My Brother's Secret

by Dan Smith

  Wolff nodded as if he’d expected her to say that. ‘And there’s nothing else you want to tell me?’

  ‘I …’ I was almost afraid to ask. I didn’t want to give anything away.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, it’s … something those boys said. About the badge.’

  ‘Spit it out.’

  I couldn’t help myself. I had to know. ‘What are Edelweiss Pirates?’

  For a second, Wolff’s face darkened like a storm, then it lightened and he smiled. He took a deep breath and looked along the street before turning to me once again. ‘Criminals,’ he said. ‘Reprobates. They are long-haired thugs who hang about on street corners and loiter in cafés doing nothing but spreading lies; the kind of young people you should avoid at all costs. Do you understand?’

  I nodded. Lisa just stared at the pavement.

  ‘Edelweiss Pirates are the lowest of the low,’ Wolff went on. ‘Maybe worse even than Jews.’ He leaned closer. ‘You see, Jews can’t help being Jews. It’s what they are. But these Edelweiss Pirates are Germans who hate the Führer. They are traitors and troublemakers, writing on walls, distributing leaflets, attacking the Hitler Youth.’

  I swallowed hard and remembered the leaflet Lisa had given to me on the way to Frau Schmidt’s house. The same kind that Herr Finkel had taken. It was now folded into a square and pushed deep in my pocket, but if Wolff asked us to turn out our pockets, he would see it and arrest me.

  ‘A group of them put out the windows in the factory on the other side of town just this morning,’ Wolff said. ‘And we have a problem with them pouring sugar into petrol tanks. It doesn’t do any permanent damage, but it’s a nuisance, and one thing leads to another; before we know it, there will be anarchy on the streets.’ He fixed me with those cold, grey eyes. ‘You are a good German, aren’t you, Karl Friedmann?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then I want you to tell me if you see any of these.’ He held the little wooden badge up and snapped it in half before dropping it on the road. ‘Do you understand?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Good boy.’ Wolff ruffled my hair and I had to stop myself from recoiling. ‘Off you go then. Stay out of trouble.’

  Lisa and I didn’t look at each other as we took the weight of the bike between us and headed to the corner of Escherstrasse.

  ‘One other thing,’ Wolff called after us, making us stop and turn around. ‘Give my regards to Frau Schmidt next time you see her.’

  He must have seen the surprise on our faces because he looked very pleased with himself.

  ‘There’s not much happens in this town I don’t know about,’ he said. Then he half raised his hand in a lazy salute, turned on his heels, and walked away in the opposite direction.

  THE FÜHRER’S BOOK

  ‘What do you think he meant by that?’ I asked.

  ‘About Frau Schmidt?’

  We had turned onto Escherstrasse in silence, both of us lost in our thoughts.

  ‘He’s a pig,’ Lisa shivered. ‘I hate him.’

  I couldn’t blame her – and after what we’d seen him do to Herr Finkel, and what he’d done to Lisa’s papa, I was starting to hate him too.

  ‘He was just showing us that he knew we’d been there,’ Lisa said. ‘He thinks he knows everything, but he doesn’t know who these Edelweiss Pirates are does he? But we do.’

  I looked up at her. ‘You mean Stefan? You really think he’s one of them?’

  ‘He had the flower didn’t he? I reckon that girl’s one, too.’

  ‘You can’t tell anyone. Not anyone.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Your brother’s secret is safe with me.’

  ‘Anyway, he might not even be one. Maybe he just had the flower … I mean … Do you really think they’re criminals? Worse than Jews?’

  ‘Jews are just people like everyone else,’ Lisa said. ‘You can’t believe everything they tell us at school.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s a good job I met you when I did, Karl Friedmann. Any longer and there’d have been no hope for you.’

  When we arrived at the entrance to the alley beside Oma and Opa’s house, I looked back along the street. ‘Do you think he followed us? Maybe he’s following us now.’

  ‘He can’t follow us all the time.’ Lisa was looking along the street too, though, scanning the windows as if she thought someone might be watching us right now. ‘But he said he saw the whole thing, didn’t he? At the parade, I mean. And he knew you hit Erich so he must have seen that.’

  An image of the boy popped into my mind and I remembered what he had said to Lisa. ‘Does he really know where you live?’

  ‘Erich?’ Lisa said. ‘Yes, but I’m not scared of him. He’s just a bully.’

  She was afraid of Kriminalinspektor Wolff, though, and so was I, and it made me even more scared to think that he might be watching us. Suddenly I felt exposed, standing in the mouth of the alley like that, the leaflet in my pocket. I imagined what would happen if Wolff appeared at the corner now, running up to us because he’d forgotten to make us turn out our pockets. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get inside.’

  I had to get rid of it. Put it somewhere safe.

  Opa was tinkering with his car when we let ourselves in through the back gate.

  ‘That doesn’t look good,’ he said, coming towards us, cleaning his hands on an oily rag.

  At first, I thought he must have been talking about my face, and I put a hand to my cheek, but he was looking at the bicycle.

  ‘You’ll never ride it like that.’

  He stood with the rag in one hand and shook his head at the state of the buckled wheel. When he looked up at me, though, his face fell.

  ‘What happened to you?’ He came forward and put his fingers on my chin, turning my head to one side. ‘Have you been fighting?’

  ‘You should see the other boy, Herr Brandt,’ Lisa said.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault, Opa.’ I told him what had happened, but left out the part about Frau Schmidt and the Edelweiss Pirates. I didn’t tell him about Wolff, either; it was best to keep that to myself. Instead, I told him that we ran away from the boys.

  ‘Well, that’s not a bad option,’ he said. ‘Live to fight another day. And fighting is for boys who don’t know how to use their brains.’

  ‘You were a boxer,’ I said.

  ‘That’s sport. Controlled. It’s not the same as fighting in the street. Come on, we need to get you cleaned up, and seeing as Stefan’s gone out with friends and your mama and Oma are visiting Frau Dassler, it looks like it’s going to be my job.’

  ‘I can help,’ Lisa said.

  ‘You need to be getting home for lunch, young lady. I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day, don’t you?’

  ‘What about my bike?’ I asked. ‘Can you fix it?’

  Opa looked down at the buckled wheel and took a deep breath. ‘Not much hope for it, I’m afraid. It’ll need a new wheel and that’s not going to be easy to find.’

  ‘There’s one in the cellar,’ I said. ‘I saw it last night during the raid.’

  Opa thought for a moment. ‘You know, I think you’re right. There’s a whole bike down there – it was mine when I was about your age. We’ll bring it out after we get you cleaned up.’

  ‘There’s something I have to do first.’ I moved past him and headed towards the house.

  ‘And what’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ I raised a hand at Lisa, saying, ‘See you later,’ then ran across the garden and jumped up the steps into the house.

  I hurried through the hallway and up the stairs to my bedroom where I closed the door and scanned the room, looking for a good place to hide the leaflet. Under the mattress was too obvious. In a shoe? Maybe at the back of the cupboard? Or under my pillow?

  As I tried to decide on a safe place, a voice crept into my head as if from nowhere.

  Get rid of it.

  I put my hand into my pocket and touched the folded paper.


  Get rid of it.

  But I wanted to keep it. Not just because I needed to read what it said, but because Lisa had given it to me. She had kept it especially for me and it would feel wrong to just throw it away.

  Get rid of it.

  I snatched it out of my pocket and went to the chest of drawers where Stefan and I kept our underwear and the few belongings we’d brought with us. Above it, hanging on a nail, was a small mirror, my reflection looking back at me. I looked pale and there was a bruise forming around my eye. I touched the angry, red skin and winced.

  Papa looked at me from the photo.

  ‘Where should I put it?’ I asked him.

  Then, as if he had answered, I saw the perfect hiding place, right behind him.

  On top of the chest of drawers, pushed back against the wall, I had arranged a line of books, with the smallest at the left side and the biggest at the right.

  I slid Papa’s photograph to one side, moved my silver medal, and slipped one of the books from the line before lying it face up on the top of the chest of drawers. It had a black-and-white picture of the Führer on the front, looking very stern, and a red banner across it with the words ‘Mein Kampf’ printed in white.

  I had pestered Mama and Papa to buy me a copy of the Führer’s book but they had said I would never read it, so I did odd jobs for the neighbours until I’d had enough to buy it for myself. I’d been so proud, coming back from the shop with my very own copy, but Mama and Papa were right. I didn’t read it. I tried, but it was too complicated. Too boring.

  The Führer looked up at me from the chest of drawers, with his shiny black hair and his neat moustache and his dark eyes accusing me. It was as if he could see me. Wherever he was right now, giving his orders, conducting his war, he could look through this picture, right into this room, and see me standing in front of his unread book, holding a leaflet dropped from a British bomber.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ I whispered. Then I unfolded the leaflet and put it over his face, so I could see the new picture of the Führer.

  In the bright sunlight that streamed through the bedroom window, the piles of dead German soldiers lying at Hitler’s feet were easier to see. The one closest, with his face turned towards me, had his mouth open in a silent scream, and his eyes were wide and dead. His body was twisted, his machine gun lying just out of reach as if it had fallen from his hands as he was killed.

  He looked like Papa. Whoever had drawn this might have been drawing my own father. I had to shake my head and rub my eyes before looking more closely to see that it wasn’t Papa. It was a nameless soldier, dead at the Führer’s feet.

  Hitler is killing your fathers.

  I stared at the picture for a long time. It drew me in, sucking me right into its world. I could smell the smoke from the gunfire; see it hanging over the battlefield in wispy clouds. I could feel the heat of the fires, and hear the rumble of tanks and the screams of the dying men. This wasn’t the glorious fight I had been told about; it was a terrible, terrible nightmare of death and waste.

  ‘Karl?’

  The voice broke into my thoughts.

  ‘Karl?’

  It was only when I heard Opa start up the stairs that I managed to shake the vision from my head.

  ‘Karl?’

  ‘Just coming,’ I called back, but my throat was dry and the words didn’t come out properly. I had to hide the leaflet. I wasn’t supposed to have it.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  I swallowed. ‘Yes. I’m coming.’

  My heart beat faster. Opa was close to the top of the stairs now. He would be here at any moment.

  I folded the leaflet in half along one of the creases, my fingers fumbling as if to betray me.

  Closer.

  Without wasting any more time, I opened the book and slipped the leaflet inside before closing it and pressing it together. I turned it spine out so I could inspect how it looked, and that’s when Opa came into the room.

  ‘What are you doing? You’ve been up here for ages.’

  ‘Have I?’ I started to slip the book back into its place, but the others had fallen inwards, blocking the gap. I used the corners to nudge the others aside to make room. ‘Sorry. I was thinking about Herr Finkel. Earlier on we saw—’

  ‘I heard about it,’ Opa said as he came in and stood behind me. ‘Herr Lang came round; he saw it too.’

  ‘Did he know why they arrested him?’

  Opa shook his head. ‘No idea. Perhaps Herr Finkel said something or sold something he shouldn’t have, we’ll probably never know.’

  ‘Do you think they took him to Headquarters?’ I pictured the large grey building by the river. ‘The other night, when he got angry, Stefan said they torture people there. Do you think—’

  ‘Don’t. That’s …’ Opa stopped and cleared his throat. ‘That’s not something you should think about.’

  ‘Lisa said people know Wolff from when he was a boy. Did Herr Finkel know him?’ Somehow, the idea of it made the arrest seem even worse.

  ‘Most of us do,’ Opa spoke quietly. ‘He used to deliver bread.’

  ‘And then he joined the Gestapo?’

  ‘He was a policeman first. Not the best, but decent enough. Then he joined the Gestapo and, well, things change. People change. Sometimes they do things …’ Opa let his words trail away and I tried not to think about the shopkeeper’s bloodied face.

  ‘I liked Herr Finkel,’ I said.

  ‘I did too, Karl.’ Opa sounded sad. ‘Now why don’t you tell me what you’ve got there?’ He put his hand on my shoulder and looked over to see what I was doing.

  ‘Mein Kampf?’ He reached over to take the book from my hands. ‘Hm. Not a great read, I have to say.’ He twisted his wrist to look at the back of the book, then turned it face out once more, so the Führer was watching us. ‘It’s a little dry for my taste. What about you?’

  ‘I haven’t read it,’ I admitted.

  ‘Can’t say I blame you.’

  I looked up so I could see Opa in the mirror that hung on the wall. ‘I don’t think I ever will.’

  He held my gaze for a long while as if he understood what I was saying, then a gentle smile touched his lips and the creases around the corners of his eyes bunched together. He nodded and squeezed my shoulder. ‘Let’s leave it where it is for now.’

  He handed it back to me and I put the book in its place among the others. I returned Papa’s picture to where it had been, and picked up my silver proficiency badge. I studied it for a moment, remembering the day I had received it – remembering Johann Weber – then I opened the drawer and buried the badge beneath a bundle of socks. When I closed the drawer, I looked at Opa’s reflection in the mirror again.

  ‘One day all this will be over,’ he said. ‘And I think there’ll be a lot of explaining to do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Opa sucked his teeth and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Well. I’m no expert, Karl, but one day this war is going to end, and men like that …’ he nodded towards the line of books, ‘… men like that can get too big for their boots; stretch themselves too far. And sooner or later, they get what they deserve.’

  A BAD GERMAN

  Opa heated water on the stove, and while I washed my face, he looked for something cold to put on my eye.

  ‘Best not tell Stefan how this happened,’ he said, handing me a thin slice of pork as I came into the kitchen. ‘And be careful with that, it’s our supper.’

  I sat at the table and put the cool, sticky meat against my eye.

  ‘It might set him off again like last night,’ Opa said, ‘make him more angry. Just say you fell off your bike.’

  I thought about how Stefan had shouted at me, and Opa must have seen how bad it made me feel because he sat down and leaned back in the chair. ‘It’s not all your fault. Sometimes people get angry about things that make other people sad. Things affect people in different ways.’

  I waited for him to explain.
/>   ‘When you think about Papa, how does it make you feel?’

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to ignore the tightness in my chest. It was like a pain that wouldn’t go away. It was always there, even when I didn’t notice it. When I was with Lisa, I didn’t think about it, but then I’d see something or hear something that would remind me of Papa and the pain would come rushing forwards.

  ‘It makes me feel sad,’ I said.

  Opa nodded. ‘For your mama, it’s different. It made her ill.’

  ‘But she’s getting better now.’

  ‘Yes, she is, and that’s good.’ He gave me a sad smile. ‘But it has made Stefan angry. He wants to blame someone for what happened to Papa.’

  ‘You mean he wants to blame the Führer?’

  Opa raised his eyebrows and thought about it. ‘Well, I don’t think your brother ever liked the Führer very much. Your father was the same, and—’

  ‘Papa didn’t like the Führer?’ I asked.

  Opa sighed. ‘Maybe this isn’t something to talk about now; we’re talking about Stefan, and about why you shouldn’t tell him what happened to you. You see, Karl, it might make him do something stupid. You remember how he used to get into trouble at home? And that time he went away for fighting with the other boys? Well, it’s the same thing, except times have changed and the consequences are much worse now. Stefan was right when he said that sometimes people are taken away and never come back.’

  ‘Like Lisa’s papa?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Herr Finkel?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ Opa shook his head.

  ‘But how can Kriminalinspektor Wolff be so horrible to people he knows?’ Even as the question came out, though, I remembered some of the horrible things I had done – like hitting Johann Weber to the ground on the day he received his papa’s death notice.

  ‘As I said, Karl, people change.’ Opa looked right at me. ‘But not always for the better.’

  I shifted my gaze and stared at the Nazi party badge pinned to his shirt; the perfect red and white circle with the silver lettering and the swastika in the centre. ‘You weren’t wearing that the day Kriminalinspektor Wolff came. You used to wear it all the time.’