WOODEN FLOWER

Escherstrasse was long and straight, and right at the end of it, a white and black blur was coming towards me. That’s all it was – a blur – but as it came closer, I could see it was someone on a bicycle.

Closer still and I knew it was a girl in a white shirt and black skirt.

Then she was just a few metres away, and I lifted my hand and waved.

The girl slowed and came to a stop on the other side of the road. She raised a hand and waved back, and I thought that would be it. I thought she would knock on her front door, disappear inside, and that I’d wave to her again tomorrow morning. It hadn’t been that difficult.

She didn’t knock on her front door, though. She looked at it, but then she looked at me again. She climbed off her bicycle and leaned it up against the wall beside her front door.

And then she was coming towards me.

A girl.

I hardly ever spoke to girls. At school we were separated, and the Deutsches Jungvolk was just for boys. The girls had their own groups; Jungmädel for girls my age, then the Bund Deutscher Mädel for when they were older. We were even told not to mix with girls, so I didn’t know what I would say if—

‘Hello,’ she said.

I must have looked like a simpleton, the way I stared. ‘Uh. Hello.’

‘What happened to you?’ she asked, pointing at my bandages.

‘Oh. I … I fell off my bike.’

‘Not surprised, the way you rushed off like that. What were you doing anyway? If you want to skip school, it’s not a good idea to come and stand by the fence.’

Close up, her hair was even darker than it had seemed from further away. It was plaited into pigtails, just how most girls wore it at school. She had dark eyebrows and dark eyes, too. Her uniform was quite dirty and her socks were ruffled at her ankles, revealing shins that were covered in bruises – old and new. Both her knees were grazed, but not as badly as mine.

She stood on the pavement, with her hands on her hips, and looked down at me with her brow furrowed. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Karl Friedmann.’ I stood up with the step against my heels, stopping me from moving any further back. It felt as if we were very close and I could smell her. It was a mixture of soap and the outdoors.

‘I’m Lisa,’ she said.

I didn’t know what to say after that. ‘Umm …’ I thought for a moment. ‘Umm …’ I was stuck for something to say so I said the first stupid thing that popped into my head. ‘Are you a mischling?’ I asked.

Lisa’s face darkened as if a storm cloud had passed over it. ‘That’s a bit rude, isn’t it?’

‘I didn’t mean to … I just …’

‘No, of course you didn’t mean to. You’re just a silly boy who thinks girls are from another planet and doesn’t know how to talk to them.’

‘I …’ I looked at the pavement, feeling my cheeks flush. They grew hot and I was sure my whole face had turned beetroot.

Lisa sighed. ‘Well, Karl Friedmann, no I am not a mischling. Not even second-degree mischling, and if you’re going to talk to girls then you need talk to them exactly the same way you talk to boys.’

‘Sorry.’ I made myself look her in the eye.

Lisa waited for a moment, still with her hands on her hips, then the storm cloud vanished as if it had been wiped away. ‘I forgive you, Karl Friedmann.’ She put a hand in her pocket. ‘Do you have any money?’

‘No.’

‘Well, never mind. I’ve got ten Reichspfennigs.’ She pulled out two silvery coins and showed them to me, as if to prove it. ‘Come with me.’ She turned and began walking back along the road, in the direction she had first arrived from. ‘Come on.’

I looked from Lisa to the front door and then back again, wondering what to do. If I was going to go somewhere, perhaps I should let Oma and Opa know.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’re just going along here. It’s not far. It’s not as if you’re running away.’

So I jogged to catch up and we walked side by side with the warm afternoon sun on our backs.

‘It’s good to see you’re not wearing that silly uniform for a change,’ she said.

I tried to think of when she might have seen me. Oma and Opa had been so strict about keeping me inside that I’d hardly been out at all over the last few days.

‘I see you at the window sometimes,’ she said, as if she knew what I was thinking. ‘And when you went to the shops with your oma. She is your oma isn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anyway, I like the white shirt better. Your brother sometimes wears a blue one and it looks smart. Maybe you should get a blue one.’

‘What do you know about my brother?’ I asked.

‘He waves to me in the morning which is more than you managed. Until today, that is.’

‘I’m not supposed to be here,’ I said. ‘Oma and Opa are hiding me. Or, they were until the Gestapo man hit me in his car.’

‘The Gestapo man?’ She stopped walking and turned to look at me. ‘You were knocked off your bike by the man from the Gestapo? Kriminalinspektor Wolff?’

‘Yes.’

Lisa’s face darkened. ‘I hate him,’ she said. ‘He’s a pig.’

I was shocked by her insult, and looked about to see if anyone had overheard, but the street was more or less deserted here.

‘Do you know him?’ I asked.

‘Everyone does. Someone at school said he worked for the baker when he was our age. Delivered bread on his bicycle before he joined the police. Now he’s just a Gestapo pig.’

‘Shh,’ I looked about once more.

‘What did he say to you?’ She lowered her voice.

‘Umm … he was just angry that I damaged his car, and—’

‘So do you have to go to school now? Is he making you go to school?’

‘He said I could stay off for a few days because—’

‘Lucky you.’ She turned and carried on walking.

I watched her for a moment, plaits bouncing on her shoulders, arms swinging, then I trotted to catch up. ‘Why?’ I asked her. ‘Why am I lucky?’

‘School’s boring.’

I’d never heard anybody other than Stefan say that and I looked round again to make sure no one was listening.

‘So why did he say you could stay off school? Is your mama ill? My mama said she looked ill when she arrived and that she hasn’t seen her since. Is she ill?’

‘I suppose. I don’t really know. She’s sad, I think.’

‘Sad?’

‘My papa died,’ I told her. ‘The enemy killed him.’

‘Oh, that’s horrible.’

‘We should be proud of him though,’ I said, remembering the words of my squad leader. ‘He was doing his duty for the Führer.’

Lisa looked at me as if she was giving that some serious thought. ‘Before he went away, my papa said the war was the Führer’s fault.’

‘Well, that’s not true, he’s winning it for us.’

‘Hmm. Mama never says it’s his fault, but I think she’s too scared.’

‘Of what?’

‘Well, everything. Sometimes I even think she’s scared of me.’

‘You?’

‘Uh-huh. Scared that I’ll report her. Some children do that, you know.’

I felt a stab of guilt when she said that, and tried not to think about what had happened to Stefan, or the thoughts I’d had about reporting Oma and Opa. We fell into a silence that lasted all the way to Herr Finkel’s shop.

There was a queue of women outside the shop, all of them holding empty baskets. Two of Oma’s friends from further along Escherstrasse were there, Frau Amsel and Frau Vogel, deep in conversation as they waited. The queues seemed to be getting longer every day.

‘You want to see if he’s got any chocolate?’ Lisa asked, joining the queue and pulling the coins from her pocket once more. ‘I have enough.’

The silver coins looked big in her small hand, and the sun glinted off them, highlighting the eagle holding the swastika.

I looked at Lisa’s dark eyes, which now I thought about it, were almost the colour of chocolate. She had a round face, emphasised by the way her hair was pulled back into those tight, plaited bunches, and a nose that the doctors probably said was a bit too big when they measured it at school. It was a nice nose, though, all the same. Despite being dark-haired, Lisa’s skin was quite pale, and that made her rosy cheeks stand out all the more. She looked pretty – not in the proper German way that we learned about at school, but in a different way. In a more real way.

‘You always stare at people?’ she asked.

‘Hmm?’

‘You’re staring.’

‘Oh. Sorry. It’s just, I don’t know, I suppose I was thinking it’s kind that you said you’d share.’

‘Well, that’s what friends do, isn’t it?’

So, just like that, Lisa and I were friends. No oath, no swearing-in ceremony, no rituals or exchange of punches. Just a few words, and that was that. Friends.

I couldn’t help smiling.

‘What?’ she asked.

I shrugged. ‘Friends. It’s … nice.’ I held out my hand for her to shake. I don’t know why. I just felt as if I needed to fix the friendship in some way.

Lisa glanced at my hand, then smiled and looked me in the eye. ‘Really? A handshake?’ She shook her head. ‘You’re funny, Karl Friedmann.’

The queue moved in front of us as two women left the shop, so we shuffled closer towards the door. One of the women was Frau Oster who lived over the road from Oma and Opa, a few houses down from Lisa. She was younger than Mama, slim and with mousey hair held back from her narrow face. Her husband was fighting in Russia, just like Papa had been, except he was a panzer driver in the SS. Oma said that you’d think he was a general, the way Frau Oster talked about him.

‘It’s not getting any better,’ she complained to her friend as she passed. ‘There’s still not enough to go round. I don’t know how long this can go on.’ She was carrying a folded copy of Der Stürmer at the top of her basket.

‘Not much longer, Monika. Hitler will win this war for us soon enough and then …’ The rest of the conversation was lost to me as the women moved along the street.

The man on the radio told us that everything in Britain had been rationed since the beginning of last year. Things were better here, but they were getting worse. There was never quite enough in the shops any more and you had to have the right stamps to buy certain things – white for sugar, blue for meat, green for eggs, yellow for dairy. I didn’t hold out much hope of there being any chocolate in the shop, but didn’t say that to Lisa. She looked so delighted at the prospect, I didn’t want to spoil it. I just enjoyed her excitement and shuffled a little closer to the shop every time someone came out and another went in.

When it was our turn, Lisa opened the door and we entered to the sound of a tinkling bell.

The walls were lined with wooden shelves. Some were empty, but others were heavy with jars and bottles and tins. There were boxes of vegetables on tables, but they were small and few, and most of them could only be bought if you had the right stamps. On the counter, a huge pot of sauerkraut sat beside a set of scales, and next to that was a pile of Der Stürmer newspapers.

On the front of the paper, there was a scary cartoon of a dark Jew holding a knife and standing over a blonde German woman who was screaming. At the bottom the words ‘The Jews Are Our Misfortune’ were printed in bold letters. I had seen lots of these papers before – they put them on the walls at school so everyone could read them. They were also displayed in special glass-fronted notice boards in the city.

There were a few women inside the shop, passing bags and containers to Herr Finkel, who stood behind the counter. He filled them and weighed them and took stamps and money as he chatted to his customers.

Herr Finkel had sparkling blue eyes and ruddy cheeks speckled with tiny red veins, and his dark-blue apron bulged around his large stomach. He looked older than Opa, with hair that was almost completely white. He showed me a sad smile when he looked down at me from behind the counter. ‘Karl,’ he said. ‘It’s nice to see you, but I’m so sorry about your papa. He was a good man.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I remember when he used to bring you in here and you were only this high.’ He held one hand at waist height. ‘I liked him; he always had a smile on his face and a good word to say.’

I nodded.

‘How’s your mama holding out?’

‘She …’ I struggled for the right words.

‘It’s all right,’ Herr Finkel said. ‘Don’t mind me. It’s none of my business. What can I get for you?’

Lisa rescued us both by asking if he had any chocolate.

‘Your lucky day,’ Herr Finkel said with a wink as he passed the small bar over to Lisa. ‘It’s getting harder and harder to find things like this.’

On the wall behind the counter, there was a poster with Hitler on it, wearing his brown jacket and red armband and looking very serious. Beneath him were the words ‘One people, one nation, one leader’. It had been there for just about as long as I could remember, but had now been joined by two other posters. One showed a hamster, carrying full baskets in each paw, warning housewives not to hoard food. The other was a poster, printed in black and white that showed a house, at night, with the lights on and the front door open. Above the house a terrifying skeleton sat on top of a British plane, about to throw a bomb.

‘THE ENEMY SEES YOUR LIGHT!’ it said. ‘BLACKOUT!’

The skeleton was frightening but fascinating at the same time and I could hardly take my eyes off it.

‘… grandparents?’

‘Hmm?’ I turned to look at Oma’s friend, Frau Vogel, standing beside me. She was leaning close, inspecting me with dark blue eyes.

‘I said “how are your grandparents?” I haven’t seen them for a few days. They seem to be keeping themselves to themselves at the moment.’

‘Oh. They’re fine, thank you.’ I glanced round to see that some of the other women were still looking at the food, but had stopped chattering and were listening in.

‘I saw they had a visit today.’ She raised her eyebrows and waited for me to tell her what it had been about, but I didn’t say anything. I felt as if I were in a cage, being watched.

‘You haven’t been causing trouble, have you?’ she asked, widening her eyes.

I took a step back and shook my head. Oma and Opa had tried to pretend that Wolff’s visit hadn’t bothered them too much, but I knew they were scared of him, so it was probably better if I didn’t say anything at all. Especially with all those people listening.

‘I don’t think Karl wants to talk about it,’ Herr Finkel said. ‘I can understand that.’ He winked at me. ‘Boys will be boys, eh?’

I backed away to the door and went out into the street, feeling all those eyes watching.

Lisa came after me asking, ‘Are you all right? What’s the matter?’

‘It’s just all those women looking at me.’

‘Take no notice,’ Lisa said. ‘I never do.’ She put her arm through mine as we set off along Escherstrasse towards home.

‘Don’t.’ I pulled my arm away.

‘Why not?’

‘We’re not supposed to. It’s not … it’s not allowed. People will see.’

‘I’ve seen your brother do it,’ she said. ‘With that girl. They think no one can see, but I saw them.’

‘What girl?’

Lisa carefully unwrapped the small chocolate bar and broke it in half. She held up the pieces and closed one eye as she checked they were the same, then handed one piece to me and took a bite from the corner of her own. More of a nibble, really, like a mouse.

‘What girl?’ I asked again, letting the chocolate melt in my mouth. It was delicious, the best thing I’d tasted all week.

‘The girl he walks home with. She goes all the way to the end,’ she said, pointing to the far end of Escherstrasse, ‘then turns right. They were arm in arm yesterday, just for a moment, but I saw. She’s very pretty. Blue eyes and shiny blonde hair. I bet all the girls are jealous of her.’

‘But not you?’

‘I like mine just how it is.’ She reached back to run a hand along one of her plaits.

‘Me too,’ I said before I could stop myself.

‘What’s that?’ Lisa looked at me with a smile.

‘Nothing.’ My cheeks reddened. ‘Must be someone he works with,’ I said, changing the subject.

Lisa eyed me suspiciously for a moment then shook her head and gave me a playful nudge. ‘You’re funny, Karl Friedmann.’ She laughed and bit off a chunk of chocolate. ‘So what’s his name, then? Your brother?’

‘Stefan.’

‘How old is he?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Nearly old enough for the army.’

‘One more year,’ I said, but I was still thinking about the girl Stefan was with. I couldn’t help feeling a little annoyed that Lisa knew things about my brother that I didn’t.

‘But he doesn’t go to school?’ Lisa asked. ‘Left when he was fourteen?’

I nodded and took another bite of the chocolate.

‘You know, some boys and girls leave at fourteen so they don’t have to go into the Hitler Youth or the Bund Deutscher Mädel. D’you think that’s why your brother left?’

‘Uh-huh. There was a group of them all left at the same time and they used to hang around wearing colourful shirts, trying to look different. Mama got so cross with him.’

‘Hang around?’

‘On the corner of our road or sometimes in the café or the park. They used to go hiking at weekends, too, boys and girls together. Ended up getting into trouble with the Gestapo.’

‘The Gestapo?’

‘Yeah. Him and his friends used to fight with the Hitler Youth boys. One time … well, the Gestapo caught him and shaved all his hair off.’

‘Honestly?’ Lisa couldn’t hide her admiration.

Talking about it made me feel a bit guilty, because of what had happened to Stefan, but I’d started now and I didn’t want to disappoint Lisa. She looked so excited.

‘He went to boot camp for a week and when he came back, they’d cut all his hair off.’ I said. ‘It just made him angry though, so Mama stopped him seeing his friends. She didn’t let him out of the house for a long time and then told him to get a job to keep him out of trouble.’

‘And now?’ Lisa asked. ‘Does he still get into trouble?’

We had reached my house so I stopped and looked at Lisa ‘No. Now he has to look after us because Mama’s not well.’

Lisa nodded as if she was letting that sink in. ‘We have boys a bit like that here, sometimes. Girls too.’

‘Like what?’ I asked, running my tongue around my mouth to savour the last taste of the chocolate. When it touched a small chip on my front tooth, I remembered Wolff and his shining silver bumper coming towards me on the road.

‘Ones who get into trouble. I once saw two boys fighting with Hitler Youth in the town, but it wasn’t their fault. They didn’t start it. I saw the Hitler Youth boys attack them.’ She paused. ‘They were making fun of them for wearing colourful clothes, and started calling them names and pushing them about. The boys tried to fight back but there were only two of them and they ended up running away.’ She shook her head as if it had all been a terrible tragedy.

‘Stefan wouldn’t fight like that,’ I said. ‘Not any more.’

‘How did he get caught? Did someone report him?’

I shrugged.

‘It happens here all the time – people reporting each other.’ She took a bite of her chocolate. ‘Anyway, one of them dropped this.’ She fished into her skirt pockets and rummaged for a second before tugging out her fist. When she opened it, stretching her fingers, there was a flower resting on her palm.

It wasn’t a real flower, of course, but had been made from wood. No bigger than the tip of my little finger, the carving was crude, as if someone had done it with their penknife, but it was recognisable. Most of the colour was scratched, but the short stalk was painted green and the petals were white. The centre of the flower was a faded yellow.

As soon as I saw it, my stomach tingled and other images of the same flower exploded in my mind.

‘It’s some kind of badge I think. It’s pretty,’ Lisa replied, but her voice seemed far away. It echoed as if it was coming to me down a long, dark tunnel. My stomach was tumbling over and over, and my mouth had gone dry.

I picked the tiny wooden object from her hand and turned it about in my trembling fingers. ‘What does it mean? What sort of flower is it?’

Lisa shrugged. ‘It’s hard to tell.

‘Lisa!’ Her mama had opened the door across the street and was beckoning for her to come home.

‘Maybe a daisy.’ Lisa took back the carving and stuffed it into her pocket.

‘Lisa!’

‘Better go,’ she said, turning and checking for cars before looking back at me.

‘No wait, I want you to tell me about—’

‘See you tomorrow? It’s Saturday. No school.’

I tried to think past all the visions of the flower that spun about in my head. ‘Tomorrow? Um …’

‘We can go for a bike ride.’ She stepped onto the road and began to cross. ‘Take a picnic.’

‘My bike’s broken,’ I said, suddenly remembering the buckled wheel and the shining bumper that had crashed into me.

‘Then we’ll fix it,’ Lisa called. ‘Together.’

‘I’ll need to get it first,’ I shouted after her, but she had already turned and was running across the street towards her mama who greeted her with open arms.

I watched them hug, then Lisa turned and waved and the door closed behind her and she was gone.