Wilhelm knows he should be grateful he has such a good hiding place. The two girls are pleasant company. They are bright, intelligent girls who are eager to learn and spend most of the day reading. Hans allows them all to come upstairs in the evening. He feels it is safe enough to do that, and they sit round the fire and discuss philosophy and politics. Hans is a good teacher. He lets them have their say, but he doesn’t let them get away with anything. Always there are questions: why do you think that, what evidence do you have for believing this? And yet, Wilhelm is not comfortable. In the girls’ brown eyes he sees the reflections of other young women; women who pleaded for their lives as he and other soldiers shoved at them with their rifles, pushing them towards the edge of the pits that were to be their graves. He can’t bear it.
It’s worse when they discuss the war. For some reason they think he’s a hero because he deserted. In vain he protests, I am no hero, I have done terrible things. The girls smile at him disbelievingly. They think he is a good German, like Hans. And Hans encourages this, says to the girls, you see, not all Germans are bad. Remember, not everyone believes in Hitler. Wilhelm can’t stand it. He’s made up his mind; he’ll confess to his crimes and then go. And he knows exactly where he’s going.
Hans has made them a simple supper of bread and cheese. The bread has come from his mother. Wilhelm can’t bear to look at her when she visits. Her eyes are so concerned for him, and he doesn’t deserve it. He is not worthy of her love. He can’t eat the bread. It congeals into doughy lumps in his mouth, which he is unable to swallow. His stomach has cramped into a tight knot, which rejects all food. Sometimes he can take a little soup, if it’s not too thick, but everything else is impossible to eat. He knows that Hans worries about him, but he can’t help himself; he won’t eat.
As he does every evening, he takes a small piece of bread to appease Hans, but leaves the rest for the girls. They need it more than he does. Hans tries to get him to take more, but he pushes it back towards him. Wilhelm sees Hans struggle to take it. He wants it so badly for he is hungry. Until Wilhelm joined them he had to share his rations with the two girls, but now Gisela brings food twice a week, as much as she can, and they are less hungry than before.
“You need to eat, Wilhelm,” says Hans. “Your mother thinks I am stealing your food.”
“I have told her I give it to you,” says Wilhelm.
“But she wants you to eat it.”
“I can’t.”
Hans takes one of Wilhelm’s hands. “Why can’t you?”
Wilhelm stares back at him. The old man’s eyes are cloudy with age. He must be over seventy now. He was an old man when Wilhelm was at school, and he taught his father too. “Hans,” he says, “why do you think I deserted?”
“Because you are a good man,” the words come easily to him.
Wilhelm shakes his head. “It’s not true.”
“You refused to carry out the evil tasks that they asked of you.”
“But don’t you understand? I didn’t immediately refuse. I was in the army for months before I got the chance to escape. I did terrible things. Terrible things.”
Hans sighs. “I know. But who am I to judge you? What might I have done, if I had been in your place?”
“I killed children, in a village in Poland; Jewish children, in their mothers’ arms. I may have killed their mother for all you know,” he nods over at the two girls.
Over in the corner the two girls are listening, their faces pale and pinched. They’ve never considered this possibility, never for all their philosophical reasoning given any thought to the possibility that Wilhelm might be a murderer. They know he was a soldier, but have believed all that Hans said about him being a good German. Hannah, the younger one, begins to cry. It almost kills Wilhelm to hear her sobs. She’s so young, and he knows she looked up to him as a hero. He can’t stand having to disillusion her, but neither can he continue to live this lie.
“Tell me about it,” says Hans.
“I can’t tell you everything. You’d hate me.”
“Wilhelm, that’s not true.”
“I had been in the army for six months when it started. We were sent from village to village. In the first village we killed only men, but in others…”
Hans is kneading his forehead with his knuckles as if he’s trying to get rid of images of death. “What happened?”
“The east of Poland was the worst. In every village we were told to look for Jews. When we found them, we killed them, and then buried them in mass graves.” He stops speaking; tears are running down his face. “I can’t bear to think about it.”
The room is silent. Wilhelm senses the revulsion of the others. He cannot look at them. Slowly he rises to his feet. “You see now why I won’t eat. How can I, when so many deaths lie on my conscience?” He walks out to the hallway and goes into the cupboard under the stairs. “I’m going to bed,” he says to Hans, who has followed him.
“Will you be all right?”
Wilhelm doesn’t answer him. He lifts the trapdoor and disappears down into the cellar.
“What do you mean, he’s gone?” Gisela shouts at Hans.
“Ssh, someone might hear you.”
She sits down at the kitchen table. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t stop him.”
It is what Gisela has dreaded. She knew something was wrong, felt it in her bones. Friedrich was scornful of her feelings, but she knew that morning, when Helga was knocked down, that all was not well, and she has the same feeling now. “When did he leave?”
“This morning, I think. I’m not sure. Or it could have been last night,” admits Hans.
“Last night!”
“Well I don’t know for sure when it was. He told us about the terrible things he did, and then went to bed. He was sleeping when the others went down to the cellar. Gone when they awoke. So it could have been any time between midnight and seven this morning.” His voice quavers. “I’m so sorry, Gisela. If I thought he was going to disappear…”
She can’t stay angry with him; it’s not fair. Gisela lets her hand rest on her arm. She’s wretched with worry, but it’s not his fault. She has to get back to the farm to tell Friedrich, though what he can do is beyond her.
The bus has never seemed so slow. It stops several times to let passengers on and off. Gisela sits near the back, praying that no one she knows will come on for she doesn’t want to speak to anyone. The lump in her throat is too huge to let her speak.
“Gisela.” Her heart sinks at the sound of her name. She looks up. It is the parish priest. She nods, not trusting herself to speak. He sits down beside her.
“Have you heard the news?”
“No” – a whisper.
“I’m afraid it’s not good. Herman, you know, Marguerite Durr’s son, he died at the Eastern Front last week.”
Gisela turns her face away so he can’t see the tears fall down her face. Poor Marguerite, all her efforts to protect her son were in vain. She can’t feel angry with her any longer in spite of all the pain she caused her. Beside her the priest prattles on, but his words wash over her, until, at last, it is her stop. She gets up and squeezes past him.
“I’ll give her your condolences,” says the priest.
It would be better to say nothing, but of course she can’t admit that, so she nods instead and hurries off the bus.
She’s glad to see the house. The rain that started five minutes ago is getting heavier, and she’s soaked through in seconds. She puts the post she picked up from the postbox at the bottom of the track into her bag and starts to run. When she reaches the house, she pushes open the door and shouts out for Friedrich, then Helena. But there is no one there. Friedrich must have gone to mend the fence and taken the boy and Helena with him. She’ll have to find him and tell him what has happened. He’ll know what to do. First though she must eat, for she’s weak with hunger. She puts down her bag on the table, remembering the post as she does so. She takes it out and examines it: three letters for Friedrich, two bills and something official looking. This catches her eye. He won’t mind if she opens it. She shouldn’t, but she’s so anxious, and it could be about the other boy from the Hitler Youth, there’s been no word about him. She rips open the envelope and starts to read. It’s impossible, they must have got it wrong or she hasn’t understood properly. She reads it again, but it’s clear – thank you for your cooperation… have to inform you… boys’ parents have decided to keep them in Berlin.
Gisela can’t breathe. She drops the letter, tugs open the top button of her blouse. It can’t be true, it can’t. All that effort to try to keep Wilhelm safe: entrusting him to someone who only a few weeks ago was almost a stranger; the risky journey that he and Friedrich had to make; the pretence that she was Hans’s housekeeper; having to go hungry so that she could give extra rations to Hans’s household. All that damned effort, and for what? She’d wanted Wilhelm near her so she could look after him and now he’s disappeared to God knows where. Dear God, he could have been safe with her all along. They needn’t have gone through any of this. If only the letter had come sooner. But now… now there’s a stranger in their midst, calling himself Johann. Who is he, and where is he now? And Helena, where is she? Could he have stolen her away? No, it’s not possible; what would a boy like him want with a child so young. Gisela’s breath is coming in gasps, her chest is taut. She sits down and tries to calm herself. She’ll be no good to anyone in this state, and she has to be strong. Her two children are out there somewhere, and she has to find them. Once she’s found them, then she can worry about what to do about the boy.