My Brother's Secret (23 page)

‘I reported him once,’ I confessed in a whisper, staring at the grey dirt on my pale skin.

‘What? What did you just say?’

‘Stefan. I reported him once and—’

‘Your brother?’ There was shock in her voice. ‘Why?’

I twisted the grass in my fist and remembered what had happened, telling it to Lisa with a mixture of shame and relief.

We had been coming back from an exercise with the
Deutsches Jungvolk
, all of us crammed into open-backed trucks. We hadn’t won that day, so we were nursing our bruises and complaining that we’d been cheated out of a victory.

Coming into the city, we had stopped at a crossing, the
winners’ truck pulling up behind us. Axel Jung, our Hitler Youth group leader, was riding in the cab of our truck, and he started shouting from the open window. A ripple of interest passed through those of us sitting in the back, so one or two stood up for a better look, and it wasn’t long before the boys around me were jeering and shouting insults.

When I eased to my feet, legs aching, I saw three long-haired boys standing outside a café, and felt a sudden rush of embarrassment. One of them was my brother Stefan.

He was standing quietly, watching the truck, with a half-smile on his face, maybe thinking that we would move on soon enough. But one of his friends wasn’t as patient, and he stepped forward, shouting, ‘Stupid Nazis.’

The boys around me in the back jeered louder, telling them to get their hair cut, calling them Jew lovers, but somewhere in all that shouting, I heard the cab door pop open. Axel Jung stepped down from the truck and crossed to the café in a flash. He raised a fist to hit Stefan’s friend, but was met with a solid punch that knocked him to the ground.

In the back of the truck, everyone fell silent. We would never have expected to see Axel Jung knocked down by
anyone
, let alone a longhaired coward like that. But as we stood there and watched, the other Hitler Youth boys jumped down from the cab and went to his side, as did the boys from the truck behind us, so there were six brown shirted boys circling Stefan and his friends.

At first they started shoving each other about, trading insults, then one of them stepped in and grabbed my
brother, twisting the front of his shirt in his fist. With his other hand he tried to hit Stefan, but he missed and Stefan hit him back. Right on the nose.

The Hitler Youth boy staggered backwards, blood pouring down his shirt and then the street erupted into a great scuffle of kicking and punching. Some of the
Deutsches Jungvolk
boys started jumping down from the trucks, eager to join in. Stefan and his friends must have known they couldn’t win, so they broke away, sprinting off and disappearing from view. Axel Jung and one or two others gave chase, but it wasn’t long before they returned.

When everyone was settled back in the truck, Axel climbed up on the rear bumper and looked about at us, asking if anyone had seen the boys before. I could feel Ralf and Martin looking at me, urging me to tell him, but I couldn’t do it. Not because I wanted to protect Stefan but because I was ashamed of him; I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. I wanted to be like Axel Jung, not like Stefan Friedmann.

All the way back, though, my friends badgered me, telling me it was the right thing to do. I had to tell Axel. I
had
to.

So I did.

When we arrived back at Hitler Youth headquarters, Ralf and Martin came with me to Axel Jung, and stood beside me as I told the group leader that he had been fighting with my brother Stefan.

Lisa sat in silence while I told her, and when I had finished, she looked at me as if she felt sorry for me.

‘I hate myself for doing it,’ I said. ‘As soon as he was sent away, I was ashamed of myself. I never told my family it was me. I didn’t realise what they’d do to him. I tried to keep it a secret but everyone knows and—’

‘It’s not your fault. You had all that silly
Deutsches Jungvolk
stuff in your head, confusing you. My papa said it’s like poison.’

‘I thought it was the right thing to do … but then I knew it was bad, too. I didn’t really know what to think.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t do it now,’ Lisa said. ‘That’s what matters. You’re different now.’

‘I can’t believe I ever thought Stefan was a bad German. He’s the bravest person I know. It’s no wonder no one trusts me.’

‘I
trust you.’

I looked at her. ‘Really?’

Lisa smiled and shrugged. ‘Of course I do, Karl Friedmann. We’re friends aren’t we?’

‘Yes. We are.’

Knowing that Lisa trusted me gave me a good feeling, which settled among all the awful ones swirling inside. There was something else, as well: relief. Just like last night when Oma told me they all knew what I had done, there was a sense of being able to get rid of the awful, black secret that I had been carrying. It had been hard to find the courage to tell Lisa what I had done, and I had been scared that she would hate me for it, but she didn’t hate me, she
trusted
me. And I knew she was right when she said I was different now. I had changed.

I watched her lie back in the grass, then I did the same
and we stayed like that for a long time, with the sun on our faces, and our eyes closed. The shadows from the leaves above us danced on my eyelids. The breeze shifted in the treetops, the birds sang and the whole world felt peaceful. For a moment, I let myself enjoy the light feeling of relief and the thought that I had a good friend beside me. Not a soldier or a comrade, but a friend.

‘We should call ourselves Comanches,’ Lisa said after a while. ‘If we’re going to be Edelweiss Pirates, we should have a name. There’s Navajos in Cologne and Apaches here, so we can be Comanches. They’re an Indian tribe too.’

She sat up and plucked a daisy from the grass at her feet. She shortened the stalk by pinching it with her fingernail, and leaned over to tuck it into one of my buttonholes. Then she plucked another and did the same to one of her own buttonholes.

‘It’s not an edelweiss,’ she said, ‘but it’ll do. And I’ve been thinking; maybe we’re not so helpless.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, maybe there
are
some ways of getting back at Wolff. Especially now that we’re Edelweiss Pirates.’

‘Like what?’ I asked.

‘Oh,’ she shrugged. ‘I have a few ideas.’

TRAITOR

L
isa suggested we should visit Frau Schmidt on the way home.

‘She might be able to help us find out what’s happened to your brother,’ she said.

‘Why would Frau Schmidt know anything?’ My voice echoed in the half-darkness as we made our way back through the railway tunnel.

‘She
almost
told us about Edelweiss Pirates didn’t she? She knows about them so maybe—’ Lisa came to a sudden stop beside me, her tyres crunching on the gravel beside the railway track.

‘Look.’ She pointed to the wall of the tunnel. It was black with soot, and moss grew from the cracks between
the bricks. ‘See?’

There, beneath the grime, the white letters were faded, but still visible.

HITLER IS KILLING

OUR FATHERS

There was something about the flower that made me feel proud now. It was my brother’s symbol, and I didn’t know anyone braver than him. He had protected me and been my friend, however hateful I had been. He had forgiven me for betraying him and hadn’t said a word about it.

We stared at the flower for a long time before Lisa said, ‘You saw the badge her son was wearing in that photo. Frau Schmidt knows about Edelweiss Pirates. Maybe she even
is
one. Maybe she knows something, or someone who knows where Stefan is.’

Once we were in town, we went straight to Frau Schmidt’s house. It wasn’t Frau Schmidt who opened the door, though; it was Jana.

She held the door with one hand and looked down at us in confusion. ‘Karl? What … what are you doing here?’

I was too shocked to speak.

Jana’s expression changed from one of confusion to
one of worry as she watched me fumble for words. ‘Is it Stefan?’ she asked. ‘Is he all right? He wasn’t at work today and—’

‘What are
you
doing here?’ I managed to blurt out.

‘What do you mean?’ she replied. ‘I live here. Isn’t that why you came?’

‘You live here? I …’ I shook my head and stared at her.

‘Yes, of course. Now tell me what’s happened.’

‘They took Stefan.’ It was all I could think of to say. My mind was still racing from the unexpected discovery that Jana lived here with Frau Schmidt. It didn’t make sense.

‘Who took him?’ Jana asked.

‘Wolff,’ I said. ‘Wolff took him, but …’

Jana scanned the street, looking this way and that. ‘You’d better come in.’ She ushered us inside and into the kitchen where Lisa and I had eaten Frau Schmidt’s biscuits. I still didn’t quite understand what was going on.

‘When did it happen?’ Jana said as she followed us. ‘I haven’t heard anything.’

‘Last night.’ I spoke slowly, still trying to work out why Jana was here. ‘I got back and Stefan wasn’t there, and Wolff came and …’ My words trailed away as I caught sight of the photos on the sideboard. The first one I noticed was the one I had seen last time, of Frau Schmidt’s son Max wearing the edelweiss badge. The last time I saw it, though, I hadn’t looked at the other people in the picture. I hadn’t seen the face of the girl standing on the end.

Jana’s face.

‘That’s you.’ I stared at the photograph of Frau
Schmidt’s children, and everything seemed to fall into place. It was as if someone had shone a torch onto the jumbled knot of my thoughts and I had spotted the loose end that would help unravel the whole thing.

‘Frau Schmidt is your mama.’ Now it made sense. Hadn’t Jana already told me that her papa and brother had been killed – just like Frau Schmidt’s family? And something else started to make sense too. Wolff must have known Jana was an Edelweiss Pirate, just like he knew her brothers had been. Maybe he had come here last night and done something to make her tell him about Stefan. Maybe it wasn’t my fault, after all. I
hadn’t
let anything slip.

I turned to look at her. ‘Did you tell him? Was it y
ou
who told Wolff about Stefan?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Jana stepped towards me.

‘Did
you
tell him?’ was all I could say. ‘Did
you
?’

‘I don’t understand. What’s going on, Karl?’

‘What on earth is all that noise?’ Frau Schmidt was coming downstairs, having heard the commotion.

‘You told Wolff.’ I spat the words at Jana.

‘I didn’t tell Wolff anything!’

Frau Schmidt’s footsteps came to a stop as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

‘So how did he know then?’ I demanded. ‘How else could he have known?’ It was the only thing that made sense, but as I shouted at Jana, she turned to look at Frau Schmidt who was standing in the hallway, with one hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wide and she was shaking her head from side to side.

For a moment, no one spoke.

‘Mama?’ Jana whispered in disbelief.

‘I had to,’ Frau Schmidt spoke from behind her hand. Her voice was barely audible. ‘He was going to take
you
.’

‘What have you done?’ Jana’s whole body sagged and she put a hand on the table to steady herself.

‘He came last night but you weren’t here.’ Frau Schmidt took a step towards her daughter but stopped when Jana flinched away. ‘He was going to arrest you for delivering leaflets. He knows your friends, the way you avoid the
Bund Deutscher Mädel
meetings … about your brothers and this Edelweiss Pirates business … how many times have I warned you? How many times have I told you? That’s why he sent them away and made them join the army. He knows you’re an Edelweiss Pirate and that’s why he came here. He said he knew a girl was involved so he came
here
.’

Jana shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what was happening. ‘There are other girls—’

‘But you weren’t here
.’ Frau Schmidt’s voice was filled with anger and desperation and regret. Tears began to well in her eyes. ‘So he knew it was you. He was going to wait for you and arrest you and make you give him everyone’s names but I … I begged him to leave you alone. To take someone else—’