The Children's War

by Stroyar, J. N.

  “Ho, ho! Isn’t she just a bit old for you?” Vasil asked. Elda bit her lip and looked away, embarrassed.

  “You’re just jealous,” Peter replied. He gave the lady a slight bow and then gently took her arm and they walked away together.

  They skirted the warehouse, stopping at the loading dock. Peter jumped down to the tracks and then helped Elda down. He glanced at the ground, but there had been an oil spill, so they decided to walk farther along the tracks, back toward the suburban residences. They scanned the tracks nervously as they walked along; when they reached the first suburban platform, they stopped, carefully surveyed their surroundings, then quickly ducked down under it. Theconcrete arch gave them about a meter of headroom, which rapidly decreased to only a few inches, so they decided to arrange themselves lying flat on their stomachs with their heads facing outward, toward the tracks and sunlight.

  “Did you bring it with you?” he asked.

  In response, she reached into the folds of her skirt and pulled out a book. She opened it to a page with a picture of children playing with a ball under a bright yellow sun. A simple sentence was written beneath the picture.

  “Okay, now,” Peter began, “can you find the word ball in that sentence? Remember, it will start with a b. You can hear the sound, right?”

  Elda nodded and pointed at the word. “Ball,” she read.

  “Very good! Now, do you think you can find the word sun? What letter does it start with?”

  “Ess,” Elda answered proudly. She pointed to a word. “Is it that one?”

  They continued to meet regularly, but after several weeks Elda’s schedule changed so that it became impossible for her to meet with him during the day, so they agreed to try to meet once a week, at night. The rearrangement left Peter with some unexpected free time during the day, and as he heard Elspeth leave to go to a neighborhood committee meeting, he paused in his work and wondered how he should make use of it. His hand rested on the smooth wood of the piano, which he was polishing, and he found his eyes were drawn downward to the sparkling row of white and black keys.

  Rather unusually, his parents had owned a piano. Their tiny apartment could ill afford the space a piano cost, but his mother had bought an upright secondhand and shoved it into the living room between the armchair and the television. She had offered to teach him how to play, and his willingness to learn had been one of the few joys that he had given her. Her method had been to teach him to play various pieces by heart; he had learned a bit about reading music, but mostly he had let his fingers learn a song and let his mind wander as his hands worked their way along the keys.

  His mother had started him off with a few simple pieces but had rapidly grown bored with that and moved to what she called “real music.” She was partial to Chopin and he had seen the incredible compositions as a challenge. By the time his parents were arrested, he could adequately play some rather complicated pieces. His mother even told him he played well, but it was never clear whether that was a genuine assessment of his skill or just parental encouragement. In any case, he had enjoyed playing the piano, and even more so he had enjoyed being able to accept his mother’s guidance. He might well have rejected everything else his parents had to offer, but that was a gift he had thought he could keep.

  He stroked the polished wood, paralyzed by indecision. He knew he could never reconstruct the music in his head, but conceivably his hands might remember. The problem was if he tried to play something, he might discover thatit had all been lost. Glancing at the clock, he sat down and let his fingers rest on the keys. They felt considerably different. Of course, he had a man’s hands now. Tentatively, he played a few notes. It felt different, too, but he did not know if that was because his fingers had a different strength or because it was a different piano. In any case, it sounded nice. Elspeth kept the piano tuned although no one played it anymore, not since Geerd, the second son, had moved out; doubtless she kept it ready for his return.

  He tried to think of a song, but nothing came to mind; he drew a complete blank. He let his fingers rest on the keys as his mind wandered back to those days in the London apartment block, to the little concerts he would give. His mother and father and both his grandmothers were in attendance, and there he was, the center of attention, able to produce music that they all claimed was beautiful. He had felt so proud of himself at those times, so successful. The adults drank gin and chatted quietly as he played the same few songs over and over, and the room grew warm with their boisterous applause and their happy laughter. His fingers now began moving and the first few bars of a nocturne emerged. Stunned, he stopped and realized he did not know how to continue. He tried the bars again but they were lost.

  He tried relaxing and thinking about his old home. He heard Nanna’s voice as she spoke in a whisper to her daughter, saying something about what a fine lad he had turned out to be. Again he was able to play a phrase. Warning himself not to panic, he kept going, but eventually his surprise caused him to focus on what he was doing and he stopped again. In this way, over two hours, he managed to reconstruct parts of the nocturne, and he smiled to himself with the knowledge that somewhere deep inside, the music had survived.

  Thereafter, whenever he could, he returned to the piano to try to remember what he had once known. Over time, he managed to reconstruct Beethoven’s “Fär Elise,” which was one of the first songs he had ever learned, and a polonaise by Chopin, which had been one of his proudest achievements. The nocturne remained a shadow and he was unable to grasp it in its entirety, but that did not bother him. It was enough to play the few songs he could remember, to enjoy the sensation of creating the sounds with his fingers and to lose himself in the feeling of freedom and choice it gave him.

  “Well done. What was that?” a voice asked.

  He jumped up so quickly he knocked the bench over, then stared at Elspeth in speechless horror. He had not even heard her return, and there she stood calmly in the doorway. How long had she been there? he wondered.

  “I said, what was that?”

  Finally, he managed to collect himself enough to stammer, ‘Fär Elise’ by Beethoven, gnä’ Frau.”

  “Play something else,” Elspeth commanded.

  “What?”

  “I said, I want to hear another song.”

  “Another song?”

  “As I said.” It was not clear why, but it almost sounded like a threat.

  He righted the bench and sat down. The gleaming row of white and black keys mocked him with their repetitious complexity. There were so many of them! How could he ever choose the right ones? He took a deep breath and began playing the only other song he knew through to the end: the Chopin polonaise.

  When he finished, Elspeth said, “That was beautiful. What was it?”

  “Schubert,” he lied. Who knew whether a Polish nationalist from the nineteenth century was offensive or proscribed?

  “Very good.” Elspeth was speaking in a stilted manner, as though completing a ritual. She continued in that vein,“Now, stand up and close the piano.”

  He did as she commanded. Her voice was chilling, and as he slid the cover back into place, he felt as though he were placing the lid on a coffin.

  “Now,” Elspeth spoke as to a child, “put the bench back where it belongs.”

  He did so, then turned to face her. There was something more, and he knew it.

  “Now,” Elspeth said distinctly, as though he would have trouble understanding, or as if what she had to say was serious, “if you ever touch my piano again to do anything other than clean it, I will have my husband break your fingers. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. He believed her, too. The transition from the woman who could enjoy listening to him play to the woman who threatened to destroy his hands was seamless and all the more believable because of that.

  That evening, as he huddled with Elda under the platform, he found himself stroking his fingers, wondering if Elspeth would really ever do such a thing. Probably not, but
he wasn’t about to try to find out.

  “Are you going to tell me what this word is?” Elda asked, obviously not for the first time.

  “Huh? Oh, I’m sorry.” He squinted his eyes and tried to read the word she was pointing at.

  “What’s on your mind?” Elda asked, closing the book before he could make the word out in the dim light.

  He told her about Elspeth and the piano.

  “But she didn’t hurt you, did she?”

  He shook his head.“No, not at all.”

  “So what’s the problem? I mean, it is her piano, isn’t it?”

  He struggled to find the words to explain without sounding like some sort of rabble-rousing Communist agitator.

  “I mean, look at it from her point of view,” Elda offered helpfully. “Would you want your worker messing around with your valuable stuff rather than doing his job? Wouldn’t that tick you off?”

  “What are you doing under there?” an angry voice demanded, startling them both. Peter and Elda pressed themselves deeper into the shadows, but it was too late, they had been too careless.

  “I said, what are you doing under there?” Someone jumped down from the platform above, and then a face peered at them. “That’s not a good place to hide.” The face disappeared briefly, the legs turned this way and that, then the face reappeared. “Come on out, I’ll show you a better place, further up the tracks.”

  34

  RICHARD LEANED BACK, closed his eyes, and let the music wash over him. The concerto came to an end and the announcer’s dulcet tones filled the silence. Richard sighed and opened his eyes to the harsh fluorescent lights of his office. Reluctantly, he reached over and turned off the radio, then sighing again, he checked the time. Only ten minutes late. It was probably long enough. He buzzed his secretary and asked, “Are the candidates ready?”

  “Yes, mein Herr, they are waiting in the small conference room, as you requested,” her crisp voice answered through the intercom.

  As he strode down the hall toward the small conference room, he thought about Til. The competent aide with his irrepressible jokes would be hard to replace, and Richard sorely missed Til’s wicked sense of humor. Nevertheless, he already knew which candidate he would choose; it was only a formality that he was obliged to interview all three.

  He entered the room and the three young men snapped to attention. Richard scanned them, trying to guess which was his man: one tall with close-cropped brown hair, one short with brown hair that was already perilously thin, and a pale, dark-haired young man with an intense, worried expression. It would be the worried one, he decided with some regret—there would no longer be any jokes in the office.

  “Welcome, gentlemen, I’m glad you could make it here,” Richard greeted them.

  They looked somewhat confused by this, and it took a moment before each managed to stammer a reply.

  “I wanted to address the three of you together to save myself some repetition. Afterwards, I’ll talk to you individually to learn more about you so that I can make my decision on which of you would be best suited to work as my aide,” Richard explained, then added, “But first, please introduce yourselves.” He turned to the tall one to start.

  “I’m Geerd Vogel.”

  “And you’re from. . . ?” Richard prompted.

  “Berlin, mein Herr,” Geerd answered. “I mean, originally. Now I’m stationed—”

  “Yes, yes, I know all that,” Richard interrupted impatiently. “What’s your father do?”

  Geerd cast his eyes down for a moment as if searching for the correct answer, then reluctantly answered, “He works for the Reichssicherheitshauptamt.”

  “Interesting.” Turning toward the short, balding one, Richard asked, “And you?”

  “Wolf-Dietrich Schindler, mein Herr,” the young man announced crisply. “From Berlin as well,” he added before Richard could prompt him.

  “Ah, and your father?”

  “RSHA as well, mein Herr.”

  Richard turned to the intense young man. “And you?”

  “Stefan Oldemeier, mein Herr. From Danzig, mein Herr. My father was a dockworker.”

  “Ach, a genuine worker for the National Socialist German Worker’s Party!” Richard added as the three young men exchanged confused glances. “How unique!”

  Richard turned from them and started pacing, then brusquely ordered, “Sit down, sit down!”

  Once the candidates had seated themselves, he began, “Your applications were vetted through several layers of bureaucracy, both military and civilian. You are all Party members, you are all military, and two of you have connections in Berlin as well. I am aware of the expectations that will be placed upon you in this position, but perhaps you are not; so allow me to enlighten you.

  “Your job will be to serve as my aide, and if necessary, my bodyguard. You will gather information for me, provide assistance at meetings and during my travels, and as your career progresses, oversee some projects. You will also be expected to spy on me and report to your superiors on my activities. This oversight of our activities by both the Party and the military is . . .” Richard paused and scanned each face in turn. “Unavoidable,” he said at last.

  “Nevertheless, beyond those constraints, I expect absolute loyalty from my subordinates. I will make no attempt to hinder you from carrying out your duties, I have nothing to hide.

  “However, I do not expect, nor will I tolerate, any extracurricular investigative efforts on your part. Your position here is not to be used as a springboard to military success at my expense! In return, when I make my report on you to my superiors, as I must, I will also limit myself to relevant facts. We will both feign ignorance of each other’s necessary activities in this respect, and in this manner we will be able to have a comfortable working relationship without the petty infighting and corruption which so often makes our jobs difficult.”

  There was a murmur and Richard raised his eyebrows, inviting a response.

  “Herr Traugutt,” Geerd objected, “no one has made any attempt to subvert my loyalty to you!”

  Richard laughed. “I haven’t hired you yet.” He surveyed Geerd and Wolf-Dietrich, pointedly ignoring Stefan. “You two will be under special pressure, given your fathers’ positions in Berlin. It would be remiss of them not to try and take advantage of your position as my aide to learn more about me and my activities, and it would be similarly remiss of me not to use you to extend my knowledge base. Clearly you will need to make some decisions about where your loyalties lie if you come to work for me.”

  Wolf-Dietrich opened his mouth to speak, but Richard raised a warning finger. “And you will need to learn to consider your words carefully. This is not a battlefield, gentlemen; here, words are weapons.”

  Richard stopped and considered his little audience. “I’ll talk with you first,” he said, motioning peremptorily toward Stefan, and then walked out of the room without looking back. Stefan rose and hurriedly followed him.

  “Shit,” Wolf-Dietrich swore quietly under his breath.“He’s scary.”

  “I think he’s just honest.”

  “Damn! I thought my father’s position would be an advantage, but it’s clear he doesn’t want us.”

  “You think? I was rather encouraged.”

  “Can’t imagine why. He nearly said it to our faces—he doesn’t want us spying on him for our fathers.”

  “But why would he say that unless he wants us to convince him that wouldn’t be the case?” Geerd asked.

  “Because he wants to discourage us. That way, we won’t make trouble if we’re not selected.”

  “Oh. Hmm. I still think he’s open to being convinced. He didn’t seem to like how sour that other guy was. I think that’s why he took him first, to get rid of him.”

  “Well, do you still want the job?” Wolf-Dietrich asked as if proving his point.

  “Yes! And believe me, I’d be loyal. I have no interest in helping out my father’s career!”

  “Me nei
ther. In fact, that’s why I applied for this job—my father wants to have me reassigned to one of his pet projects. I’d get to be somebody’s lackey and spy on him at the same time. I’d do anything to be outside my father’s direct line of command.”

  “Me, too,” Geerd agreed. “God knows it was a blessing being able to join the military. It was the only thing that saved me and my brother. My father used to beat the shit out of us all the time. All in the name of discipline!”

  “Yeah, they’re big on that—when they’re in control!” Wolf-Dietrich agreed. He cocked his head at Geerd. “I guess I know you: your brother is Uwe, isn’t he?”

  “That’s him all right.”

  “What’s he up to?”

  “Military. Ran away from my father as well, only with Uwe, I think it happened too late.”

  “Eh?”

  “He’s mad, I swear. Completely deranged.”

  “Why? What’s your father do?”

  “Oh, nothing really unusual. Just likes to control people. He ran me and Uwe like we were two soldiers.” Geerd paused and scratched the back of his neck. “The only respite was when we had a man working in the house; then my father seemed to take out all his frustrations on him. My father would get so angry, so uncontrolled, he’d . . .” Geerd sighed. “After Uwe left, I got the special attention. Now I guess it’s my brother, although he’s the favored one, so maybe not. Plus Mom says we have another Zwangsarbeiter, so I guess Horst gets to be spared all the fun and games . . .”

  “What happened to the first servant?” Wolf-Dietrich asked.

  “He died,” Geerd answered. “He just . . . He died.”

  “You have sisters, don’t you?” Wolf-Dietrich asked.

  “Yeah. Luckily for them, my father seems to consider females too unimportant to worry about. My mother handles them. Any women servants, too.”

  “My father doesn’t give a shit what I turn out like. He thinks I’m just one of his career tools,” Wolf-Dietrich moaned.

  They sat in silence a moment, then Geerd ventured, “I wonder if things would have been better if we had lost.”