“Of course it will. Everything does, at one time or another.”
No, it doesn’t. Not to Helmuth. The war feels like infinity. The Nazis feel like infinity.
Somewhere a police siren wails thinly, up and down, up and down, regular tempo, crisis under control, just like Gerhard. Gerhard is a good fit for the military, Helmuth decides, even though he isn’t a Nazi, has never been a Nazi, has never approved of Hitler and the Nazi government.
Helmuth tries to keep the impatience out of his voice, to sound regular and even, under control like Gerhard, as if the radio doesn’t matter. But his throat tightens around the words and he feels childish as he says, “Go ahead. Lock it up. See if I care.”
“It’s for the best,” says Gerhard. “For everyone’s best. To break the Radio Law would be a selfish act. It could endanger our family.” Gerhard pushes the closet door tight, turns the key.
Helmuth swallows hard at the click of the lock. The sound metals every part of him, turns him cold inside. Maybe Hitler can take his rights away, but Gerhard can’t. Gerhard will be gone in a few days. He can’t stop Helmuth if he isn’t here.
It isn’t a holiday, but Mutti and Oma treat Gerhard’s homecoming as one. The flat is crowded with friends and family and feels as festive as Christmas. It doesn’t even matter that Hugo is there, as proud of Gerhard in his smart uniform as if he were his real father.
Opa leads the family in a mealtime prayer, and then bowls and spoons are passed out. Oma ladles thick, milky potato soup, carefully scraping the bottom to find enough for all of them. Somehow there are plates of sausages, and thick, crusty bread, and even a brown cake with nuts. She cuts the cake in small pieces, enough to go around.
Helmuth is about to bite into the cake when Hugo says, “So tell us, my boy, what are you learning in school these days?”
Helmuth sets down his fork on the plate. “I’m writing my thesis for graduation,” Helmuth tells him. “It’s about the difference between National Socialism and a plurocracy.”
“Splendid,” says Hugo. “A political paper! Too bad the war will soon be over. The army could use soldiers like you. With your mind, you’d make a smashing officer. It’s too bad you will have missed it.”
Helmuth stops listening, feels a dark numbness spread inside. He thinks about what Mutti once said, that silence is how people get on sometimes.
With his fingers, Hugo shoves the last bite of cake into his mouth. He stands and straightens his trouser legs. “Time to go, Emma,” he says to Mutti. “I’m tired, you’re tired, we’re all tired.”
He stretches out his hand. Mutti smiles at Hugo, grasps his hand. As Helmuth watches her leave, he wonders if he’ll ever understand how she could love such a man.
That night, Helmuth, Gerhard, and Hans retreat to the bedroom at Oma and Opa’s flat. Hans falls asleep right away, exhausted from his day’s work at the shipyards.
Helmuth lies on his back in the darkness, arms linked behind his head, watching the moon shimmer the walls. He feels like a small boy again. “Gerhard,” he whispers. “Are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe God has cursed us with Hitler?”
“No,” says Gerhard. “We can’t blame God for Hitler. The German people gave us Hitler, when they voted Nazis into office. Like it or not, he’s our Führer.”
“But he’s a madman. How can we support him?”
“We must support our country, especially now, in time of war, and that means supporting our leaders.”
Gerhard rolls over, his back to Helmuth, conversation ended.
Helmuth lies awake for a long while, wondering if Germany deserves to win such a war.
* * *
Gerhard’s homecoming ends quickly. After only two days, Gerhard receives his draft notice on bright red letterhead, ordering him to boot camp at the army camp in Reibeck-Gesthacht to the north of Hamburg.
Helmuth sits on the bed, watches Gerhard stuff undergarments and socks into his duffel bag. It doesn’t feel real, watching Gerhard pack as if he’s readying for a bicycle trip. He wonders if he’ll see his brother again.
“I know how you feel about the war,” says Gerhard. “But we must pray for Hitler to succeed, for if he does not, we all lose.”
Helmuth doesn’t answer, just stares at the bookshelf.
Gerhard won’t let up. “Do you really think I can refuse to serve my country?”
Helmuth won’t look at Gerhard; he feels childish. He knows his brother has no choice, yet he wants to blame him for that.
“You know I’m not a Nazi. But I must stand by my country,” says Gerhard as he pulls the cord and makes a tight knot. “What kind of a man would I be if I didn’t?”
“What kind of a man fights for something that he knows is wrong?”
Gerhard doesn’t answer for a long time, and when he does, his eyes look pained. “Don’t tell me that I am risking my life in vain. Don’t tell me that if I die, I will have died for nothing.”
Helmuth fears the answer. He swallows it and leaves the room.
* * *
That afternoon the train station is crowded with crying mothers and sweethearts, stoic fathers, and children, waving red, white, and black flags. An SA band plays. The blare of trumpets and the rat-a-tat of snare drums surround them. Helmuth hates the drums, hates how they quicken his blood, how they belie his true feelings and try to convince him that war is good.
Mutti cries as she stands on tiptoe, clings to Gerhard’s neck, and Helmuth notices how tiny she is, how her head comes to Gerhard’s nose. Gerhard lifts Mutti off the ground, kisses her, shakes Hugo’s hand, and then tells Helmuth to take care of Mutti. Mutti and Oma cling to each other as Gerhard boards the train, one gray infantry soldier among hundreds of gray infantry soldiers. He pushes his way to a window, sticks out his arm, waves, shouts good-bye, his blue eyes bright with danger.
The train whistle blows, the wheels turn. Helmuth takes several deep gulps, but he can’t breathe as the train pulls away.
The band picks up its tempo, and Helmuth forgets how he hates the drums, forgets how angry Gerhard can make him, remembers only that he loves his brother, remembers the nights they shared a bedroom:
Mutti tucking them in,
three brothers,
three dark heads nestled against white pillows,
white moonlight shimmering the walls,
and suddenly Helmuth is floating,
praying DearGodDearGodDearGod
keep Gerhard safe.
And so prison day number 264 passes slowly, the same as every other Tuesday, until five minutes past one o’clock. It is then that Helmuth hears several footsteps outside his cell and the rattle of keys. His heart beats rapidly. He leaps to his feet, stands at attention.
Four uniformed prison officials enter his cell. They loom inside the small space, taking up all the air. Two guards accompany the officials, their hands gripping their clubs. Ready, always ready, that’s what the guards are.
Helmuth barks his name, “Schutzhaftgefangener Hübener!” Prisoner Hübener! Even after all these months, Hugo’s name “Hübener” feels strange in his mouth.
Six pairs of eyes study him.
“Helmuth Hübener,” says one of the men.
Helmuth’s heart pounds in his ears. He does not know this man, but to hear his name spoken aloud, so formally, causes his skin to tingle. This is an official visit. He knows important people have written letters on his behalf, people like his attorney and his senior district Hitler Youth leader and even Hugo, asking for clemency. He’s afraid to hope, but he can’t stop hope from beating inside his chest.
Helmuth nods. “Yes, sir!” he answers, his mouth as dry as sand.
“I am First State Attorney Herr Ranke,” the man says. “Executory Leader.” He pauses, lets his title settle over Helmuth.
The title injects Helmuth with white heat. This is the man who oversees all executions. Helmuth sways, puts his hand out to the wall to steady himself, to keep him
self from melting.
Herr Ranke continues. “I am appearing by instruction from the Attorney General of the People’s Court.”
Helmuth straightens himself, stands tall. He looks Herr Ranke in the eye. He doesn’t dare breathe, must keep hope from flying out of his chest. He hears Herr Ranke’s pocket watch. Tick. Tick. Tick. Between each tick, a thousand images flash through Helmuth’s mind.
As. Thou. wilt. As. Thou. wilt. As. Thou. wilt.
Late March, 1941. Hamburg is a black pool. Windows along each street are shuttered tight and blackout shades drawn. Not a slice of light. Anywhere.
Behind a darkened window, Helmuth sits at Oma’s kitchen table in a small circle of light. The table is strewn with books and papers. He reads, scribbles a few words, stares into space.
Helmuth must put the finishing touches on his final paper, his thesis required for graduation. He hates the lies he must write to get a good grade. He wishes he could write what he really thinks of Hitler and the Nazis who shipped his brother off to war.
He thinks about the Rola radio, locked in the closet for safekeeping. He glances at the clock. Five minutes until ten. He stacks his books, lines up his pencils, shuffles his papers in order. Steps softly to his grandparents’ bedroom, listens at the closed door to Oma’s steady breathing, Opa’s light snoring. Both sound asleep. At last.
Quietly, ever so quietly, he slips a knife from the kitchen drawer, thrusts it into the hall closet lock, jabs it hard, upward, once, jimmies open the door.
The radio. Right where Gerhard left it. Helmuth whistles softly. Can’t believe his good fortune, and yet he’s appalled at his own rashness.
He carries the radio gingerly to the kitchen table. Turns out the light. Sits in the dark, runs his hands over the brown plastic casing. So smooth. So cool to the touch. Dare he turn it on?
He does. He twists the knob. The radio comes to life, crackling softly, a dim amber light glowing from its face. His fingers tremble. He turns the dial ever so slowly, watches the needle slide.
More crackling, and then four clear notes, da-da-da- dummm! Three short and one long, the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the Morse code signal, V for Victory. In perfect German, the radio announcer says jauntily, as if he’s announcing a tennis match, “This is BBC London with the German news broadcast!”
Helmuth’s nerves jangle. His hands shake. It’s the BBC, the British Broadcasting Company. Every night the BBC broadcasts a German-language edition of the news for Germans who dare to break the Radio Law.
He thinks about Gerhard, the way he locked up the radio for safekeeping, told Helmuth to leave it alone, the way he moralized to Helmuth. To break the Radio Law would be a selfish act. It could endanger our family.
Gerhard irritates him all over again. “Arresting people for their beliefs is a crime,” Helmuth says out loud. “Taking away our freedoms is a crime.”
He leans in closer, chin on his hands. The BBC newscaster is reporting the British losses in the Atlantic. “German battleships and submarines operating in the Atlantic sank 367,800 tons of merchant vessels from March 16 through March 23,” says the announcer. “The Nazis have succeeded in one of the heaviest series of blows yet claimed against British shipping.”
The honesty electrifies Helmuth, the way the British announce their own losses to the Germans.
At ten-thirty, the broadcast ends. The announcer urges German listeners to find others to tune in and reminds them to turn the dial so that they won’t give themselves away, if caught. Helmuth twists the dial, tunes in a Nazi-approved station, then snaps off the radio and stows it back in the closet.
Helmuth lies in bed, turning over the differences between the BBC and the RRG. The British disclose actual losses, whereas the RRG never does. It makes the British reports seem more truthful, more accurate, and that infuriates Helmuth. Don’t the Germans have a right to know the whole truth?
* * *
With great relief, Helmuth finishes his final thesis, turns it in, and on the last day of school, Herr Meins stands in front of the class, grasping the graded papers. He pushes his carefully combed gray hair across his forehead. Shiny patches of scalp show, brighter and larger than when the school year began.
Helmuth often senses a sadness about Herr Meins. He can’t explain it exactly, but there’s something about his eyes, their reaction when the class discusses National Socialism, as if Herr Meins isn’t really a Nazi at heart but does not dare say so.
“I have your final papers here,” says Herr Meins, waving the sheath of papers.
Helmuth’s classmates shift uncomfortably in their seats and tug at their neck collars, eager for dismissal.
Herr Meins licks his lips, the way he does when he’s searching for the exact words he wants to say. He’s never in a hurry to dismiss his students; he always wants to impart one more bit of knowledge before he sends them into the world.
“Each one of you has a gift,” he begins. “Something you can offer the Fatherland.” He looks at their faces as if he can predict what will become of them, and in one sense he can, since teachers write thorough notations in their students’ Party record books. Notations that will follow them throughout their lives.
“Some of you are gifted in mathematics,” he says. “Some in science, some in sports, some in leadership. And yet, as different as each of your gifts is, together you form one body, an intricate part of one machine.”
The boys fidget, try to keep their eyes from the clock. Herr Meins clears his throat, snaps each squirming boy back to attention. “One paper stands out from the rest. It is written by a young man who has the gift of interpretation.”
He plucks the top paper from the stack. “‘The War of the Plutocrats,’” he reads.
Helmuth feels his face redden. It’s his paper.
“This essay suits the ideals of National Socialism,” explains Herr Meins in a faltering voice. “A plutocracy is a selfish government controlled by the wealthy. But National Socialism is a selfless government. A good Nazi works for the good of the Fatherland, not for self-interest and self-gain. A good Nazi is a good soldier for the Fatherland, one who can lead as well as follow.”
For a brief second, their eyes meet, and in that brief second, Helmuth sees a flicker in his teacher’s eyes. Helmuth wonders if Herr Meins believes his own words about National Socialism.
“This paper was written by a student advanced in his years,” continues Herr Meins. He returns Helmuth’s paper to the stack and sets the stack on his desk. “These papers will become part of your permanent record,” he says.
Herr Meins glances up at the clock. “Helmuth, please remain. The rest of you are dismissed. Heil Hitler!”
Helmuth wonders what his teacher wants as his classmates rush for the door. Perhaps Herr Meins has thoughts like Helmuth, thoughts he cannot dare to write. Perhaps that is what Herr Meins wants to tell him. Helmuth’s hands tremble with anticipation.
The room is empty, quiet. Herr Meins sits in a student desk next to Helmuth. Folds his hands on his lap. “You will go far,” he says to Helmuth. “Your essay shows that a leader can lead with words as well as action.” Then he adds softly, “But in class, your idealism shows as well. Be careful of idealism, my boy, for idealism is the most dangerous doctrine of all.” And there it is again. The flicker.
Helmuth nurses a desire to blurt out the truth that his paper is a lie, that it turned his stomach to write it and that he never will write such lies again, now that he has earned his Oberbau diploma. He senses that Herr Meins would understand. But then, the flicker is snuffed out, and in its place, hardness, and so Helmuth says, “I will go far. Just you wait and see. Some day you will hear something great about me.”
* * *
Helmuth graduates, and May finds him working at the Bieberhaus, the social welfare department at the City Hall. It’s a coveted apprenticeship, one awarded to those who excel in school and are expected to move into important government positions.
Hugo is
proud. “With your head, the government can use you,” Hugo tells him.
Soon Helmuth knows his way around the administrative offices, and one morning he’s sent to file papers in a basement storeroom. He swings open the storeroom door and gropes for the light switch. The single overhead bulb floods the room, and he blinks in amazement. From floor to ceiling he sees books, rows and rows of books.
In amazement, he trails his finger across the dusty spines, reads the names of forbidden authors such as Thomas Mann and his brother Heinrich Mann, the Jewish writer Heinrich Heine, the author Erich Maria Remarque, the philosopher Karl Marx, the American author Jack London, and more. Helmuth feels stunned. He thought these books had all been burned eight years earlier. But here they are, in the dusty storeroom beneath City Hall.
He plucks a book from the shelf, Geist und Tat, Spirit and Action, by Heinrich Mann, who criticized Germany’s growing fascism so loudly that he was forced to flee after Hitler became chancellor.
Helmuth hesitates. He knows the risk reading such a book would pose. It could get him fired, or worse, cause serious trouble for his family. He starts to wedge the book back in its place, but stops, holds it in both hands, as if weighing it. Why are the Nazis so afraid of words? What don’t they want him to know?
Helmuth can’t explain it, but reading that book feels necessary, as necessary as breath. He won’t be caught, not if he’s careful. Helmuth slips the book beneath his shirt, shuts off the light, eases the door closed, returns upstairs to his desk.
Helmuth glances at the other apprentices — Gerhard Düwer, Werner Kranz — and at his boss, Heinrich Mohns, who is at the office Betriebsobmann. It’s Herr Mohns’s job to ensure that all employees are loyal Nazis.
They are all bent busily over their desks. Helmuth’s heart beats wildly as he sits at his desk and slides the book from his shirt into his satchel. No one suspects a thing.
Several nights later Oma and Opa are sitting on the couch, listening to the RRG, when Rudi visits after supper. Helmuth beckons him into his bedroom and closes the door. He reaches beneath his mattress, takes out the Heinrich Mann book, and shows him.
The Boy Who Dared Page 7