Two Brothers (59 page)

But Dagmar wouldn’t move. She was simply frozen with horror. Having found the strength to get out of the burning house she now had none left to flee. The sight of the flames had transfixed her.

Then Otto remembered her toy. The stuffed monkey he had picked up in the street and which he knew had been with her all her life. Taking it from his pocket he pressed it into her hand.

‘How …?’ she murmured, looking down at it.

‘It was outside, on the road. I picked it up.’

Dagmar put the little woollen object to her face and breathed deeply, taking in its smell.

Somehow it seemed to help her. Otto’s desperate effort at providing a distraction had worked.

‘Where will you take me?’ she asked in a steady voice.

Relieved, Otto led her by the hand to the back of the garden where there was a gate into an alleyway behind.

‘I know how to get away from here,’ he said.

Paulus and Otto had never told Dagmar but years before, when they had first fallen in love, they had sometimes made their way right across town together in order to creep into that same back alley and stare up at Dagmar’s window. Hoping to catch a glimpse of her shadow on the blind.

‘We’ll go to my mum’s place,’ he said. ‘There are no other Jews in our block so at least they won’t have burnt it. There’s a big order gone out about not damaging German property.’

‘An order?’ Dagmar said, almost to herself.

‘Come on,’ Otto instructed, ‘we need to get a move on.’

The distance from the Fischer house to the Stengel apartment was a good eight kilometres clean across the centre of the city. A city they had known all their lives but one that had been transformed utterly into the most dangerous of jungles in which gangs of wild and merciless predators pack hunted Jews.

‘We’ll have to avoid the Ku’damm,’ Otto said, as they hurried along. ‘My school mates are all over it. I’m supposed to be a part of all this.’

‘You mean … it’s been planned?’ Dagmar said in astonishment.

‘Oh it’s been planned. They read out an SS order, signed by Heydrich himself. The police have been told not to intervene.’

They were hurrying along through the crowded streets. Streets that appeared to be in the grip of some bizarre sort of carnival in which joyful revellers perambulated from one bloody entertainment to another.

‘They’re going to kill us all,’ Dagmar said in a voice that sounded as if she was already dead. ‘They’re going to kill us all tonight.’

Otto kept firmly hold of Dagmar’s hand and pulled her forward.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We should be able to grab a tram at Zoo.’

With the town in the grip of a riot and the fire brigade at full stretch trying to contain the many and various blazes being set, it took them almost three hours to get to Friedrichshain. When they got there, however, the district was much quieter than the centre of the city had been. There were still screams and bangs and the smell of fire was everywhere, but the street on which the Stengels lived was free from hooligans.

Otto and Dagmar ran into the well of the apartment building and got into the lift which for once was at the right end of the shaft. They stood for a moment in silence as it began its noisy, ponderous way to the sixth floor.

‘Dagmar,’ Otto said falteringly, ‘I’m so sorry – about Frau Fischer. About your mum.’

The words seemed so supremely inadequate that he wished he’d said nothing.

‘I envy her,’ Dagmar said, her voice hollow and empty like a freshly dug grave. ‘Not the way she died, of course. But being dead.’

‘No, Dags! Please,’ Otto protested.

‘It was what she wanted anyway. She talked about it so often that these last few months it’s as if she’s
been
dead.’

The lift crawled its way up the building. Otto struggled to think of something to say.

‘You know I haven’t been in this lift since I was fifteen,’ he remarked.

‘Should you risk it now?’ Dagmar asked. ‘You know you’re banned from ever coming back here.’

‘Fuck them. They don’t know where I am.’

‘Won’t they miss you?’

‘It was a free-for-all, I’ll say I got separated. That I was chasing Jews,’ he said, almost with a smile, ‘which of course I was. I bet I’m not the only one of the older boys to have grabbed the opportunity to go off and please himself.’

Finally they arrived at the old familiar corridor.

There was no light on in the apartment and Otto of course no longer had a key.

‘Oh shit,’ he said, ‘please don’t tell me they’re out.’

He knocked on the door and then whispered: ‘Paulus … Paulus, are you there?’

After a moment they heard Paulus’s voice from within.

‘Who are you?’ the voice demanded. ‘What do you want?’

‘It’s
me
, Pauly! It’s Ottsy,’ Ottsy hissed. ‘I’ve got Dagmar.’

The door swung open and within a moment all three were in each other’s arms, hugging as if their lives depended on it.

‘Fuck, Ottsy,’ Paulus said eventually, ‘look at you! You’re huge.’

‘Where’s Mum?’ Otto replied.

‘She’s everywhere,’ Paulus said, ‘the phone hasn’t stopped ringing. There’s so many people hurt. It’s like they’ve actually declared war on us.’

‘They have,’ Dagmar whispered, cupping her hands around a mug of beef tea that Paulus had been preparing for himself and which he had now given to her.

‘Everybody needs Mum,’ Paulus went on, ‘so of course Mum tries to get to everybody. You know her. She’ll try and mend every broken head in Berlin.’

‘Why aren’t you out with her?’ Otto demanded angrily. ‘She’s alone, you should be protecting her.’

‘What sort of protection do you think I’d be? None. In fact, worse than none. Much worse,’ Paulus replied. ‘They’re targeting young Jewish men, that’s plain, they’re literally pulling in any they find and throwing them into trucks. We’ve heard of twenty at least taken in this neighbourhood. They’ve come knocking here twice but I lay low and the neighbour said I was out.

‘I still say you should have gone with Mum.’

‘Ottsy. It would have put her in
more
danger.’

‘All the same—’

‘All the same nothing!’ Paulus snapped. ‘Ottsy! I thought maybe you’d grown up! You’ve obviously just grown muscles. There’s no glory in being a dead hero. You have to
think
. We need to think now. We need to decide what to do about Dagmar. I’m presuming she can’t go back to her house tonight?’

‘Or ever,’ Dagmar said without looking up.

In answer to his questioning glance, Otto explained what had happened that evening. Struggling in vain to find a way to mitigate the shocking and terrible news.

When he had finished Paulus did not know what to say. He opened his mouth but no sound came.

‘Don’t worry about my mum, Pauly,’ Dagmar said, her voice still seeming to come from inside a grave. ‘It’s as bad for living Jews in this city as it is for the dead ones. Besides, it’s just a matter of time for all of us anyway, isn’t it?’

This was a subject on which Paulus could find words.

‘No, Dagmar,’ he said, ‘that’s not true. There’ll be better times, I swear it, just you wait.’

It was Otto who replied to this.

‘Wait? Wait?’ he snarled. ‘All we ever do is wait and what good has it done us? We need to
do
something.’

‘Same old Otto eh?’ Paulus said. ‘What are you going to do? Mug another SA man? Somehow I think we’re a bit beyond that.’

‘Don’t worry, Pauly,’ Otto replied fiercely. ‘I’ve got a better plan than beating one of them up.’

‘Oh yeah? And what is it?’

Otto had been sitting on his father’s old piano stool but now he stood up and stared for a moment at Paulus.

‘I’m going to kill Himmler,’ he said.

‘
Kill
Himmler?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Otto,’ Paulus said aghast, ‘it was killing one of them that started tonight’s pogrom.’

‘You think so?’ Otto replied with a sneer. ‘I don’t. They were just waiting for an excuse, they’d have easily found another.’

‘Yeah, OK but—’

‘But nothing! It’s time we started to fight back, Pauly. I can’t see any other way of this ending. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’m going to finish school next month and guess what? They’re going to have a passing-out ceremony and it’s a big one too because we’re the first graduation class. Himmler is going to be there.’

‘Himmler himself?’

‘That’s right. Black Heinrich, head of the SS. The whole school’s basically an SS project and he’s going to give a speech. I reckon if I get hold of a gun from the armoury and sneak it into the passing-out parade I can nail the bastard. Do you hear me? I could kill Himmler!’

‘Otto!’ Paulus snapped. ‘What are you talking about? You can’t do that!’

‘Give me one good reason why not.’

‘I’ll give you the best reason there is – Dagmar.’

‘Dagmar?’

They both looked down at the girl they loved. She was sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch. Seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

‘Of course Dagmar,’ Paulus hissed. ‘Even if you did manage to do what you want to do – which you wouldn’t by the way – you’d get caught for sure and then what would happen to her?’

Otto nodded slowly and sank back down on to the piano stool.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s true.’

‘Of course it is. You’re her one chance, Otts. Her very best shot at making it. It’s the same situation as it was two years ago when you started taking her out to the Olympics and stuff. You’re a German. A Napola boy no less. You’re going to go into the army. If things keep getting worse and she has to hide, you’ll be better placed to hide her than any Jew ever could. You’re a
German
, Otts, you have papers, you can
do
things. Buy things. Travel. Dag needs you. You can’t save
all
the Jews, but you can maybe save the one that matters most to us.’

Otto looked once more at Dagmar. She was staring into her drink. He wasn’t even sure if she was listening.

‘Yes,’ he said contritely. ‘Of course. You’re right. I didn’t think of it like that.’

‘Well think about it now,’ Paulus urged. ‘You might have to get her false papers, Otts, a new identity, God knows what. You’ll need to keep a clean, a
very
clean slate while you’re in the army and study hard—’

‘Study?’

‘Yes, so you can try and get an office desk, which will be safer for you and you’ll have access to official stamps and passes and—’

‘Wow, Pauly,’ Otto said, taken aback. ‘You’ve got it all planned out.’

‘I have to, Ottsy. I
have
to have it planned,’ Paulus replied, and it almost sounded as if he was pleading with his brother. ‘I need to know that you’re ready. That you’re thinking straight. I was going to find a way of seeing you to discuss all this soon anyway. You see, I’m going, Otts. I’m leaving.’

It turned out that Dagmar had been listening after all because at this she looked up.

‘You’re leaving?’ she said. ‘Oh, Pauly.’

‘Mum’s managed to get me a place in England, to live and to study. I have the visas I need.’

‘When?’

‘Some time in the New Year. I want to graduate from school of course, but by the spring for sure.’

Otto and Dagmar were both deeply shocked.

‘Is Mum going too?’ Otto asked.

‘You know she won’t leave her patients. She says we’re big boys now and don’t need her any more but every day a new baby is born who does.’

Quite suddenly Dagmar began crying. She tried to stop herself but couldn’t.

‘You’re so lucky, Pauly,’ she sobbed. ‘They won’t give me or Mum a visa because of what Dad did. They’ve been watching us, warning us not to try to …’

Her words trailed away and she sobbed more deeply. Clearly only remembering as the sentence ended that her mother was now dead.

Paulus looked utterly wretched.

‘Oh, Dags,’ he said. ‘You know that if there was one single way I could help you by staying, I would. But I’m a Jew too. I can’t go anywhere. I can’t
do
anything. Every Jew is a liability. To themselves and to those who care about them. With me out of the way Ottsy can focus absolutely on you and you alone. That’s all that matters to me. You’re all that matters to either of us.’

‘He’s right, Dags,’ Otto said. ‘It makes sense.’

Paulus turned once more to Otto. ‘It’s all down to you, Otts. And that’s why before I go I have to
know
. I absolutely have to have your solemn
promise
that you’ll look after Dagmar.’