After

by Morris Gleitzman

  I wait.

  There’s more whispering and a bit of scuffling.

  A girl, older than the one I saw, steps out from behind the furniture.

  ‘Do you have any food?’ she says.

  Two other girls come out. One of them is the one I saw. She looks about five. The one who just spoke looks about twelve. The other one looks like she’s somewhere in between.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘What’s in the bag?’ says the oldest girl.

  ‘Just jewels,’ I say.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ wails the youngest girl, and starts crying.

  I look around the apartment.

  ‘There must be some food in here somewhere,’ I say.

  I can see that the grown-ups who live here aren’t poor. The smashed-up furniture has got cushions.

  ‘The food’s under the bricks with Mrs Fidetzky,’ says the middle girl, looking like she’s going to cry too.

  The oldest one points through a doorway.

  I go and look. Half the kitchen has collapsed, and sticking out from under a pile of bricks are two legs in stockings.

  ‘Are you a looter?’ says the oldest girl.

  I shake my head.

  ‘I’m a partisan,’ I say.

  I can see none of them know what that is. I don’t bother to explain. We all need food too urgently.

  ‘Are there any shops in this street?’ I say.

  The oldest girl shakes her head.

  ‘Mr Motyl in the basement flat next door has food,’ she says. ‘Millions of tins of food. He’s the foreman in a food factory and he steals it. Mrs Fidetzky told us.’

  ‘We’re too scared to get some,’ says the middle girl. ‘Cause he hates Jews.’

  ‘Wait here,’ I say. ‘I’ll go and see if I can persuade him to share. If he won’t, my mum will have a word with him.’

  The girls all look doubtful.

  I don’t tell them how Yuli would persuade him. Best if they don’t know the details.

  I went into the street and checked that Dom was alright, I thought about the best way of persuading Mr Motyl to share his food.

  Go and fetch Yuli?

  I decide not to. If the Jewish girls next door are right, and Mr Motyl is a thief and a hoarder, he’s probably greedy too. Maybe he’ll be happy to swap some tins for some jewels. Then Yuli won’t need to get involved and at least that’ll be one less person killed in this town today.

  But I don’t get to speak to Mr Motyl.

  Outside the wrecked basement flat next door, a man in overalls is lying with a big piece of wood sticking out of his chest. Next to it, on his overalls, is sewn the word Motyl.

  I don’t bother checking Mr Motyl’s vital signs. Not with a piece of wood that big.

  I go into the flat, hoping some of the tins have survived.

  ‘Stop in the name of Adolf Hitler,’ says a voice. ‘Or we’ll shoot.’

  Normally I’d be scared if somebody yelled that. But this voice is squeaky and wobbly. And speaking Polish.

  I put the jewellery bag down and raise my hands to show I’m unarmed.

  A boy steps out of the gloom.

  He’s wearing a Hitler Youth uniform and pointing a rifle at me. The rifle is shaking. He doesn’t look much older than me.

  I watch his trigger finger closely. I can feel big splinters of wood under my feet, and I can clearly see the soft spot under his chin.

  ‘What do you want?’ he says.

  ‘Food,’ I say. ‘I can pay.’

  I touch the jewellery bag with my foot.

  The boy seems uncertain what to do next. He glances over his shoulder and says something in German. Somebody else steps forward.

  Another boy. I stare.

  I’ve seen this boy somewhere before. I remember where. It’s the bicycle boy. He’s still wearing his Hitler Youth uniform, but it’s torn and scuffed. He must have got other boots. They’re scuffed too.

  He scowls at me, but I can see he doesn’t have a clue I’m the person who took his things.

  ‘What makes you think we’re selling?’ he says. ‘What makes you think we won’t just take your money?’

  ‘Because if you do,’ I say, ‘my mum will kill you.’

  The bicycle boy sniggers.

  ‘I’d like to see that,’ he says.

  ‘You wouldn’t see it,’ I say. ‘She’d cut your throat before you even knew there was a knife. Haven’t you heard how partisans do it?’

  The bicycle boy gives a nervous snort.

  ‘You’re not a partisan,’ he says. ‘You haven’t even got a gun.’

  ‘I don’t need a gun,’ I say. ‘I’ve got a bike and two bazookas and a new pair of boots.’

  The bicycle boy looks startled. He stares at my boots, and then glances anxiously around.

  ‘Dummkopf,’ the first boy says to him in German. Then something like ‘I told you it was partisans.’

  The bicycle boy sort of sags. He doesn’t look tough now. He looks like somebody’s given him a beating. Which judging by the bruises on his face, I think somebody has.

  ‘Take as much food as you want,’ he says to me sulkily in Polish. ‘Won’t be any use to you.’

  ‘It’s all tins,’ says another voice, a girl’s. ‘There’s no tin opener.’

  The girl steps into view. She’s about five, with curly hair so blonde it’s almost glowing. Though that could just be my eyes getting used to the gloom.

  Now, behind the three kids, I can see tins. Hundreds of them, stacked up against the walls. No labels, just gleaming metal tins.

  ‘There must be a tin opener,’ I say. ‘Nobody would have this many tins without a tin opener.’

  ‘Dad hid it,’ says the girl sadly.

  ‘So burglars couldn’t find it,’ says the boy with the rifle, and for a moment he looks like he’s going to be the first Hitler Youth I’ve ever seen cry.

  I don’t blame him. If that was my dad lying dead by the front door with wood in his chest, I’d be bawling my eyes out.

  The boy doesn’t cry. But he scowls, and sort of droops, and lowers his rifle.

  On the floor I can see where they’ve been trying to open the tins. There are a few dented ones and some pieces of stone and wood.

  ‘Let’s do a deal,’ I say. ‘I’ll show you how to open them and you give me half the tins.’

  ‘Have you got a tin opener?’ says the little girl hopefully.

  ‘Sort of,’ I say.

  The two boys aren’t looking happy, but they haven’t said no.

  I open the jewellery bag and give the three of them a ring each. I choose ones with big sharp diamonds.

  Gabriek taught me about this. If you want to cut something hard, you need something sharp and harder. Nothing is harder than a diamond. Except perhaps a Nazi’s heart.

  I put a diamond ring on one of my fingers, grab a tin, make a fist and scrape the ring round and round the top of the tin in circles. It takes quite a while, but suddenly the top caves in and I can lift it off like a lid.

  Meat stew runs down my arm.

  The other three are all doing the same.

  The bicycle boy gets his tin open first. He throws the lid away and gobbles the stew like he’s starving.

  I’m curious. German families living in Poland aren’t usually starving.

  ‘Why aren’t you at your place?’ I say. ‘With your mum and dad?’

  The bicycle boy looks at me miserably over the top of his tin.

  ‘Bombed,’ he mumbles.

  For a fleeting moment, in my imagination, I have a horrible vision. The whole of Europe full of kids on their own. Struggling to survive the world’s biggest parent shortage. Trying to find their own way.

  I am so lucky to have Yuli.

  I grab the jewellery bag and an armful of tins.

  ‘I’ll be back for the rest of my share,’ I say to the three kids.

  The boy with the rifle raises it and points it at me again. He’s not droopy now, and he’
s scowling even more. And the rifle isn’t wobbling.

  ‘What if we don’t let you take any?’ he says. ‘What if we’re sick of being pushed around and bombed?’

  ‘Helmut,’ says the little girl indignantly. ‘He’s nice.’

  Helmut obviously doesn’t think so. His rifle is aimed at my head. Under my armful of tins, my chest is going like a machine gun.

  I manage to look Helmut directly in the eyes and speak calmly.

  ‘My mum is just up the street,’ I say. ‘On average she takes about five seconds to kill a person. I also work with a man who knows how to remove any part of the human body he wants, usually in a few minutes. And he hardly ever uses anaesthetic.’

  Nobody speaks.

  The little girl stares at me, drops of stew trembling on her bottom lip.

  Helmut looks doubtful again and lowers the rifle.

  I keep my voice steady.

  ‘Like I said, I’ll be back for the rest of my share.’

  The bicycle boy pulls himself together.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Well you’d better bring lots of reinforcements or we might not let you in.’

  I give him a contemptuous look, like the one Szulk gives me sometimes.

  The little girl is watching all three of us, eyes darting from one to the other, scared.

  I turn and leave.

  I feel bad about scaring a little kid, but I push the feeling away. I know what Yuli would say. If you start feeling sorry for Nazis, you’re dead.

  When the three Jewish girls from next door see me coming out of the basement flat with the tins, they run out of their flat to meet me.

  I give them a diamond ring each and show them how they work.

  The oldest girl gets her tin open in record time, and gives some stew to her little sisters.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says to me.

  ‘You’re a good partisan,’ says the middle girl through a mouthful of stew.

  I hope she’s right. I’ve got a difficult decision to make now.

  How many tins do I give the girls, and how many do I load onto the back of the cart to feed the partisans and strike a blow into the heart of the Nazis?

  Search me.

  To give myself time to think about it, I decide to go and find Yuli.

  I turn, and see her running towards me.

  ‘Felix,’ she yells. ‘I told you to stay put.’

  ‘You told me to look for food,’ I protest.

  The girls are shrinking back fearfully. I realise it’s because Yuli still has the Nazi jacket on.

  ‘It’s alright,’ I say to them. ‘It’s just dress-up.’

  ‘Come on,’ Yuli yells at me, jumping into the cart and grabbing Dom’s reins. ‘We have to leave. Now.’

  ‘But I’ve found food,’ I say, pointing to the basement flat. ‘Loads of it.’

  ‘Now,’ yells Yuli.

  As I get onto the cart, I look down the street to see if we’re being chased by Nazis. I can’t see any.

  I don’t get it.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I say as we head off.

  ‘We’ve got to get back to the forest and warn the others,’ says Yuli.

  ‘What about?’ I say.

  Yuli doesn’t reply at first, just urges Dom to go faster.

  She looks different to how I’ve ever seen her.

  Panicked.

  ‘I went to the headquarters to get information about Nazi troop movements,’ she says. ‘I got information alright. The Nazis know where our camp is. They’ve been planning an attack. Because of the bombing, they’re doing it today.’

  we got to the forest, Yuli stopped looking behind us to see if we were being followed and instead started peering anxiously ahead.

  Tense.

  Listening.

  For the Nazi attack.

  She keeps glancing down at the forest path.

  I see why. There are tyre tracks in the damp earth.

  From the look on Yuli’s face, I guess the tyre marks are probably from Nazi trucks.

  Dom’s back and shoulders are glistening with sweat in the weak cold sunlight, that’s how much effort he’s putting into getting us back to camp.

  ‘Faster,’ mutters Yuli to him. ‘Faster.’

  I do the ‘faster’ noise Gabriek taught me, but it doesn’t make any difference. Dom is going as fast as a horse like him can.

  Yuli is still wearing the dead Nazi soldier’s jacket.

  She’s still got his gun. I wish he’d had two guns, so Yuli and me could have one each.

  Then we hear it.

  In the distance.

  Shooting.

  Yuli yanks on the reins and stops the cart. She pulls the Nazi jacket off and puts on her coat and headscarf.

  ‘Take Dom to the swamp,’ she says. ‘Wait for me there.’

  I stare at her.

  Swamp? I don’t know any swamp.

  ‘I want to come with you,’ I say. ‘I want to fight the Nazis with you.’

  Yuli shakes her head.

  ‘Use your compass,’ she says. ‘Go south-east till you reach the swamp. Wait for me there.’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  I’m going with her. She’s my mum now. You don’t go lazing around in swamps while your mum’s fighting a huge Nazi attack.

  Yuli’s arm moves so fast I don’t realise what’s happening at first.

  Then I do.

  She’s holding the barrel of the Nazi gun against my throat. The soft part under my chin. The part she taught me about.

  ‘That’s an order,’ she says.

  Her eyes are blazing and furious. They’re also full of tears.

  I try to speak. I try to plead with her. But my voice won’t come out.

  Yuli squeezes my arm so hard it hurts.

  Then she jumps down from the cart and runs between the trees, out of sight, towards the shooting.

  There’s no forest path going to the south-east.

  Dom has to drag the cart through the under-growth, over rotten logs, his feet slipping in drifts of slimy leaves.

  He’s doing this for me, working hard to get me away from danger.

  And I’m letting him because you don’t take a horse into a gun battle if you can help it, not even a big strong horse like Dom.

  Yes, I’d stay close to him and give him good protection, but if I got killed he’d be on his own.

  I steer Dom between the trees, but he doesn’t really need me, he can do it by himself.

  Anyway I’m distracted, listening to the distant battle. Trying to tell the difference between Nazi gunfire and partisan gunfire.

  I want it all to be partisan. Including big explosions as the Nazis get blasted with my bazooka rockets. I want the only Nazi sounds to be dying ones. I try to picture them all dead, so I won’t have to think about Yuli in the middle of a battle with only one gun and no ammunition belt.

  The cart lurches over a log and something slides against my feet.

  The jewellery bag.

  Yuli didn’t take it. I wish she had. She could have put diamond rings on all her fingers and when her bullets ran out and her knife got blunt she could have fought on, taking the tops off Nazi heads.

  I smile at the thought.

  Then I stop smiling.

  The jewellery bag reminds me of Mum.

  What would Mum and Dad say if they saw me grinning about people having the tops of their heads removed, even Nazis?

  They’d be sad and disappointed.

  Mum and Dad never felt glad about somebody else’s suffering, not once in their lives. Not even when a man tried to steal a big expensive book from their shop and it fell on his wife.

  I push Mum and Dad’s sad disappointed faces out of my imagination. I’m glad they aren’t here to see the sort of person I’ve turned into. They’d try to understand, but they might not to able to.

  I’m lucky.

  Yuli is my parent now.

  She understands.

  You know how when you reach a forest swamp at su
nset and the ground is so wet it’s shimmering and you see what looks like an island way over across the water and you think what a great hiding place but you don’t go there because you want Yuli to be able to find you and so instead you tell Dom a story about a brave partisan woman who marries a grumpy but fair partisan leader or maybe a grumpy but kind partisan doctor and they adopt a young partisan and his horse, and halfway through the story you realise that the distant battle sounds have stopped and you’re tempted to go and see what’s happened but you don’t because you’re under orders, so you fall asleep with Dom on the shore of the swamp and you wake up in the freezing dawn and Yuli still hasn’t come?

  That’s just happened to me.

  I stand up.

  Ow.

  My legs hurt. So does my back. And my neck.

  I’m hungry. Dom must be too. We haven’t eaten for one day and two nights.

  But none of this is worrying me as much as the other thought in my sleepy brain.

  The battle ended last night. That was hours ago. Loads of time for Yuli to get here.

  So where is she?

  I try not to panic. Instead I follow the advice Gabriek used to give me.

  When you’re feeling stressed, keep busy.

  ‘Come on,’ I say to Dom, wiping the cold dew off his back with my sleeve. ‘Let’s go and find her.’

  we got close to the partisan camp, Dom and I stopped behind some trees so I could listen.

  No gloating Nazi voices or trucks.

  No wounded partisan moans of pain.

  Just the drip drip of dew from the branches all around us and the distant crackle of a fire.

  A fire is good. A fire means cooking and getting warm and drying clothes that are a bit sweaty after winning a battle.

  I lead Dom out of the trees into the clearing.

  Oh.

  I put my hands over Dom’s eyes so he doesn’t have to see. I don’t want to see either. I take Dom back into the trees and tether him so he’s facing away from the horrible sight.

  I want to stay facing away too, but I can’t.

  I force myself to turn round.

  Sprawled in the clearing are partisans, blood on their clothes, their faces in the mud, not moving.

  For a few moments I have to hold on to a tree. It helps a bit when I see that all the red patches are blood and not a headscarf, but only a bit because there could be other bodies out of sight.