My Brother's Secret (17 page)

‘Well, that’s not a bad option,’ he said. ‘Live to fight another day. And fighting is for boys who don’t know how to use their brains.’

‘You were a boxer,’ I said.

‘That’s sport. Controlled. It’s not the same as fighting in the street. Come on, we need to get you cleaned up, and seeing as Stefan’s gone out with friends and your mama and Oma are visiting Frau Dassler, it looks like it’s going to be my job.’

‘I can help,’ Lisa said.

‘You need to be getting home for lunch, young lady. I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day, don’t you?’

‘What about my bike?’ I asked. ‘Can you fix it?’

Opa looked down at the buckled wheel and took a deep breath. ‘Not much hope for it, I’m afraid. It’ll need a new wheel and that’s not going to be easy to find.’

‘There’s one in the cellar,’ I said. ‘I saw it last night during the raid.’

Opa thought for a moment. ‘You know, I think you’re right. There’s a whole bike down there – it was mine when I was about your age. We’ll bring it out after we get you cleaned up.’

‘There’s something I have to do first.’ I moved past him and headed towards the house.

‘And what’s that?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’ I raised a hand at Lisa, saying, ‘See you later,’ then ran across the garden and jumped up the steps into the house.

I hurried through the hallway and up the stairs to my bedroom where I closed the door and scanned the room, looking for a good place to hide the leaflet. Under the mattress was too obvious. In a shoe? Maybe at the back of
the cupboard? Or under my pillow?

As I tried to decide on a safe place, a voice crept into my head as if from nowhere.

Get rid of it
.

I put my hand into my pocket and touched the folded paper.

Get rid of it
.

But I wanted to keep it. Not just because I needed to read what it said, but because Lisa had given it to me. She had kept it especially for me and it would feel wrong to just throw it away.

Get rid of it
.

I snatched it out of my pocket and went to the chest of drawers where Stefan and I kept our underwear and the few belongings we’d brought with us. Above it, hanging on a nail, was a small mirror, my reflection looking back at me. I looked pale and there was a bruise forming around my eye. I touched the angry, red skin and winced.

Papa looked at me from the photo.

‘Where should I put it?’ I asked him.

Then, as if he had answered, I saw the perfect hiding place, right behind him.

On top of the chest of drawers, pushed back against the wall, I had arranged a line of books, with the smallest at the left side and the biggest at the right.

I slid Papa’s photograph to one side, moved my silver medal, and slipped one of the books from the line before lying it face up on the top of the chest of drawers. It had a black-and-white picture of the Führer on the front,
looking very stern, and a red banner across it with the words ‘
Mein Kampf
’ printed in white.

I had pestered Mama and Papa to buy me a copy of the Führer’s book but they had said I would never read it, so I did odd jobs for the neighbours until I’d had enough to buy it for myself. I’d been so proud, coming back from the shop with my very own copy, but Mama and Papa were right. I didn’t read it. I tried, but it was too complicated. Too boring.

The Führer looked up at me from the chest of drawers, with his shiny black hair and his neat moustache and his dark eyes accusing me. It was as if he could see me. Wherever he was right now, giving his orders, conducting his war, he could look through this picture, right into this room, and see me standing in front of his unread book, holding a leaflet dropped from a British bomber.

‘Oh, shut up,’ I whispered. Then I unfolded the leaflet and put it over his face, so I could see the new picture of the Führer.

In the bright sunlight that streamed through the bedroom window, the piles of dead German soldiers lying at Hitler’s feet were easier to see. The one closest, with his face turned towards me, had his mouth open in a silent scream, and his eyes were wide and dead. His body was twisted, his machine gun lying just out of reach as if it had fallen from his hands as he was killed.

He looked like Papa. Whoever had drawn this might have been drawing my own father. I had to shake my head and rub my eyes before looking more closely to see that it
wasn’t Papa. It was a nameless soldier, dead at the Führer’s feet.

Hitler is killing your fathers
.

I stared at the picture for a long time. It drew me in, sucking me right into its world. I could smell the smoke from the gunfire; see it hanging over the battlefield in wispy clouds. I could feel the heat of the fires, and hear the rumble of tanks and the screams of the dying men. This wasn’t the glorious fight I had been told about; it was a terrible, terrible nightmare of death and waste.

‘Karl?’

The voice broke into my thoughts.

‘Karl?’

It was only when I heard Opa start up the stairs that I managed to shake the vision from my head.

‘Karl?’

‘Just coming,’ I called back, but my throat was dry and the words didn’t come out properly. I had to hide the leaflet. I wasn’t supposed to have it.

‘Are you all right?’

I swallowed. ‘Yes. I’m coming.’

My heart beat faster. Opa was close to the top of the stairs now. He would be here at any moment.

I folded the leaflet in half along one of the creases, my fingers fumbling as if to betray me.

Closer.

Without wasting any more time, I opened the book and slipped the leaflet inside before closing it and pressing it together. I turned it spine out so I could inspect how it looked, and that’s when Opa came into the room.

‘What are you doing? You’ve been up here for ages.’

‘Have I?’ I started to slip the book back into its place, but the others had fallen inwards, blocking the gap. I used the corners to nudge the others aside to make room. ‘Sorry. I was thinking about Herr Finkel. Earlier on we saw—’

‘I heard about it,’ Opa said as he came in and stood behind me. ‘Herr Lang came round; he saw it too.’

‘Did he know why they arrested him?’

Opa shook his head. ‘No idea. Perhaps Herr Finkel said something or sold something he shouldn’t have, we’ll probably never know.’

‘Do you think they took him to Headquarters?’ I pictured the large grey building by the river. ‘The other night, when he got angry, Stefan said they torture people there. Do you think—’

‘Don’t. That’s …’ Opa stopped and cleared his throat. ‘That’s not something you should think about.’

‘Lisa said people know Wolff from when he was a boy. Did Herr Finkel know him?’ Somehow, the idea of it made the arrest seem even worse.

‘Most of us do,’ Opa spoke quietly. ‘He used to deliver bread.’

‘And then he joined the Gestapo?’

‘He was a policeman first. Not the best, but decent enough.
Then
he joined the Gestapo and, well, things change. People change. Sometimes they do things …’ Opa let his words trail away and I tried not to think about the shopkeeper’s bloodied face.

‘I liked Herr Finkel,’ I said.

‘I did too, Karl.’ Opa sounded sad. ‘Now why don’t you tell me what you’ve got there?’ He put his hand on my shoulder and looked over to see what I was doing.

‘Mein Kampf
?’ He reached over to take the book from my hands. ‘Hm. Not a great read, I have to say.’ He twisted his wrist to look at the back of the book, then turned it face out once more, so the Führer was watching us. ‘It’s a little dry for my taste. What about you?’

‘I haven’t read it,’ I admitted.

‘Can’t say I blame you.’

I looked up so I could see Opa in the mirror that hung on the wall. ‘I don’t think I ever will.’

He held my gaze for a long while as if he understood what I was saying, then a gentle smile touched his lips and the creases around the corners of his eyes bunched together. He nodded and squeezed my shoulder. ‘Let’s leave it where it is for now.’

He handed it back to me and I put the book in its place among the others. I returned Papa’s picture to where it had been, and picked up my silver proficiency badge. I studied it for a moment, remembering the day I had received it – remembering Johann Weber – then I opened the drawer and buried the badge beneath a bundle of socks. When I closed the drawer, I looked at Opa’s reflection in the mirror again.

‘One day all this will be over,’ he said. ‘And I think there’ll be a lot of explaining to do.’

‘What do you mean?’

Opa sucked his teeth and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Well. I’m no expert, Karl, but one day this war is going to
end, and men like that …’ he nodded towards the line of books, ‘… men like that can get too big for their boots; stretch themselves too far. And sooner or later, they get what they deserve.’

A BAD GERMAN

O
pa heated water on the stove, and while I washed my face, he looked for something cold to put on my eye.

‘Best not tell Stefan how this happened,’ he said, handing me a thin slice of pork as I came into the kitchen. ‘And be careful with that, it’s our supper.’

I sat at the table and put the cool, sticky meat against my eye.

‘It might set him off again like last night,’ Opa said, ‘make him more angry. Just say you fell off your bike.’

I thought about how Stefan had shouted at me, and Opa must have seen how bad it made me feel because he sat down and leaned back in the chair. ‘It’s not all your
fault. Sometimes people get angry about things that make other people sad. Things affect people in different ways.’

I waited for him to explain.

‘When you think about Papa, how does it make you feel?’

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to ignore the tightness in my chest. It was like a pain that wouldn’t go away. It was always there, even when I didn’t notice it. When I was with Lisa, I didn’t think about it, but then I’d see something or hear something that would remind me of Papa and the pain would come rushing forwards.

‘It makes me feel sad,’ I said.

Opa nodded. ‘For your mama, it’s different. It made her ill.’

‘But she’s getting better now.’

‘Yes, she is, and that’s good.’ He gave me a sad smile. ‘But it has made Stefan angry. He wants to blame someone for what happened to Papa.’

‘You mean he wants to blame the Führer?’

Opa raised his eyebrows and thought about it. ‘Well, I don’t think your brother ever liked the Führer very much. Your father was the same, and—’

‘Papa didn’t like the Führer?’ I asked.

Opa sighed. ‘Maybe this isn’t something to talk about now; we’re talking about Stefan, and about why you shouldn’t tell him what happened to you. You see, Karl, it might make him do something stupid. You remember how he used to get into trouble at home? And that time he went away for fighting with the other boys? Well, it’s the same thing, except times have changed and the consequences
are much worse now. Stefan was right when he said that sometimes people are taken away and never come back.’

‘Like Lisa’s papa?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Herr Finkel?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ Opa shook his head.

‘But how can Kriminalinspektor Wolff be so horrible to people he knows?’ Even as the question came out, though, I remembered some of the horrible things
I
had done – like hitting Johann Weber to the ground on the day he received his papa’s death notice.

‘As I said, Karl, people change.’ Opa looked right at me. ‘But not always for the better.’

I shifted my gaze and stared at the Nazi party badge pinned to his shirt; the perfect red and white circle with the silver lettering and the swastika in the centre. ‘You weren’t wearing that the day Kriminalinspektor Wolff came. You used to wear it all the time.’

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.