TROUBLE

When Kriminalinspektor Wolff had gone, I crept down to the kitchen. Oma was sitting at the table, still in her apron, staring at the tabletop like Mama had done when we received Papa’s death notice. For the first time in my life, I thought Oma looked old. I’d never known her so tired and grey.

Opa was standing beside her, hands in his pockets, also staring at the tabletop, as if there was something on it that was enormously interesting.

Oma turned her head and shifted her gaze to look at me, but the two motions didn’t happen together. She had to tear her eyes away, and she didn’t focus at first, as if she wasn’t sure who I was, then she shook her head and made a smile come to her lips. ‘Darling,’ she said, holding out both arms. ‘Come here.’

I thought they might have shouted at me, and her actions took me by surprise.

‘Come,’ she said again, so I went to her and let her hug me.

She crushed me against her bosom and I looked at Opa who smiled in a way that didn’t reach the corners of his eyes like it usually did.

‘Am I in trouble?’ I asked.

‘No, no,’ Opa said. ‘Everything’s fine. You’re not in any trouble.’

‘I shouldn’t have gone out,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Nothing to be sorry about.’ Opa, glanced down at the tabletop again.

Now that I was closer, I could see what he was looking at: his Nazi party membership card.

‘I didn’t mean to …’ My thoughts were all muddled. ‘I didn’t want to …’

‘It’s all right,’ Oma reassured me.

‘What did he say?’ I asked.

Opa pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Well, he said that you will start at the school here in a week. And the Deutsches Jungvolk at the same time. Isn’t that good?’

I shrugged.

‘Aren’t you pleased?’ Oma asked. ‘I thought it’s what you wanted. You’ll be able to join the other children your age and—’

‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘Did you get into trouble?’

‘It’s nothing,’ Opa said. ‘I have to go to more meetings, that’s all.’

‘Meetings?’ My eye was drawn to the badge he now wore on his shirt. It was a perfect white circle surrounded by a red border that was fine-lined with silver and printed with letters proclaiming National-Sozialistische D.A.P. The Nazi Party.

Right in the centre of it all, black as coal, was a swastika.

‘The Party has meetings at the town hall,’ Opa said. ‘I haven’t been for a long time, so … well, I have to go and come back with a signed document. Then I have to report to Kriminalinspektor Wolff once a month to show that I’ve been.’

‘Why haven’t you been going? Don’t you want to?’

‘Don’t ever say that.’ Oma spoke quickly and quietly as if she were afraid of something. ‘Don’t ever say Opa doesn’t want to go to those meetings. Don’t ever say that. Of course he wants to go.’

Lunch was boiled potatoes with herring sauce and a small dollop of sauerkraut. I didn’t like any of it, and pushed it around my plate, not saying much.

‘Eat up,’ Oma said and I took a forkful, swallowing the sauerkraut without chewing.

‘And drink your milk. It’ll keep you strong. Mind you, I’m sure they’re taking out more and more of the fat. It’s getting more watery as the days go on.’

Picking up my glass, I looked across at them sitting side by side and thought about what it would be like if Oma and Opa weren’t here; if I were alone with Mama, silent and deathlike, upstairs. When I was at school with Ralf and Martin, the idea of people being punished for not following the rules felt right, but I wasn’t so sure now.

When lunch was finished, I helped Oma in the kitchen for a while, then tried reading a book in the drawing room but I couldn’t settle or concentrate on anything.

‘Is it all right to go outside?’ I asked.

‘Of course,’ Oma said. ‘Opa is in the back—’

‘I mean out the front. I thought I’d sit on the doorstep for a bit.’

‘Watch the world go by?’ Oma asked.

‘It’s warm there. It’s right where the sun lands.’

Oma thought for a moment. ‘Well, I don’t suppose it can do any harm. You have permission not to be at school now for another week, so it doesn’t really matter.’

That’s what took me to the front step. I told myself it was because I wanted to sit in the warm rays and watch the cars and the people pass by, but there was another reason why I wanted to go out.

I wanted to see her.

I wanted to be sitting there when the dark-haired girl came home from school, so I could wave at her the way she had waved at me.