Two Brothers

by Ben Elton

  ‘Otto, are you all right?’ Silke cried out. She’d seen the boys fight before many times but never like this. Paulus and Otto fought all the time, but just whacks and scuffles. This kind of brutality they reserved for common enemies, not each other.

  Silke knelt beside Otto, dabbing at his bleeding ear with the hem of her dress.

  ‘Get up,’ Paulus shouted, ‘get up and swear to me you’ll leave Dagmar alone. Otherwise you’ll get some more.’

  ‘God, you’re both pathetic. She’s just a stuck-up bitch anyway.’

  ‘Shut up, Silke!’ Otto said, brushing her away. ‘This hasn’t got anything to do with you!’

  ‘Yes it has! She lied to you both! She’s trying to break up the Saturday Club!’

  ‘Clear out of it, Silks,’ Paulus shouted, ‘this is between me and Otts.’

  Now it was Paulus’s turn to be caught off guard. He really should have been paying attention to Otto, not Silke, because just then Otto seized the opportunity of Paulus’s momentary distraction to jump to his feet and commence another assault. This time he did not intend to underestimate his brother. Squinting through his rapidly closing eye, he put up his guard and steamed back into the fight. No flurry of punches now but a properly executed combination. By the book. Left jab, straight right, left hook, straight right again. Paulus tried to protect himself by going into a clinch but Otto saw it coming, feinting a hook and, when Paulus turned away from it, hitting him with a final cross before flattening him with a bone-crunching head butt, which was not out of any book but his own.

  The fight was over and although technically Otto won with a knockout, it was evens on points, and both boys were probably equally dazed and bloodied at its conclusion.

  ‘Cor,’ Silke said, somewhat stunned, ‘you two really went for it.’

  Paulus had been very slightly concussed by Otto’s final head butt but after a moment or two he raised himself up to a sitting position and wiped blood from his mouth.

  ‘Dagmar Fischer’s mine,’ he said quietly. ‘Just keep your bloody hands off her.’

  ‘What?’ Otto exclaimed fiercely. ‘I just whipped you! I won her! You keep your hands off.’

  ‘That’s not how it works with girls,’ Paulus grunted. ‘You can’t just win them in a fight.’

  ‘Well, what the hell were we fighting for then?’ Otto enquired, reaching out a hand to help Paulus up.

  ‘Because you’re both idiots!’ Silke exclaimed angrily. ‘And she’s just a lying, hoity-toity cow. I can’t believe either of you are interested.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’re jealous of her,’ Otto said.

  ‘Am not.’

  ‘Yes you are!’

  ‘Why? Why would I be jealous of her?’

  ‘Because we like her, that’s why,’ Paulus said, laughing.

  ‘Huh! As if I care who you like,’ Silke shouted, but she was going red beneath her golden tan. ‘She’s a stupid bean pole and I don’t believe those tits are real. She’s putting tissues under her vest, I bet. But anyway you can have her if you like. I’m going home.’

  Both boys were laughing now. Their fight forgotten in shared merriment at their old friend’s discomfort.

  Silke turned on her heel and stomped off, leaving the boys to compare wounds.

  The Saturday Club had suffered its first true division.

  That Man

  Berlin, 30 January 1933

  IT WAS STUNNING. Unbelievable. Incomprehensible. Incredible. Impossible.

  Only yesterday, yesterday, everything had been fine.

  And now out of the blue, that man had suddenly become Chancellor.

  ‘He hasn’t even got a majority!’ Wolfgang kept saying, over and over again as the Stengels sat down for supper that dreadful night. ‘The bastard was losing ground.’

  It was true. They’d recently even begun to relax. All through the previous year he’d stalked them. That man. For month after month throughout 1932 every newspaper headline had seemed to bring him a little closer to their door. Louring over them like some murderous medieval golem. But just recently he’d been slipping. His vote had peaked. It was falling. Goebbels had begun to sound desperate. The crisis was passing.

  ‘And now just because of a bunch of cowardly fucking Junkers and that senile old cunt Hindenburg, he’s got his chance. Fuck them! Fuck them to hell!’

  The boys looked up, their faces half shocked, half amused.

  ‘Please, Wolf!’ Frieda said, banging her water glass down in protest, trying to keep the fear from her voice, ‘not at the supper table! The children …’

  Wolfgang mumbled an apology, biting his lip, his knuckles white around the schnapps glass which he had just refilled.

  ‘I don’t care, Mum,’ Otto said, stuffing his mouth full of food. ‘I think Hindenburg’s a cunt too.’

  ‘Otto!’

  Frieda actually reached over and slapped him, something she had never done before in her life. ‘Don’t you dare use that disgusting language in front of me! Don’t you dare …’

  She couldn’t continue, there were tears in her eyes now.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ Otto said, as shocked as his mother was. ‘I deserved it.’

  ‘No, Otto. I’m sorry. I can’t believe I hit you.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  Frieda got up and went around the table to hug Otto.

  ‘See what he’s done to us already, that terrible man.’

  The four of them sat and ate for a few moments in silence. Bean soup and bread. There were cold cuts and beetroot to follow.

  ‘They think they can do a deal,’ Wolfgang muttered, unable to keep his frustration to himself, tearing at the bread as if it was a Nazi neck. ‘A deal! With Hitler!’

  ‘Please, Wolf,’ Frieda said, ‘let’s leave it alone while we eat.’

  Paulus had been looking at the evening newspaper, the one announcing the formation of Hitler’s cabinet.

  ‘The Nazis still only have a couple of seats,’ Paulus said. ‘The paper says he can’t do anything without the other party’s agreement. Perhaps Herr von Papen can—’

  ‘Oh they’re all bloody vons,’ Wolfgang said. ‘Von Hindenburg and Von Papen and Von bloody Schleicher and they think that means they’ll be able to tell him what to do. Like he was still a corporal and them all generals and field marshals … Oh thank you for letting me be Chancellor, now I’ll do what I’m told like a good little Nazi! Haven’t they heard him speak? Haven’t they seen his private army? Like fuck he’ll let them tell him what to do!’

  ‘Wolf, please, this isn’t helping.’

  Later on, after supper, the family watched from their apartment window as the night sky flickered red and yellow from the light of the torch-lit victory procession that was stamping and shouting its way across the city.

  Through the Brandenburg Gate.

  That same crooked cross parading beneath it as had first appeared scrawled on the helmets of the Freikorps in 1920. Except this time the swastikas were not scribbled in chalk but flying red, black and crimson from a thousand banners. And the crowd that had gathered were not silent in protest but hysterical with joy.

  Frieda struggled to remain calm and matter-of-fact as she cleared away the supper things.

  ‘Don’t forget your homework,’ she told the boys, ‘and scrape your football boots into one of the window boxes.’

  Wolfgang just sat at the window and looked at the sky, cursing quietly under his breath. Slowly picking out the recent American hit Happy Days Are Here Again on his ukulele. Until Frieda told him to stop.

  Not because she didn’t appreciate the irony. But because she was scared. Since noon that day when the announcement had been made and that man had appeared, smiling, almost for the first time in his public career, it had been unsafe for Jews to draw attention to themselves. The ukulele was a penetrating instrument. And the walls of the apartment were thin.

  The Penny Dropped

  London, 1956

  STONE WOKE UP from his Wan
nsee dream.

  He had been back on the little beach beside the lake. His brother was there, as he always was. And Dagmar. Just as it had been on that day.

  Except in the dream, of course, Dagmar chose him. And it had been him who brushed his lips on her rain-dappled shoulders.

  And, unconscious on his pillow, Stone’s sleeping soul had soared.

  Now he was awake, experiencing the same deflation that he always suffered when awakening from that beautiful Wannsee dream. And there was something more.

  Somehow in his sleep, while he dreamt, his mind had been working. Trying to make sense of what he had been told on the previous day, in the bare room in Kensington. And now, eyes wide open, suddenly completely awake, it was as if a veil of emotion had been lifted and he was able to see things clearly for the first time since he had received his letter from Berlin.

  The story he had been given wouldn’t do.

  It simply did not add up.

  Essentially those men from MI6 had told him two things. The first, that Dagmar was alive. The second, that somehow her ruptured life journey had led her to the Stasi.

  Stone now saw that in his eagerness to believe the first, he had accepted the second at face value.

  He got out of bed and went to put the kettle on. The lino was cold against his feet. The pre-dawn air was chilly.

  He struck a match in the darkened kitchen and the gas ring popped into life, the flickering blue flame casting faint shadows across the room. Stone fumbled for his jacket and found his smokes. He didn’t switch on the light, somehow he felt he could focus better in the dark. He bent forward and lit his cigarette from the gas. No point wasting a second match.

  He smoked hungrily. Watching the glowing tip grow bright and then subside as he drew deep and then exhaled. Bright. Then dim. Bright. Then dim. And with each new spark he sensed his thoughts becoming clearer. Almost as if that throbbing red tip was flashing out a warning. A silent alarm.

  The whistle on the kettle shrieked.

  It was a siren. Like the thousands he had heard before. Police sirens. Air-raid sirens. All meaning one thing. Trouble was coming. Danger was near.

  He let the kettle keep boiling. The screaming seemed to focus his thoughts. Its ugly, jarring whine pushing him towards the conclusion he was dreading.

  That the men from MI6 were wrong.

  That Dagmar was dead, as for so long he had believed her to be.

  The precious letter was a forgery. Cobbled together from other, older material, genuine letters, diaries perhaps. Long-buried memories. The Stasi were good at that sort of thing.

  He was being lured back to Berlin.

  Final Match

  Berlin, 1933

  PAULUS AND OTTO were cornered.

  They never should have come, of course.

  How could they have imagined it would be the same as before? That they could just turn up in their footie kit at the old field, the way they had done for years and years, and play?

  Paulus had been worrying about it all week. He’d even pinned a map of the local area to their bedroom wall the better to consider escape routes.

  ‘If we get chased,’ he said, ‘we don’t want to end up in a blind alley. There’s two near the recreation ground plus a walled building site. We need to know the best way out from every corner of the field and how to make for the U-Bahn station, OK?’

  ‘If we get chased,’ Otto said grimly, ‘we fight. There’s only four fucking Nazis on the team.’

  ‘Otts, they’re all Nazis now.’

  ‘Look, it’s our team. We’ve been OK at school, haven’t we?’

  ‘So far.’

  It was true, they had. There had been a few murmurs and angry mutterings, not least from a couple of the teachers, but so far nothing worse. Maybe things would be all right at soccer too.

  Even Frieda and Wolfgang had agreed that they should go. The boys had been on the team since they were eight. Five years playing with the same lads had to mean something.

  But now as Paulus and Otto found themselves cornered in the changing shed they knew it didn’t.

  Quite without warning their former team-mates had turned into a snarling, vengeful mob and the Stengel boys were in big trouble.

  ‘Jude! Jude!’

  The big lad, Emil, began to formalize the chant, ominously beating the wooden walls of the little changing hut with a rounders bat. ‘Jew! Jew!’

  The brothers stood side by side. Paulus had hold of a chair and Otto was preparing to use a dustbin lid and a broken corner flag as a sword and shield. The Stengel twins were formidable when they stood side by side and their assailants knew that, which was why for a moment at least they held back.

  ‘Filthy fucking Jews,’ Emil shouted, breaking the rhythm he had been banging out and taking a step towards the boys. ‘Now you’re going to pay for everything you’ve done to Germany.’

  Paulus and Otto looked at the angry faces ranged against them. Emil had of course always hated them, he was the sort of boy who hated everybody, particularly the ones who stood up to him. But many others in the team had been their friends. Only a fortnight before, Otto had been sitting atop their shoulders having scored a direct goal from a corner kick in an important youth league match. But Hitler had been Chancellor for over a week now and the speed with which Paulus and Otto’s world had changed had been breathtaking.

  Emil Braas had grabbed his first chance to avenge himself on the Stengel boys. For being better footballers than him.

  For being popular and easy-going while he was sullen and had a reputation for spite.

  For being attractive to girls while he was laughed at and teased by even quite ugly ones for being dull and lumbering.

  This was Emil’s chance, as it was that month for every embittered, failed and inadequate fool in Germany. To be the big man at last.

  Otto knew the score. He knew boys like Emil and as far as he was concerned there was only one course of action available to him.

  Hit first and hit hardest.

  That was his rule.

  But Paulus hated that rule. He had a different one. Never confront if you could negotiate. That was the clever way. Yes, hit hard if you had to, but first, try not to hit at all.

  Otto had already raised his weapon hand, the muscles on his bare arms and chest taut and prone. He was not quite yet even thirteen but already he had the physical definition of an athletic young man, of a fighter.

  Paulus was in good shape too, Wolfgang had made sure of that. But he did not raise his weapon. Instead he laughed.

  As a tactic, it had the benefit of surprise, if nothing else.

  The crowd of adversaries looked taken aback, but they didn’t lower their fists.

  ‘What are you laughing at, Jew boy?’ Emil sneered.

  ‘Well, your face for one,’ Paulus replied, ‘but I ain’t talking to you.’

  Paulus then turned to one of the boys standing a little back from the main mob.

  ‘Come on, Tommy,’ Paulus said. ‘We’ve been mates since kindergarten.’

  Beside him Otto growled. What was the point of appealing to their better nature? Clearly things had gone way beyond that.

  But that wasn’t Paulus’s idea at all.

  He had a bolder plan. As Goebbels had said, if you’re going to lie, make it a big one.

  ‘We’re not Jews,’ Paulus said

  It was the last defence anybody had expected, flying as it did in the face of accepted knowledge, and it certainly took the attacking mob aback.

  ‘Come on, Tommy,’ Paulus said, using the pause to press his advantage. ‘When did you see me with silly sideburns and a big black hat on?’

  Tommy had indeed known the twins since preschool and they had certainly always been friends. But Tommy also knew that the Stengel twins were Jews. Subhumans, according to the Chancellor of Germany. Vermin. A filthy cancerous parasitic disease festering on the nation’s flesh. Sucking its blood.

  ‘You are Jews, you bastards,’ Tommy said. ‘
You hide it. That’s what you swine do. You skulk and hide.’

  ‘We’re not bloody Jews, Tom,’ Paulus laughed. ‘Wankers like Emil may say we are but he doesn’t know his arse from his elbow, does he? He certainly doesn’t know which way to kick a football.’

  A few of the boys laughed at that. Tommy smiled too.

  Moments before when Emil had been marshalling them for the attack, blaming the Stengel boys for every possible injury that Germany had ever suffered, they had all been with him.

  They had quickly overcome the unease they felt about attacking old friends (and good players) in the face of Emil’s blood-curdling rhetoric. The Stengels were Jews and as such there was nothing for it but to give them a bloody good hiding and cast them out for ever. Nobody who valued their own safety was going to stick up for a Jew in Berlin in February 1933.

  But then nobody had expected them to deny it either and Paulus’s surprising position had stopped the assault in its tracks. If they were Jews then they deserved everything they were going to get, but if they weren’t Jews, then brilliant, they were back on the team, best mates again.

  Even Otto was taken aback, although he tried not to show it. He’d learnt to trust his brother where planning and scheming was concerned, but this was a bold lie. Everyone knew the Stengels were a Jewish family, secular certainly, no worship, no special holidays, no funny hats or diet, Otto would have happily lived off bacon sandwiches and fried pork rinds for the rest of his life, but they were Jews nonetheless, everybody knew it, why try to deny it?

  But Paulus had an ace up his sleeve.

  Or, as he was later to tell his horrified mum, in his pants.

  He had been thinking about it all week.

  A foreskin wouldn’t stand up against a proper search of family history, of course. But it might do in an alleyway, in a cellar. When the wolves were in your face.

  If you waved it about a bit and shouted. Loud and clear and furious and certain. They seemed to respond to that sort of thing.

  And now the time had come to test the idea.

  With his ex-friends and old enemies closing in, nine against two, it was time to try the big bluff.