by John Boyne
Munich.
An enormous clock hung over the arrivals and departures board; he ran towards it, crashing into a man walking towards him, and fell backwards onto the ground. Looking up, his eyes took in the man’s earth-grey uniform and the heavy black belt he wore across his waist, the calf-high black jackboots and the patch on his left sleeve that showed an eagle with its wings outstretched over a hooked cross.
‘I’m sorry,’ Pierrot said breathlessly, looking up with a mixture of fear and awe.
The man looked down, and rather than helping him up, curled his lip in contempt as he raised the tip of one boot slightly, pressing it down on top of Pierrot’s fingers.
‘You’re hurting me,’ he cried as the man pushed down harder, and now he could feel his fingers begin to throb beneath the pressure. He had never seen someone take so much pleasure from inflicting pain before, and even though the passing commuters could see what was happening, no one stepped in to help.
‘There you are, Ralf,’ said a woman, approaching him now, carrying a little boy in her arms as a girl of about five years old followed behind. ‘I’m so sorry, but Bruno wanted to see the steam trains and we almost lost you. Oh, what’s happened here?’ she asked as the man smiled, lifted his boot and reached down to help Pierrot up.
‘A child running along and not watching where he was going,’ he said with a shrug. ‘He almost knocked me over.’
‘His clothes are so old,’ said the girl, looking Pierrot up and down distastefully.
‘Gretel, I’ve told you before about making such remarks,’ said the girl’s mother, frowning.
‘They smell too.’
‘Gretel!’
‘Shall we go?’ asked the man, glancing at his watch, and his wife nodded.
They marched away and Pierrot watched their retreating backs, massaging the fingers of one hand with the fingers of the other. As he did so, the little boy turned around in his mother’s arms, raised a hand to wave goodbye, and their eyes met. Despite the pain in his knuckles, Pierrot couldn’t help but smile and he waved back. As they disappeared into the crowd, the whistles blew all around the station, and Pierrot realized that he needed to find the right train quickly or he might end up stuck in Mannheim.
The board showed that his train was shortly to depart from platform three and he ran towards it, jumping aboard just as the conductor started to slam the doors. The next journey, he knew, would take three hours, and by now the excitement of being on a train had well and truly worn off.
The train shuddered as it left the station in a cloud of steam and noise, and he watched from the open window as a woman wearing a headscarf and dragging a suitcase behind her ran towards it, calling to the driver to wait. Three soldiers, huddled together on the platform, started laughing at her; Pierrot watched as she put her bag down and began to argue with them, but was shocked when one reached out, grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back. He only had time to watch the expression on the woman’s face change from fury to agony before a hand tapped him on the shoulder and he spun round.
‘What are you doing out here?’ said the conductor. ‘Do you have a ticket?’
Pierrot reached into his pocket and took out all the documents that the Durand sisters had given him before leaving the orphanage. The man flicked through them roughly, and Pierrot watched as his ink-stained fingers ran across the lines, his lips mouthing each word to himself under his breath. He stank of cigar smoke, and Pierrot felt his stomach lunge a little with the combination of the bad smell and the movement of the train.
‘All right then,’ the conductor said, thrusting the tickets back into Pierrot’s jacket pocket and peering at the place names on his lapel. ‘You’re travelling alone, are you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘No parents?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, you can’t stand out here while the train is in motion. It’s dangerous. You could fall out and be turned into mincemeat under the wheels. Don’t think it hasn’t happened before. A boy your size wouldn’t stand a chance.’
Pierrot felt these words like a knife going through his heart – for this, after all, was how Papa had died.
‘Come along then,’ said the man, grabbing him roughly by the shoulders and dragging him past a row of compartments as Pierrot carried his suitcase and sandwiches with him. ‘Full,’ muttered the conductor, looking into one, before moving on quickly. ‘Full,’ he said again when he saw the next one. ‘Full. Full. Full.’ He glanced down at Pierrot. ‘There might not be a seat,’ he said. ‘The train is packed today so you might not be able to sit. But you can’t stand all the way to Munich either. It’s a safety concern.’
Pierrot said nothing. He didn’t know what this meant. If he couldn’t sit and he couldn’t stand, then that didn’t leave him a lot of alternatives. It wasn’t as if he could float.
‘Ah,’ said the man finally, opening a door and looking inside; a buzz of laughter and conversation spilled out into the corridor. ‘There’s room for a small one in here. You don’t mind, boys, do you? We have a child travelling on his own to Munich. I’ll leave him in here for you to look after.’
The conductor stepped out of the way and Pierrot felt his anxiety grow even more. Five boys, all aged around fourteen or fifteen, well-built, blond-haired and clear-skinned, turned to look at him silently, as if they were a pack of hungry wolves unexpectedly alerted to fresh prey.
‘Come in, little man,’ said one, the tallest of the group, indicating the empty seat between the two boys opposite him. ‘We won’t bite.’ He held his hand out and beckoned him forward slowly; there was something about the movement that made Pierrot feel very uncomfortable. But, having no choice, he sat down, and within a few minutes the boys had started talking to each other again and ignoring him. Pierrot felt very small seated among them.
For a long time he stared at his shoes, but after a while, when his confidence grew, he raised his eyes from the floor and pretended to look out of the window, when in reality he was staring at just one boy, who was snoozing with his head pressed against the glass. All the boys were dressed alike in uniforms of brown shirts, black short trousers, black ties, white knee socks and diamond-shaped armbands, coloured red at the upper and lower sections and white at the left and right. In the centre was the same hooked cross that the man who had stood on his fingers at Mannheim station had worn on his sleeve patch. Pierrot couldn’t help but be impressed, and wished he had a uniform like theirs instead of the secondhand clothes the Durand sisters had given him back at the orphanage. If he was dressed like these boys, then strange girls in train stations wouldn’t be able to pass remarks about how old his clothes were.
‘My father was a soldier,’ he said suddenly, surprising himself with how loudly the words emerged from his mouth. The boys stopped talking to each other and stared at him, while the boy by the window woke up and blinked a few times, looking around and asking whether they’d arrived at Munich yet.
‘What was that you said, little man?’ asked the first boy, the obvious leader of their group.
‘I said that my father was a soldier,’ repeated Pierrot, already regretting having said anything at all.
‘And when was this?’
‘During the war.’
‘Your accent,’ said the boy, leaning forward. ‘Your language skills are good but you’re not a native German, are you?’
Pierrot shook his head.
‘Let me guess.’ A smile crossed his face as he pointed a finger at Pierrot’s heart. ‘Swiss. No, French! I’m right, amn’t I?’
Pierrot nodded.
The boy raised an eyebrow and then sniffed the air a few times as if he was trying to identify an unpleasant smell. ‘And how old are you. Six?’
‘I’m seven,’ said Pierrot, sitting up straight, mortally offended.
‘You’re too small to be seven.’
‘I know,’ said Pierrot. ‘But some day I’ll be bigger.’
‘Perhaps, if you live that long.
And where are you going?’
‘To meet my aunt,’ said Pierrot.
‘And is she French too?’
‘No, she’s German.’
The boy considered this and offered him an unsettling smile. ‘Do you know how I feel right now, little man?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Pierrot.
‘Hungry.’
‘Didn’t you have any breakfast today?’ he asked, which led to uproarious laughter from two of the other boys, who stopped laughing almost immediately when their leader glared at them.
‘Yes, I had breakfast,’ he replied calmly. ‘I had a delicious breakfast, actually. And I had lunch. I even had a little snack at Mannheim station. But I’m still hungry.’
Pierrot glanced down at the pack of sandwiches sitting on the seat next to him and he regretted not having put them in his suitcase with the gift that Simone had given him. He’d been planning on eating two here and saving the last one for the final train.
‘Maybe there’s a shop on board,’ he said.
‘But I have no money,’ said the boy, smiling and extending his arms. ‘I’m just a young man in the service of the Fatherland. A mere Rottenführer, the son of a literature professor – although, yes, I am superior to these lowly and wretched members of the Hitlerjugend you see beside me. Is your father wealthy?’
‘My father is dead.’
‘Did he die during the war?’
‘No. Afterwards.’
The boy considered this. ‘I bet your mother is very pretty,’ he said, reaching out for a moment and touching Pierrot’s face.
‘My mother is dead too,’ Pierrot replied, pulling away.
‘What a pity. I assume she was also French?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it doesn’t matter so much.’
‘Come on, Kurt,’ said the boy by the window. ‘Leave him alone, he’s just a kid.’
‘Do you have something to say, Schlenheim?’ he snapped, turning his head in one quick movement and staring at his friend. ‘And did you forget your etiquette while you were snoring like a pig over there?’
Schlenheim swallowed nervously and shook his head. ‘I apologize, Rottenführer Kotler,’ he said quietly, his face turning red. ‘I spoke out of turn.’
‘Then I repeat,’ said Kotler, looking back at Pierrot. ‘I’m hungry. If only there was something to eat. But wait! What’s this?’ He smiled, showing an even set of sparkling white teeth. ‘Are those sandwiches?’ He reached across and picked up Pierrot’s parcel and sniffed the packet. ‘I believe they are. Someone must have left them behind.’
‘They’re mine,’ said Pierrot.
‘Is your name written on them?’
‘You can’t write your name on bread,’ said Pierrot.
‘In that case, we can’t be sure that they are yours. And having found them, I claim them as my prize.’ And with that Kotler opened the packet, took the first sandwich out and devoured it in three quick bites before starting on the second. ‘Delicious,’ he said, offering the last one to Schlenheim, who shook his head. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ he asked.
‘No, Rottenführer Kotler.’
‘I’m sure I can hear your stomach grumbling. Eat one.’
Schlenheim reached out to take the sandwich, his hands trembling a little as he did so.
‘Very good,’ said Kotler, smiling. ‘I’m sorry there wasn’t another,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders at Pierrot. ‘If there had been, I could have given one to you. You look as if you’re starving!’
Pierrot stared at him and wanted to tell him exactly what he thought of thieves who were older than him stealing his food, but there was something about this boy that made him understand that he would come off worse in any exchange they might have, and it wasn’t just because Kotler was bigger than him. He could feel tears forming behind his eyes but promised himself that he wouldn’t cry, blinking instead to force them to retreat as he looked down at the floor. Kotler inched his boot forward slowly, and when Pierrot looked up, he tossed the crumpled, empty bag at him, hitting him in the face, before returning to his conversation with the boys around him.
And from there to Munich Pierrot never opened his mouth again.
When the train pulled in to the station a couple of hours later, the members of the Hitlerjugend collected their belongings, but Pierrot held back, waiting for them to leave first. They walked out one by one until only Pierrot and Rottenführer Kotler remained. The older boy glanced down at him and bent over, examining the place name on his lapel. ‘You must get off here,’ he said. ‘This is your stop.’ He spoke as if he hadn’t bullied him at all but was merely being helpful as he ripped the piece of paper from Pierrot’s coat before leaning over to read the final note:
Salzburg.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You are not staying in Germany, I see. You’re travelling on to Austria.’
A sudden panic entered Pierrot’s mind when he thought about his final destination, and although he really didn’t want to converse with this boy any more, he knew that he had to ask. ‘You’re not going there too, are you?’ he asked, dreading the idea that they might end up on the same train again.
‘What, to Austria?’ asked Kotler, taking his knapsack from above the seat and making his way through the door. He smiled and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. He started to move on, thought better of it and looked back. ‘At least, not yet,’ he added with a wink. ‘But soon. Very soon, I think. Today, the Austrian people have a place they call home. But one day . . . poof!’ He pressed the tips of his fingers together and pulled them apart, making the sound of an explosion, before bursting into laughter as he disappeared out of the compartment and onto the platform beyond.
The final journey to Salzburg took less than two hours, and by now Pierrot was tired and very hungry, but as exhausted as he felt, he was afraid of falling asleep in case he missed his stop. He thought of the map of Europe that hung on the wall of his classroom in Paris and tried to imagine where he might end up if that happened. Russia, perhaps. Or further away still.
He was alone in the carriage now and, remembering the present that Simone had handed him on the platform at Orleans, he reached into his case and took it out, unwrapping the brown paper and running his finger beneath the words on the cover of the book.
Emil and the Detectives, it said. By Erich Kästner.
The illustration on the front showed a man walking down a yellow street while three boys peered out at him from behind a pillar. In the lower right-hand corner was the word Trier. He read the opening lines:
‘Now then, Emil,’ Mrs Tischbein said, ‘just carry in that jug of hot water for me, will you?’ She picked up one jug and a little blue bowl of liquid camomile shampoo, and hurried out of the kitchen into the front room. Emil took his jug and followed her.
Before long Pierrot was surprised to discover that the boy in the book, Emil, had a few things in common with him – or at least with the person he used to be. Emil lives alone with his mother – although in Berlin, not Paris – and his father is dead. And early in the novel Emil, like Pierrot, goes on a train journey, and a man seated in his carriage steals his money, just like Rottenführer Kotler had stolen his sandwiches. Pierrot was glad that he didn’t have any money, but he had a suitcase filled with clothes, his toothbrush, a photograph of his parents, and a new story that Anshel had sent him just before he left the orphanage which he had already read twice. It was about a boy who was the subject of name-calling from people he used to think of as his friends, and Pierrot found the whole thing a little disturbing. He preferred the stories Anshel had written before, about magicians and talking animals. He moved his suitcase closer to him now in case anyone came in and did to him what Max Grundeis had done to Emil. Finally the motion of the train became so soothing that he could no longer keep his eyes open, the book slipped from his hands and he dozed off.
In what felt like only a few moments he jumped as a loud rapping on the window woke him up. He looked around in surprise, w
ondering for a moment where he was, and then panicking that he had arrived in Russia after all. The train had come to a stop and there was an eerie silence.
The knocking came again, sharper this time, but there was so much condensation on the glass that he couldn’t see out to the platform. Sweeping his hand across it in a perfect arc, he cleared a section that allowed him to see an enormous sign – which, to his relief, read Salzburg. A rather beautiful woman with long red hair was standing outside looking in at him. She was saying something, but he couldn’t make out the words. She said it again – still nothing. He reached up, opened the small window at the top, and now her words carried through to him at last.
‘Pierrot,’ she cried. ‘It’s me! I’m your aunt Beatrix!’
CHAPTER FIVE
The House at the Top of the Mountain
Pierrot woke the next morning to find himself in an unfamiliar room. The ceiling was made up of a series of long wooden beams crisscrossed by darker columns, and inhabiting the corner of the plank above his head was a large spider’s web whose architect hung menacingly by a rotating silken thread.
He lay still for a few minutes, trying to recall more about the journey that had brought him there. The last thing he remembered was getting off the train and walking along the platform with a woman who said she was his aunt, before climbing into the back of a car driven by a man wearing a dark grey uniform and chauffeur’s cap. After that, everything went dark. He had a vague idea that he had mentioned how one of the boys from the Hitlerjugend had bullied him out of his sandwiches. The chauffeur had said something about the way those boys behaved, but Aunt Beatrix had silenced him quickly, and soon he must have fallen asleep – to dream that he was soaring into the clouds, higher and higher, growing colder by the minute. And then a pair of strong arms had lifted him from the car and carried him through to a bedroom, where a woman tucked him in and kissed him on the forehead before turning out the lights.