by Liz Kessler
I’ll write and tell the boys. I have sent a few letters but we are so busy that it’s hard to remember to send them every week. They’d understand. I know they would.
My friendship with Greta is completely different from my friendship with them. With Leo and Max, it was all about playing, being outside, having fun, going on adventures. Greta and I mostly spend our time talking.
We talk about all the important things, like:
Do we prefer cats or dogs? Dogs for me, cats for Greta.
What is our favourite colour? Pink for Greta, yellow for me.
What will we be when we grow up? Greta will be a writer, I will be an inventor. Greta says that she doesn’t know any girls who have become inventors. I nearly change my mind and tell her I’ll be a teacher instead. I don’t want to fall out with her as she’s my only friend here in Prague. But she tells me it’s fine. I can be an inventor if I want to be an inventor.
‘You can be anything you want to be!’ she declares, flashing me one of her infectious smiles.
The next question: Who will we marry? I tell her about Max and Leo. Greta says that she will marry Leo and I will marry Max. And then she throws her head back and laughs, like she does at least twenty times a day.
And my favourite question: How long will we be friends? We both agree on this one. For always.
That’s how I know that Greta is officially one of my best friends. I’ve decided. I’m going to tell her tomorrow. She’ll be so pleased. I imagine her meeting Leo and Max. I hope that one day that might actually happen.
That will be the best day ever.
MAX
Everything was different from the very first day of their new lives in Munich.
Max watched from the window of the big black car as they travelled through the streets. Vienna was grand and beautiful, but Munich had a different feel. Vienna might have palaces and opera houses and a river running through it, but Munich felt more serious, somehow. The kind of place where important work would get done.
Mr Fischer tapped on the window and instructed the driver to stop.
He got out of the car and came round the side to open the door for his wife. ‘We’re home,’ he said with a flourish as the three of them stepped out in front of a huge grey building with a row of pillars stretching along the length of it.
Max’s jaw dropped open. ‘This is our new house?’ he asked.
His father burst out laughing. A rare occurrence and Max was pleased to have made him laugh. ‘Not the whole building,’ he said. ‘We have an apartment.’ He pointed up to the top of the building. ‘But I think you will like it. It is the penthouse. We have a balcony with views across Munich.’
Max’s mother clapped her hands. ‘I shall feel like royalty,’ she said, her voice high-pitched with excitement.
‘My darling, that is exactly what we are now,’ her husband replied. ‘We are Hitler’s royalty. This is how you are rewarded for rising above the others and giving your life to the regime as I have done these past years. This is what I have earned for us.’
Max thought for a moment of all the times in Vienna when his mother had stood up to his father, told him to go gently on Max or challenged him on his views. It seemed that a fine apartment in Munich and a promise of the best things in life were enough to make her put all of that behind her and welcome the new start – just like Max welcomed it.
Max’s father clicked his fingers, snapping him out of his thoughts. ‘Max. Come and help with the luggage.’
Max ran to the back of the car where the driver had already unloaded bags and cases on to the pavement. He could feel his father watching him and, as always, Max was desperate to show him he wasn’t a weak boy, so he went straight for the biggest case.
He couldn’t even lift it off the ground.
His father shook his head and said, ‘Just my luck that I have a little squirt for a son.’
Max gritted his teeth and stared at the ground, trying to hide his reddening cheeks. Then he shook the words away. He was used to his father saying things like that; it didn’t mean anything.
‘Come on, Max, shape up,’ his father prodded him. ‘We don’t want to be here all day.’
Max picked up a couple of smaller bags and carried them into the building, then all the way up the winding marble staircase.
Mr Fischer unlocked a door on the top floor and opened it with a flourish. ‘Ta-dah!’
Max followed his parents into the grandest room he had ever seen. The lounge area was bigger than their whole apartment in Vienna had been. Along one side was a cabinet chock-full of books. On the other, a long wooden table with ornately carved legs. In the centre of the room were two large settees and an armchair in between. His mother had been right, it really did look like the kind of place royalty would live.
But the best part of it was the windows – and what was outside them. Max ran across the room to look out of the biggest window. It was taller than he was, and opened like a door. It looked out over the big square they’d driven through earlier.
‘Here,’ his father said, coming up behind Max and opening the door. Outside was a small balcony; just big enough for the three of them.
They stood together, looking out. Max’s eyes were wide as he stared down at the square below them. Lots of people were bustling about: mostly soldiers in uniforms like his father’s. Grand buildings lined the square. The grandest of them all was opposite. In the middle of the building was a tall spire that reached halfway to the clouds.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing.
‘That is the town hall. I will be attending many meetings there.’ Max’s father checked his watch. ‘Come back here at midday or five p.m. and watch those figures below the clock,’ he said, pointing at what looked like giant toys sitting in an opening in the tower. ‘They do an extraordinary dance.’
Max couldn’t even imagine such a thing. He couldn’t wait to see it.
‘Come, let me show you the rest of the apartment.’
As they explored, it seemed to Max that every room held a delight, a surprise, something ten times grander than he had ever seen. Max’s bedroom was about three times bigger than his room in Vienna.
He couldn’t stop smiling all day.
The next morning, Max barely touched his breakfast. He was starting his new school that day and his stomach was tying itself in knots. He wasn’t sure if it was nerves or excitement; probably a bit of both. His chest twisted and tightened when he imagined school without either Leo or Elsa beside him. But then he reminded himself that this was his chance to have a fresh start. He could reinvent himself in Munich. He didn’t have to be the boy who only had two friends. He could be anyone he wanted to be. Maybe even someone his father could be proud of.
His father gave him some stiff words of advice before he left for school. ‘Don’t stand out. Don’t speak out. Do exactly what your teachers tell you and copy the other boys if you are unsure.’
Max nodded. ‘Yes, Father,’ he said.
‘And don’t let me down.’
‘I won’t, I promise, Father.’
Just an hour later, Max was in his new classroom waiting for the teacher to arrive. As soon as the man walked into the room, every boy instantly stood to attention. Max jumped out of his seat to do the same.
The teacher stood in front of the class and flung his right arm out in front of him, hand in the air, palm facing down, and shouted, ‘Heil Hitler!’
Instantly, every child in the room did the same in reply. Max’s teachers at his old school had been instructed to do the same thing just before he’d left, so he had become used to the new greeting. But here the response was so instant, so instinctive, that Max was a moment behind everyone else.
The teacher noticed that Max had been out of step with the others and stared him in the eye. ‘New boy,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir,’ Max said, hoping that no one could hear the nervous wobble in his voice.
‘You will be quicker next time,’ the tea
cher said. ‘The Führer does not stand for tardiness.’
Max nodded fiercely. ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,’ he said.
Then they were seated and the school day began.
Max got used to his new school over the coming weeks. It couldn’t have been more different from his old school. In Vienna, school had been fun, at least it always had been when he’d been able to spend time with Elsa and Leo. He got an ache in his chest when he thought about them. He wanted to write to them, wanted to tell them all about his new life – but somehow he always came up with an excuse not to. For one thing, his father would be furious if he found out about it, and Max was keener than ever not to upset him. For another, he was so busy with his schoolwork he barely had time.
But there was another reason, too, and Max didn’t want to admit to this one – even to himself.
He was starting to feel part of school life in a way he had never done before. Every day, his number one aim was to do what his father had said on the first day.
Don’t stand out. Don’t speak out. Do exactly what your teachers tell you and copy the other boys if you are unsure.
And it was working. Max didn’t stand out. He wasn’t the one singled out for taunts and laughter. He was becoming one of the crowd, and he liked it.
He soon discovered he liked having strict rules, too. The regimented day made things straightforward.
You were given orders; you followed them. You didn’t have to think for yourself, you just had to do exactly what you were told and you would be fine. The only attention you got was praise and respect. And it was addictive. The more Max got these things, the more he craved them. And the less he thought about his old friends.
Within weeks, Max made sure he was always one of the first to stand to attention when a teacher walked into the room. He shouted his Heil Hitler! salute as loud as anyone else. He worked as hard as he had ever worked in his young life. And his reward was that he quickly became part of the fold.
That was all he wanted. It was all he had ever wanted. Only now, the fold wasn’t a gang of three friends where he felt safe from everything. Now, he was part of everything, a cog in something bigger and more powerful than himself.
And if there were times when teachers said things that made him itch under his skin, he wouldn’t show it. He knew better than that.
When they had lessons about how to be a good Nazi, or why the German race was superior to all others, Max didn’t think about the ones who might be left behind. He comforted himself in the knowledge that he was one of the lucky ones. His father was a Nazi soldier. His family was part of the superior race.
He began to feel proud.
When their teachers told them how important it was to rid themselves of the scourge of the Jewish enemy, how the Jews were filthy, inferior, disgusting creatures, Max kept his face as still and impassive as he possibly could.
He didn’t question them. Don’t stand out.
He didn’t argue. Don’t speak out.
He didn’t tell them his old friends were Jewish. Be like the other boys.
But secretly, in his bedroom at night, when no one was around, Max would sometimes let himself think about Leo and Elsa. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to write to them. Now more than ever. He would feel like every word he sent them was a lie. And anyway, he hadn’t heard from them either, so he didn’t need to feel guilty.
But he let himself have small moments to think about them, and to smile at the memory of their games and laughs together.
He would take out the photo that he still kept hidden in a drawer. He would still smile as he remembered that moment: looking down at Vienna from high in the air, laughing all day.
And then the questions would come. Were Leo and Elsa really the enemy? Were they the people he had to hate? Could there be a mistake of some sort?
He knew he could never ask these questions aloud, and so, with an ache in his chest, he would put the photo away, and to help get rid of the painful thoughts, he would stand in front of his mirror and recite his school’s motto over and over until there was nothing else in his mind.
One people, one country, one leader!
One people, one country, one leader!
One people, one country, one leader!
LEO
I made a list of things I was no longer allowed to do. I carried it with me everywhere in case I forgot. I’d seen what happened to people who forgot.
Like Papa, when I’d seen him in the square. Except Papa hadn’t even had time to remember. He’d barely had a day to learn the new rules before he was punished for breaking them.
We never talked about that day. Neither of us even acknowledged it had happened. Instead, we both pretended that our eyes hadn’t met when he was kneeling on the ground, that he hadn’t urged me to run away so I didn’t face a similar fate, that I hadn’t known any different when he came home and told Mama that he had slipped and fallen in the rain.
Sometimes I reran the events in my mind, trying to find even a sliver of possibility that I had misunderstood what I’d seen. I made up alternative versions and tried to convince myself they were real.
Papa had been playing a game with his friends. They were taking it in turns to be in charge. He had fallen, like he said to Mama. Mr Muller and Mr Weber and the others weren’t laughing and jeering at him, but with him. They must have been: those men were his friends.
Even Mr Fischer used to be friendly with him. He didn’t really kick him in the stomach. He can’t have done. He must have been doing something else.
But as the days went by and the friends stopped coming for dinner, and the clients started going elsewhere, and Papa grew so withdrawn he rarely spoke and no longer smiled, it became harder and harder to convince myself that they had been playing a game.
And when his beautiful studio window that had always been filled with photographs of smiling people had JEW daubed across it in red paint that dripped down the window like blood, I stopped trying to force my mind to lie to itself.
I knew what I had seen and why my father and the other men on the floor with him had been singled out by that crowd. And I knew it could happen again – to him, to me, to any other Jew in the city.
That was when I made my list of all the new laws that I needed to remember. Here’s what it said:
I am no longer allowed to…
Go to school. (Except the Jewish school I now have to attend. I am still allowed to go there.)
Go to the park. (It’s not as much fun without Elsa and Max anyway so this one is okay I suppose.)
Go to restaurants. (Just as well Mama is such a good cook.)
Go to public swimming pools. (Boo! I love swimming.)
Ride bicycles. (This is the WORST. I love my bike.)
Say ‘Heil Hitler’. (I don’t mind this one. I secretly hate Hitler. He is the one who told the men to beat up Papa, so I don’t want to ‘Heil’ him or any of his horrible men.)
Join the Hitler Youth. (See above.)
Marry someone who is not Jewish. (This one might be useful one day as it means that Elsa will have to marry me because she won’t be allowed to marry Max.)
I checked my list constantly. Every day, we would hear of someone else who had broken the laws. They were beaten or imprisoned or taken away, no one knew where. My life became a daily promise that I would not become one of those people.
So I memorized the new laws and followed them without question or exception. And every evening I opened the drawer where I kept the list. I read through every point then I folded the list back up and put it away, offering silent thanks that it had kept me safe for another day.
ELSA
It’s an evening like all the others. Mutti gently hums as she sews. I sit at the kitchen table with my school books. Otto is fixing something in his bedroom.
It is all quite peaceful. Other than Vati not being here, life in Prague is still going well. I had a letter from Leo last week, telling me about the situation in Vienna. It sounds terrible. I kno
w for sure now that we did the right thing to move. I just hope things quickly get back to normal there so Leo can get on with his life too.
A knock at the door shakes me out of my thoughts.
No one ever knocks at the front door and my heart knocks along with it. Mutti’s eyes are wide. Her face drains of colour. ‘Stay here!’ she hisses as she puts her sewing down beside her and gets up.
‘I’m coming with you,’ I say and I follow her into the hall. Otto is at the top of the stairs.
Mutti stands in the porch. She takes a breath and then, in a shaky voice, asks, ‘Who is it?’
The house is silent for a second, and then a familiar voice calls back from outside the door. ‘It’s me! Are you going to let me in?’
Vati!
The catch is pulled aside and the door flung open. Otto darts down the stairs at the speed of light. I run the length of the hall and there he is. Vati! He’s back!
I throw myself at him before he has even closed the door behind him. Otto jumps up and down next to me like a puppy desperate for his turn.
Vati laughs. ‘Let me at least get in the house,’ he says as he puts down his bags and turns to Mutti.
Her face is streaked with tears. ‘You came back,’ she whispers hoarsely as he takes her in his arms.
‘I told you I would,’ he replies. ‘I promised all of you we would be together again.’
‘Is the fighting all over?’ Otto asks.
‘I hope so,’ Vati replies.
‘Did you win?’
Vati opens his arms in a wide shrug. ‘That question is too complicated for a simple answer. For now, I think so. We’ll see.’
Mutti steps back and takes his hand. ‘Come, let’s go in the kitchen.’ She turns to me and Otto. ‘I’ll make hot chocolate for us all. Let your father sit by the fire and get warm before you hound him with questions.’
We follow Mutti into the kitchen. I fetch milk for the chocolate and Otto stokes the fire while Vati takes off his coat and boots before coming to join us.
