Two Brothers (49 page)

Together Otto and Silke walked and talked in the school grounds for the whole allotted two-hour visit; they missed tea but didn’t care. Silke had made a point of going to the Stengel apartment the night before so she was able to give Otto recent news of his family.

‘They’re all well,’ she said. ‘Things are a bit easier at the moment for them. What with the Olympics coming up, some of the restrictions on Jews have been lifted. Even the signs on the park benches have gone, so your dad can go and sit in the Märchenbrunnen on nice afternoons.’

‘How is my dad?’ Otto asked.

‘Oh he’s fine, absolutely fine,’ Silke replied, but the slight catch in her voice gave away the lie.

‘Silks,’ Otto said, ‘you’re my only friend now, you have to tell me the truth.’

‘OK, Wolfgang’s not so fine,’ Silke admitted. ‘He just seems to have lost hope. I think the problem is that there’s simply nothing for him to
do
. He just sits around really, which is really hard for your mum. I think she finds his kind of
emptiness
pretty depressing to be around. I mean she hasn’t said anything to me, but it’s obvious really. He used to be such fun and now he just
sits
there. Drinking when he can get it and smoking too, which is so stupid because it makes him cough till it looks like his head’s coming off. And of course since your Mum’s at home most of the time now they’re kind of bumping into each other a bit.’

‘Mum’s at home?’ Otto asked in surprise.

‘Oh God, yes,’ Silke replied, her face falling. ‘I forgot, you didn’t know, did you? They finally got around to banning Jewish doctors from working in public health institutions. She can’t go to the clinic any more.’

Otto gripped his fists tight.

‘Jesus wept!’ he hissed. ‘Don’t they ever stop? Haven’t they got better things to do? She did
nothing
but good there, ever. They are fucking
crazy
!’

Otto and Silke both knew what a truly cruel and terrible blow losing the clinic would have been for Frieda. After her family it had been her life for sixteen years.

‘She practises from home now,’ Silke went on quickly. Otto’s face was reddening and his anger rising and she didn’t want the happy day ruined by him lashing out at a passing Nazi. ‘Just Jews of course but there’s certainly enough of them to keep her busy, let me tell you, and they pay her what they can, which means food’s not a problem. The main thing is that she misses you so terribly, Ottsy. It’s turned her grey and she’s only thirty-six. But now we’re back in contact again it’s going to be
so
much better. Now at least she’ll get news. That’s the important thing, it was not knowing anything that was killing her. I can’t tell you how thrilled she was when I told her I was going to see you. She grabbed hold of me and Pauly and we all did a little dance. Your dad even banged out a tune on the old piano. It’s a while since we’ve heard that. Dust flew! Of course I’m going to go straight round there after I leave you to tell them all about it, so you’d better make sure I can give them a good report!’

Otto smiled. ‘Good old Silke.’

Silke frowned slightly.

‘Don’t say that, Ottsy,’ she said, pretending to make a joke out of it. ‘You always do and it makes me sound like a dog.’

Otto just laughed. ‘Tell me about Pauly. I miss him ever so much.’

‘Do you now?’ Silke teased. ‘You actually
miss
the Paul Monster! Can I quote you on that?’

‘No, you bloody well can’t!’ Otto said, grabbing hold of her. ‘If you
dare
tell him you’ll be sorry!’

He began tickling her as he’d done so often when they were kids, growling comically like a bear while Silke screamed with laughter.

But they weren’t kids any more, of course, and as Silke struggled in his arms Otto was conscious of how close her face was to his. How white were her teeth. How red her lips.

‘So tell me about that bastard Pauly,’ he said, disengaging from her. ‘Not that I care of course.’

‘You boys are so
stupid
,’ Silke said. ‘Of course you care, and you won’t be surprised to hear he’s as strong and steady as ever. He handles the budgeting and shopping for your mum these days and manages to get good stuff too, even though there’s less cash around and fewer and fewer places where Jews are allowed to spend it. It’s kind of like Pauly’s taken over from your dad as man of the house. But he still studies, goes to school every single day. All the other Jews in his class dropped out in the end but Paulus has stayed on. Sitting on his own in the corner working away for his exams. I don’t think they really notice him any more. He says he gets in hardly any fights now you’ve gone.’

‘Ha!’ Otto laughed. ‘Bloody wimp.’

‘Bloody clever, more like. He wants to go to graduate school.’

‘Of course he does, the silly twat,’ Otto snarled. ‘What
is
the point of being a qualified Jew in Germany? For a clever bloke he can be pretty damned stupid.’

‘He wants to get out, Otts,’ Silke said, glancing around to be sure that the nearest other boys were out of earshot. ‘You know that. He thinks he’ll be a lawyer in England or America one day. He says he wants to defend the oppressed.’

‘He
is
the bloody oppressed.’

‘I think that’s the point,’ Silke replied gently. ‘He wants to make something out of what’s happening to him. It’s the same as you in a way. Neither of you could ever give in. You just have different ways of dealing with it, that’s all.’

‘I fight, Pauly studies, eh?’

‘No,’ Silke scolded, ‘not completely, Otts. You don’t
just
fight. You need to remember there’s more to you than that. You always loved your woodwork and your music.’

‘Silks. These days I just fight.’

Otto was silent for a moment. Contemplating the possibility of his brother’s departure. His mother and father too.

‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘It’s lucky it’s me that got sent to this place and not him. He’d
hate
it and you can tell him that from me. They’re all so bloody
thick
. And I’m talking about the
teachers
! Honest, I’m not joking, they call it an elite academy but the place even makes
me
feel sophisticated. The so-called lessons are just a joke. We do German folklore and pagan legends instead of proper history. And they keep going
on and on
about blood and soil and soil and blood. What’s blood and soil got to do with the price of eggs, I’d like to know? They’re bloody
obsessed
with it. And of course there’s endless stuff about the Jews. They manage to get us into everything, with Negroes, Slavs, Chinks and gypsies thrown in behind us as fellow
Untermensch
. That’s how Germany’s going to conquer the world by the way, because Germans are best and everyone else is varying degrees of shit. It’s that simple. It’s actually what they
teach
. Science class is basically how to assemble a machine gun and the rest of the time we do sport and sadism. We’re always doubling over some hill with a backpack full of rocks. Or running barefoot over broken stones or refolding all our kit in under a minute. Pauly would go mad.’

Silke laughed. ‘Tell me everything. I want to know all the details of your day.’

‘Do you want to know how to strip down, clean and reassemble a sub-machine gun?’

‘Yes.’

The precious afternoon passed all too quickly and when they heard the ‘five minute’ bell ringing neither of them could believe the time had flown already. Otto was particularly devastated. Being with Silke had returned him so completely to his old life, his
actual
life, that the prospect of returning to the false one he now lived was a desperate and cruel one.

‘Will you come next week, Silks?’ he pleaded. ‘I don’t think they’ll ever actually let me go out, so please say you’ll come next week.’

‘I’ll come if you promise to try not to have too many new cuts and bruises on your face when I do,’ she said with a smile, reaching up and putting a hand on his cheek. Otto may have been fighting less but he still had plenty of recent wounds to prove his belligerence remained undiminished.

‘You’re such a
handsome
boy, you know,’ Silke said, gently touching his scars.

‘I have to fight them, Silke,’ Otto protested, ‘sometimes at least. To show them I’m a Jew.’

‘Bide your time, Otts,’ Silke whispered. ‘There are better ways. Look at me. I fight them too, you know, and my face is still
lovely
, don’t you think?’

Otto smiled, but if Silke had been hoping that he’d take the opportunity to pay her a compliment, she was disappointed.

‘Yes,’ he laughed, ‘you’ve still got the same old ugly mug as ever, Silks. You’re talking about the
Rote Hilfe
, aren’t you?’ he added in a whisper. ‘I couldn’t join them, Silks.’

‘Why not?’

‘Dagmar wouldn’t like it. She hates Commies.’

Silke’s usually sunny smile darkened somewhat.

‘Yeah. I find most millionaires’ kids do,’ she said.

‘Dagmar isn’t a millionaire’s kid any more, Silke,’ Otto said firmly. ‘They executed her dad, remember.’

‘Yeah. OK. She’s had it very tough I admit,’ Silke said, ‘but once a princess …’

The bell rang for a second time.

‘I’d better go,’ Otto said. ‘It’s a ten-K run in full kit for lateness and I’m not kidding. You’d better hurry too or you’ll get locked in.’

‘I wouldn’t mind, Otts!’ she said rather too eagerly, grabbing at his hand.

‘Believe me, you would. This place is hell. Promise you’ll come back next week.’

‘Only if you promise not to fight!’

‘Can’t promise that,’ Otto shouted as he ran off. ‘Cos I don’t want to lie to you.’

‘Promise!’ she shouted. But he was gone.

Silke turned towards the gate, knowing that nothing on earth would stop her from visiting the following week.

Weekly Visits

Berlin, 1936

OTTO DIDN’T STOP fighting but he fought less.

The fact that by behaving himself he had been able to open up a line of communication with his family was too precious a thing to put at risk, even at the price of buckling under to the Napola regime.

‘I don’t think he’s any less angry,’ Silke reported to Frieda after her third visit, ‘but he’s learning to bottle it up. The honest truth is I think that secretly he’s starting to quite enjoy the stupid curriculum. All the sport and craft and guns and hardly any of what he calls “book learning”. They mix up legends with real history and talk about mythical German heroes fighting evil dwarfs and trolls as if it had all been real.’

‘Yes,’ Paulus observed. ‘And we all know who those trolls are supposed to represent, don’t we?’

Frieda smiled. ‘Well, I’m glad Otto’s finding at least something to enjoy in that horrible place, and I’m also comforted to hear that this is how the Nazis educate their so-called “elite” because by the sound of it we’ll only have to wait for twenty years or so before the whole damn system just dies of pure ignorance.’

‘Well, from what I can see they’re certainly not going to find a substitute for Einstein out of the boys at the Berlin Spandau Napola, that’s for sure,’ Silke said, laughing.

‘Only the Jews could produce an Einstein,’ Wolfgang observed from his habitual place at the silent piano. He was a little drunk, having been able to earn a few coins that day playing accordion outside local bars.

‘What a stupid bloody thing to say, Dad!’ Paulus snapped. ‘Newton wasn’t a Jew, was he? Faraday wasn’t a Jew. Aristophanes wasn’t a Jew! The whole basis of what’s happening to us is that we’re supposed to be a race apart and we’re bloody
not
. Don’t you know any thick Jews? I certainly do.’

Wolfgang looked chastened.

‘No, Pauly,’ he mumbled, ‘you’re right. It was a stupid thing to say.’

There was a moment’s silence. The fact that Wolfgang was not merely losing his authority over his son, but also Paulus’s respect, was clear for all to see. Silke, who had known Wolfgang as the funny, talented, enthusiastic man he had once been, looked away in embarrassment.

‘Well, now,’ said Frieda. ‘These Sunday nights when we get news of Otto are the absolute highlight of our week, Silke. Truly they are. We are so grateful that you can do this for us, you do know that, don’t you, dear?’

‘Of course I do, Frieda, but you must know how much I love to do it. Sundays are my best day as well. Seeing Ottsy … And of course coming here.’

Silke smiled awkwardly and went a little red beneath her spring tan.

Frieda smiled back. ‘Yes, Ottsy and all of us.’