The Children's War

by Stroyar, J. N.

  “That’s like saying you’re not supposed to talk about your life,” Stefi groused. She reached up under her skirt and began to undo the fasteners of her stockings. “I mean, who’s silly rule is that anyway?”

  “Rattenhuber’s,” Wolf-Dietrich answered, his eyes intent on her legs.

  “Who’s he?”

  “Oh, he’s handling the petty details for the project. Overall organization, security, and so on.” He stared as Stefi began to roll the stockings down.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” Stefi asked innocently. “They’re rather itchy.”

  “No, not at all.”

  She finished removing the second stocking and relaxed back onto the pillows. “Is he any good at it?” She dangled one of her stockings playfully in the air.

  “He thinks so. I don’t get to do anything. He does everything himself.” Wolf-Dietrich sat timidly on the edge of the bed. “Takes the information in, ‘encodes’ it in some magical way, and distributes it to the staff when he’s good and ready. I’m told he even set up the network for sending coded documents from one place to the other, but my father is too old-fashioned to trust that.”

  “Wise man. Those things are full of holes. ‘Every official has some way of getting his hands on codes,’ ” Stefi quoted in an appropriately gruff fatherly voice.

  Wolf-Dietrich laughed, then corrected, “Oh, no, I mean he set up a completely separate network with its own codes and everything, but my father still won’t trust it.”

  “What’s he do instead?”

  “He lets trivial stuff go out via the network, but anything he thinks is important has to be hand-carried. That’s why I’m here, in fact. I’m a courier. It’s the one job ol’ Ratti trusts me to do.”

  “If he’s such a big shot, why does he have to do everything himself?” Stefi tossed the stocking at Wolf-Dietrich and giggled as it landed on his head.

  He blushed, removed the stocking, and gingerly laid it back on the bed. “I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t trust me. He must know that I have to report everything he does back to my father.”

  “Well, since you’re not allowed to do anything, you must have plenty of time for visitors?” Stefi asked winningly, leaning forward and stretching toward Wolf-Dietrich.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about this,” Wolf-Dietrich suggested nervously.

  “Good idea,” Stefi huffed, pulling back suddenly. “Instead, you can tell me why you got us a room with a bed. I thought we were having a nice dinner.”

  “You said you wanted privacy!” Wolf-Dietrich protested. “Said you just wanted to talk!”

  “With a bed in the room?” Stefi asked, lightly offended. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Nothing! Really! It’s just hard to get privacy without a bed!” Wolf-Dietrich explained sheepishly. “Nobody offers rooms without beds. I didn’t mean to offend you . . .”

  “Didn’t mean?” Stefi repeated as she angrily grabbed for her stockings. “Didn’t mean? First you get us a bedroom, then you say you can’t talk about anything!”

  “I misunderstood, I’m sorry. I thought, I mean, it seemed to be what you asked for.”

  Stefi began pulling her stockings on, struggling as she was too angry to do it right. “What I asked for was a chance to get to know you better! So you do all this ‘can’t talk’ stuff, like I was some sort of blabbermouth farmer’s daughter. Look here, my father’s important, too! You can just go and keep your secrets to yourself, if they’re so damn valuable!”

  “They’re not valuable,” Wolf-Dietrich pleaded. “It’s just that . . .”

  Stefi stopped her befuddled attempts at putting on her stockings. “Just that what?”

  “Oh . . .” Wolf-Dietrich stared at her. She had raised one leg to pull on her stocking, and from where he sat he could see the smooth curves of her upper thigh. “Oh, it’s just that they’re so hush-hush about it all, I feel, I don’t know. It’s so stupid.”

  “What are you talking about?” Stefi asked, suddenly quite sympathetic. She let her stocking drop to the floor and slid over to sit next to him.

  “It’s this stupid project of my father’s, the one I mentioned before.”

  “I thought it was the Führer’s idea.” Stefi grabbed Wolf-Dietrich’s hand in hers and then let their clasped hands settle on her lap.

  “Not really. I mean, he knows about it, but it’s really my father’s project. I think the Führer is interested in it only if it works, if you know what I mean.”

  “Covering himself from political fallout, eh?” Stefi absently stroked his hand, turning it over so his palm rested on her are thigh.

  “Yeah, so everything has to be carried out by just a few people, in a sort of deniable way.”

  “What do you mean?” She leaned in toward him so that he could speak more confidentially. Her hair brushed against his cheek and she heard him sigh.

  “I mean”—Wolf-Dietrich’s fingers traced a light pattern on her skin—“I mean, like none of the work actually takes place at the military installation— everything is in the main house, the place where ol’ Ratti himself lives. Big mansion, beautiful.”

  “Really? That sounds sort of creepy.” She shuddered and pressed herself against him, her hand reaching out to the solidity and comfort of his chest.

  “He’s converted half the cellar into his office for the files, and then there’s an annex of offices and things. It’s really weird because it’s not supposed to be there—all the soldiers just think it’s just the normal sort of junk about running the place. You know, orders for food, fuel, that sort of stuff. That’s one of the reasons I’m there—to keep an eye on things. I mean, he has the house patrolled, but it’s sort of casual—you know, so that no one gets wind of the project.”

  “But how can they do something this big with just a couple of offices?” Stefi asked as she playfully began undoing the buttons of his shirt.

  “Oh, they don’t do any of the testing there. The field tests are conducted elsewhere, usually under the guise of something else. My father has overseen some in and around Berlin, he’s got a colleague in Breslau doing some stuff, and there’s one or two other places.”

  “What do they do?” Stefi’s hand slid inside his shirt and she felt how he shivered at her touch.

  “I don’t know. Test farm animals, I think. They got some tame chemists in labs at the university. I don’t know,” Wolf-Dietrich answered absently. He continued to trace patterns with his fingers on her thigh, but now his hand slid along, edging its way upward. “Your skin is very soft,” he whispered.

  “I know some people in Breslau, who’s the guy working there?”

  Wolf-Dietrich turned to look directly at her. “I don’t know,” he said with a hint of suspicion.

  Stefi shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t suppose my father is in on all this, do you think?”

  Wolf-Dietrich shrugged; his hand had stopped moving.

  “But you still haven’t told me what you do.” Stefi pouted, turning toward him so that his hand slid down between her legs. “Enough of all these cloak-anddagger types, what’s been happening in your life?”

  “You know,” Wolf-Dietrich said, cocking his head to the side, “I don’t know a thing about you.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you,” Stefi answered with a smile. “Maybe I’ll even show you,” she added, reaching up to her blouse and undoing a button.

  17

  “THE PRICE OF disobedience is death!” the voice ranted, echoing through his brain. He shook his head in irritation and tried to concentrate on the twitter of the birds and the rustle of the dry leaves underfoot. “You are parasites, a burden to society, and you shall work until you die to repay your debt!” it warned. Peterreached into his pocket and unfolded his sunglasses, hoping to diminish his dizziness more than the sunshine. “Corrupt blood! Tainting our pure society with your foul stench! You deserve nothing better than death!”

  Shut up, he thought.

  “Now those squirrels are
a bit different than the ones we have down south,” Alex was saying.

  Peter blinked back the hissing denunciations. Shut up already! “It’s getting cloudy, maybe we should stop for a cup of tea,” Marysia suggested.

  The family discussed what to do at this point in their Sunday walk. They had been strolling for about an hour along the scrupulously maintained gravel paths that rambled through the woods adjacent to the convention center. Each path was edged by a neatly trimmed lawn that then gave way to trees, and under the trees there were dry leaves and needles, but not a single fallen twig remained in sight.

  Peter walked with them, chewing absently on a knuckle, not taking part in the discussion. The chants from that morning’s political rally had provoked a flood of memories, and though he heard members of the family greet passersby and had nodded his head at their inconsequential comments about the birds and the squirrels, nothing, not even the fresh air and the chill sunshine, could shake the uneasy images from that morning. It was the local equivalent of what the Vogels had attended every Sunday in Berlin, and it had also been eerily reminiscent of the ranting propaganda sessions he had been forced to attend during his reeducation.

  Zosia tugged on his arm and he found himself going with the group that was heading toward the cafó, while Ryszard and Kasia remained with the younger folk, taking a different path, deeper into the woods. Peter gave Zosia a quick smile, then his eyes were caught by the uniform of a Zwangsarbeiter . He stared, mesmerized, as the man worked on his hands and knees, painstakingly picking tiny bits of gravel from the lawn and carefully placing the little stones back onto the path. It reminded him of that first day of his reeducation when he had scrubbed the latrine on his hands and knees. Years later, with the Vogels, he had still been forced down to scrub floors or pick litter from the lawn. Years later.

  He barely perceived how the worker rose and backed away as they approached, deferentially moving out of their way so as not to hinder their passage; Peter only saw images of Frau Vogel’s carpet as he picked lint and dirt off the delicate fabric. Years of such shit! Years of his life! He did not notice what provoked the anger of a passing policeman, but he suddenly became aware of shouting and the policeman striking the Zwangsarbeiter .

  Without thinking about the consequences, he turned back and approached the two, grabbing the officer by the shoulder and swinging him around. Then, using full force, he slammed his fist into the policeman’s face. The police officer landed heavily on the ground, blood running from a cut on his mouth. Helooked up at his attacker in utter amazement; the Zwangsarbeiter also stared, stunned and unmoving. Peter ordered the officer to stand. The man did so trembling.

  “Your papers!” he demanded angrily.

  The policeman handed them to him. Peter looked at them quickly and said, “I have noted your name, don’t think you’ll get away with this!”

  “But, Herr Major . . .” “Shut up. If you ever abuse your authority again, I will see that you are arrested! Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Herr Major,” the man answered, shaking with uncomprehending terror.

  Peter threw his papers back at him and went to rejoin his group. They all looked at him in utter shock; even Zosia looked stunned. He ignored them and began walking along the way they had been heading, and they quickly joined him.

  “Idiotisch!” Anna declared before they had even shut the door of the house.

  She did not stop there, but Marysia was yelling in Polish and Alex’s voice drowned her out with “Childish insanity!”

  Peter was not naive, he had expected to be called on the carpet, but even so, he was surprised by the vehemence of their reaction.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Ryszard was trying to ask over the cacophony.

  Peter listened to the tornado of words, trying to pick out sentences here and there—how could he endanger them all so cavalierly? Didn’t he think about the children? What if someone else had come along? How could he hit a German officer in public! What had he thought he was doing? What did he think he would accomplish? How dare he take unilateral action. Was he nuts? He could have destroyed everything with his childish outburst!

  It had been stupid, he knew that; he could tell just by looking at Zosia’s face that she also thought he had been reckless, though she had said nothing so far. The children looked on; he felt particularly foolish being upbraided in front of them—especially Olek, who was his subordinate.

  Mercifully, Kasia interrupted Ryszard’s increasingly heated and loud queries by grabbing his arm and virtually pulling him from the room. As she did so, she turned back and ordered the children—all of them—upstairs. Immediately! Unused to their mother ever being so assertive—she was dragging Dad out of the room!—they hastily obeyed. In some ways, the scene of her manhandling their father was far more entertaining than that of the three old folks yelling at the guest in an incomprehensible babble. Olek was the only one who had an understanding of what might actually be occurring, and he tried to give Peter a look of camaraderie and support as he left.

  Peter did not see Olek’s gesture of solidarity; all he could see were the people he most wanted to accept him screaming multilingual denunciations at him. Hefelt a complex defense structure begin to crumble in his mind, felt that some barrier was collapsing in the face of such an onslaught of anger and rebuke, and he felt helpless to stop it.

  His eyes strayed from their faces and he caught sight of Zosia behind the three. She theatrically placed a finger to her lips indicating that he should not give her away. Then, positioning her hands on either side of her head she wagged her head and simultaneously flapped both hands and her mouth rapidly to imitate the three elder statesmen expressing their all too vociferous opinions.

  Peter watched the little puppet show and had a hard time suppressing a laugh. Of course, it was so simple! The pieces fell back into place, the dam held, and he realized he was not that fragile after all. Zosia continued to mimic them and Peter burst out into laughter.

  “What is so damn funny?” Alex demanded. Anna and Marysia said something similar in their respective tongues.

  Peter took the opportunity their momentary silence presented him to say in English, “Look, I’m sorry. It was stupid, all right? I realize that.” Gratuitously he repeated it in German to Anna and in Polish to Marysia.

  Faced with such an admission, the three looked at each other and realized they had perhaps gotten carried away. They all began to reply, and then realizing that they were using three separate languages simultaneously on him, they all began to laugh. Peter and Zosia laughed as well, and though Peter was direly warned never to do anything so stupid again, the seriousness of his infraction was lost in their mirth.

  18

  DURING THE WEEK, Zosia chose to visit her other siblings and some friends. She seemed surprisingly coy about where she was going, and though she never made it explicit, she made it clear that Peter should not plan to join her on these visits. Most of the time she took Joanna with her, and the other members of the house disappeared to work or school. Marysia and Olek disappeared on most days to visit relatives, and only Kasia, the two servant girls, and sometimes Alex and Anna were around. During the day, they all had to maintain their façades, and Peter grew rapidly bored with reading books and pacing the garden. Even walking the neighborhood lost all appeal as he realized somebody always felt obliged to accompany him. Maybe they thought he needed the company, maybe they wanted to make sure he did not run into trouble. Whatever the reason, he noticed that he was always preempted whenever he headed for the door by a friendly offer of company.

  On Wednesday evening, as he finished his novel, ignoring the conversationaround him, he decided he would go into town the following day. He had noticed a jewelry store during his visit there with Zosia, and he thought he might be able to find something nice to give her for Wilia, as the special celebration of Christmas Eve was called. Zosia planned to visit her brother, and so it would be a perfect opportunity for him to buy something without
her knowing about it.

  Early Thursday morning, after Zosia and Joanna had left with Ryszard, he approached Kasia and asked her quietly if there was some public transport into town.

  “Why?” She seemed appalled at the thought.

  “Well, I would have gone with your husband by car—but I didn’t want my wife to know about my trip, so I could buy her a surprise present.”

  Kasia shook her head.“No, I’m afraid it’s just too convoluted a route—I could never adequately describe it to you.”

  “But there is some sort of route? I can just ask the driver.”

  “No, that just won’t work.”

  “Well, how far is it to town—ten kilometers?”

  “Walking, yes. But that’s just too far.”

  “I have all day. Look, I even noted the shop’s number so I can call and check their hours.”

  “No!”

  Peter looked at her, stung by her response. “I mean,” Kasia amended, “the phone’s not working. And you shouldn’t walk all the way into town. After all, what about your legs?”

  “Walking is no problem. In fact, it relieves the pain.”

  “Still, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “So there’s no way for me to get there.”

  “I could . . . well, I’m really busy. No, it’s just not practical.”

  He nodded, a slow burning sensation spreading through him. “I don’t suppose,” he tried without much hope, “that there’s a jewelry store nearby I could walk to on my own.”

  Kasia shook her head.

  “And I don’t suppose that I could call a taxi.” She looked at him with exasperation.

  “I didn’t think so,” he said and walked into the library. He stood by the window and looked out into the street. He felt a complete fool. How could he not have noticed? The locked doors, the telephone, the ever-present company. It was obvious. In fact, he realized, he had never been unobserved since his arrival. His lonely walks through the woods were an illusion. If he had ever tried to leave the mountains alone, he was sure he would have been stopped. Politely, perhaps, but forcibly.