Two Brothers

by Jews, they’ll be watching you. You have to toe the line. For my sake! Do you hear? Join the HJ, sing their songs, give their salutes. Swear death to the Jews, Ottsy! It’s the only way I’ll know you’re safe.’

Otto stared at his mother, his expression a terrible cross between fierce determination and abject despair.

‘All right, Mum,’ he said quietly, ‘I’ll be good.’

‘Promise me, Otto.’

‘I promise,’ Otto said.

Frieda smiled and held him to her.

Behind Otto’s back his fingers were crossed.

Looking over his mother’s shoulder, Otto caught Paulus’s eye. He knew he could fool Frieda any time he wanted but he could never fool his brother.

‘Well then,’ Frieda whispered, ‘at least I’ll know you’ll be safe. Now let’s have no more quarrelling. Tomorrow you’ll leave and we won’t see you for a long time.’

‘When?’ Otto asked. ‘When do you think I’ll see you again?’

‘When this madness somehow subsides,’ Frieda replied. ‘That time will come.’

Sitting at his silent piano, staring blankly at the sheets of music propped up on the stand, Wolfgang sighed. He couldn’t help himself, perhaps he didn’t even know he’d done it. But that sigh spoke volumes. Wolfgang for one no longer believed that the madness would ever subside.

‘It will,’ Frieda said in answer to his unspoken thought, ‘and I’ll tell you why it will, Wolf. Because otherwise the only possible conclusion to all of this is complete destruction for Germany. They keep saying they’re rebuilding the nation but it’s so damned obvious they’re destroying it that even fools will soon see.’

Wolfgang shrugged.

‘No, don’t shrug at me like that, Wolf! I will not despair! We must not despair. This criminal state will end! You can’t survive for ever sustained only by violence. No society ever did or ever will. If these people continue to ignore every basic moral code, every fundamental prerequisite for civilization, they’ll murder themselves in the end and I think they’re far too cunning to allow that to happen. They like their fat life and their uniforms and their big black cars too much to risk losing them. So in the end they’ll compromise. Somehow they’ll compromise if only to avoid their own destruction.’

Wolfgang shrugged again. He simply couldn’t help himself, it seemed to be the only gesture he had left in him. ‘I hope you’re right, Freddy,’ was all he would say.

That night Paulus and Otto went to bed in the room they had shared since they were tiny babies and would now almost certainly never share again.

‘You had your fingers crossed, didn’t you,’ Paulus whispered, ‘when you promised Mum you’d keep out of trouble?’

‘Well, I didn’t want her to worry, did I?’ Otto hissed back defiantly. ‘And if you don’t want her to worry either you’ll keep your mouth shut about it, eh?’

‘So you’re not going to keep out of trouble, then? You’re going to fight the whole German state?’

‘What do you think, mate?’

‘I think you’re crazy.’

‘Hey, Pauly, you aren’t the one who tomorrow morning has to go and live with some Nazi fucking strangers! You’re still a Jew and even if you can’t go to the pictures at least you can live with your family. I’m going to a foster home and then what’s the betting some Nazi school, and you bloody well know they’re going to expect me to join the Hitler Youth. Well, I can’t face any of it, all right? None. I want to die, I want to bloody die right now. I’d be happy if they try to kill me because when they do I’m going to take one with me.’

‘Ottsy—’

‘I’m telling you, Paulus. The only way I can get through this is to hate them. Hate them and fight them and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’

‘And if you get killed? What about Mum?’

‘Well, maybe she’ll never even know, Pauly,’ Otto snarled. ‘You think about that. She’s wrong when she says the Nazis will be finished one day. She may be right about most things but she’s wrong about that. They’ll never be finished. They’re going to last a thousand years, just like the bastard says. And they won’t stop until they’ve killed us, Pauly.’

‘Killed who?’

‘The Jews.’

‘But you’re not—’

‘I’m still a fucking Jew, you bastard, and I’ll smash your face in if you say I’m not. They’re going to kill every Jew they can in the end. It says it on the wall at school, Death to Jews. But you won’t let that happen to our family. I know that, Pauly. You’re too bloody clever and so’s Mum. You’ll find a way to get out. And I probably won’t even know! I’ll be left here, on my own, living with the enemy. I’m being exiled, Pauly, and I’d rather die.’

Paul went and sat beside his brother on Otto’s bed.

‘Ottsy, mate. We’d never leave you behind, you know that.’

‘They won’t let me out, Pauly, don’t you see? They need me for their bloody army. That’s all the HJ is about, military training. Hitler wants me for a soldier. But let me tell you, mate. By the time I’ve finished, they’ll either have to let me go or kill me, and right now, I don’t care which.’

‘Ottsy, you’ve got to stop talking like that. We’ll find a way out. I promise.’

‘Maybe. But I doubt it,’ Otto said.

Then he went and brushed his teeth. As he passed through the living room he saw his father, still slumped at the piano in the dark. The bottle, empty now, lying on the floor beside his stool.

‘Dad,’ Otto whispered, ‘go to bed.’

‘Later, son,’ Wolfgang replied, without looking up.

‘Dad, you’ve got to pull yourself together a bit,’ Otto went on. ‘Mum’s going to need you now.’

‘Yeah. That’s right,’ Wolfgang said but without conviction. ‘I’m not being a lot of help, am I really?’

There was nothing more to say so Otto continued on to the bathroom. When he returned Wolfgang was still sitting, slumped in the darkness at his silent piano.

Later, after the lights in their room were out, Otto whispered once more to his brother.

‘Pauly.’

‘Yeah, mate?’

‘I want you to do something for me.’

‘Yeah. I know. You want me to tell Dagmar, don’t you?’

Otto smiled to himself in the darkness. ‘We might not be the same blood, bro, but you can still read my mind. The thing is, I don’t think I can go to her myself even if I get the chance.’

‘No, I don’t think so either,’ Paulus whispered. ‘After what the Gestapo have said I think we have to presume they’ll be watching you at least for a while and will go after any Jews you try to contact.’

‘Yeah. I think that’s true.’

‘I’m sorry, mate,’ Paulus said, trying to smile. ‘Just when she’d let you have a bit as well. You lucky bastard. I still can’t believe she let you feel her up! If I’d known she was going to go that far I’d have beaten up an SA man myself.’

‘Yeah. Well, you get her all to yourself now, don’t you? So who’s the lucky bastard then?’

‘You know I wouldn’t have wanted it that way, Otts.’

‘You sure?’

‘Well… almost sure.’

They both laughed.

‘Better go to sleep, I suppose,’ Paulus said. ‘If you’re going to fight every Nazi in Germany you’re going to need your strength.’

‘Yeah… So this is it, eh? My last night at home.’

‘Looks that way. Night, bro.’