Two Brothers

was only the awareness of grinning faces around them that made Otto let go of Silke at all.

‘Hey watch out, miss,’ one of Otto’s dorm mates called out. ‘He normally punches before he speaks.’

‘Looks like now we know what makes him smile,’ another laughed.

The faces and the voices were friendly. Everyone was pleased to see the wild boy of the school hugging someone. Especially a pretty girl in a BDM uniform. For once Otto did not resent their intrusion — he was too happy to be back in contact with at least one part of the life he loved and had lost.

Together Otto and Silke walked and talked in the school grounds for the whole allotted two-hour visit; they missed tea but didn’t care. Silke had made a point of going to the Stengel apartment the night before so she was able to give Otto recent news of his family.

‘They’re all well,’ she said. ‘Things are a bit easier at the moment for them. What with the Olympics coming up, some of the restrictions on Jews have been lifted. Even the signs on the park benches have gone, so your dad can go and sit in the Marchenbrunnen on nice afternoons.’

‘How is my dad?’ Otto asked.

‘Oh he’s fine, absolutely fine,’ Silke replied, but the slight catch in her voice gave away the lie.

‘Silks,’ Otto said, ‘you’re my only friend now, you have to tell me the truth.’

‘OK, Wolfgang’s not so fine,’ Silke admitted. ‘He just seems to have lost hope. I think the problem is that there’s simply nothing for him to do. He just sits around really, which is really hard for your mum. I think she finds his kind of emptiness pretty depressing to be around. I mean she hasn’t said anything to me, but it’s obvious really. He used to be such fun and now he just sits there. Drinking when he can get it and smoking too, which is so stupid because it makes him cough till it looks like his head’s coming off. And of course since your Mum’s at home most of the time now they’re kind of bumping into each other a bit.’

‘Mum’s at home?’ Otto asked in surprise.

‘Oh God, yes,’ Silke replied, her face falling. ‘I forgot, you didn’t know, did you? They finally got around to banning Jewish doctors from working in public health institutions. She can’t go to the clinic any more.’

Otto gripped his fists tight.

‘Jesus wept!’ he hissed. ‘Don’t they ever stop? Haven’t they got better things to do? She did nothing but good there, ever. They are fucking crazy!’

Otto and Silke both knew what a truly cruel and terrible blow losing the clinic would have been for Frieda. After her family it had been her life for sixteen years.

‘She practises from home now,’ Silke went on quickly. Otto’s face was reddening and his anger rising and she didn’t want the happy day ruined by him lashing out at a passing Nazi. ‘Just Jews of course but there’s certainly enough of them to keep her busy, let me tell you, and they pay her what they can, which means food’s not a problem. The main thing is that she misses you so terribly, Ottsy. It’s turned her grey and she’s only thirty-six. But now we’re back in contact again it’s going to be so much better. Now at least she’ll get news. That’s the important thing, it was not knowing anything that was killing her. I can’t tell you how thrilled she was when I told her I was going to see you. She grabbed hold of me and Pauly and we all did a little dance. Your dad even banged out a tune on the old piano. It’s a while since we’ve heard that. Dust flew! Of course I’m going to go straight round there after I leave you to tell them all about it, so you’d better make sure I can give them a good report!’

Otto smiled. ‘Good old Silke.’

Silke frowned slightly.

‘Don’t say that, Ottsy,’ she said, pretending to make a joke out of it. ‘You always do and it makes me sound like a dog.’

Otto just laughed. ‘Tell me about Pauly. I miss him ever so much.’

‘Do you now?’ Silke teased. ‘You actually miss the Paul Monster! Can I quote you on that?’

‘No, you bloody well can’t!’ Otto said, grabbing hold of her. ‘If you dare tell him you’ll be sorry!’

He began tickling her as he’d done so often when they were kids, growling comically like a bear while Silke screamed with laughter.

But they weren’t kids any more, of course, and as Silke struggled in his arms Otto was conscious of how close her face was to his. How white were her teeth. How red her lips.

‘So tell me about that bastard Pauly,’ he said, disengaging from her. ‘Not that I care of course.’

‘You boys are so stupid,’ Silke said. ‘Of course you care, and you won’t be surprised to hear he’s as strong and steady as ever. He handles the budgeting and shopping for your mum these days and manages to get good stuff too, even though there’s less cash around and fewer and fewer places where Jews are allowed to spend it. It’s kind of like Pauly’s taken over from your dad as man of the house. But he still studies, goes to school every single day. All the other Jews in his class dropped out in the end but Paulus has stayed on. Sitting on his own in the corner working away for his exams. I don’t think they really notice him any more. He says he gets in hardly any fights now you’ve gone.’

‘Ha!’ Otto laughed. ‘Bloody wimp.’

‘Bloody clever, more like. He wants to go to graduate school.’

‘Of course he does, the silly twat,’ Otto snarled. ‘What is the point of being a qualified Jew in Germany? For a clever bloke he can be pretty damned stupid.’

‘He wants to get out, Otts,’ Silke said, glancing around to be sure that the nearest other boys were out of earshot. ‘You know that. He thinks he’ll be a lawyer in England or America one day. He says he wants to defend the oppressed.’

‘He is the bloody oppressed.’

‘I think that’s the point,’ Silke replied gently. ‘He wants to make something out of what’s happening to him. It’s the same as you in a way. Neither of you could ever give in. You just have different ways of dealing with it, that’s all.’

‘I fight, Pauly studies, eh?’

‘No,’ Silke scolded, ‘not completely, Otts. You don’t just fight. You need to remember there’s more to you than that. You always loved your woodwork and your music.’

‘Silks. These days I just fight.’

Otto was silent for a moment. Contemplating the possibility of his brother’s departure. His mother and father too.

‘Well,’ he said finally. ‘It’s lucky it’s me that got sent to this place and not him. He’d hate it and you can tell him that from me. They’re all so bloody thick. And I’m talking about the teachers! Honest, I’m not joking, they call it an elite academy but the place even makes me feel sophisticated. The so-called lessons are just a joke. We do German folklore and pagan legends instead of proper history. And they keep going on and on about blood and soil and soil and blood. What’s blood and soil got to do with the price of eggs, I’d like to know? They’re bloody obsessed with it. And of course there’s endless stuff about the Jews. They manage to get us into everything, with Negroes, Slavs, Chinks and gypsies thrown in behind us as fellow Untermensch. That’s how Germany’s going to conquer the world by the way, because Germans are best and everyone else is varying degrees of shit. It’s that simple. It’s actually what they teach. Science class is basically how to assemble a machine gun and the rest of the time we do sport and sadism. We’re always doubling over some hill with a backpack full of rocks. Or running barefoot over broken stones or refolding all our kit in under a minute. Pauly would go mad.’

Silke laughed. ‘Tell me everything. I want to know all the details of your day.’

‘Do you want to know how to strip down, clean and reassemble a sub-machine gun?’

‘Yes.’

The precious afternoon passed all too quickly and when they heard the ‘five minute’ bell ringing neither of them could believe the time had flown already. Otto was particularly devastated. Being with Silke had returned him so completely to his old life, his actual life, that the prospect of returning to the false one he now lived was a desperate and cruel one.