inter-school swimming gala. These were the Weimar years of increasing egalitarianism, and expensive private schools like Dagmar’s occasionally found themselves competing in sporting competitions with their state-supported rivals.
Paulus and Otto were sitting about on the beautiful banks of the swimming lake when they spotted Dagmar laughing with her friends quite close by. They decided not to make themselves known, partly out of shyness, there being so many other posh girls with her, but also from the sheer unfamiliarity of seeing her outside their usual haunts. Instead they were content to watch, fascinated to see their long-legged friend in her bathing costume, and in some strange, half-understood way enjoying the spectacle.
That was until they saw her approaching the victory podium.
‘What’s she doing?’ Paulus said. ‘Bloody hell! She’s not going to mess around with the cups, is she?’
Dagmar was certainly making her way towards the table where the trophies were displayed.
Tea had been announced a few minutes earlier, and with the various teachers and judges all intent on claiming their share of the refreshments, Dagmar had accepted a dare. Paulus and Otto watched in wonder as she sidled up to the table, took up the grand trophy and stepped up on to the little jetty which led to the diving platforms to pose for a photograph.
Unfortunately the jetty was wet and she slipped, dropping the splendid trophy and breaking its base. Stunned at what she’d done, she simply stood, quaking in terror as a whistle was blown to mark the end of tea and the resumption of the gala. It was then that Paulus and Otto charged up and grabbed the broken trophy from her.
‘Get out of it, Dag!’ Paulus blurted. ‘Get back to your friends!’
Moments later the judges returned to find two contrite little boys in bathing trunks holding the broken trophy.
‘What is the explanation of this?’ the master thundered through his snow-white whiskers. Every inch the old professor with his stiff collar and frock coat and his cane.
‘Some rough boys were playing with it!’ Paulus said.
‘We were playing with it. It was us!’ Otto declared simultaneously.
‘We chased them into those woods and got the cup back,’ Paulus went on.
‘We broke it. It was us, we did it!’ Otto said.
The two boys turned to each other.
‘You idiot,’ Paulus said.
The upshot was that the Stengel boys were given a public beating, which Dagmar watched, astonished at their kindness and thrilled at their bravery. And, if she were honest with herself, rather pleased: it’s not every girl who gets publicly defended in front of all her friends by two strange tousle-headed boys who don’t even cry when they get ten on the backside. Plus four extra for Paulus for trying to make up a story.
They might perhaps have given way to tears if they had received their beatings alone, but neither was prepared to be the first to break in front of the other.
And particularly not in front of Dagmar.
Silke was also present at the gala with her school and, although she hadn’t seen the incident, she quickly heard all about it, as word of what had happened spread like wildfire amongst the children. Later when the competition resumed (minus the disgraced Stengel twins), Silke pushed her way through the various school groups to confront Dagmar. Facing each other, the two little girls made quite a contrast. Dagmar, tall for eight, her beautifully fitted school swimsuit of the latest two-way stretch elastic. Silke, small and tough, in a baggy suit of knitted wool (holed in a number of places), her legs bruised and scratched as they always were from some fight or other.
‘You got our boys a beating!’ Silke snarled.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Dagmar replied loftily. ‘I didn’t ask them to take the blame, did I?’
‘You should have said! They wouldn’t have whipped a girl.’
‘That would have just looked ridiculous. Paulus and Otto had already given different stories. I don’t think a third would have helped, would it? They’d still have been beaten. Besides, the boys wanted to help me, isn’t that what the Saturday Club’s about? I think it was very noble.’
Silke’s fists clenched. She was red-faced. Angry but also embarrassed and ill-at-ease, a scruffy kid amongst so many little rich girls, all dressed in the same identical, beautiful bathing costumes that Dagmar was wearing.
‘Who is this child?’ a stern female voice snapped as Dagmar’s forbidding-looking teacher approached. ‘She should be with her own school. Girl, why have you left your group?’
‘I came to talk to Dagmar, miss,’ Silke mumbled at the ground.
‘Chin up and speak out, girl! We are not at home to Mrs Mumble here,’ the teacher snapped, provoking much giggling from the posh girls, which turned Silke positively crimson.
‘I came to see Dagmar Fischer,’ Silke said, raising her head a little.
The school mistress gave Dagmar a dubious look.
‘Do you know this little girl, Fraulein Fischer?’
‘Yes, Frau Sinzheim. She is the daughter of the woman who cleans the apartment where I have my music lessons.’
Silke’s jaw dropped to hear herself so dismissively described.
‘We’re friends!’ Silke asserted.
This caused further giggling amongst Dagmar’s classmates and it was Dagmar’s turn to go red.
‘Well, she must run along now,’ Frau Sinzheim said with a dubious look at Silke, ‘as the finals are upon us and you need to concentrate, Dagmar. Under-tens freestyle, breaststroke and the relay. I look to you to deliver Gold in all three.’
‘Yes, Frau Sinzheim.’
The mistress turned back to Silke.
‘Get away now, little girl. You have no business here.’
Frau Sinzheim moved on, leaving Silke staring at Dagmar with blazing eyes and poking out her tongue.
‘Come on, Silke,’ Dagmar said. ‘You’re just jealous. You wouldn’t have minded one bit if it had been
Silke looked as if she was about to reply but then didn’t. It seemed that perhaps Dagmar’s observation had hit the mark.
Two Parties and a Crash
TWENTY-FOURTH OF FEBRUARY.
Two birthday parties.
One in an apartment in Friedrichshain, Berlin.
The other in Munich in a house at Schellingstrasse 50.
Paulus, Otto and the
All nine years old that day.
Only one of them would live to beyond the age of twenty-five.
The other two, like countless millions of other youngsters around the world, were doomed.
The Munich nine-year-old would murder them before perishing itself.
The birthday party in Berlin was a very jolly affair.
There were games and cake and American soda. The awkwardness of the meeting up of Paulus and Otto’s school friends with Dagmar and Silke from the Saturday Club was soon overcome. Dagmar even let her hair down sufficiently to take her turn with the blindfold in Blind Man’s Bluff.
There was much to celebrate, as the boys’ grandfather pointed out in a rather lengthy toast that he insisted on being allowed to make during tea and which the children largely ignored, not unnaturally preferring to concentrate on the rolls and cold chicken.
‘These lucky boys will achieve more than we ever have,’ Herr Tauber said, ‘for Germany’s long nightmare is
