A hand touches me on the shoulder.
I know who it is. One of the Russian army doctors, reminding me that if I’m going to cry, I should do it outside so I don’t upset the other people in here.
I turn round to show the doctor I’m a medical professional and I’m perfectly capable of controlling myself. But when I see who it is, I don’t control myself at all.
It isn’t an army doctor, it’s Gabriek.
helping me at the camp for a few days, Gabriek persuaded me I’d done as much there as one person could, and explained we had other important work to do, and so we made one last visit to Mum and Dad’s memorial and then we left.
First we came here, to the old partisan camp.
As we approached through the forest, I thought I could smell smoke. But it must have been a sad memory playing tricks, because the camp is deserted.
We look inside the hollow tree.
Yes.
Everything’s untouched.
Gabriek’s violin. Genia’s photo frame. My books and important drawings and the locket Zelda gave me.
‘That’s lucky,’ I say.
Gabriek looks almost as happy as he did when he found me.
‘Very lucky,’ he says.
‘Very lucky indeed,’ says an unfriendly voice.
I hear a sound I recognise. I can see Gabriek recognises it too. The safety catch on a gun.
Tall skinny scowling Szulk steps out from behind a tree.
‘God help us,’ he says. ‘Those stupid Nazis couldn’t do anything right, could they? Couldn’t even get rid of all you Jews.’
He raises his gun and points it at Gabriek’s head.
‘He’s not Jewish,’ I say frantically. ‘It’s just me.’
‘Jew-lovers are just as bad,’ says Szulk. ‘Poland doesn’t need any of you.’
I see his finger start to tighten on the trigger.
Gabriek gives a grunt, and hurls himself at the gun. Szulk steps back and smashes Gabriek to the ground with his rifle butt.
While Szulk is doing that, I reach into my shirt and get my fingers inside the rolled-up cotton vest and pull out a scalpel and lunge at him.
Szulk sees me coming and sways to one side so I slash wildly and Szulk screams. He drops to his knees. He fumbles with the buttons of his shirt and gets it half off. Across the front of his chest is a vivid red line.
He swears at me and tries to stand up, using his rifle as a prop, but it slips out of his fingers and he falls onto his back.
Now’s my chance.
The soft part under his chin is waiting for me.
I grip the scalpel and stand over him.
Szulk’s eyes are bulging and his lips are blue. He’s going into shock. Doctor Zajak and me used to see this all the time.
One quick incision and he’ll never be a threat to anybody again.
Szulk’s eyes are pleading with me. I try not to look at them. But I can’t forget what Yuli said, about him losing his family.
Gabriek groans. He’s sitting up, rubbing his back and watching me.
‘Your choice,’ he says.
He’s right, it is my choice.
I love Gabriek for letting me have it. It’s why I’m so lucky to have him as a friend.
I pull the candle out of my shirt, borrow Gabriek’s matches and his bottle of vodka, and do a clean and heat on Szulk’s cut chest. Soon the bleeding has almost stopped.
Gabriek holds Szulk down and smothers his howls while I sew up his wound with some thread from his pants.
Then we break his gun and walk away.
‘Hey,’ yells Szulk. ‘You can’t leave me.’
‘Felix is a medical man, not a travel agent,’ says Gabriek. ‘The police’ll provide transport.’
We head along the forest path towards town. After a bit, I make Gabriek stop while I check his back for damage.
Bruising and skin abrasions, but otherwise fine.
‘You’re going to be a good surgeon one day,’ says Gabriek as we walk on.
I look at him.
He means it. It’s not just a story he’s making up.
I hope he’s right.
‘Education,’ says Gabriek. ‘Get as much as you can. You’ll need years of it before people will let you cut them open without complaining.’
Gabriek’s right about that, and because he’s my friend, I think he’ll do everything he can to help me get it.
But first, we have work to do. Things need mending. Too much of the world has been broken. We have to get busy, me and Gabriek, doing our bit to help fix things up.
Plenty of time for everything else after.
Dear Reader
After is the fourth book about Felix.
In Once and Then, Felix is a ten-year-old Jewish boy struggling to survive in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1942. He and his dearest friend, six-year-old Zelda, are caught up in that terrible time we call the Holocaust.
In the third book, Now, Felix is an elderly man in the present day. Through the eyes of his granddaughter, also called Zelda, we see Felix confront some of the pain of his childhood while he and the new Zelda face a new struggle to survive – in Australia’s biggest bushfire.
When I finished Now, I thought my work with Felix and the two Zeldas was complete. But Felix didn’t agree. And so After is set in 1945, the final year of World War Two. Felix was right. These months turn out to be a momentous time in his young life.
For their help with After, my heartfelt thanks to Laura Harris, Sarah Hughes, Heather Curdie, Tony Palmer, Anna Fienberg and Belinda Chayko.
If you haven’t read Once, Then or Now, please don’t worry. I’ve tried to write these stories so they can be read in any order. If you read After first, you’ll know some of what happens in Once and Then, but not too much.
Like the other three Felix stories, After came from my imagination, but it was inspired by a period of history that was all too real.
I couldn’t have written any of these stories without first reading many books about the Holocaust. Books full of the real voices of the people who lived and struggled and loved and died, or, as just a few of them did, survived in that terrible time.
I also read about the generosity and bravery of the people who risked their lives to resist the Nazis, and to shelter others, often children.
You can find details of some of my research reading on my website. I hope you get to share some of it and help keep alive the memory of these people.
This story is my imagination trying to grasp the unimaginable.
Their stories are the real stories.
Morris Gleitzman
August 2012
www.morrisgleitzman.com
ONCE
Once I escaped from an orphanage to find Mum and Dad.
Once I saved a girl called Zelda from a burning house.
Once I made a Nazi with toothache laugh.
My name is Felix.
This is my story.
Once has received many literary honours and children’s choice awards in Australia and overseas.
‘This is one of the most profoundly moving novels I have ever read. Gleitzman at his very best has created one of the most tender, endearing characters ever to grace the pages of a book.’
Sunday Tasmanian
‘… a story of courage, survival and friendship told with humour from a child’s view of the world.’
West Australian
‘… moving, haunting and funny in almost equal measure, and always gripping … the mix of innocence and horror is unsentimental and often heartbreaking.’
The Guardian
THEN
I had a plan for me and Zelda.
Pretend to be someone else.
Find new parents.
Be safe forever.
Then the Nazis came.
The brilliant, moving sequel to Once.
Then has also received many literary honours and children’s choice awards in Australia and overseas.
‘… an exquisi
tely told, unflinching and courageous novel.’
The Age
‘Gleitzman’s Felix and Zelda are two of the finest and sure-to-endure characters created in recent times.’
Hobart Mercury
‘[Gleitzman] has accomplished something extraordinary, presenting the best and the worst of humanity without stripping his characters of dignity or his readers of hope.’
The Guardian
NOW
Once I didn’t know about my grandfather Felix’s scary childhood.
Then I found out what the Nazis did to his best friend Zelda.
Now I understand why Felix does the things he does.
At least he’s got me.
My name is Zelda too.
This is our story.
Now continues to receive many literary honours and children’s choice awards in Australia and overseas.
‘Now is an edifying and tender, nuanced novel from an exceptionally compassionate author.’
The Age
‘Gleitzman has a special way of seeing the world through the eyes of a child, and generations of readers are grateful to him for it.’
West Australian
‘It is beautifully written, stunning in its simplicity and powerful in its sensitivity. Read it and it is sure to haunt you for ever.’
The Scotsman
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First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2012
Text copyright © Gleitzman McCaul Pty Ltd, 2012.
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ISBN: 978-1-74253-626-2
After Page 14