
Max sometimes felt that he could spend his whole life trying to be who his father wanted him to be, and he would still fail. No matter what he did, he would always fall short of expectations.
He couldn’t bear the idea of things changing between him, Leo and Elsa. Their friendship was the only part of his life where he didn’t feel on the edge of things. Leo and Elsa were the only people who knew him as well as he knew himself. Being with them was the only place where he felt like he truly belonged. And now that was all going to change.
Boys don’t cry. Boys don’t cry.
Max clenched his fists and drove the tears away.
‘This will be the last time I see you,’ Elsa said. Unlike Max, she wasn’t trying to fight her tears and they flowed freely down her face. That was all right, though. She was a girl. She was allowed to cry. Boys had to be stronger.
‘In that case, this is the last chance to do something,’ Max found himself saying. The words were coming out of his mouth without even asking permission from his brain.
Elsa tilted her head towards him. ‘Do what?’ she asked.
And before he could stop himself, Max leaned towards her. He said, ‘This.’ And then he pressed his lips on hers.
At first, her mouth was pursed up in shock. Then it softened and for two blissful seconds, their lips stayed together in a promise.
‘Hey, you two!’ Leo was speaking from somewhere outside of Max’s bubble.
Max broke away from Elsa. He looked at them both. His best, most beloved friends.
And then, because he couldn’t – he wouldn’t – say goodbye, Max jumped up from the bench, grabbed his bicycle and cycled away. His lips stung and his heart ached, but his mind contained only one happy thought as he pedalled as fast as he could: I will marry Elsa one day.
By the time he got home, he had almost convinced himself that it wasn’t really happening. That Elsa’s parents were wrong about it not being safe. They would realize it soon. And then of course they would stay in Vienna and Leo, Max and Elsa would laugh together at how silly they’d been.
Dangerous! What a thought. Of course it wasn’t—
‘Where have you been?’
The deep voice broke into Max’s thoughts as the front door closed behind him.
Max looked up to see his father at the top of the stairs. He must have been working in his office and seen Max coming down the street from the window. He was nearly always in his office lately, when he wasn’t out at meetings with important people from work. Either way, Max didn’t see much of him nowadays and he knew better than to waste those precious moments making him wait for a reply.
‘I’ve been in the park with my friends, Father,’ Max said.
His father took his glasses off and removed a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the lenses as he came down the stairs. Putting his glasses back on, he stood in front of Max, eyeing him warily. ‘Which friends?’ he asked.
‘Leo and Elsa,’ Max replied. ‘My best friends.’
His father nodded slowly. Then he turned to walk away. As he did, he spoke casually. ‘You are not to see them again,’ he said.
Max followed his father down the hall and into the kitchen. Had he heard correctly? His mother was in there, preparing dinner.
‘Not to see my friends again?’ he asked.
His father stopped walking. Max stopped too. So did his heart. His mother stopped what she was doing and looked at her husband.
Without turning, his father spoke again. This time his words were clipped and hard. ‘You make me repeat myself, Max? You really want to test my patience?’
‘I… no. No, Father. I just – I thought I must have misunderstood.’
Finally, his father turned around. He bent down so that their eyes met. ‘I’ll say it more clearly this time, shall I?’ he asked. His mouth did something that might have been a smile if it weren’t for the coldness in his eyes.
Max swallowed and nodded.
‘Hermann, please,’ his mother said weakly.
Her husband ignored her. ‘You won’t see Elsa again, and you won’t see Leo again,’ he said to Max. ‘I forbid it. Is that clear?’
Max nodded even harder. ‘Yes, Father,’ he said.
Max’s mother was standing in front of his father now, reaching out to him. ‘Hermann, stop,’ she begged.
He shook her off. ‘No. I’ve had enough. He needs to get this into his head, even if I have to spell it out to him.’
‘He’s just a boy,’ she pleaded.
‘Well, it’s time he learned to be a man!’ his father barked. Then he turned back to Max. ‘Your frien
dship with people like them is over. You hear me?’
Max stared at his father in horror. He didn’t want to ask the question. He didn’t want to hear the answer. He’d been running away from it all day, maybe for weeks, months – but it was there and it was coming towards him.
Before he could stop himself, his mouth was forming the words. ‘People like who?’
His father spoke the word as if it were dirt in his mouth.
‘Jews.’
And with that, he turned away from his wife and son and walked to the table. Pulling out his chair, he unrolled a serviette and sat down for dinner, as though nothing had happened.
Max followed him without uttering another word.
He couldn’t eat his dinner, though. Every time he tried to swallow, he felt he might be sick.
LEO
I sat at the kitchen table, trying to do my homework while Mama made challah – the bread we had every Friday night – but I couldn’t concentrate. Elsa’s words played over and over in my head, round and round and round like a record on Papa’s gramophone.
Because we’re Jewish.
Because we’re Jewish.
Because we’re Jewish.
In the park, I’d said that my parents hadn’t told me it was dangerous – and it was true, they hadn’t. Not in so many words. But still, something had held me back from laughing like Max had done. Something had stopped me from insisting it wasn’t dangerous to be Jewish. Something to do with the tiny moments at home that I’d told myself I was imagining. Looks between my parents I’d pretended not to see. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but if I thought about it I knew that things had felt different recently.
Which was why I mostly didn’t focus on it. Because if I did, my gut would tell me that perhaps Elsa was right.
‘Leo, will you put your school books away now and help me set the table for Friday night dinner?’ Mama called from the other side of the kitchen.
I shook myself. Chewing on the thoughts like a dog with a bone wasn’t going to do any good. I closed the books I’d barely managed to read and put them into my school bag. ‘How can I help, Mama?’
