BAD NEWS

The next day was my twelfth birthday. The day Papa died.

When I came downstairs, there was a small present in the middle of the kitchen table, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a piece of twine. Mama and Stefan were smiling, but then there was a knock at the door, and when Mama answered it and returned to the kitchen holding a letter, my birthday was over and my present was forgotten.

Instead, Mama sat and stared at the piece of paper as if she would never blink, then went to her bedroom where she was quiet for a while before she started screaming.

After that, she screamed and screamed and screamed.

It was the most horrible sound, as if someone was murdering Mama in her room. I froze.

Stefan was quick, though. He was at the top of the stairs in just a few seconds, hammering at the locked door and calling, ‘Mama! Mama!’

Then other noises came from inside the room. Smashing and banging and crashing. It was the sound of the world falling apart. My whole body was shaking with fear and I had no idea what to do.

Stefan stepped away from the door when the commotion started. His eyes were wide and he was just as afraid as I was. I crept upstairs and we looked at one another, but before we could do anything, the sounds died down and it grew quiet in the room once more.

‘Mama?’ Stefan asked.

When she didn’t reply, he braced himself and took another step back.

He barged his right shoulder into the door with a solid thump that rattled the whole frame and shook the wall. There was a sharp crack, then he stepped back and did it again, splintering the wooden frame and smashing the door open.

It flew back into the room, slamming against the wall with a bang.

Everything was a mess. Mama had overturned the bedside table and shattered the mirror that had been on the chest of drawers. The wardrobe door was hanging from one hinge and the chair was on its back, one leg smashed.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, with her head in her hands, Mama looked wild. Her hair had come undone and was hanging about her face like a madwoman’s. She didn’t look up at Stefan when he went in. She didn’t react when he sat beside her and held her.

‘Help me get her into bed,’ Stefan said to me, but all I could do was stand and watch as he pulled back the covers and encouraged her to lie down.

‘It’s just us now.’ When we went back downstairs, Stefan spoke quietly and there was a distant look in his eyes.

I picked up the letter. It was just a single sheet of thin paper with Papa’s name on it. Oskar Friedmann. There were other details too, but all I could think about was that he had put on his smart uniform and marched away to Russia to fight for our Führer, and now he was never coming back.

‘What are we going to do?’ I asked.

Stefan squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, he bit his lower lip and looked at me, shaking his head. ‘We have to take care of Mama.’ His voice caught in his throat as if it didn’t want to come out. ‘We have to be strong.’ And then my brother hugged me.

He’d never done that before but I didn’t try to stop him. Standing in the middle of the kitchen with my cheek pressed against my brother’s chest, I wanted to hold back my tears but they came and came, just like Johann’s had done, no matter how hard I tried or how pathetic it made me feel. So I buried my face into his checked shirt – the kind Mama told him not to wear because it was too colourful and could get him into trouble again.

‘Maybe it’s not true,’ I said, clinging to the tiniest speck of hope. ‘Maybe the letter is wrong. Maybe it’s someone else.’

Stefan said nothing.

‘It’s not fair. The war was supposed to be short,’ I sobbed. ‘It was supposed to be over. Everyone was supposed to give up when they saw us coming.’

‘That’s what they want us to think,’ Stefan said. ‘That everything will be all right.’

‘I thought …’ I swallowed and tried to organise what I thought. It was difficult with so many things spinning through my mind. I hadn’t expected the overwhelming feeling of shock and emptiness. ‘I thought that … that I was meant to feel proud of Papa if … if …’

‘If something happened to him, you mean?’ Stefan leaned back to look at me, and his face darkened as if he were angry.

For a second, I thought he was going to say something else, but then he bit his lip and wiped his eyes and put his arms around me again, so I just stood and cried against his chest.

Stefan’s action, though, had pulled open his jacket, revealing a white flower embroidered on his inside pocket. It was small, perhaps the size of my thumbnail, and the stitching was crude, as if Stefan had done it himself.

At first, I didn’t think anything of it, but it was right there, staring me in the face, and the longer I looked at it, the more I became aware of it.

‘What’s that?’

‘Hmm?’

‘That flower.’

Immediately, Stefan drew his jacket closed and looked at me. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘You didn’t see it.’

‘What do you mean? I don’t …’

‘Just forget it.’ Then his face softened and he closed his eyes. He sighed, letting his breath come out through his nose in one long whoosh. When he opened his eyes again, he said, ‘Really; it’s nothing. It’s just a flower.’

Stefan took the death notice from my hand, as if the paper were alive. He folded it and slipped it into his inside pocket, and I caught a glimpse of the white flower again.

‘We have to tell Oma and Opa,’ Stefan said. ‘I’ll go on my bike, it shouldn’t take me more than an hour.’ He went to the door and began to pull on his boots.

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No, you stay here. I’ll be quicker.’

Glancing over at the foot of the stairs, my gaze wandered to the top, and settled on Mama’s bedroom door. Then I looked back at my brother. ‘I don’t want to be on my own.’

‘I won’t be long, I promise.’

‘But …’

‘You’ll be fine.’ Stefan came over and hugged me once more. ‘You’re strong, remember. You’re tough. You’re a Friedmann.’

‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ he called as he slipped out of the front door and pulled it closed behind him.

I waited for a second, stunned by the speed at which everything had happened, then shook myself and went to the window.

Outside, Stefan was untying his bike from the place where it stood next to mine against the railing. When it was free he threw one leg over and glanced up at the window. He nodded, then raised his hand and rode away along the pavement.