My Brother's Secret (6 page)

But seeing the girl on her bike had given me an idea.

Downstairs, Oma was making bread and the kitchen was filled with the smell of the dough.

‘I’m sorry for what I said earlier,’ I told her. ‘For saying I’d—’

‘Never mind about that.’ Oma smiled. ‘Come and help me, it’ll be fun.’

‘Cooking?’ I asked. ‘Again?’

‘Baking this time.’ She crushed the dough so that it squeezed out between her fingers. ‘It’s a good thing to learn.’

‘It’s for girls,’ I told her, as if she didn’t know anything at all. ‘Boys don’t cook.’

‘Is that right? Boys don’t cook? So that’s what they’re teaching you at school these days, is it?’ She stopped kneading and looked at me. ‘Tell me, then, what
do
boys do?’

‘At school? Well, there’s mathematics and science and how to fight our enemies.’

‘I see.’ Oma raised her eyebrows.

‘And we learn about making weapons, about trajectory, and about racial theory. And there’s running and boxing to make us strong.’

‘Don’t you think Opa is strong?’ she asked.

‘Yes, but—’

‘He sometimes helps me with the cooking. Does that make him weak?’

‘It’s different. The youth is the future, that’s why we have to be stronger. We have to be
swift as a greyhound, as tough as leather, and as hard as Krupp’s steel
.’

Oma turned away and sprinkled more flour on the table. ‘Those are the Führer’s words,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

Oma lifted the dough to shoulder height and slapped it down on the table, sending a puff of flour into the air. ‘And the girls learn to cook?’ She frowned and seemed to be kneading the dough harder than before.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And how to look after our families, of course.’

‘I see.’ Oma stopped and looked me up and down. Her face softened into a sad smile and she came closer, wiping her hands on her apron before touching my cheek. ‘You know, Karl,’ she said, ‘you don’t have to wear that uniform all the time.’

‘I like it.’

‘Well, it’ll have to be washed some time, you know. You’ll have to take it off for that.’

‘It can be washed and dried overnight,’ I told her.

‘Can it indeed?’ she said, raising her eyebrows. ‘Now, if you don’t want to help
me
, why don’t you go and see if
Opa
needs some help? He’s in the back with his car. Maybe you can do something to take your mind off all this exercise and war.’

‘But I don’t want to take my mind off it. I
want
to exercise. I have to be strong and fit and ready,’ I said. ‘The Führer might need me.’

‘To go to war?’ she asked. ‘Is that what you really want?’

‘It’s what every boy in my class wants. The teacher promised us we would get our chance.’

Oma watched me with glistening eyes. ‘Even you? Even though you might be killed like …?’ Her words trailed into nothing and she put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh Karl,’
she said as she turned to face the window.

‘What is it?’ I asked, taking a step towards her. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I’m fine.’ Oma held up a hand as if to wave me away. ‘Fine. Why don’t you go and find Opa?’ Her voice was tight in her throat and I stood for a moment, looking at her back, wondering what was wrong. She waved me away again, though, so I left her standing there and went to find Opa.

At the side of the house, Opa had built a shelter against the wall so he could park his car out of the rain. It wasn’t much more than a lean-to made from timber and with a rickety roof, and Oma hated it because their bedroom window looked out onto it. Opa spent a lot of his time under there, tinkering with the Opel Admiral he loved so much.

Right now, the car bonnet was propped open and he was leaning over the engine, cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Oma didn’t let him smoke in the house, she said it was dirty, which was probably why he spent so much time working on his car.

He looked like he was busy so I left him to it. Anyway, I was sick of cooking and fetching tools, so instead, I sneaked down to the shed and wheeled out my bike.

Then I checked to see if Opa was watching and I did something that surprised me.

I broke the rules.

Wheeling my bike along the drive that ran up one side of the garden, I opened the gate and went out into the
back lane.

Opa was still bent over the car, head under the bonnet, cigarette smoke curling around his head. I watched him for a long moment, feeling my heart beating harder. It wasn’t too late. I could go back in. I could put my bike away and …

The gate clicked shut almost without me realising I had done it.

Swinging my leg over, I pushed the bike away and cycled along the lane. Once around the corner, I followed the cut-through between Oma and Opa’s house and the one next door, then I sped out onto Escherstrasse. Without stopping, I turned and headed in the same direction the girl had gone.

Something about being on my bike lifted my heart.

All my anger dissolved away and a great bubble of excitement and happiness and relief grew in its place. It started in my stomach and rose up my throat and filled me so full that it threatened to explode me. I had to open my mouth to let it out, and when I did, the fresh morning air rushed in. It blew around my face and brushed over my short hair and swirled around my knees.

It was fantastic.

Amazing.

Brilliant.

For the first time in days, I felt free.

WORDS ON THE WALL

I
didn’t know where I was going. My feet just pedalled and my hands steered and my mind became blank. I forgot all about Papa dead and gone, and Mama lying in bed for days. I didn’t have room in my head to think about Ralf and Martin or about Oma and Opa keeping me in the house like a prisoner.

The people in the street were a blur as I whizzed by. Men and women who hardly paid any attention to me at all. Everyone just going about their business.

I zipped along the main road, and turned down a side street before racing through a maze of alleyways running along the back of some large houses. The cobbled lanes
jiggered me up and down so much that it blurred my vision, but I kept on and on and on. Faster and faster.

Until I saw the writing on the wall.

It was right there, on the bricks at the end of the alley, staring me in the face.

ETERNAL WAR ON THE HITLER YOUTH

As soon as I saw it, I squeezed the brakes and came to a stop.

Written in white paint, each letter was at least as big as my hand. I had seen things written on walls before, but they were always about the Jews, never something like this. Perhaps it was Jews who had written this, as some kind of protest. I stared at those letters wondering what they really meant and who had written them, and the longer I stared, the more I felt as if they were saying something to me. I just didn’t know what it was.

When I closed my eyes, the large white letters seemed to be burnt onto the inside of my eyelids.

Eventually, I shook my head and pushed off once more, cycling right at the letters as if I were going to crash through them. I turned at the end of the alley, glad to leave them behind, but as I rode along the next lane, there were more letters painted on the wall beside me.

HITLER

I slowed down and read them as I passed.

IS

These letters were bigger.

KILLING

Written in the same white paint.

OUR

Shining as if they were still slightly wet.

FATHERS

My heart lurched at the message and then tightened at the sight of the symbol painted at the end of the slogan. As big as the letters, it clung to the wall like a giant full stop.

It was crude, not a very good painting, but I recognised the shape.

It was the same as I had seen on Stefan’s jacket.

Once again, I squeezed my brakes and came to a standstill. I stared at the flower, realising that these words had probably not been written by Jews. If they
had
been, then the symbol would have been a Star of David, not a flower. The star was their emblem.

I tried to make sense of it. It had to mean something. It
had
to.

And my brother Stefan was connected to it in some way.

I leaned my bike against the kerb and stepped closer to the wall where I could smell the paint. I put out a hand and touched the centre of the flower. The paint was still tacky and when I pulled away, there were white spots on my fingertips. It was fresh; someone had just done this.

If I was quick enough, I might be able to see them.

I jumped back onto my bike and drove the pedals hard, leaving the letters behind. I didn’t care about the cobbles now, and I juddered and jerked, the bike wheels slipping on the smooth, uneven stones as I rushed to the end of the alley. I looked each way, deciding to go right, and then I was off again, searching, searching, searching.

Riding up and down the streets and lanes and alleys, I didn’t find whoever had painted the slogans. Instead, I found more flowers on the walls, more words telling me that Hitler was killing our fathers, and each time I saw them, I wondered why the Führer would want to kill our fathers. It didn’t make any sense.

I must have been cycling for half an hour, maybe more, looking for the vandals, hardly thinking of anything other than those words, when I found myself in front of the school.

It wasn’t as big as the school I went to in the city, but there were two large buildings with a good-sized yard and a wire fence surrounding the whole place. Where I was standing, there was a tall, thick pole with an air raid siren at the top of it like two upside-down dinner plates painted red. When the sirens went off, they made the most terrible racket, so I moved further along the fence, just in case.

The yard was filled with children. The boys on one side, all in
Deutsches Jungvolk
uniform and arranged into lines, the girls on the other side, wearing shorts and vests and doing their exercises.

The girls were swinging hoops over their heads and from side to side, but the boys were jumping up and down and doing press-ups. I watched the boys and wished I were with them, making myself fitter and stronger. The more I wished it, the more I felt my anger and frustration rising, as it had done before, and I remembered what I had said to Oma and Opa; that perhaps I should report them.

That would have been the proper thing to do; what my group leader would have told me to do, and what my friends would have done – go to the police station or Gestapo Headquarters by the river and report Oma and Opa. Then they’d have to let me go to school and join the
Deutsches Jungvolk
.

As I was thinking about it, I glanced over at the girls and caught sight of the one I’d seen leaving her house this morning. She was standing in line with the others, twisting her hoop, but she wasn’t looking ahead like she was
supposed to. Instead, she had turned to watch me, and she was smiling.

I checked behind to make sure she really
was
watching me, and when I looked back, she let go of her hoop with one hand and lifted it – not high, but high enough for me to know she was waving at me.

Which was when the teacher noticed.

‘Lisa Herz!’ the woman shouted, then turned to see what Lisa was looking at, and caught sight of me right away.

The teacher was a short woman with her hair tied back in such a tight bun that it stretched her face. Her clothes were modest and smart – a dark skirt to her calves and a jacket that matched. As soon as she spotted me, she began marching across the yard in my direction, shouting, ‘You! Boy!’

I wasn’t supposed to be out. I wasn’t even supposed to
exist
. Not here. Not in this town. I was breaking so many rules it made my head spin and I froze to the spot. I’d just been thinking about reporting Oma and Opa, and now the reality of being caught was so close, I saw the truth of what might happen if the teacher stopped and questioned me. Maybe she would call the Gestapo and Oma and Opa would get into serious trouble. Maybe the SS would take us all away to a camp like they had taken Stefan.