Then

by Morris Gleitzman

  He’s Leopold’s Jewish orphan friend and he’s holding the same knife as when he visited the barn. I see he has cleaned the blade. It glints in the moonlight as he points it at my chest.

  He stares at me with angry, unfriendly eyes.

  ‘How’s Leopold?’ he asks.

  My mind races. I want to tell him the truth, but I don’t want to upset him more.

  ‘I think he’s probably missing you,’ I say.

  I can see the kid doesn’t like this answer. I wonder if I’m going to have to fight him. My knife is in my coat pocket, wrapped in Genia’s shopping bag.

  Even if I could get to it, I don’t think it would do me much good. The kid is wearing a thick coat that reaches almost to the ground. I’m not sure a knife could stab through it.

  I need to try something else.

  I have an idea. It’s risky, but I can’t think of a less risky one.

  ‘I’m Jewish too,’ I say.

  The kid doesn’t move. Or lower the knife. Or stop looking at me suspiciously.

  I don’t really blame him. It’s very hard to trust people in the modern world. I need to give him some proof.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ I say. ‘I’m going to pull my pants down.’

  He doesn’t even blink.

  Very slowly, so he can see there’s no trick involved, I pull my pants down.

  The kid looks at my private part.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he says.

  ‘Felix,’ I say. ‘But I’m pretending to be Wilhelm.’

  There. I’ve said it. Now he’s got two ways to kill me. He can stab me, or he can tell the Nazis I’m Jewish.

  ‘What’s yours?’ I say.

  The kid doesn’t answer. But he lowers the knife.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he says.

  ‘Hunting rabbits,’ I say as I pull my pants up. ‘I got lost. What are you doing here?’

  For a few moments he looks like he’s not going to answer that question either. But he does.

  ‘I come here a lot,’ he says quietly. ‘I used to live here.’

  My mind races again. This big house must have been the Jewish orphanage. The one the Nazis wanted empty so the Hitler Youth could move in.

  Poor kid.

  All his friends murdered.

  We both stare down at the house. I can’t see any Hitler Youth here at the moment. They must be in bed. But there are several Nazi soldiers and officers strutting around, wasting lamp oil and not caring about the dead children they shot last month.

  Suddenly I want revenge.

  I want to do something to them that will make them go back to Germany and never shoot another dog or child or hang another grown-up from a post ever again.

  Something that will hurt them a lot.

  I take deep breaths and tell myself to stop being silly. Who am I kidding? What could one boy do with a vegetable knife and a shopping bag?

  Even two boys with two knives.

  I turn away.

  Anyway, I say to myself, we’re not like them. We only kill for food.

  Suddenly I remember Leopold’s rabbit meat. This kid must know how to hunt rabbits.

  ‘Hey,’ I say to him. ‘Lets go hunting.’

  The kid shakes his head, not taking his eyes off the Nazis in the orphanage.

  I get the feeling he doesn’t mind the idea of hunting, just not with me.

  Then I asked the kid more questions like where was he from originally and how did he escape being shot with the other orphans and where is he living now but he won’t answer so I say goodbye and head off to hunt rabbits.

  On my own.

  When I finally make it to the forest, I stand in among the dark trees, wondering which way the railway line is.

  Richmal Crompton hears my prayers. She helps me choose the right direction.

  Also a train clatters past in the distance to give me an extra clue.

  I crouch in the ferns, looking down at the hillside covered in rabbit holes. The moon is out and so are the rabbits, peeking out of their tunnels as the sound of the train dies away.

  I check that the vegetable knife and the shopping bag are still in my pocket.

  This is going to be the difficult part.

  Catching a wild rabbit will be hard. I’ll have to be very fast.

  Cutting its throat will be even harder. I’ll have to try and make myself into a killer. Just for a few seconds. For my family.

  All right…

  Here goes…

  I plunge my hands into a rabbit hole.

  Oh no. I’ve got one. A live rabbit, kicking and struggling in my arms. Warm and quivering. I slide my hand up to its throat and reach for the knife. I can feel the veins in its throat throbbing and now it’s looking at me with big dark eyes…

  What was that?

  Gunshots.

  I’ve been seen.

  I drop the rabbit and dive back into the thick ferns, waiting for bullets to smash into me, imagining Zelda waking up not knowing where I’ve gone, never finding out why I didn’t come back, thinking I broke my promise.

  The shooting stops.

  The rabbits have all dived for cover too, except for a few who are twitching and dying.

  Voices boom out from the trees. Nazi soldiers, several of them, with torches and guns, slide and slither their way down the slope. They pick up the dead rabbits and examine them in the torchlight.

  I’m almost weeping with relief.

  It wasn’t me they were after.

  But that’s not the only reason I’m relieved. I can still feel that rabbit’s veins, throbbing frantically. My head is throbbing now in just the same way.

  I couldn’t have killed it.

  Not even to feed my family.

  I don’t know how Leopold’s friend can do it.

  I stay hidden and watch the soldiers. I can’t understand what they’re saying, but their voices don’t sound very happy. I’m not surprised. There are four of them and only three dead rabbits.

  As they climb back up the hillside, they’re arguing about something.

  Suddenly I understand one of the words.

  Fische.

  It’s one of the few German words I know. When I was little, a German tourist came into our bookshop and asked where he could catch fish in our local river and Dad told him.

  The Nazi soldiers seem to be agreeing about Fische now.

  I think it sounds like a good idea too. I think I’ll be better at catching fish than killing rabbits.

  The Nazi soldiers head off through the forest.

  I follow them.

  I didn’t know there was a river in these parts.

  It’s not as big as the river I grew up near, but it’s big enough for fish, I can see that even from behind these bushes.

  The Nazi soldiers are standing on the river bank. One of them is fiddling with something in a bag. I wonder what it is? The bag doesn’t look big enough for a fishing rod.

  Suddenly the soldier throws something, a dark lump, and it splashes into the river.

  They can’t be trying to kill fish with rocks, that’s crazy. Perhaps they’re using rabbit meat as bait.

  The other soldiers duck.

  An explosion erupts out of the water.

  A huge one.

  I’m deafened and drenched even over here. As I wipe the water off my face and glasses, my dazed mind tries to make sense of what’s happening. Is this a battle? Are we being bombed?

  The Nazi soldiers are all in the river, yelling excitedly and waving fish at each other. I can see other fish floating in the water.

  Now I get it.

  They’re fishing. That thing they chucked into the river must have been one of those bombs you throw with your hand, what’s it called…

  ‘Hand grenade,’ says a voice in my ear.

  I nearly pass out with shock.

  It’s Leopold’s friend, crouching next to me in the bushes. He must have crept up while the hand grenade was going off.

  ‘Ke
ep your head down,’ he mutters.

  We watch the soldiers splash around, gathering up dead fish and tossing them onto the shore.

  Silently I beg them to leave a couple for me and Zelda and Genia. And one for the kid.

  ‘You still want to go hunting?’ says the kid quietly. ‘You and me?’

  I look at him, surprised. Does he mean fish or rabbits?

  I nod uncertainly.

  The kid reaches into the big pockets of his coat and pulls out a few things and puts them on the ground in front of us.

  The first thing I see is his knife.

  There’s blood on it again.

  But it’s the other two things that really shock me.

  Guns.

  Two big dark shiny hand guns.

  I stare at them. The kid picks one up and holds it out to me. I don’t know what to say.

  ‘W-what are we hunting?’ I stammer.

  The kid doesn’t answer. Just squints at the Nazi soldiers, who are still gathering up stunned and dead fish.

  I feel like a stunned fish myself.

  Does he mean…?

  I stare him. He can’t mean that. We’re kids.

  He looks at me, waiting.

  After a few moments he gives a snort and puts the weapons back in his pocket.

  ‘Forget it,’ he says, and disappears into the dark undergrowth.

  Suddenly I want to get out of here.

  But the soldiers haven’t finished yet. They clamber out of the water and the one with the bag grabs another grenade. He throws it into the river. The other three soldiers put their hands over their ears and turn away.

  I’m about to do the same when I see something near the grenade-throwing Nazi that makes me freeze, even though I know I’m about to be deafened and blinded again.

  The kid.

  He’s stepping out from behind a tree.

  Holding one of the guns in both hands.

  Pointing it at the back of the Nazi’s head.

  I stop breathing.

  For a moment everything else seems to stop. But only for a moment. Now the water is exploding again, as loud as before.

  ‘Don’t,’ I yell at the kid.

  But I can’t hear my own voice, so I’m sure he can’t either.

  The kid’s arms twitch and the Nazi soldier falls forward onto the river bank.

  My head is ringing and my glasses are covered with spray. The kid is just a blur now, but he seems to be bending down, reaching for something.

  When I finish wiping my glasses, he’s gone.

  So has the grenade bag.

  The other Nazis see their friend on the ground. They run to him, shouting at him and at each other and turning him over.

  I’ve only got a few seconds before they realise it wasn’t the grenade that got him. A few seconds before they start hunting for a culprit.

  I run.

  Then I realised that running was stupid.

  Soon the whole area will be full of troops looking for the kid who killed the Nazi soldier. There’ll be dogs. Trucks. Maybe even planes.

  I stop running. I have a better idea. I’ll hide in the one place they probably won’t look.

  The river.

  I’m a fair way along the river bank from the dead Nazi. I find a place where low branches dip into the water. I slide down the muddy bank under the leaves.

  This is a good hiding place. The water is up to my chin and the branches hide my head from view. Only two things worry me, apart from being found and killed. The water is very cold and Genia’s good shopping bag is very wet.

  The minutes tick by, lots of them. After a while I can hear troops and trucks and dogs. I pass the time thinking about the kid.

  How could he do it?

  Shoot another person in the head?

  I couldn’t even kill a rabbit.

  He must be very strong and very determined. And very stupid. Doesn’t he know that Nazis will do anything for revenge? Didn’t he stop and think that he was putting every child for miles around in serious danger?

  Leopold could have told him.

  I think about Zelda, sleeping peacefully and not even knowing that by tomorrow she could be on a Nazi revenge death list.

  A dead fish floats towards me, eyes dull in the moonlight.

  ‘I won’t let them get her,’ I say to the fish.

  The fish doesn’t reply, but it doesn’t need to. I know what I’m going to do.

  I wait until the trucks and the dogs have finally gone and I pull myself and the fish out of the water and start heading back to Genia’s.

  The sky is clear now. The air is cold. I move fast so I don’t freeze.

  With the help of the moon and Richmal Crompton and the distant engine sounds of trucks being parked, I manage to avoid the Hitler Youth orphanage.

  I find the lane.

  I find Leopold’s cabbage field.

  I’m feeling tired and exhausted as well as cold and wet, but the sun will probably be up in a couple of hours so I don’t have any time to waste.

  I hurry into the barn. Genia doesn’t bother keeping it locked now that Trotski and the chickens are gone.

  Inside the barn I put the fish down, take my wet clothes off, find a spade and start digging.

  ‘Wilhelm, what are you doing?’

  You know how when you’ve been working on a hole for ages and you’ve got used to only hearing the sound of the digging, chunk, chunk, chunk, and suddenly somebody startles you and you nearly slice into your foot with the spade?

  That just happened to me.

  ‘Wilhelm,’ says Genia sternly. ‘What is going on?’

  I look up. She’s standing at the edge of the hole in her nightdress and coat. The early morning sun is milky through the open barn door behind her.

  Now I’ve stopped digging, I realise the hole is getting quite big. I’m standing in it and only my head is above ground level.

  Good.

  It’s nearly deep enough.

  ‘Come out of there,’ says Genia, frowning.

  I can see she’s wondering why I’m naked.

  She reaches down and grabs my hand and hauls me up. Now that I’m standing next to her, even through my sweaty glasses I can see what a mess I’ve made. Dirt is scattered all around the barn.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’ll clean it up.’

  Genia is staring at me with the expression people get when somebody has dug a hole in the floor of their barn and they don’t understand why.

  ‘It’s for Zelda,’ I explain. ‘I mean Violetta. An emergency hiding place. In case the Nazis come for her. I’ve made it big enough so she can lie down. We can put straw in the bottom and Leopold’s kennel over the top.’

  I stop talking to give Genia a chance to take it all in.

  She’s looking at me as if she thinks I’m a bit mad. Oh well, at least she’s not staring at my private part. And she won’t think the hole is a crazy idea when I tell her about the killer kid at the river.

  But before I can, Genia speaks first.

  ‘Wilhelm,’ she says softly. ‘It’s a very kind idea, but think about it. Can you honestly imagine Violetta staying still and quiet and hidden for more than two minutes? You know what a fidget she is.’

  A chill runs through me, even though I’m hot and dripping with sweat.

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘I’m not a fidget,’ says an indignant voice. ‘I’m just lively. Don’t you know anything?’

  Zelda is standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes sleepily. She comes to the edge of the hole and looks down into it.

  ‘It’s too small,’ she says. ‘Only one person can hide in there, not two of us.’

  I hadn’t thought of that either. I forgot about me. My brain must be addled because I haven’t slept all night.

  Zelda’s face is a mixture of crossness and such loving concern that I want to hug her.

  I don’t because I’m covered in sweat and mud. And Genia is staring at my pile of wet clothes. And the
fish. And the things from the kitchen. She’s looking like she might explode.

  ‘Wilhelm,’ she says quietly. ‘Have you been to the river?’

  I nod.

  I can see from her face she’s struggling to control herself. Probably because she doesn’t know whether she should thank me for getting food or yell at me for getting her shopping bag wet.

  I confess everything. The rabbits. The Nazis fishing with grenades. Leopold’s killer friend.

  When I’ve finished, Genia doesn’t speak for a long time.

  Zelda does.

  ‘I want Leopold’s friend to teach me how to do it,’ she says quietly as she stares at Leopold’s kennel. ‘How to shoot a Nazi.’

  Genia gives her a look.

  Zelda sticks out her bottom lip, stubborn and determined.

  ‘The Nazis will take revenge for tonight,’ says Genia. ‘People will die. But if you really did get away without being seen, Wilhelm, there’s no reason any of us will suffer.’

  I sag with relief.

  ‘I did,’ I say.

  ‘Good,’ says Genia. ‘I want you to promise me you’ll never do anything like that again.’

  I think about how upset I felt when the kid shot the Nazi and how cold I was in the river and how worried I’ve been ever since.

  ‘I promise,’ I say.

  Genia nods. I can see she believes me.

  ‘If the Nazis come for revenge,’ says Zelda, ‘I’ll shoot them.’

  Genia frowns. I think she’s starting to see the problem we have with Zelda and Nazis.

  Then Genia and Zelda went out while I was sleeping and found some delicious herbs and made a fish stew.

  It’s the best one I’ve ever tasted. The last one was about six years ago, but Mum only had caraway seeds for herbs and I didn’t like the taste of them much. I could probably get to like them now, though. If Genia can get to like Jewish people, anything’s possible.

  ‘Would you like some more stew?’ says Genia.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I say.

  There’s nothing like a herb and fish stew to stop you worrying about Nazi revenge attacks. For a while, anyway.

  ‘Yes, please, thank you very much,’ says Zelda.

  Genia goes over to the stove to get the pot.

  Zelda is making a picture on the table with her fish bones. Little stick figures with fish-bone arms and legs. They look happy.