Two Brothers

by Ben Elton

  She hugged him tight.

  ‘I’ve been so worried. Pauly looked for you till one in the morning. Wolfgang tried too but he got tired. We called your friends. They all thought you’d been picked up for … for what you did yesterday evening.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Otto repeated. ‘I shouldn’t have run. I just wasn’t thinking straight.’

  ‘You know that we love you both just the same,’ Frieda went on. ‘You and Paulus, our two boys.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, Mum. They can’t break us apart,’ Otto said. ‘They never will.’

  Silent tears were running in streams down Frieda’s cheeks.

  ‘Not in our hearts, baby,’ she whispered. ‘Not in our hearts.’

  Otto felt the wet tears against his own face as he hugged her. He knew what she was saying, the salty agony glistening on her cheeks confirmed it.

  ‘Are they going to take me away, Mum?’ he asked.

  Frieda could not bring herself to reply.

  Wolfgang had appeared at the door of his and Frieda’s bedroom and had been listening.

  ‘We think so, Otts,’ he croaked through his tobacco-and TB-ravaged voice. ‘We have to presume so. The newspapers say the police are supposed to identify “racially valuable stock”. The SS have been setting up orphanages. Himmler’s collecting kids.’

  ‘God. What are these people?’ Frieda said under her breath. ‘Can they truly be human?’

  Fear replaced grief on Otto’s countenance. His face shining white in the pale dawn that was creeping in at the windows. It was a rare sight for his parents to see. Otto had become so adept at disguising terror over the years that they had imagined him fearless. But the prospect of being put into the care of the SS seemed for a moment at least to overwhelm even him.

  ‘I’ll hide,’ Otto said finally. ‘If they come for me I won’t be here, I’ll go underground. I’ll hide.’

  ‘Then they’ll take us.’ It was Paulus who spoke from the twins’ bedroom door.

  ‘Always the voice of reason, eh, bro?’ Otto replied with a bitter smile.

  ‘You know it’s true, Otts,’ Paulus said. ‘I don’t like saying it any more than you like hearing it but if they come for you and don’t find you they’ll punish us. I don’t mind. I’ll run, I’ll fight, just like you would. But Dad can’t go back into that camp.’

  Otto nodded. He knew that was true.

  Wolfgang turned away, ashamed to be identified as the most vulnerable member of the family.

  ‘You’re right, Pauly,’ Otto said. ‘Obviously. You always bloody are. I’ll let them take me. Then I’ll run.’

  ‘Well,’ said Frieda, ‘I imagine we have a few weeks to consider things. Let’s try to do it calmly, eh? Hope for the best, plan for the worst as they say. You’ve been out all night, Otts. I’ll make you some toasted bread and cheese and a mug of chocolate.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ Otto said. ‘Best mum in the world.’

  The Stengels were not the only people hoping for the best in the weeks that followed the announcement of the Nuremberg Laws. As the long summer of 1935 turned finally to autumn it seemed as if the whole country could speak of nothing else but family history.

  The new rules officially defining what constituted a Jew sparked a frenzy of genealogical research. Everybody in Germany was to be racially classified and even the most proudly Aryan types began referring nervously to their family trees in terror that they might find a Jew lurking somewhere on a branch. All across the Reich, church records, parish lists, gravestones, bible inscriptions, ancient deeds and transactions were consulted minutely by both individuals and the police in an effort to establish the racial credentials of the whole population.

  Credentials which, as Wolfgang dryly observed, were supposed to be self-evident anyway.

  ‘I don’t know why they have to go through this fuss,’ he said bitterly, ‘surely all they need to do is look for the hunched figures with sloping foreheads, noses like grappling hooks and dripping knives in their hands and that’ll be the Jews!’

  ‘It’s horrible,’ Frieda said. ‘All the Aryans are terrified of finding a Jew in their line and all the Jews are desperate to find an Aryan. I’ve been having people come in all day at the surgery asking me for medical records. People are going about praying that their grandma was raped by some bacon butcher because it’s actually better to be descended from an Aryan sex criminal than a Jewish charity worker.’

  It was this remark of Frieda’s that led Otto to announce he had had an idea.

  The four of them had been discussing the new laws over dinner, as they had done on every evening since the night that Otto and Paulus learnt the truth about their family history.

  ‘You had an idea, Ottsy,’ Paulus gasped with mock wonder. ‘Is this a first? Should we celebrate?’

  Otto punched Paulus. Whatever fears the future might hold for them, the twins were still the twins.

  ‘Yes, I’ve had an idea,’ Otto said. ‘Why should I wait for the Gestapo to investigate my history? I should do it myself. If I can find a Jew somewhere way back, then they won’t take me away.’

  ‘Oh, Otto,’ Frieda murmured, ‘that is such a brave and lovely thought.’

  Wolfgang stretched his thin bony hand across the table to squeeze Otto’s.

  ‘Thanks, son,’ he whispered. ‘You’ve got nerve, I’ll give you that.’

  Paulus, however, was having none of it.

  ‘You’re crazy!’ he said, tearing angrily at a piece of black bread as if it was Otto’s head and then drowning it in his plate of goulash. ‘Completely crazy. Every Jew in Germany wants a couple of Gentile grandparents and you’re trying to find a Jew?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Otto replied, clearly pleased at having for once wrong-footed his know-it-all brother. ‘As far as I’m concerned I am a Jew. I just need a convenient relative to prove it.’

  ‘You’re not a Jew, Otts!’ Paulus protested. ‘That’s the point! Can’t you see you’re safe?’

  ‘I don’t want to be safe!’ Otto said. ‘I want to be a Stengel and the Stengels are Jews.’

  ‘Please tell me this is a joke, Otts,’ Paulus said. ‘It’s perverse. It’s also potentially suicidal. Nobody wants to be a Jew in Germany.’

  ‘What a shame, eh, Mum,’ Otto said, ‘that it wasn’t the other way around back in 1920 in the hospital. Then we’d have all been happy, wouldn’t we?’

  This remark brought Paulus up short. Otto could see that his point had hit home.

  ‘Well, Pauly?’ Otto pressed on. ‘Would you have liked that? Do you really wish it was you who didn’t have to be a Jew any more? Even if it meant having to leave home and go and live with foster Nazis?’

  ‘Yes,’ Paulus said firmly. ‘And not because I’d be able to go swimming and study properly again. But because if I had proper rights as a citizen I could help Mum and Dad and Pops and Grandma. And you come to think of it. Things are going to get a lot worse, you know, and having a tame German in the family might be pretty useful. I’d be happy to take the job.’

  ‘I think that’s a very sensible answer, Pauly,’ Frieda said.

  ‘Yeah, Mum?’ Otto said, with a touch of a sneer. ‘Well I think Pauly’s famous brain might not be working so well today. Tame Germans! Come on, Pauly, they’re all tame. That’s the bloody problem. We know lots of them, whispering to us that they don’t approve of what’s happening. Apologizing with their eyes for not saying hello to us in the street. What good do they do? Nothing. Bugger all. Just like Silke’s precious bloody Commies! I keep telling you, when things do get worse, the only people who will be able to help us is us. We’re going to need to stick together. Which is why I need to find a kike in my tree.’

  ‘Well,’ Frieda said, ‘you can have a go, Otto, but I’d be surprised if you’ll find one. I only ever met your birth grandparents once but they looked pretty völkisch to me.’

  ‘I have to look. I’m going to find some Jew in my blood if it kills me.’

  ‘Otto, if
you do find any,’ Paulus said solemnly, ‘it probably will.’

  ‘Thanks a lot, Pauly,’ Wolfgang said, refilling his glass with spirits, ‘that really cheers us up.’

  A Country Excursion

  Saxony, September 1935

  THE FOLLOWING DAY Paulus and Otto went to Friedrichshain town hall in search of the names and addresses of Otto’s natural grandparents.

  ‘If it wasn’t a matter of life and death it’d actually be quite funny,’ Paulus said on their return. ‘The place was absolutely packed. Jews, gypsies, Nazis, all scrabbling at the town records. They’ve got this big chart on the wall with all these different family tree models, white circles for Germans, black circles for Jews …’

  ‘Surprise surprise,’ Wolfgang remarked from his piano stool.

  ‘And then mixed circles for the Mischlinge. The idea is you put your great-grandparents in the various circles and that way you can work out whether you qualify to sit on park benches or not.’

  ‘And did you find anything out,’ Frieda asked, ‘about Otto’s family?’

  ‘Only on his mother’s side,’ Paulus said, ‘and then only their names and their home village. It’s in Saxony.’

  ‘I’m going to find them,’ Otto said firmly. ‘I’ll cycle – it’s only a hundred and twenty kilometres.’

  When Silke heard about the trip she insisted immediately on going along for the ride. She had only just got back from her epic march to Nuremberg and having tasted the freedom of the open road and nights out camping under stars had no desire to return to the drudgery of life in her mother’s apartment where her stepfather treated her as an unpaid servant.

  ‘It’ll be easy to get off school,’ she said. ‘I’ll just say it’s BDM business. I am Youth and I belong to the Führer, don’t you know!’ she added, quoting party rhetoric with a wicked laugh. ‘I have a special place in his heart and in his plans so my teachers can go screw themselves! Ha ha! It’ll be a good thing to have me along in my uniform anyway, Otts. A lad on his own out there with a bike and backpack who’s not in the Hitler Youth is a dead set target. They’ve banned all the other youth clubs, even the Catholic bird-watchers. The country’s swarming with HJ and believe me there’s plenty of them looking for a fight. They go for any kid who isn’t in the gang. If you’re with me, it’ll just look like you’re in civvies.’

  And so the very next morning Otto and Silke set out together with their sandwiches and apple juice, a blanket each, a little canvas tent and a few marks to buy food along the way.

  The first part of the journey meant cycling all the way across Berlin from the south-east to the north-west, a dirty, sweaty business on what was a warm late September morning. Soon, however, they picked up the old Hamburg road and found themselves rolling happily along an almost empty country road which meandered its way through the glorious countryside of Brandenburg towards Saxony and would eventually lose itself in the beautiful Elbe valley, where they planned to camp that night.

  It was a wonderful day bathed in perfect sunshine, and Otto found himself forgetting all his terror for the future as he revelled in the simple unfettered freedom of the open road.

  ‘Hitler weather’, people called it, and it was true that the summers since the Leader had seized power did seem to have been longer and more pleasant than those under the Weimar.

  ‘Bloody hot, eh, Otts!’ Silke said as she laboured at her pedals, leaning forward over the handlebar in order to lend more power to each pumping motion of her legs.

  Good legs too, Otto could not stop himself from thinking, as he glanced across the dusty lane at his travelling companion. The skirts of the BDM uniform were fully calf-length but Silke had tucked the hem of hers up into her knickers to make it easier to ride. Her legs were thus fully displayed, and the flexing and unflexing of her muscles cast nice shadows across her tanned thighs and calves as she rode.

  How strange, Otto mused, that scrappy little Silke should end up having nice legs. He rubbed the sweat from his eyes and took in the pleasant sight. Who would ever have thought it?

  Firm, shapely legs. Girl’s legs. Not spectacular like Dagmar’s, but then no girl had legs like Dagmar’s. Hers were endless, slim and delicate, like some fabulous, human gazelle. Silke’s legs were not long at all and certainly not skinny. But nice nonetheless. Friendly and strong. No longer covered in grazes and sticking plasters either. Otto did not think he’d ever seen Silke’s knees before without the scabs and plasters and as often as not some dirty inky scribble. Now they were clear and smooth. The only evidence that remained of a thousand fights and falls were one or two little scars that stood white against the copper skin.

  Amazing. Silke had been ‘one of the boys’ for so long that it was quite a shock to realize she’d ended up turning into a girl after all. She even had curves. When had that happened? Skinny little Silke with curves? They seemed simply to have arrived overnight.

  ‘Isn’t Silke growing up?’ Frieda had remarked recently. ‘I always thought she’d turn out pretty.’

  And she had.

  An old friend with a big smile and a disposition as sunny as the reflections that sparkled in the corn-blonde hair blowing in the breeze behind her as she panted over her handlebar.

  Good old Silke.

  Such a dear, old friend.

  ‘Poor Pauly, eh?’ Silke shouted. ‘Bet he wishes he was here.’

  ‘Yeah!’ Otto called back. ‘Sitting in school surrounded by the enemy studying for a job they won’t let him have. And he thinks he’s the clever one! Ha!’

  Side by side they rode. Up and down hills, past streams, through fields and sweet-smelling forests. Stopping occasionally for draughts of apple juice.

  Both of them knew that they would remember that wonderful day’s ride all their lives. Their spirits rising with every kilometre passed. With the scent of the forests and the freshly made hay and sweet meadow flowers, all wafted to them on a warm and gentle breeze through pure and pristine air.

  ‘It really is a lovely world,’ Silke said.

  ‘Yes it is,’ Otto agreed. ‘Shame about the people in it.’

  He said this as yet another labourer in a field paused in his work to greet them as they passed, not with a wave or a simple ‘Guten Tag’ but with the ‘German’ salute and a loud ‘Heil Hitler’.

  ‘I almost resent the sun for shining on them,’ Otto went on. ‘It makes everything look so wonderful, even them with their stupid outstretched arms.’

  ‘Well, of course there never was any sun before Hitler,’ Silke joked.

  It was the time of the September Solstice. A pagan festival beloved of the Nazis. Every village they passed through was bedecked with flowers and swastikas. Every little green or square was filled with dancers.

  Girls in traditional country dress with garlands in their hair. Boys stamping about in HJ uniforms with wooden rifles on their shoulders. Marching bands playing and children’s choirs singing songs.

  Songs Otto recognized as he cycled past returning the friendly waves of the singers. The same songs that were sung at his school, at assemblies and during music lessons.

  Das Judenblut vom Messer spritzt, geht’s uns nochmal so gut.

  ‘The Jews’ blood spurting from the knife makes us feel especially good.’

  All day they cycled, alternately delighted to be free and in the countryside and depressed to be so continuously confronted with evidence of the Nazi occupation of it. Village after village had a banner strung across the road at its entrance saying ‘No Jews’ and ‘Jew Beware’.

  And then there were the shouts.

  ‘Death to Jews,’ peasants called out cheerfully as Otto and Silke passed. Just as if they were shouting, ‘Good morning! Good luck! Enjoy your ride.’

  Time and again they cycled past marching groups of boys and girls with happy, smiling faces, calling down death on their fellow man. The countryside was alive with them. Off to the rivers and forests intent on developing the ‘steel hard’ bodies that Hitler had deman
ded of ‘his youth’.

  That night, exhausted, they made camp together in a little copse of trees beside a stream. Or a small river, as Otto insisted it should be ranked, having pronounced it as one from the map.

  They didn’t bother pitching the tent because the night was warm and there was no chance of rain. It was too warm even for a fire, which Otto thought was a great shame but Silke said was fortunate.

  ‘Fires attract all sorts of nasty insects,’ she said. ‘Gnats, mosquitoes and Hitler Jugend. You can bet your shirt that if there was a troop around they’d feel honour-bound to scout us out. It’s an obsession with them, they are the “eyes of the Führer”. It’s not like we have anything to hide, particularly now it seems you aren’t even a Jew any more! But all the same we don’t want company.’

  Otto agreed. ‘Smart girl,’ he said. ‘Paulus would be proud of you.’

  ‘And there was you thinking I was just a pretty face.’

  She laughed self-consciously as she said it. Otto laughed too.

  ‘Good old Silke! One of the lads, eh?’

  A compliment which did not seem particularly to please its recipient.

  They ate their supper of cheese and bread and some fruit and then each curled up in their blankets beside each other. Lying staring up at the stars, which they could see twinkling through the canopy of trees.

  Otto couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to Silke. Talked properly, just her and him. If indeed he ever had talked to her. He’d laughed with her countless times, fought with her, run from irate shopkeepers with her and teased her endlessly. But never actually simply talked to her. Why would he have done? She was just one of the boys. A mate. You didn’t go rabbiting on to your mates.

  ‘What do you think will happen, Otts?’ Silke asked. ‘I mean to Pauly and you and your mum and dad?’

  ‘Well, hopefully Mum’ll manage to get the family out,’ Otto replied. ‘I know her and Dad talk about it quite a lot, but of course Dad’s basically unemployable these days and then there’s Pops and Grandma to think about. It would be hard for them to move even if they wanted to.’