They were silenced once more by Mother’s voice, but now it gained momentum. “Not my boys.”
I listened.
Father’s voice entered. It sounded almost gratifying. Not to Mother, but the men. “Lis, perhaps they are right…” I could feel his heart stop in mine. It hurt.
The air was still, and the flame from the candle barely even flickered. It was steady and bright enough to relieve the darkness in our room, but it was not enough to read by. I picked up Grandmother’s paintbrush. Nothing but black on the paper.
The items around the candle cast shadows that radiated out as hands, like that of an old analogue clock. The wick blackened, and the wax slowly turned to liquid, running down the side and onto the glass plate the candle sat on. Tomas made brief eye contact when he saw the change in my face that night.
I continued. I struck another match and relit the candle.
“I’ve heard what happens there.” That was the unmistakable voice of Father. It was shaking now.
Where is there?
I was curious now.
I sat and listened as best I could.
The stars outside were brilliant and set fire to the roses on our carpet.
“Josef, light another,” Tomas said.
“It would be a privilege for them. Turn them into fine young, Aryan men,” one of the deeper voices answered.
“Josef?!”
“I know it’s a good school. But the nature of the… I just can’t.” Mother argued. “No.”
“Josef, the matches are going out again.”
I waved at Tomas, dismissing him.
“Lissette, I know that. I know. They are your little boys… Of course, you don’t want to give them up.”
I was now fixated on the voices downstairs.
“You’re running out of options, I’m afraid. Lissette, Ben – use your minds. Your father will organise everything.”
The voice stopped and lowered to a whisper. “To object to their names being put forward for an elite school is tantamount to treason against the Reich and the Führer.” The deeper voice piped up again.
As far as the voice was concerned, we didn’t belong to Mother and Father.
“They don’t belong to the fucking Reich. They belong to me!”
No, Mother. That’s naïve.
We belonged to the Führer. To Germany. To the Reich.
“Josef, the light is going out.”
“What?”
“The matches are going out.”
The arid voices, low and matter-of-fact, had an answer for everything.
“Our school is the finest ever established...”
All was silent.
“Lissette, they will come for Ben. They will take Josef, too. I don’t know.” The voice tried to sound unconcerned. “It might not be tomorrow, next week or even next year, but they will… Lissette, please…”
He added later, for further impact: “Look at your house! What you gave up already.”
“I can see!”
I could listen no longer.
As I got up from the floor, the candle burned out – too much movement. Darkness flowed in.
Tomas struck another match and reignited the candle. The dance behind the glass resumed. We continued playing for a good twenty minutes before we heard the voices leave, and as they did, I gathered the courage to walk downstairs into the dust cloud of colours.
“Where’re you going?” Tomas shouted from his crossed-legged position on the floor.
“Ssssh. Nowhere. I’ll be back soon. Stay here.”
When I approached the large oak door, it opened with Father’s beaten figure standing there – frozen.
Mother sat crying, forearms flat on the table. Her palms were facing upwards.
Father raised his head. It was heavy.
“Josef, what are you doing down here?” Father asked, wiping his eyes. “Go back to bed.”
“Sorry, Papa. I couldn’t sleep. Who were those—?”
I paused when I noticed his eyes trailing off and staring at nothing on the door behind me. “Are they going to take us away?”
Father’s expression was sharp and definite, freshly cut. “No.”
It gave me more questions than answers.
A wooden hand wiped at the splinters of his beard, and he made several attempts to speak.
“Papa?”
But when I began walking farther into the room, it was not Father who I walked towards.
I walked to the table and took hold of Mother’s upturned hand. She squeezed mine hard. There was some level of discomfort, but I did not let go.
“What’s wrong, Mama?”
“Go back to bed, Josef.” Her voice was firm and sounded like confused love.
And angry, but I didn’t know why. I thought she was angry at me.
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
“Take him back to bed, Ben.” She said, throwing the light blue words across the kitchen table.
Mother and Father would not disclose how the conversation ended that night. If only I had kept listening, just for another few minutes…
“It’ll be alright, Josef,” Father said. He tucked my curiosity back into bed with a pat; a gentle kiss on the forehead. He commented on the smell. “Why does it smell like damn burning in here?”
He opened the window and invited the air inside.
“It will be alright, Josef.” He said it again.
I was just a child, but I could tell that it would most likely not be alright. That didn’t make my father a liar; it made him my father.
Maybe, if I’d intervened. If I had burst downstairs, into the kitchen and said, “I’m here. Take me,” it might have changed everything.
Three possibilities:
We could have stayed at home.
The monsters would still have taken us, and Mother and Father would have still protested.
But maybe, just maybe, they would have lived.
The cruelty of fate, however, did not allow me to enter at the opportune moment. I stopped. I walked away. I continued playing with Tomas.
I killed my parents.
8
The Castle on the Clouds
*Cameo Pink*Cal Poly Green*Caribbean Green
The masked monsters spoke of a place called Inland. That’s where they were taking us.
Munich was the breeding ground of Nazis, so it was only fitting that one of Hitler’s elite schools was built there. In Munich’s heart.
“You’ll go to school. Inland is a place where the bravest, and strongest boys go to become soldiers for the Führer.” A reply delivered to Tomas when he asked where we were going. It felt scripted. Wooden. It was shaped by fear.
I didn’t want to be a soldier, but in Inland, there were no ifs or buts. Children didn’t get to say, “But I don’t want to…”
There was none of that.
Nevertheless, from then on, Inland is where we would call home. Or a place of residence at least.
Rustic cabins dotted the grassy hills as trees stood up like spikes, zigzagging the border of brick roads and unpolished homes. Rivers streamed through deep valleys. The buildings looked as though they were falling on top of each other, squashed together by a giant’s thumb.
It was raining – the usual soundtrack of Germany.
The school was government-funded, and unless you were personally selected to attend due to skill or social class, big money was paid to get in. And so, most of the children of Germany’s higher echelons attended.
It was run by Herr Erich Dohman, simply known as ‘Dohman’. Children in Inland saw very little of him, and only when they got in some serious trouble. No one ever wanted to see him at all. As far as dispositions go, his wasn’t the most convivial. With that said, Inland was one of the most elite schools in Germany and had a good track record with graduating students. Most went on to become respectable German citizens, fighting for the Fatherland. At a minimum, the children got the papers needed to attend university.
App
arently, Dohman had straightened a few boys out.
With a fist.
We held onto the futile hope that we’d somehow get lost, or they’d change their minds and take us home to our parents. Or something like that. My thoughts were not gardened by logic, but I suppose in times like that, logic is just a five-letter word. Absurd and completely meaningless.
“Schaut doch aus dem Fenster! Look out the window!” The monster in a pretty, powdery blue dress said as she pointed her finger at the fogged-up window. “It’s your new home.” She said the words with such optimistic excitement.
I traced a circle on the glass and looked out through the rain-curtained window. I was shivering, bundled up in my useless woollen pyjamas. Tomas clung to me. Or I clung to him. Or maybe both. Yes, I think it was both. It created some degree of warmth, but it wasn’t enough. I held Tomas’ hand to stop him from biting his nails. He did that when he was very nervous. There must have been some degree of anger in Tomas that day, too. For when I looked again, he was biting his lip – something he only did when he was conjuring up thoughts of anger.
I couldn’t feel emotion. Yet.
Frozen blood was dried across my knuckles. I laid in a few punches during the scuffle before.
The dark-haired boy was frozen in the corner. At times, I thought the boy was dead, but he was just sleeping.
It was a long road to the school. I thought we were travelling to the sky. Murky snow was spread out for us like a carpet. Clouds gathered to watch the arrival of Inland’s newest inhabitants.
The building was something medieval. If it wasn’t for the destructive air raid of 1945, people would have come from all over the world to marvel at its beauty.
It looked as though it sat on the clouds and was held by the sky. Despite my fear, it was hard not to find its beauty inspiring, even if it was just a little bit. Our stomachs rose and fell due to the bumpiness on the road.
I held the paintbrush in front of me. We had conversations in my head. Why are we going to this place? Are they going to kill us? Feed us to a bear? All were viable in the mind of a twelve-year-old.
I ran my fingers through the soft bristles. We held hands. The thought occurred to me that they might take it away from me, so I hid it in my sock. The monsters didn’t even attempt it, however. After all, what threat could a tiny paintbrush possibly be?
Quite a big threat, actually.
That paintbrush gave one boy, stuck in his German circumstance, hope. And hope is a very scary thing sometimes, especially when it’s all you have.
When it came time for me to tell my story with the paint, I started to wonder when my gift became more than just a gift, and when painting went from just meaning something to meaning everything. Was it when I was first introduced to Grandmother’s paintbrush by my father in the snow? Was it when the man with yellow-stained fingers gifted me the sketch pad? Or the day I gifted my first painting? The answer itself has always been unclear. Maybe you can decide for yourself.
Anyhow, I’m getting ahead of myself now.
I do apologise. I will do that a lot. The excitement gets the better of me.
Before we get to all that, I think we first have to tour the beginnings of our time in Inland.
There’s a lot more story to tell first. Don’t you agree?
One of the monsters stayed with us in the car, while another disappeared inside. He didn’t speak much. Must’ve been there to force us inside if we protested. However, later, when the real fun began, he merely just sat there and watched. A rather useless addition if you ask me, but I don’t think anyone was asking me.
Several minutes passed, and eventually, the monster returned with the unnaturally tall Herr Dohman. Following closely behind him was a younger man, who couldn’t have been any more than twenty four years old: Oskar Frederick. He carried the perfect balance between danger and charm, with a cigarette clenched between his two, yellowing front teeth. He always rolled his own. It was cheaper.
The tall man walked straight, like he had an invisible string holding him up, walking with his hands in his pocket. I heard the wrappers and coins struggling as he lumbered on, boulder-like towards the van. There was a chocolate smell to the air.
“Kommt schon. Kommt heir.” Dohman tried luring us out, but we wouldn’t move. We were afraid to take a breath of the Inland air. “Come on. Come here.”
The dark-haired boy departed first. Starvation got the best of him, and when Dohman had an offer of sweets on the table, how could the boy refuse? The snow stuck to his hair like white paint onto a black canvas. He had sores on his lips. Everything about him was undernourished, and it looked like smiling was painful.
After perhaps five minutes, Tomas was enticed by a green lollipop. He was never the type of boy to waste time fighting. Better to go quickly and quietly. No furore. Also, the green ones were his favourite.
I wouldn’t move, and I would not speak.
“Was ist dann verkehrt mit diesem Kind?” Dohman’s hands said to the monster in the dress. “What’s wrong with this child?”
He squatted unnaturally outside the open door, looking as though he was going to snap in half. His face wrinkled like a maze as he chewed on a hard sweet – swept, silver hair blowing in the faultless, German wind. I looked away.
“He isn’t slow, is he?” He, again, addressed the monster, who assured him that I was indeed not ‘slow’. We can’t have that in Inland.
The second door was flung open. A trail of light invited me out, but still, I wouldn’t budge. Dohman muttered something inaudible to the monster beside him. It wasn’t that I wasn’t listening to him, just that my eyes were now fixated on the young man behind him. He was pointing his finger to the side of his head and circling it around, miming the words “he’s crazy”.
I managed a smile. His warm colours were inviting me out, almost like a beacon, but still, I wouldn’t move.
It took an hour to coax me out.
Oskar did it.
The conversation.
“Hallo, Josef.”
He hunkered below my fear-coloured feet. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”
Nothing. Not even the sound of a nod.
Oskar rolled a cigarette. Eye contact would have been favourable, but was unessential. Small shavings of tobacco blew away with the wind, and the young man’s reaction made me laugh above tight, withholding lips.
This was nicer, Josef.
Oskar had his vantage point, and he entered.
“Don’t you laugh at me.”
Some smoking later: “Will you come out and let me have a look at you?”
He had me charmed just the right amount, so I left the comfort of the van and walked towards Oskar’s words.
When I looked at him, the sun blurred his face. Stars appeared. “Oh, yes. You’re alright.” He dusted off my pyjamas. “You can’t tell right now, but I know that you are very brave.”
He did it all quietly. A point that was the most noteworthy to me.
I had watery bite marks of snow on my hands. Oskar held me by my coat-hanger arms and gently tugged to keep me moving. Sometimes he would speak to me.
“Du wirst in Ordnung sein. You’ll be alright.”
The next hurdle was the front door.
I would not enter when I saw the shadow people inside.
Frozen tears trudged from my eyes. A group of children gathered as children did and were telling jokes at my expense. I was struck by the abundance of blue-eyed and blond-haired strangers. Their laughs were the kind that could only come from children – so cruel and cold.
Then came Oskar’s announcement: “Get on with it, dickheads. Don’t you have someplace to be?” And they retreated whence they came.
“Oh, come on, Josef.” Oskar was getting somewhat impatient. “It’s not that bad.” The words spoken were both stern and gentle. If you find that hard to believe, that such a combination is possible, imagine being hugged so tightly, to the point it hurts, and immediately being punched in the face.
>
That’s what it was like. That’s what he was like.
Eventually, he must have got tired of waiting, and he ended up dragging me tenderly inside. His hand had a tight grasp on mine and my other hand was clutching at the fabric of my shirt.
I eyed Dohman inside, from the small opening of the half-closed door, speaking with Tomas and the other boy. Despite being so afraid, a smile still came as naturally to Tomas as breathing.
Our eyes kept meeting and darting off to the various distractions in the room. Pictures of boys in uniforms, banners, trophies, and like in all German buildings at the time, the Führer with his gaze.
Colours and circles reunited and ran in front of my eyes, zigzagging and mingling with whatever sunlight was present from the window. I pressed my fingers against my head – too many colours.
I had a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach.
When we arrived in Inland, we had some inkling that it was for our own good. It didn’t bring us much comfort, though. If Mother and Father loved us so much, why would they send us to such a place?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
I listed off a hundred, a thousand, possibilities in my head.
Bullet point form:
They lost their jobs and thought sending us here would be best.
Maybe they wanted us out of the way for a while so they could get some important business done.
The fault could have been placed on Mother and her afternoon naps.
Or maybe, as Tomas suggested, they sent us here to give us an education money can’t buy. They would visit soon, he assured me.
But that wasn’t to say I accepted any of them as legitimate reasons for our abandonment. Nothing changed the fact that we were small, cold, and frightened little humans. Also, they made Tomas cry, and in my eyes, that was unforgivable.
9
Boy: Unknown
*Heaven*
On a boring hallway chair in a place called Inland, there sat a child with legs dangling in the air, clearing the floor by several inches. But his legs weren’t swinging in a carefree way. Each swing was more like a kick, sharp and pointed. There was anger in that kick.
The Boy Who Saw in Colours Page 6