NIGHT EXERCISE

The next two days were the best I’d had for a while. The weather was perfect, so Lisa and I went for long bike rides in the evening sunshine. Stefan continued to work at the mill and walk home with Jana, the two of them leaving a cloud of flour behind them. Mama looked healthier each day and even seemed happy sometimes.

There were no air raids and the radio told us that our tanks had broken Soviet defences and would soon be in Leningrad. They were advancing on Kiev, too, and it was only a matter of time before the Russians would surrender. After that, the war would be won and everything would be back to normal.

To make things even better, I didn’t see Kriminalinspektor Wolff once – though I did look over my shoulder from time to time, just to see if he was following us.

However, all of that calm came to an end one night when I heard Stefan moving about in the bedroom. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was still dark and felt like the middle of the night. It sounded as if he was getting dressed.

‘What’s going on?’ I sat up. ‘Is it another raid?’ My heart started thumping just at the thought of it, but there weren’t any sirens going off and I couldn’t hear any planes.

‘There’s no raid,’ he whispered. ‘Go back to sleep.’

‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘Not now.’

Stefan tutted and crept over to me, patting the end of my bed as he felt his way in the darkness. ‘Look,’ he said, sitting beside me, ‘I’m going out.’

‘Outside?’

‘Yeah, but I’ll be back soon. And you can’t tell anyone.’

‘Is it something to do with the Edelweiss Pirates?’ I asked. ‘The Apaches?’

For a moment, Stefan didn’t say anything, then he sighed. ‘Yeah, it’s something to do with that.’

‘Can I come?’

‘No you can’t. Now promise you’ll keep your mouth shut.’

‘Are you going to get into trouble?’

‘I might if you don’t keep your mouth shut.’

‘Then tell me what you’re doing.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Karl …’ there was an urgency in his whispering. ‘Look, I’ll tell you tomorrow, but I haven’t got time now. I have to go.’

The weight lifted from the mattress and I saw a vague hint of him standing there in the gap between our beds. It wasn’t exactly his silhouette, more like a darkness within the darkness. He was just a black smudge, moving away from me, melting into nothing.

The bedroom door opened with a gentle click, then, a second later, came the click of it shutting behind him. This was followed by the gentle sigh of his footsteps on the staircase, accompanied by the creaks and groans of the wood beneath his feet.

I strained to hear him reach the bottom, but there was no way of knowing; his sounds faded into nothing, just as his shadow had done when he left the bedroom.

I couldn’t help feeling afraid – I didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do – but there was also an excitement that niggled at me. I had the strong sense that I was missing out on something.

I could follow him.

My heart jumped at the thought of it. Even just the idea of sneaking out in the night was exhilarating. Last year we did a night exercise in the Deutsches Jungvolk, and it had been one of the best things we had ever done. The darkness had made it even more exciting than usual, and that’s how I felt now, thinking about following Stefan.

I leaped out of bed, threw off my pyjamas and pulled on my trousers and—

You don’t have a key.

The thought came like a shot of disappointment. Of course I didn’t have a key. Stefan had one because he went to work every day, but I didn’t. If I went out, the door would lock behind me and I wouldn’t be able to get back in unless I was with Stefan – or unless I rang the doorbell.

I stood there for a moment, half dressed, heart sinking, when a different thought came to me. This time it was a picture instead of words – a picture of the small table by the door, with Opa’s key sitting inside the glass ashtray. A dull, silver key.

I can take it with me.

With renewed excitement, I pulled on my shirt, just as I heard the door open downstairs. It was hardly much more than a crrrick, a long moment of quiet, then a second crrrick as Stefan pulled it shut behind him.

I hurried to the window and tugged back the curtain, letting the moonlight flood into the room. I pressed my nose to the glass, and saw Stefan’s silhouette standing by the front door. He paused there for a few moments, then turned right and headed past the alley that ran along the side of the house, and continued down Escherstrasse.

Quick. I told myself as I let the curtain fall back into place. I have to be quick.

Still fastening my buttons, I crossed to the door and let myself into the hallway. Creeping downstairs, I kept my feet to the very edges of the steps, trying to avoid any that might creak. Once at the bottom, I jammed my feet into my boots and tightened the laces as quickly as I could. I grabbed my jacket and snatched the key from the bowl, sticking it in my pocket alongside my new penknife.

Then I opened the door and slipped into the night.

For a second I felt like a freed animal. I was both thrilled and afraid. I shouldn’t be out in the night. Stefan would be so angry if he knew I was out, and if the police caught me, they might think I was some kind of spy – or up to no good, at the very least. And if the air raid sirens started up their screaming and the enemy came and the planes dropped their deadly bombs, what then? I would be killed for sure.

Adrenaline raced through my veins, both hot and cold, and I hardened my resolve. There was no going back now.

I walked quickly to the end of Escherstrasse and passed Herr Finkel’s boarded-up shop without seeing any sign of Stefan. When I turned the corner, though, there was a group of figures further along the street, close to the wall. I stopped and drew back around the corner, leaning out just enough to watch them.

They made no sound at all, but stood huddled together like ghosts waiting for someone to scare.

So I waited, too.

The night was cooler than I had expected, and I shivered as a gentle breeze nestled around me. The moon was not much more than a fingernail, but the sky was clear of any clouds so it gave enough light to illuminate the streets with a silvery grey shimmer. There were white lines painted around the base of the lamp posts and along the centre of the road. There were some on the pavements, too, to help people find their way during the blackout, and they seemed to glow in the moonlight.

Still the figures didn’t move, and I began to wonder if it was even Stefan at all. Perhaps he had taken a different route. Maybe this was someone else. Maybe this was—

Footsteps.

On the pavement behind me.

Someone was coming.