Max

He’s staring at Ute. She’s wearing her man’s suit pants and shirt but not the jacket. As the shirt isn’t buttoned to the top, you can see a bit of her cleavage. She hasn’t wedged her hat on over her forehead; she’s bare-headed. Instead of flattening her hair with water, she’s let it go curly. And with an old tube of lipstick that she found on the ground one day, she’s highlighted her lips.

  She is going to get it in the neck. She’ll cop it—rape.

  To tell you the truth, I don’t really care. But Lukas is horrified. He stands up. At least he tries to, but the Ruski aims his machine gun at him.

  ‘SS?’ he yells.

  It’s a legitimate question, I realise, as a wave of panic hits me. Lukas is blond. His eyes are the colour of steel. He’s tall. He spent his adolescence in a Napola and he’s got the bearing of a Jungmann. Since he’s been sleeping with Ute, he looks like a man. So, yes, he could easily pass for an SS, a young one, one of those recruited late, at the last minute, or for a member of the Volkssturm. Those guys are always being killed by the Russians when they’re found at the back of a cellar.

  The Ruski has no interest in the ham, or in Ute. It’s Lukas he’s after.

  ‘You SS?’ he repeats, yelling even louder.

  Terrified, Lukas only manages to shake his head in response. That’s all he does, like an idiot, without saying a word. Why doesn’t he reply? In his mother tongue, Polish? He’s told me why he hasn’t used it before, but he has to now. He absolutely has to.

  ‘Niet! Niet! Ne SS! Polski! Yevreïskie! Yevreïskie!’ I jabber a few words of Russian, screaming that no, he’s not SS, but Polish, and Jewish, Jewish! Manfred and Ute, in a moment of panic, join in too, screaming, ‘Jude! Jude!’

  ‘Nix Juden! Juden kaputt!’ the Ruski retorts. No more Jews! Death to all Jews!

  My mind is racing. I’d heard of a few incidents in cellars when, in order to save their lives, Nazis tried to pass as Jews. They were uncovered when they couldn’t speak either Yiddish or Hebrew.

  ‘Lukas, recite a prayer in Hebrew! You have to prove that you’re Jewish!’

  Lukas looks at me, aghast. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. I understand why he’s gone blank, right now. No doubt because of the shock. I don’t know what else to do, so I charge, head down, straight at the Ruski, in the mad hope of grabbing his gun from him. Perhaps that will give Lukas time to react, to gather his wits. But the Ruski is faster than I am and, with one shove, knocks me to the ground, as easily as if he had cleared the ham off the table. Without taking his eyes off Lukas, he hurtles towards him, grabs him by the collar, yanks him to his feet, slams him against the wall and rummages in his pockets.

  ‘You SS!’ he pronounces, holding something up in the air.

  I stand up shakily. There’s blood running down my forehead, trickling into my eyes so I can’t see what’s in the Ruski’s hand, the one that’s not holding the gun.

  But I could definitely tell that the ‘You SS’ was no longer a question. It was a statement.

  It was the 2nd of May, 1945. Berlin had surrendered, at 4 a.m. There was still fighting in the north and south of Germany, but there were no more shots in Berlin.

  Except for one, a last shot that echoed in our apartment.

  Even if Manfred, Ute and I had spoken fluent Russian, the Ruski would have pulled the trigger.

  Even if Lukas had decided to reply in Polish, even if he’d remembered a Hebrew prayer, the Ruski would have pulled the trigger.

  Because he was drunk.

  Because that’s war.

  Because, in any case, no one ever wanted to believe that Lukas was Jewish.

  And because, instead of burning it, he had kept in his pocket the photo of the blonde woman and her baby (me) posing with the Führer.

  Why? Why did Lukas keep that damn photo? What was he planning to do with it?

  I wasn’t sad when the blonde woman died. I wasn’t sad when the Führer died.

  But when Lukas died, yes, I was.

  Now, only now, do I feel like an orphan. Damn it, dreadfully like an orphan.

  The hearse: a wooden cart. The shroud: an old raincoat Frau Oberham found in her suitcase. The cemetery: a patch of ground in the garden of an abandoned house.

  That’s how we’re burying Lukas. Like the inhabitants of this house might have buried their dog, if their children had insisted.

  We’re allowed to do it. Everyone does it. In the ruined city, if the living desert their homes, the dead do the same thing: they don’t head for the cemetery, but for the public parks or private gardens. That’s when they’re not rotting under the rubble.

  Armed with spades we found in the street—sharp as knives, the Ruskis used them in man-to-man combat—we dig a hole. Not very deep. The black earth we excavate contrasts with the garden soil covered in white dust. You’d think it was snow, that we were in December, not May. The tree trunks, also white, are riddled with bullet holes, as if they had been badly wounded in the fighting. Wounded but standing. Whereas Lukas, with a single bullet, has fallen.

  Right now, I feel more anger than sadness. Why did Lukas have to die? Instantly? Why wasn’t he just wounded? Why didn’t he stay upright, like the trees, instead of being laid out, inert, on the bare ground?

  He didn’t keep his promise. At the end of the war, we were both supposed to leave for Canada or Australia. He swore to me that day we smoked a cigarette in the courtyard. But now he’s left by himself.

  He abandoned me.

  Our little group makes a circle around the gaping hole. Herr Hauptman, the Betstein women, Diesdorf and Evingen, Manfred, Ute and me. Now we have to put Lukas in the hole. Herr Hauptman takes the lead, grabs the body by the shoulders, while Frau Oberham grabs the feet.

  I don’t move. Unlike Ute and Manfred, who rush forward to give them a hand, I don’t help. I’ve already done the digging. I dug hard, imagining that, each time I thrust the sharp spade into the earth, I was stabbing Lukas’s murderer with a dagger. I dug hard because the physical exercise made me feel better, like at the Napola. Exercise banished my sadness for a moment.

  I don’t want to touch Lukas’s corpse. This body, wrapped in a hurry, tied up with the belt of the raincoat, like a mummy; this body, already starting to go stiff, is no longer Lukas. There’s a stain on the raincoat: the blood that ran out of his wound. The dark-brown halo makes it seem like there’s a hole in his chest. It reminds me of the Napola, of the special target we threw our knives at—the cardboard Jew made for us by our teacher, which always ended up with a huge hole around the area of the heart.

  I can’t look at this body lying there. I want to keep the memory of Lukas: tall, proud, beautiful. Even if that’s what killed him.

  Frau Oberham gives a short eulogy. The deceased showed enormous courage. He sacrificed himself to save Ute. Then Herr Hauptman recites a prayer, also short. A Catholic prayer. (Ute, Manfred and I decided not to reveal that Lukas was Jewish. It would have been too complicated to explain. What would our cellar neighbours have thought? Would they have agreed to give us a hand with the burial if they’d known that Lukas was a Jew? Who knows?)

  Lukas was killed as a German, and buried as one. Clearly destiny followed him right to the end. He probably would have preferred a Hebrew prayer, but what does it matter now? Nothing matters now. Will the worms feeding on his body notice the difference? Are they Nazi worms with orders to consume only Aryan carcasses, not Jewish ones? In any case, the Nazi worms have been defeated, they’re kaput, too.

  A series of shots disrupts the silence that follows the prayer. For a split second, we panic, confused. Has the ceasefire come to an end? So the war isn’t over? When we look up, we realise it’s fireworks the Russians have let off to celebrate the victory. Suddenly there’s a festive air about the burial. And a need for speed: we have to get going. We pick up our spades, cover Lukas’s body with dirt, and leave the garden.

  The festivities will continue elsewhere, with a meal, a proper one, as is customary at funerals in normal t
imes. Apparently—Frau Oberham heard it first—there’s a rumour that the Russians are doing the rounds of houses, delivering food, portions of meat they want to share with the locals. They might even propose a toast to peace.

  Like most of the Berliners, we can’t resist the demands of our empty stomachs. We head off on tiptoes, still frightened of Russians getting out of hand, celebrating victory with a bit too much schnapps. But we’re up for their invitation. Even me. I’m hungry. So I’m going to eat with Lukas’s assassins.

  That’s peace for you.

  Over the following days, news reaches us via Russian newspapers or from the Russians themselves: all the generals have been arrested en masse; Mussolini, also defeated, was killed by the Italians. There was fraternisation between the Russians and the Americans when they ran into each other on the Elbe River.

  Motorised vehicles are constantly coming and going; there are no more carts, no more horses, no more turds on the ground. The Ruskis are leaving. They’ve filled their trucks with pillows and eiderdowns to make the trip more comfortable. Russian military administrators will take their place.

  Roneoed sheets are stuck up everywhere on the doors and walls of buildings, ‘Public Notice to all Germans’, followed by the text of our capitulation.

  The streets are teeming with never-ending banks of soldiers, sitting or lying on the edges of footpaths, exhausted after walking for days. There are plenty of others too, who were being hidden or cared for by women in shelters. They’re all resurfacing now, at least the ones the Ruskis haven’t already found. They’re like rats sniffing out food. It’s strange seeing Berlin populated by men again. Some of them are very active, running around, trying to appear energetic, searching apartments for weapons. What do they want with weapons now? To defend their women? Too late for that. Anyway, they won’t find anything, apart from old, broken-down shotguns.

  Little by little, the Berliners are returning to their homes. The women are cleaning and cooking. Not very much of the latter: the Russians are going to distribute more food rations to the general population, but it hasn’t happened yet. In the meantime, the women are sewing. They’re making flags out of scraps of material they scavenge here and there. With the black and white design of the swastika removed, the Nazi flags become Russian flags; they’re the easiest to fashion, at least when it comes to colours. But they’ve also got to get going on the American, British and French flags. In courtyards everywhere, the sound of sewing machines has replaced that of gunfire.

  It’s still confusing, but the news on the radio seems to be saying that from now on the Russian border will extend to Holstein, that the English will get the Rhine and the Rhineland and America will have Bavaria. The French will get their slice of the pie, but we don’t know which bit yet. Apparently the Allies have already landed at the airport in their thousands. All the little flags the women are turning out—soon to flutter at the windows—are for them.

  Just like Germany, Berlin will soon be sliced up in four. Rumour has it that the southern neighbourhood will be for the Americans, the western for the British.

  I have no idea what this division means. How will it work? What will happen to the people who live on the border zones? Will they have their heads in the north and their feet in the south?

  I don’t know where to go. I’m lost without Lukas. He was the one who made all the decisions since we left the Napola. He gave the orders. I wasn’t happy about it, but now I really miss it. Since I was born, I’ve done nothing but obey orders, and now there’s no one to tell me what to do.

  North? South? East? West? How do I choose? Flip a coin? Lukas didn’t take any of those directions. He went down, under the ground.

  And now I remember, on that infamous morning when we were both smoking in the courtyard, he told me, ‘You have to seek out the Americans.’ Apparently the Americans are in the south.

  So, that’s my direction.

  I walk and walk.

  I left without saying goodbye to Manfred and Ute. While they waited for news of their parents, one went back to live with Frau Betstein, the other with Frau Oberham. No way I’m staying with them.

  Sleep is all I want to do when I stop walking.

  It’s because I’m sad. Sadness is tiring. Much more than the tight schedule I was on at the Kalish. Much more than the physical exercises or the paramilitary training I underwent at the Napola. Much more than the running around that Lukas and I did over the last few months to find food.

  I walk as far as I can. Sometimes I hitch a ride in a jeep or jump on a train—one of those crowded trains nicknamed the ‘Hamster Express’ because hundreds of people are hanging off it. Afterwards I sleep, any old place. Outside, in the burnt-out shell of a tram or a tank. Or in an abandoned house I happen to come across.

  I don’t know how long I walk for. Days, weeks, months. Time has been abolished.

  One evening, when I get inside an apartment, I realise it’s not empty. The family it belongs to is still here. Except they’re dead. Suicide by poison. (There’s a lot of them in Berlin and the surrounding area. Group suicides by poison or hanging.)

  The parents are in their best clothes. The father is wearing his Oberführer uniform, belted and buttoned all the way up. The mother has on a pretty silk dress and elegant black patent leather shoes. They’re lying on their bed, in their bedroom, holding hands. In the children’s bedroom, a boy about my age is lying in one bed. He’s well dressed too: navy-blue Bermuda shorts, an olive-green shirt and tie. In the second bed, there’s a little girl, younger than the boy. In her arms is a teddy bear. I continue my tour and discover a third bedroom, with an empty bed. Perhaps it belongs to an older brother who died at the front? My older brother died too. I’ve got something in common with the little girl and the little boy.

  I’m an orphan now. I need a family to adopt me. This one will do fine. Not because it’s a Nazi family, but because it’s incapable of imposing any rules on me. And that’s exactly what I need.

  In the empty bed, there are real sheets, a clean, warm bedspread. I slip inside, shivering with pleasure, and fall into a deep sleep.

  Without a single nightmare.

  I don’t even dream about Lukas. Nothing. An abyss, as if I was underground like him. With him.

  When I wake up—I don’t know if it’s the next day or two days later—I tell myself to get moving. ‘Come on, get up! Keep walking! Find the Americans!’ But the house is so peaceful. The children aren’t up yet, or the parents. We must be allowed to sleep in. Sleeping in is so nice. How long is it since I’ve slept in? I go back to sleep, and I don’t open my eyes again.

  There’s a face leaning over me. A woman’s face. Short brown hair, blue-grey eyes. Not young, but not old. She’s wearing a white uniform: a skirt and shirt, with a sort of brown, quilted, sleeveless vest over the top. Some sort of bonnet, also white, is stuck on her head. She reminds me of a Brown Sister. Probably because of the brown and white of the uniform. With the slight difference that their horrible brown potato-sack dresses only had a ruff and short sleeves. On the contrary, this woman’s uniform is more white than brown. And she’s much less ugly than a Brown Sister. She’s not grimacing and her smile isn’t forced.

  ‘Hey, hello! Welcome aboard!’

  She’s speaking English. I understood what she said. We had English classes at the Napola. In the beginning, only a few hours, and then none at all. But then she keeps going and I lose the thread. So she starts up in German, without batting an eyelid, as if she just had to press a button to switch languages. She’s got a heavy accent, but her German is fluent.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  Am I hungry? I can understand that question in any language. Of course I’m hungry! Just listen to the universal language of my growling stomach. I sit up and the woman feeds me soup. Slowly, spoonful by spoonful. She tells me that I can’t have any solid food for the moment, that I couldn’t digest it, because I’ve been undernourished for too long. The soup is good, hot, but not scalding.
It’s made from real vegetables. I can list them precisely: carrots, turnips, leeks, zucchinis, green beans. American vegetables, I bet. Vegetables this tasty couldn’t grow in soil that is so full of ash, like ours after the bombings. Does that mean I’m in America? Did I manage to travel that far?

  Eating has got me thinking straight, and got my memory working again. I remember my long treks, the silent apartment, the dead family. The clean sheets I fell asleep in, for a long, long time…until I heard noises in the silent house. Footsteps, voices. I’m pulled out of bed and laid on a stretcher. Swaying above me are shadows, people in uniform, soldiers. Not Ruskis, not Germans. I don’t recognise the embroidered insignias on their sleeves and neckbands. Then there’s a train trip, with other children. Lots of others.

  The kidnapping from the house. The soldiers. A train jam-packed with children. And now this woman in a brown-and-white uniform…I’ve been captured by the American version of the Brown Sisters. The Brown Sisters? Is that their code name? There are a few of them in the room now, all wearing the same outfit, all busy with children lying in bed like me. Some of the kids look like they’re in a bad way. Worse than me.

  ‘Poor little thing! When we found you, you were almost dead. It was a close call.’ The American Sister stops to wipe my mouth—I’ve been gulping the soup and it’s trickling down my chin. ‘Your last name is Glaser, is that correct? What is your first name?’

  Glaser? Where did she get that name?…Oh, I get it! That was the name of the family in the apartment. The American Sister thinks the dead people were my parents and siblings. I shake my head vigorously to show her she’s wrong. I feel okay—a bit limp and lifeless, but I’m not in pain; the only thing I don’t understand is that I can’t talk, it’s as if my voice had been damaged. As if the pieces were at the bottom of my throat but I can’t put them together right now.

  The American Sister doesn’t take offence at my silence. On the contrary, her smile broadens. She really doesn’t look mean like the Brown Sisters were. A Brown Sister would have already slapped me for not replying to her questions. She gives me a few more spoonfuls of soup before trying again.