THE WOLFF GROWLS

It was Kriminalinspektor Gerhard Wolff who saved our skins.

He appeared as if from nowhere, stepping into the small patch of empty road in front of Lisa and me.

He stood with his back to us and held up a hand, making the boys stop and glance at each other.

‘Stay where you are.’ Without taking his eyes off them, Wolff crouched and picked up the little wooden flower. He slipped it into his pocket as he stood up.

‘You saw what they did,’ said the one who had hit me. His fists were still tight, and he took a step closer. ‘This girl—’

‘I said “stay where you are”.’ Wolff didn’t raise his voice; he lowered it. And there was something about it that reminded me of the way a dog drops its head and snarls. Not a loud bark, but a low and dangerous growl.

The boy stopped in his tracks.

‘Good.’ Wolff’s tone returned to normal, as if he were wishing the boy a good morning. ‘I’m surprised at you, Erich Mann; I shouldn’t have to remind you who I am.’

Erich took a step back now. The grim expression fell from his face, to be replaced with surprise. His fists loosened. ‘I … sir …’ Then he seemed to remember himself. He snapped his heels together and raised his arm. ‘Heil Hitler.’

The others followed suit.

‘Yes, yes. Heil Hitler.’ Wolff half raised his arm in much the same way as I had seen the Führer do on the news-reels. A sort of half-salute, as if he couldn’t be bothered to extend his arm completely.

‘Sir,’ Erich said, ‘I know this girl. She’s called Lisa Herz, and I have reason to believe these two are Edelweiss—’

‘I will make that decision for myself.’

‘But you know what that badge is? The one that—’

‘I’m perfectly aware of what it is,’ said Wolff. ‘But this is no concern of yours. I will get to the bottom of this.’

The boys stayed where they were, but the leader was looking past Wolff, staring right at me.

‘You need to move now,’ said Wolff. ‘Organise yourselves and carry on. This is supposed to be a parade.’

Some of the boys shared a few glances.

‘You’re not hooligans,’ Wolff warned. ‘You think the Führer wants street-brawlers in his army? No, no, no. He wants disciplined soldiers.’

Erich continued to glare, but the others looked at the ground and started to move away, helping their comrades to reorganise the parade. Many of the Hitler Youth had reformed their lines and the group leaders were bringing the younger boys into formation.

‘I know who you are,’ Erich pointed at Lisa. ‘I know where you live.’

‘And I know where you live.’ Wolff lowered his voice again and fixed Erich Mann with his steely stare. ‘Now, off you go. Unless you wish to pay a visit to Headquarters.’

Erich swallowed hard and saluted once more before heading off to help with the reorganisation. As he gave his orders, though, he couldn’t help looking over in our direction.

‘Pick up your bicycle,’ Wolff said without taking his eyes off Erich.

My hands were shaking as I pulled up the bike, and my arms felt full of energy.

Once it was upright, Lisa grabbed the handlebars nearest to her and we lifted the front wheel off the ground before moving back onto the pavement. It was only then that we realised we had such a large audience. A large crowd had formed around us, all the people straining to see what was going on, but not one of them had come to our help. Some of them had probably been too afraid to do anything, but others would have been glad to see us beaten up by the Hitler Youth.

They parted in front of us, and I glared at all the adult faces around me; faces of people who had done nothing to help us. I was sure I caught a glimpse of Frau Oster, shaking her head in disapproval.

Wolff followed us through the crowd, leaving the parade and the onlookers behind as we broke through onto the clear pavement and headed home.

‘You were lucky I was there.’ Wolff was wearing the same suit and the same shiny shoes as he had been on the day of our crash. His hat was pulled low so that it almost covered his eyebrows and there was the same smell of aftershave around him.

‘You have a good punch, though. I imagine you’ve practised it a lot.’

I shrugged, feeling the ache in my neck, and put a hand to my cheek, where it was sore. I imagined I’d have a black eye tomorrow.

‘And you’ve got spirit,’ Wolff went on. ‘But it seems you also have a gift for getting into trouble.’ He put his hands in his pockets and we continued along the high street.

Being so close to him made me prickle with fear, and despite everything that had just happened, I couldn’t help thinking about poor Herr Finkel, bloodied and beaten.

‘So are you going to thank me?’ Wolff said after a while. ‘For saving your skins?’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I muttered.

‘Well.’ He stopped and looked around. ‘I think this should be far enough. You’ll be safe now.’

Lisa and I came to a halt beside him and he leaned closer to me. ‘If I walk you all the way home we might scare your oma and opa again – and we don’t want to do that now do we? They might think you’ve been telling me their secrets.’ He winked, making me shudder inside, and stood back as if he were about to leave. ‘Do you have any secrets you want to tell me?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Hmm.’ Then a puzzled expression crossed his face and he held up a finger. ‘Oh, there is one thing you could tell me,’ he said. ‘You could tell me about this.’

He removed his other hand from his pocket and showed me the little carved flower that had caused so much trouble.

I stared at it and wondered what I should say.

‘I found it,’ Lisa said. ‘Some boys dropped it.’ There was hatred in her voice.

‘And would you recognise them if you saw them again?’ Wolff asked.

‘It was a long way off,’ she muttered. ‘They could have been anybody.’

Wolff nodded as if he’d expected her to say that. ‘And there’s nothing else you want to tell me?’

‘I …’ I was almost afraid to ask. I didn’t want to give anything away.

‘Yes?’

‘Well, it’s … something those boys said. About the badge.’

‘Spit it out.’

I couldn’t help myself. I had to know. ‘What are Edelweiss Pirates?’

For a second, Wolff’s face darkened like a storm, then it lightened and he smiled. He took a deep breath and looked along the street before turning to me once again. ‘Criminals,’ he said. ‘Reprobates. They are long-haired thugs who hang about on street corners and loiter in cafés doing nothing but spreading lies; the kind of young people you should avoid at all costs. Do you understand?’

I nodded. Lisa just stared at the pavement.

‘Edelweiss Pirates are the lowest of the low,’ Wolff went on. ‘Maybe worse even than Jews.’ He leaned closer. ‘You see, Jews can’t help being Jews. It’s what they are. But these Edelweiss Pirates are Germans who hate the Führer. They are traitors and troublemakers, writing on walls, distributing leaflets, attacking the Hitler Youth.’

I swallowed hard and remembered the leaflet Lisa had given to me on the way to Frau Schmidt’s house. The same kind that Herr Finkel had taken. It was now folded into a square and pushed deep in my pocket, but if Wolff asked us to turn out our pockets, he would see it and arrest me.

‘A group of them put out the windows in the factory on the other side of town just this morning,’ Wolff said. ‘And we have a problem with them pouring sugar into petrol tanks. It doesn’t do any permanent damage, but it’s a nuisance, and one thing leads to another; before we know it, there will be anarchy on the streets.’ He fixed me with those cold, grey eyes. ‘You are a good German, aren’t you, Karl Friedmann?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then I want you to tell me if you see any of these.’ He held the little wooden badge up and snapped it in half before dropping it on the road. ‘Do you understand?’

I nodded.

‘Good boy.’ Wolff ruffled my hair and I had to stop myself from recoiling. ‘Off you go then. Stay out of trouble.’

Lisa and I didn’t look at each other as we took the weight of the bike between us and headed to the corner of Escherstrasse.

‘One other thing,’ Wolff called after us, making us stop and turn around. ‘Give my regards to Frau Schmidt next time you see her.’

He must have seen the surprise on our faces because he looked very pleased with himself.

‘There’s not much happens in this town I don’t know about,’ he said. Then he half raised his hand in a lazy salute, turned on his heels, and walked away in the opposite direction.