Two Brothers

‘So it was, then. I thought you looked a bit furtive.’

‘Not furtive, Dags,’ Paulus said, ‘just… well, sad. And scared, I suppose… can we please not talk about it?’

‘We have to talk about it, Pauly,’ Dagmar said. ‘When do you leave?’

‘February. I keep telling myself maybe I could put it off. Try to change the ticket, wait a bit longer. But Mum gets angry about that and you know it’s not like her to get angry about anything.’

‘Angry?’

‘Well, everybody’s desperate to get out now. Since Kristallnacht. All the people who’ve been telling themselves for years it’ll be all right. Like Pops and Grandma. They know now. But they’re too late. It’s insane the queues on the Wilhelmstrasse and at travel agents’. If I don’t take my chance now…’

‘I know, Pauly,’ Dagmar said quietly, and now it was her turn to look away. ‘I know.’

‘I don’t want to leave you, Dags!’ Paulus pleaded, his face suddenly a picture of guilt and anguish. ‘I can’t bear it. To even think of leaving you when all I’ve ever wanted is to be near you.’

Dagmar leant over and squeezed Paulus’s hand, looking into his eyes unblinkingly.

‘And I can’t bear the thought of you going, Pauly.’

‘You know that if there was anything… anything I could do,’ he began, but he could not continue because at that point Dagmar kissed him. She pushed her face forward across the remains of the picnic and locked her lips on to his.

Then her arms were around him and his around her.

It was utterly unexpected and Paulus was taken completely by surprise.

As was Otto.

Who emerged at that moment over the sand dune.

‘Oi!’ he shouted in surprise. ‘What are you two up to?’

He scrambled down the dune looking red in the face and angry.

For more than three years, ever since the night he had mugged the SA man, there had been no doubt in Otto’s mind as to who held the closer place in Dagmar’s affections, and it was him.

She liked Paulus, sure. He was like her brother. But she was his girl.

There had never been any doubt about it. Never on all the many outings Dagmar and he had shared since the day when Paulus had first produced his plan for them to be together. All the kisses and cuddles, the hand-holding, the shared frustration of not taking it further when they both admitted they wanted to.

And now he found, on returning after an absence of just a couple of minutes, that she was locked in an embrace with his brother.

‘Come and sit down, Ottsy,’ Dagmar said. ‘I have to tell you something. And Pauly.’

Otto did as he was told, a bewildered expression on his face.

Paulus too looked at a loss.

‘Boys,’ Dagmar said, taking a deep breath.

‘This all sounds sort of ominous, Dags,’ Paulus said, trying as ever to intellectualize the moment. To put his brain ahead of his fast beating heart.

‘Ominous?’ Otto blurted. ‘Nice kind of ominous, if you ask me. Was that a “friends”-type kiss, by the way? Because it didn’t look like a “friends”-type kiss.’

‘Hey, Ottsy,’ Paulus replied angrily. ‘We were talking about me leaving. Amazingly, Dags is sad I’m going. Is that all right with you or does she need your permission?’

‘Oh, so it was a farewell-type kiss then?’ Otto asked.

‘Look! I don’t need to explain—’ Paulus began.

‘Boys!’ Dagmar said sharply. ‘Please. You have to listen to me.’

The Stengel twins fell silent.

‘We’ve been best friends since we were seven,’ Dagmar went on, ‘and you know I love you both more than anything in the world. You are my world. Particularly now Mama has gone.’

The rain started to fall harder as she spoke, running down her cheeks and on to her bare shoulders, where it was gathering in numerous little glistening droplets. Paulus and Otto listened in silence.

‘But we’re growing up now. We’re adults, not kids, and friendship’s a different thing, isn’t it? When you’re grown up. Between boys and girls.’

Still neither boy replied, although the tension on their faces showed this was one observation that did not need making.

‘You always said that one day I’d have to choose between you, didn’t you?’

She looked from one boy to the other, her eyes big and sad.

Paulus found his voice first, although it was little more than a croak.

‘I thought you had,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ Otto whispered, ‘so did I.’

‘I had,’ Dagmar replied, looking at Otto, ‘but it wasn’t what you thought. Or what I made you think… I’m sorry.’

The rain was falling more heavily now, splashing on the remains of the food as the inadequate covering sagged under the weight.

‘I’m in love with Paulus,’ Dagmar said quite suddenly.

Both boys looked up astonished. Their mouths dropped open in silent surprise.

‘I think I’ve known that for a year at least. Two. I don’t know. Maybe more. I didn’t want to say. I’ve never wanted to say. I shouldn’t be saying it now.’

Her voice was shaking. Perhaps she was crying, it was hard to tell with the rain.

‘Why did you kiss me,’ Otto asked, and he too looked as if he might cry, ‘that time when I brought you the buttons?’

‘I was fourteen, Otts.’

‘But since then. Lots of times.’

‘I wanted to love you, Otto. I prayed that I could fall in love with you because I knew Pauly would one day have to go. That I mustn’t love him because he would leave. That he would leave me and I’d be left alone and my damned life was going to be dreadful and hellish enough without a broken heart.’

Otto wiped angrily at his eyes.

Dagmar reached out to touch his hand but Otto pulled it away.

‘I like you, Otts. I love you too,’ she pleaded, ‘I really do. You know that. But not how I love Pauly…’

Her voice trailed away. She turned to Paulus as if willing him to say something.

‘But…’ Paulus began, ‘why have you never said?’

‘Why do you think! Because you have a chance and I don’t! And I never ever wanted to say anything to stop you. I knew you loved me and if I’d come to you a year or two years ago and told you I loved you, if I’d been your girl, would you have written all those visa letters? Would you have tried so hard? Would you ever have applied for that ticket that came this morning? Would you? If I’d been your girl?’

Paulus bit his lip.

‘No, of course you wouldn’t. I know you. You’re both the same, you Stengel twins. You and Ottsy, the loyalest, bravest, best boys alive on this earth and I don’t deserve either of you. And now I shan’t have either of you because it’s all set and that’s fine and as it ought to be. You have your place and your ticket and you’ll live, which is all I want. And Ottsy will be sent into the army, and whatever happens to me is my fate, that’s all. And that’s fine too because what will be will be. I kept my secret, Pauly, because I’d die before I’d stand in the way of your trying to get out. But now it’s done and all our paths are set, I couldn’t let you go without you knowing, Pauly. That’s all. That wherever you go in the world, whoever you find in your life, there is… or there was… once a girl in Germany who loved you with all her heart.’

Otto scrambled to his feet.

‘I’m getting out of here,’ he said, trying to sound strong. In control of his emotions. But failing miserably. ‘I’ll see you two around, I guess.’