That the men from MI6 were wrong.
That Dagmar was dead, as for so long he had believed her to be.
The precious letter was a forgery. Cobbled together from other, older material, genuine letters, diaries perhaps. Long-buried memories. The Stasi were good at that sort of thing.
He was being lured back to Berlin.
Final Match
PAULUS AND OTTO were cornered.
They never should have come, of course.
How could they have imagined it would be the same as before? That they could just turn up in their footie kit at the old field, the way they had done for years and years, and play?
Paulus had been worrying about it all week. He’d even pinned a map of the local area to their bedroom wall the better to consider escape routes.
‘If we get chased,’ he said, ‘we don’t want to end up in a blind alley. There’s two near the recreation ground plus a walled building site. We need to know the best way out from every corner of the field and how to make for the
‘If we get chased,’ Otto said grimly, ‘we fight. There’s only four fucking Nazis on the team.’
‘Otts, they’re all Nazis now.’
‘Look, it’s our team. We’ve been OK at school, haven’t we?’
‘So far.’
It was true, they had. There had been a few murmurs and angry mutterings, not least from a couple of the teachers, but so far nothing worse. Maybe things would be all right at soccer too.
Even Frieda and Wolfgang had agreed that they should go. The boys had been on the team since they were eight. Five years playing with the same lads had to mean something.
But now as Paulus and Otto found themselves cornered in the changing shed they knew it didn’t.
Quite without warning their former team-mates had turned into a snarling, vengeful mob and the Stengel boys were in big trouble.
‘
The big lad, Emil, began to formalize the chant, ominously beating the wooden walls of the little changing hut with a rounders bat. ‘Jew! Jew!’
The brothers stood side by side. Paulus had hold of a chair and Otto was preparing to use a dustbin lid and a broken corner flag as a sword and shield. The Stengel twins were formidable when they stood side by side and their assailants knew that, which was why for a moment at least they held back.
‘Filthy fucking Jews,’ Emil shouted, breaking the rhythm he had been banging out and taking a step towards the boys. ‘Now you’re going to pay for everything you’ve done to Germany.’
Paulus and Otto looked at the angry faces ranged against them. Emil had of course always hated them, he was the sort of boy who hated everybody, particularly the ones who stood up to him. But many others in the team had been their friends. Only a
Emil Braas had grabbed his first chance to avenge himself on the Stengel boys. For being better footballers than him.
For being popular and easy-going while he was sullen and had a reputation for spite.
For being attractive to girls while he was laughed at and teased by even quite ugly ones for being dull and lumbering.
This was Emil’s chance, as it was that month for every embittered, failed and inadequate fool in Germany. To be the big man at last.
Otto knew the score. He knew boys like Emil and as far as he was concerned there was only one course of action available to him.
Hit first and hit hardest.
That was his rule.
But Paulus hated that rule. He had a different one. Never confront if you could negotiate. That was the clever way. Yes, hit hard if you had to, but first, try not to hit at all.
Otto had already raised his weapon hand, the muscles on his bare arms and chest taut and prone. He was not quite yet even thirteen but already he had the physical definition of an athletic young man, of a fighter.
Paulus was in good shape too, Wolfgang had made sure of that. But he did not raise his weapon. Instead he laughed.
As a tactic, it had the benefit of surprise, if nothing else.
The crowd of adversaries looked taken aback, but they didn’t lower their fists.
‘What are you laughing at, Jew boy?’ Emil sneered.
‘Well, your face for one,’ Paulus replied, ‘but I ain’t talking to you.’
Paulus then turned to one of the boys standing a little back from the main mob.
‘Come on, Tommy,’ Paulus said. ‘We’ve been mates since kindergarten.’
Beside him Otto growled. What was the point of appealing to their better nature? Clearly things had gone way beyond that.
But that wasn’t Paulus’s idea at all.
He had a bolder plan. As Goebbels had said, if you’re going to lie, make it a big one.
‘We’re not Jews,’ Paulus said
It was the last defence anybody had expected, flying as it did in the face of accepted knowledge, and it certainly took the attacking mob aback.
‘Come on, Tommy,’ Paulus said, using the pause to press his advantage. ‘When did you see me with silly sideburns and a big black hat on?’
Tommy had indeed known the twins since preschool and they had certainly always been friends. But Tommy also knew that the Stengel twins were Jews. Subhumans, according to the Chancellor of Germany. Vermin. A filthy cancerous parasitic disease festering on the nation’s flesh. Sucking its blood.
‘You are Jews, you bastards,’ Tommy said. ‘You hide it. That’s what you swine do. You skulk and hide.’
‘We’re not bloody Jews, Tom,’ Paulus laughed. ‘Wankers like Emil may say we are but he doesn’t know his arse from his elbow, does he? He certainly doesn’t know which way to kick a football.’
A few of the boys laughed at that. Tommy smiled too.
Moments before when Emil had been marshalling them for the attack, blaming the Stengel boys for every possible injury that Germany had ever suffered, they had all been with him.
They had quickly overcome the unease they felt about attacking old friends (and good players) in the face of Emil’s blood-curdling rhetoric. The Stengels were Jews and as such there was nothing for it but to give them a bloody good hiding and cast them out for ever. Nobody who valued their own safety was going to stick up for a Jew in Berlin in February 1933.
But then nobody had expected them to deny it either and Paulus’s surprising position had stopped the assault in its tracks. If they were Jews then they deserved everything they were going to get, but if they weren’t Jews, then brilliant, they were back on the team, best mates again.
Even Otto was taken aback, although he tried not to show it. He’d learnt to trust his brother where planning and scheming was concerned, but this was a bold lie. Everyone knew the Stengels were a Jewish family, secular certainly, no worship, no special holidays, no funny hats or diet, Otto would have happily lived off bacon sandwiches and fried pork rinds for the rest of his life, but they were Jews nonetheless, everybody knew it, why try to deny it?
But Paulus had an ace up his sleeve.
Or, as he was later to tell his horrified mum, in his pants.
