Von sat in the middle of Tomas and me; he placed his arms on our shoulders and looked with warm, pale blue eyes.
We’d fallen into Von Bacchman’s trap.
Later, and alarmingly past curfew.
“Now for T,” I said.
When we went through the alphabet, and Von studied it a thousand times, we decided that would be enough for today.
“Just one more!” Von pleaded.
“No. We’ll be in so much trouble,” Tomas said.
“Please, Josef.”
It was hard not to give in, but we were persistent.
“No, Von.”
I let Von keep the paper. He folded it up a million times and put it into his pocket. It was almost eight o’clock by the time we got back, and we were all ready to accept the Watschen to come. On the walk home, Tomas spoke.
“Your paintings are getting good, Josef.” I looked down, realising he was right. I shrugged.
“I paint in a way that makes it feel real.”
“Such as? What’s that one about?”
“…Ahh, well. I don’t just paint the moon. I show people how it glistens through the window.”
Don’t become silent. Art is about emotions, experience, and thoughts. Be ready to feel. The same applies to life.
I smiled, and he returned it, nodding shyly. He had no idea what I was talking about, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was it made me happy. I hope that someday you have the chance to smile and nod at something you don’t understand to make someone you love happy.
“Pussy!” he added, with a quiet one-syllable laugh, running away from me before I could react.
All three of us chuckled.
We said our goodbyes to Tomas and entered our cabins.
The fun didn’t last long after that.
“Welcome back, fags.” Penn Pichler sat upon his bed, the harsh, hate-filled cruelness of childhood alight with the hellish, rotten stench that is unique only to the armpits of teenage boys.
At the time, and other times after, I never let the word bother me much, but it did inspire a feeling I never felt before inside of my stomach, and it was a different feeling to the feeling I felt when I first heard the word “Jew”. I knew what that meant, and I knew the reason for my anger towards it.
I had no idea what this meant.
Was it fear? Disgust? Who knows. Von had no answers, nor did I.
I brushed it off and sometimes laughed, but I did internalise it.
Watching Pichler and Derrick get a Watsche of their own was, if not a true comfort, a relief. But the feeling in my stomach made me unable to find it as satisfying as I probably should have.
That word. You are probably afraid to say it yourself out of fear that you might offend someone. Don’t be afraid. It’s a word, like many others. 6 letters. 2 syllables. It starts with fa and rhymes with maggot. Say it with me.
Faggot.
F-A-G-G-O-T
Faggot.
The word wasn’t spoken a lot. Hell, I don’t think the boys could even comprehend what exactly it meant, and it never seemed to bother anyone too much. But it lingered in my memory, popping up in the late of the night amongst the starry yellows, dancing with the colours, lurking from the distance. Something was always watching. The puddle that was forming in my stomach was getting deeper, and before I knew it, my thoughts would be drowning.
That night, in the dark cabin, I continued with Von’s figure. I could tell Von had the words on his mind. I had the colours on mine.
28
Forgotten Letters to the Führer
Fandango*Feldspa*Flavescent
Nearing Christmas, we wrote letters to the Führer. It took me two hours and three drafts to perfect it – cigarettes scattered around me with the words and light.
A lot of boys declined to send letters, believing that it was only for the smaller kids. In hindsight, I knew that the whole exercise had been rather pointless. Had Hitler cared enough to speak to the boys he was creating, then he would have already done so.
The harsh scent of drink could be smelt on Oskar’s person. Stefan was on his lap. “My pals said that he is not real, but I have to believe anyway.”
The two were reading his letter. “Of course he’s real, Stefan. We’ll mail it to him directly.”
We all use our imagination, but when we are children, we are often unable to tell the difference between fact and fiction. I believed the things adults in Inland told me because it was the adults who told me. Add a little childhood imagination, and you have the makings of the biggest lie in history.
Hitler and his radio waves kept me company as I tried to collect the words and stamp them on the page. I ran away with my thoughts.
“Dear Hitler,” it started.
The ways the grown-ups of Inland tried to shield the truth from the children multiplied and evolved yearly. The biggest threat, of course, was other children. They love to point out lies.
The impressive thing about myths is that they can live in the truth.
Hitler was, sadly, a real man, as well as an imaginary one. But the version of him the boys of Inland created in our minds did not exist.
Youth leaders were piled on top of each other, sitting on stools and smoking. The air was grey with smoke. The walls were yellow.
“Listen, men. And I’m just throwing this out there to see if it sticks, and don’t twist my words.”
“Just say it,” Viktor Link said.
“I’ve heard that Hitler is orchestrating all of this.” Whispering. “The hangings on the main street, the camps… Now it’s just a whisper I heard. Don’t go around repeating it.”
“Supposing it’s true, what else is he hiding?”
Orchestrating. I knew the word orchestrate had two meanings, but I still thought of the music anyway. The soft, Hitler-orchestrated songs were blowing on my neck. I scratched it with my shoulder several times before the images floated away and got stuck in the whirlpool that was my mind.
The German word for orchestrate is, similarly, orchestrieren.
Now, I think of the German men, and how their doubt was preyed upon. We all know what Hitler did, but the men in the cabin that day did not have the eighty years you did to internalise it. There was a tiny fraction of them that believed they could be wrong. People like him prey on doubt. It’s that same doubt that makes us humans. The doubt that stops us from becoming Hitler ourselves.
Ignoring the sense of foreboding, I told the Führer about Inland, that we were learning all about him, and how I wished he could see my paintings someday. The words in my letter looked backward and upside down, but Tomas convinced me that it was suitable.
We placed our letters in envelopes, and the leaders would mail them for us. I was anxiously waiting for my reply the moment it was sent. An answer never did come.
Penn was waiting for a reply of his own, not from the Führer, but Von Bacchman. He gathered the nerve to ask Von for a lend of his yoyo.
“Von, come over here for a second.”
“Not a chance.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll take my yoyo.”
Penn Pichler had a mantra: “What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is not yours.”
29
Stolen Tobacco
*Saddle Brown*Salmon Pink*Sea Blue*Shocking Pink
Weihnachten, 1940.
Christmas.
Oskar had permission to go back to Mittengwald to spend some time with his family. Some pupils went home, but many stayed in Inland, only receiving letters from their parents.
Tomas made his way to my cabin as soon as he woke up. He and Kröger were getting dangerously close.
A conversation.
“Herr Kröger, I shot from the corner.”
Kröger had a cigarette smoke grin. “From the corner? Right on target?”
“Ja!”
“Good boy!”
They were not a likely duo, but they were friends. Tomas passed Schultz’s terrier daily when he went t
o shine shoes with Kröger. He gave a bag over the shoulder, bent-over “Hallo, puppy.”
“Christmas just doesn’t seem the same without toys,” said Penn Pichler as he played with the wrapping paper. He was awake before most of the others. “But, I suppose we’re too big for toys now.” He had opened his parent’s present without Derrick. Hair clippers. He wouldn’t hear the end of it for the rest of the day.
“Ja, toys are for babies.” Manfret hid his Hitler miniature in his pocket. An odd snapshot in time. Of course, such toys were quite normal back then. You cannot deny history.
To Stefan Rosenberger’s surprise, sitting under our makeshift Christmas tree, there was something wrapped in newspaper and addressed to him.
“From Sankt Nikolaus,” Tomas said.
The rest of us were not fooled.
Stefan practically tore the paper apart, unveiling a small, wooden car with a missing wheel. It didn’t bother Stefan, though.
He hugged Tomas around his shoulders, snow still sticking to his delicate blond hair, and for a few moments, Stefan could not hear anything but the pounding pulse of his excitement.
My smile could not be restrained.
Afterwards, Stefan would carry that toy car under his arm wherever he went. Whether he was eating or sleeping, the car was always there. Later, Von and the other boys huddled in a circle and watched as he played, all while the youth leaders drank cider and talked about something we didn’t understand in full – politics.
I listened and drew. They spoke of “blackies” and people who weren’t like us. Not handsome, or tall, or slim, or German. I intervened with words directed at Herr Link. “But Link, Hitler is not German.” Their heads cocked and they looked at me with patronising eyes. “Goebbels is very short, and Göring is a fat shit.”
I did not receive the beating I thought would follow. Instead, they laughed at the ceiling and gave me a cigarette. “Yes, quite right, Josef.” The explanation I was seeking was not given.
It wasn’t until later that another thought occurred to me while I was watching Tomas take two bites out of Teichmann’s grey-coloured sausages. I didn’t even think they were cooked properly. I don’t know how that woman managed to keep her job.
“Where did you get the money?”
My brother’s eyes lit up.
“For the toy?”
Tomas grinned into his fork. “It’s from Sankt Nikolaus, Josef.”
The hall and Tomas waited for my counter-attack. “Tomas! I’m serious.”
“I traded some tobacco for it… from the old lady down in the market?”
“Tobac...” It was then that I realised a large portion of my tobacco was missing. I was too impressed to be angry. I laughed with a mouthful of burnt pastry.
“And this one is for you.” Tomas passed a small paint pot.
A two-toned blue. A riot of colours.
I could feel the colour.
“And how did you get this?”
“I stole it.”
“Jesus.”
30
The River of Souls
On the arrival of the hot days, other distractions were learning how to swim in the River Seehund. As usual, it was a competition. Kröger, Oskar, and a tobacco-pipe-man made bets on who they thought would win. It was safe to say that I wasn’t a favourite. I wasn’t a powerful swimmer.
To get there, we had to swim through a river of shit, as Von called it. It was not shit, but it was up to our knees and deeper in parts. We had to step carefully. Tomas explained that I should follow his steps. He was a true eleven-year-old leader.
“Okay,” I assured.
It was not okay, for when Tomas turned again, I was waist-deep in the mud. A single purple-splashed word came from my mouth. “Help.” Laughing, Tomas pulled me out by my arm. I used a rock for leverage.
The river itself was grim. As children, we weren’t aware of the souls who entered the water with the intent of ending their own lives, believing that they would find the answers they sought at the bottom, in the reeds. I hope they did. They jumped from the bridge. Inland was such a sad little postcard town, haunted by tragedy.
We swam amongst shame and fear, sucking in their misery and regrets.
Tomas had trouble swimming, and Kröger took it upon himself to teach him. By ‘teach him’, I mean throwing him into the deepest part with his shorts still on and hoping he wouldn’t drown. “Just kick your legs.”
Thankfully, Tomas was able to swim to the side and took instruction from Kröger for the rest of the day. By the end of it, he was able to float on his back.
I sat bare-kneed on the mud, wrapped around a Sehnsucht thought. I drew the boys in the river. Von interrupted. “This is my place” – a bare hand on a bare shoulder. I come here to think and read. I found it.”
Sehnsucht: a painful yearning of the heart. Germans love to romanticise.
For most of the day, I managed to sit on the safe riverbank, dipping my toes into the water. “It’s freezing.”
A few times, Von tried to pull me in by my foot, but I quickly kicked him away.
“Come on, Schneider.” Von tried coaxing me in. “It’s not so bad once you get the dangly bits in.” He did a handstand underwater and stood up in victory. Just as I was cornered, Kröger came from behind and launched me into the water. I dog-paddled for dear life, despite almost choking on the swollen intake of water.
“You Arschloch,” I scolded him when I found my way to the side. I spoke to his feet. He repeated his regurgitated phrase. “Kick your legs.” Adding to it. “Move your arms.”
Tomas was hunkered under a tree and trying to wipe away his smile.
“Are you alright, Josef?” Von made sure to keep away from me. He saw what I had done to Penn and Derrick Pichler with his own eyes.
“But you’re in now, aren’t you?”
He grinned it, rather than spoke it.
How dare he?
Dummkopf.
I reached for him, grabbing only water. “I’m going to kill you!”
I suppose that was love for two teenage boys.
When the fun was over, we bathed in the river. We didn’t yet possess the embarrassment an adult would. Nudity was quite normal in Inland.
I changed in silence, between over the shoulder glances, until Penn broke it with a bar of soap to the face.
“What’s that for?” Penn was hiding behind the cigarette. I tried to throw it back at him, but I missed, hitting a tree instead.
“Ew, don’t touch me. I might catch your gayness.”
Von interjected and breathed, “You mean like this?” He held the boy down and spat on him.
31
Colours
By March 1941, Inland had managed to escape the bombings of the invaders, but we would not be so lucky for long. The adults had some suspicions, for school work turned to preparation: how the death siren sounded, how to keep under cover, and get civilians to safety.
Tomas spoke highly of it when we played together. He loved to be a helper. There are many Tomases out there, too. You might even be one. Shy and quiet, sitting under trees, chuckling, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees their sacrifices until the sunshiney presence vanishes, leaving behind only silence and shadow.
I was determined that the world would not make me grow up so fast.
Kröger took that day’s class. Simons had been sick. Roll call was taken, and I became fixated on his glittering eye.
“Bacchman.”
“Here.” The volume of my voice turned down.
“Becker.”
“Here.”
“Pichler 1.”
(Louder than the rest.) “Here, Herr Kröger.”
“Pichler 2.”
“Yes.”
“Dietrich.”
“That’s my name.”
More names and reckless responses stirred around the classroom, and I examined the bruises on my legs.
“Schneider.” It was repeated. “Schneider.”
; “Here.”
Silence.
“Schneider?”
Louder. “Here.”
“Wünderlich?” No answer. “Where’s Wünderlich?” Nervous laughter and scattered questions.
Just on cue, Manfret Wünderlich flew through the door. He stood nervously, drenched in rain, as though a storm cloud had mugged him, and the light caught on the ends of his curls. “Sir,” he panted. “Jakob left his shorts in his cabin, so he is just getting them now.”
Kröger’s one good eye twitched desperately. A sigh escaped through his clenched teeth. “Get down there and tell him to get his arse in here before he dies!”
Manfret practically tore through his clothes, tripping on his legs.
Kröger sucked in the air, holding it in for a few moments before exhaling with exertion. “Someone throw brains from the heavens. Or stones. As long as they don’t miss.”
Tomas won a Reichsmark for his morning run. Pure excitement – a solitary, corroded coin.
“Look at THIS.” Tomas held it out to Von and me. The eagle stood out remarkably nobly on the coin.
By then, Pieter-Pick-a-Pfenning had also spotted it. I saw his coat before I saw him. He was circling, just waiting for Tomas to slip up and drop it, but he kept hold.
Von swooped in before I even had a chance to react. He could spot money like a starving, stray dog can sniff out a half-chewed piece of steak. “Not today, you humpy old bastard,” he said, throwing Peiter a middle finger. He walked away, wordless, holding my brother’s prize.
Pieter stood with sad, empty hands. “Sorry.” Tomas and I said it together, but our meanings were different.
The excitement almost stung as we rushed to the market, sprinted up to the tin-sweet shop, and stood before the red-haired shopkeeper, who regarded us with contempt. After some searching beneath the counter, he spoke.
“I’m waiting.” His orange hair was swept to the side, and his black shirt practically choked his body. I stood, wondering what he was waiting for, and it came to me.
The Boy Who Saw in Colours Page 19