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Authors: Dan Smith

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BOOK: My Brother's Secret
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‘But that’s … no … maybe there was nothing they could do.’ Stefan’s comment made me angry. ‘He was probably doing something brave like rescuing his men or …’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Stefan said to calm me down. ‘Just tell me about this kid … what’s his name? Johann someone.’

Only, I didn’t feel like telling the story now. It didn’t seem to matter any more. ‘What’s going to happen to us?’ I asked.

‘I suppose we’ll stay here until Mama is better. Opa said he can get me a job.’

‘And I’ll go to the local school? Join the town’s
Deutsches Jungvolk
troop?’

‘I don’t know. I think Oma and Opa want to keep you here for a bit, make sure you’re all right. Anyway, maybe some time away from all that stuff would be good for you.’

‘How would it be good for me?’ I turned towards him but it was too dark to see him. I could feel how close he was, though.

‘It’ll give you some time to think about … I don’t know,’ he said, ‘other things.’

‘What other things?’

He paused for a moment. ‘Maybe … maybe about what’s important.’

‘The
Deutsches Jungvolk
is important.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s just that maybe Oma and Opa think Mama’s struggled a bit with us. You know, with me getting into trouble last year and then you being so …’ he stopped as if he were trying to find just the right word, ‘well, sometimes it’s as if you like all that Nazi stuff a bit too much.’

‘Too much?’ I pushed myself up onto one elbow. ‘What are you talking about? How can I like it
too much
? I don’t understand.’

‘You will. One day, you will.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I was beginning to feel frustrated and angry that he was being so mysterious, and it reminded me of the flower I’d seen inside his jacket earlier that day. He’d been strange about that, too, avoiding my questions.

‘And I want to know what that flower is,’ I said, thinking he might tell me now. ‘What is it? Does it mean something?’

‘Mean something?’ He sounded surprised. ‘Why should it
mean
something? No it doesn’t mean anything. It’s nothing. Forget it.’

After that, he wouldn’t say any more about it, so we just lay there in silence until I fell asleep.

When I next woke, it was light and I could hear movement in the kitchen, so I dressed in my uniform and went downstairs to where Oma was preparing breakfast.

Before I went in, though, I checked the coat hook in the hallway. I opened Stefan’s jacket and looked at the inside pocket.

A neat square of cloth had been cut away and the flower was gone.

PRISONER

L
ife at Escherstrasse was dull and I missed my friends. Oma and Opa wouldn’t let me go outside or do anything I wanted to do. It was different for Stefan, though; Opa had a friend who owned the mill just outside town, so he gave Stefan a job straight away.

‘Stefan needs to be busy,’ he had said, but I think they just wanted to keep him out of trouble. They had even managed to persuade him to stop wearing his colourful shirts, telling him it was best for Mama and me if he didn’t draw attention to himself. They were the kind of shirts that rebellious boys wore – boys who sometimes fought with the Hitler Youth. Stefan wasn’t happy about it, but had eventually agreed and started dressing like
everyone else.

Stefan left early every morning and came back at five o’clock in the afternoon, dusted with flour. For three days, he stayed at home in the evening, but on the fourth day he went out on his bike after dinner.

‘Where are you going?’ Opa had asked him.

‘To see some friends,’ Stefan told them.

‘What friends?’

‘People I met at the mill.’

‘People like you?’ Opa asked.

Stefan shrugged and I could tell they wanted to stop him, but there wasn’t anything they could do; he would have gone whatever they said, so they just stood at the door looking worried as he cycled away.

When
I
tried to go out, though, they told me I had to stay indoors where there was nothing to do.

I was beginning to feel as if I was in prison. It was like being in one of the camps out in the countryside where they kept captured enemies and Jews and other criminals. Stefan went to one of those camps last year, after he got into trouble when someone reported him for fighting with Hitler Youth boys. I was so ashamed when the police took him away, but felt bad about it, too. I didn’t know they would shave his head and make him exercise for a whole week. When he came back he was pale and hardly spoke.

But the worst thing about being at Escherstrasse was that Oma and Opa didn’t send me to school or the local
Deutsches Jungvolk
. The frustration of that built up inside me, mixed with all the awful sadness about Papa and the
worry about Mama, making me feel as if I might explode. I couldn’t believe they hadn’t even let the school and troop know I was there; I was a silver medal holder, I should at least be going to meetings. I asked them about it a few times but they always said they were busy. The day after Stefan went out on his bike, though, I’d worked myself up into such a state, I couldn’t help losing my temper with them.

‘I’m supposed to join,’ I said. ‘I
have
to, it’s the rules.’

‘I know.’ Opa looked up from his breakfast. ‘But … the local troop doesn’t know you’re here yet and …’

‘I want to go,’ I said. ‘I’ll get into trouble.’

‘Not if they don’t know you’re here, darling,’ Oma replied. ‘And anyway, they’ve got enough boys, so they can manage without you. We see them marching up and down the streets every weekend making all that racket. If you ask me—’

‘Claudia.’ Opa held up a hand to stop her and they exchanged a serious look. ‘That’s enough.’ He turned to me once more. ‘The truth is, we think you need a break from everything for a while; to give yourself time to think about Papa.’

As soon as he mentioned Papa, an image of the photo popped into my head and my heart grew heavy. The last thing I wanted to do was think about him; that just made me feel worse.

I looked at the tabletop and shook my head. ‘I want to make some friends.’ When I’d been with my troop it was as if I had more brothers than I could count; without them, I felt lonely and bored, and cross with Oma and
Opa for not letting me go.

‘Maybe in a few more days.’ Opa smiled. ‘I think you should wait a while.’

‘But you let Stefan go out. It’s not fair.’

Opa softened his voice. ‘Stefan is older. He—’

‘He gets into trouble,’ I said.

‘He needs to be busy,’ Oma told me. ‘It’s better for him.’ She reached across and put a wrinkly hand on mine. It was covered in small dark spots.

‘Well, can I at least go outside then?’ I stared at those brown marks, wishing everything was back to normal. ‘On my bike?’

‘You know we can’t let you do that,’ Opa said. ‘You have to stay in the garden for now; that way—’

‘No one will see me,’ I finished for him.

He looked at Oma again and then back to me.

‘You’re hiding me,’ I said, pulling my hand away. It was as if all my sadness was slowly turning into anger, and that felt much easier than being miserable, so I let it build up in me. ‘I’m not stupid, you know. You won’t let me out in case someone sees me. Because I should have joined the school and the
Deutsches Jungvolk
. It’s the
rules
.’

Opa sighed and stood up. He went to the window and looked out at the street. ‘Karl,’ he said. ‘If someone reports that you’re here, or if the wrong people see you, we’ll all get into trouble.’

‘Then you should send me to school.’ My mood was growing blacker and blacker. My hands were shaking and I had to tuck them under my armpits to keep them steady. I felt lost and had no control over what was happening.
My anger and frustration was drowning me and I
had
to do something or say something to make it all come out. ‘Or maybe
I
should report you.’ I stood up and looked at Oma. ‘I could walk out right now and go straight to the Gestapo myself—’ I stopped myself and Oma recoiled in shock. Her eyes opened about as wide as I’d ever seen them and her mouth formed an ‘O’.

‘I could—’

‘That’s enough!’ Opa turned around and his face was dark like a thunderstorm. It was the first time I had ever seen him that way and it felt as if electricity had been shot through the room.

‘Just … just give it a few more days,’ Opa said after taking a moment to calm himself. ‘You need to mourn your father. Give it a few more days and then we’ll talk about it again. Now, why don’t you go and check on Mama?’

I glared at them, lost for words, then pushed back my chair. ‘Fine,’ I said as I left the kitchen and stormed upstairs.

ESCAPE

M
ama didn’t even open her eyes when I sat on the edge of the bed.

She spent all of her time in that room, as if she had decided she didn’t want to be alive any more, and I thought that if we hadn’t come to Escherstrasse, maybe she would be better. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep all day because she would have had to look after Stefan and me, and I would still be with my friends.

As I watched her, though, the frustration of my conversation with Oma and Opa faded away, and I wondered if Mama didn’t want to look at me because I reminded her of Papa. People always said I had his eyes and nose. The way I smiled was the same, too.

From where I was sitting, I could see through the window to the houses on the other side of the road. They were two-storey red brick buildings, just like Oma and Opa’s, joined together in sets of three. We were at the end of one block, with a side road next to us, running off Escherstrasse and connecting with a back lane.

The middle house on the opposite block had window boxes just like this one, but Oma’s were stuffed full with bright red geraniums while those were empty, and I remembered that when I had come to stay last year, no one had been living in there. Now, though, the front door opened and a woman came out onto the street. She was tall and fair-haired, wearing a plain blue dress and a white apron. She looked left and right, then turned and shouted something back into the house.

A moment later, a girl appeared, pushing a bicycle. It was the same kind as Stefan and I had – black, with a brown leather seat. The girl had a pretty face but didn’t have fair hair like the woman at the door. Instead, she was dark-haired and dark-eyed, as if she might have been a second-degree
mischling
– a person with one Jewish grandparent. She looked about the same age as me and was wearing school uniform.

I went closer to the window and looked down, wishing I were going to school like she was, and that’s when she glanced up and caught sight of me.

For a second, our eyes locked together and she stared right at me.

Then she smiled and waved.

I pulled away from the window as if I’d been caught
doing something wicked, and terrible thoughts raced through my mind. Maybe she would report that she’d seen me. Maybe she would tell the Gestapo. Maybe they would come and arrest me for not going to school, and take me away in handcuffs to one of the camps.

I swallowed hard, trying to push the thoughts away as I looked again, edging closer to the window and peering out.

The girl was on her bike now, heading along the road to the right. Her mama was standing in the doorway, watching her ride down Escherstrasse and disappear from view. Seeing her cycle away made me want to go out on
my
bike. I hadn’t been outside the house in four days, other than to help Opa with his car that was parked in the back where no one could see.

Even after the girl was long gone and her mama had shut the door, I stared out at the street. Not much happened, though. It wasn’t like at home where it was always busy. In the city, there were cars and trams and carts to watch, and all the people going this way and that, but here it was quiet.

I waited a whole ten minutes, counting to sixty ten times in my head, but not one car went past. Not even
one
. The only thing I saw was an old man strolling past with his dog.

‘So boring,’ I muttered and sat down on the bed again. ‘Nothing to do.’

BOOK: My Brother's Secret
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