WOLFF AT THE DOOR

Jana and I left the boy sitting on the bench and folded into the darkness. We moved silently along the railings and slipped, unnoticed, through the gate.

‘Do you think they caught him?’ I asked Jana as we made our way back towards Escherstrasse.

‘Not Stefan, he’s too quick,’ Jana said with admiration. ‘You have a very brave brother, you know?’

I glanced over my shoulder and thought about the boy who had remained in the cemetery. ‘You were going to hit him,’ I said.

‘That boy?’ Her voice changed. ‘He deserved it. They all do.’

‘Hitler Youth?’

‘Yes, them and all the other Nazis.’ There was real hatred in her words. ‘They’re killing our fathers and brothers. Ruining our country. Someone needs to shoot Hitler before he leads us all to ruin.’

‘Shoot him?’ I was shocked. ‘You want the British to win the war? To come here and—’

‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘Germany is for Germans. There shouldn’t even be a war; sending all those German people away to be killed … It’s all Hitler’s fault. And now my papa is dead and my brother, too.’

As soon as she said it, I felt as if there was a link between us. ‘Your papa died? What happened? Was he in the war?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Is that why you’re an Edelweiss Pirate?’ I said to her. ‘You are an Edelweiss Pirate, aren’t you? Is it because of what happened to your—’

‘I said I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘I want to be one, too. To stop the Nazis from killing our fathers.’

‘By not hitting them on the head? Anyway, you’re too young.’

‘That’s what Stefan said.’ I couldn’t help sounding disappointed.

Jana stopped and sighed before looking down at me. ‘Thank you.’ Her voice softened.

‘For what?’

‘For stopping me from hitting that boy. You did the right thing. And don’t worry about Stefan, he’ll be fine. He’s probably waiting for you at home right now.’

When Jana left me on Escherstrasse, I crept home and let myself in the front door.

After replacing the key in the ashtray, I sneaked upstairs to find the bedroom empty. I went to the window, pulling back the curtain to look out.

The street was quiet in both directions.

Across the road, Lisa would be fast asleep in bed. When I’d left to follow Stefan, I had wished that she was with me, but now I was home, I was glad she hadn’t come.

I took off my clothes, put on my pyjamas and climbed back into bed. I wanted to wait for Stefan, so I sat up.

The house creaked and groaned as I wondered what had happened to my brother. I could only hope that he had outrun the Hitler Youth boys and that he was on his way home right now. I tried not to imagine him lying in the street, battered and bruised because they had caught him.

I intended to be awake when Stefan came home, but my eyelids grew heavy and I fell into a sleep that was broken only by a loud banging on the door.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Three loud knocks that startled me.

He must have forgotten his key, was my first thought. Or lost it.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

I hope he’s not hurt, was the next thing to leap into my head.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

I slipped out of bed, pausing for a moment to hear the sounds of stirring from the other bedroom. Then I hurried across to the door and pulled it open just as Opa was about to go downstairs.

He jumped in shock, putting a hand to his heart.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to come.’

When he started down again, though, I followed him, waiting at the bottom of the stairs while he fumbled with the latch, and opened the door.

‘Herr Brandt.’ Kriminalinspektor Wolff took off his hat and came straight in. He looked wide awake, despite the hour.

Opa stepped back. ‘Would you like to come through to—’

‘No need,’ said Wolff. ‘Just here will be fine.’ He flashed a false smile at Opa then spotted me, standing at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Karl. Did I wake you?’

Opa glanced at me then turned back to Wolff just as Oma and Mama came downstairs.

‘What’s this all about?’ Oma asked, going to Opa’s side. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Frau Friedmann.’ Wolff did a strange little bow. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your husband.’

Mama put an arm around me.

‘What … what can we do for you?’ Opa said. ‘I’ve been to the meeting like you said. Look, I have the papers right here.’ He went to the table by the door and pulled out the drawer.

‘No need for that,’ Wolff stopped him. ‘It’s your grandson I need to speak to.’

Mama squeezed me tighter and Opa looked over his shoulder at me again. ‘You need to speak to Karl?’

Wolff grinned. ‘No. The other grandson.’

I thought I was going to fall over.

Stefan wasn’t here, and Wolff knew it. The cruel look on his face said as much.

I held onto the bannister and wished there was something I could do. When Wolff discovered that Stefan was missing, he would know he was out in the night and—

‘You want to speak to me?’

Wolff looked as surprised as I was when we heard Stefan’s voice.

I whipped around to see him coming down the stairs, dressed in pyjamas; hair tousled and sleepy-eyed.

It was the first time I’d seen Wolff flustered, but it didn’t last long. He cleared his throat and stared at Stefan. ‘I’ve had reports of a disturbance tonight; your name was mentioned.’

‘My name?’ Stefan rubbed his eyes as he spoke. ‘Why would my name be mentioned?’

‘You’ve been linked to a group of delinquents calling themselves Edelweiss Pirates.’

Stefan shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Never heard of them.’

‘Even so,’ Wolff said. ‘Your name has been mentioned—’

‘By who?’ Mama interrupted, and Oma and Opa looked at me.

‘As I say,’ Wolff gave Mama hardly more than a glance, ‘your name was mentioned and there was a disturbance tonight so …’ he opened his arms, palms up. ‘Well. I’m just doing my job. I’m sure you understand how it is.’

Stefan shrugged as if he couldn’t care less.

‘But I can see that you are here, at home, where you are supposed to be, so you clearly had nothing to do with it.’ Wolff glanced down at his hat and brushed a non-existent speck of dust from the brim. ‘Well,’ he said, looking at Mama, then at Opa. ‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’

‘No, that’s … that’s quite all right.’

‘Good night, Herr Brandt. Frau Friedmann.’ Wolff did another odd little bow and I felt a surge of relief. Somehow, Stefan had made it. He had managed to outrun the boys and now he had outsmarted Kriminalinspektor Wolff. I must have fallen into a deeper sleep than I realised and Stefan had come home and slipped into bed without me noticing. This was a small victory for the Edelweiss Pirates.

Wolff turned to the door and put his hand on the latch.

He paused.

Turned back.

Looked directly at Stefan.

‘You’re not curious?’ he asked.

‘About what?’

‘You didn’t ask what kind of a disturbance there was tonight.’

Stefan ran a hand through his hair again. ‘It’s none of my business.’

Wolff waited.

‘All right, then; what kind of disturbance was it?’ Stefan asked.

Wolff took his hand from the latch. ‘Well, I’m glad you asked me that.’ He put his hat on the table and reached one hand into his pocket. ‘There’s something I need you to look at.’ He removed a piece of paper. ‘You see, someone has been delivering leaflets.’

Suddenly, I had an image of Jana and Stefan going from door to door, putting something into the letterboxes.

‘You might have seen them before.’ Wolff unfolded the paper and came closer, holding it out.

It was a picture of the Führer standing over the bodies of dead German soldiers. One of the leaflets dropped from the enemy planes a few nights ago.

I remembered how afraid Stefan had been when I picked up the leaflet in the street the night they were dropped, and I remembered what had happened to Herr Finkel. The leaflets were trouble. Big trouble.

‘We can’t have this kind of thing on our streets,’ Wolff said. ‘I’m sure you agree.’

Stefan made a show of peering over to look at the leaflet, but Wolff did not let go of it.

‘Terrible,’ Stefan said with an edge of sarcasm.

Wolff folded the leaflet and put it back into his pocket. ‘These Edelweiss Pirates – people you have been known to associate with – this is the kind of thing they would do. Delivering malicious propaganda.’

‘I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,’ Stefan said. ‘I’ve never heard of—’

‘Nevertheless, you have been seen with people suspected of being members.’ He stared at Stefan.

‘None of my friends have said anything about being … what did you say they were called?’

Wolff gave Stefan a knowing smile. ‘Well, sometimes people aren’t what they say they are, isn’t that right?’

Stefan shrugged.

‘Apparently some of these delinquents collected a quantity of enemy leaflets and have been distributing them to people’s houses. In the dead of night. One might even suggest they could be accused of spying.’ Wolff paused. ‘So, perhaps the thing for me to do is to put your grandparents’ mind at rest. Your poor mother too.’

‘Sure,’ Stefan said. ‘Whatever.’

‘Then why don’t you invite me come up and look at your belongings? To …’ He made a show of thinking for a moment. ‘To reassure myself that you don’t have any of these leaflets just waiting for distribution.’

‘Gerhard Wolff.’ Mama’s exclamation made him switch his attention to her. ‘How dare you accuse my son of—’

‘It’s all right,’ Stefan stopped her. ‘I haven’t got anything to hide.’

We were going to prove him wrong. We would let him look and he’d find nothing and he’d leave empty-handed.

Wolff stared at Mama for a moment, then turned to look at Stefan once more. ‘Thank you.’ He smiled and did that strange little bow again, then came to the bottom of the stairs and waited for Mama and me to step aside.

‘Really,’ Stefan said. ‘It’s all right, Mama.’

When Mama moved out of his way, Wolff climbed the stairs with slow and deliberate steps. At the top he paused.

‘On the right,’ Stefan said.

Wolff disappeared into our bedroom.

Oma and Opa came to join us at the bottom of the stairs and we waited in silence, exchanging glances as we heard Wolff’s movements. The floor creaked. Belongings were moved. We held our breath.

Stefan looked over at me and winked. It was going to be fine. We had nothing to hide.

Then Wolff emerged from the bedroom and came to the top of the stairs.

He looked down at Stefan then at me.

‘Perhaps the boys would like to join me,’ he said. ‘I have something I want to show them.’

‘What is it?’ Oma asked. ‘What?’

Wolff beckoned to us. ‘Just … come and see.’

Stefan patted my shoulder and nodded once for reassurance, then we went up to the bedroom.

When I saw my copy of Mein Kampf, face up on the chest of drawers, my heart stopped and my legs lost all their strength. Beside it, one of the leaflets from the enemy plane lay like the most damning piece of evidence in the crime of the century.

‘Perhaps you could explain this.’ Wolff wasn’t speaking to Stefan now, he was speaking to me.

‘I …’

‘This is your book isn’t it? It has your name in it.’

‘Y … yes.’

Wolff nodded and took his own leaflet from his pocket. He unfolded it and put it beside the one I had hidden in the book. ‘A perfect match.’ He stood back as if to admire the pictures of Hitler standing over the bodies of the German soldiers.

He looked at Stefan. ‘I came suspecting the older but find, in fact, that it is the younger brother who—’

‘It’s mine.’ Stefan stepped forward. ‘The leaflet’s mine. I delivered them tonight.’

‘How noble of you to accept the guilt for your brother’s crimes,’ Wolff said. ‘But I am not so easily fooled.’

‘No …’ I tried to speak up but my voice was faint and thin. ‘It is mine. I—’

‘I delivered the leaflets,’ Stefan said. ‘I can tell you which streets. Which houses.’

Wolff raised his eyebrows. ‘All right. And I’ll need to know the names of your accomplices. You can tell me once we get to Headquarters.’

Headquarters. After what Stefan had told me, the very mention of it made my insides churn.

‘No.’ Mama moved to stand between Stefan and Wolff. ‘You’re not taking my son anywhere.’

‘There’s really nothing you can do to stop me, Frau Friedmann.’

‘Don’t “Frau Friedmann” me. You know perfectly well what my name is,’ she said. ‘And that leaflet does not belong to my son. You put it there, Gerhard Wolff. You planted it so you’d have an excuse to arrest him.’

‘It’s Kriminalinspektor Wolff,’ he said with menace. ‘And if you don’t step aside, I will arrest you too.’ He moved closer to Mama and lowered his voice. ‘I will have you sent to a place from which you will never return.’

‘What?’

‘In fact, I could arrange for your youngest son to lose every member of his family if I so wished.’

Mama’s eyes widened in horror. There was nothing she could do. Nothing at all. We were powerless.

‘It’s all right,’ Stefan said, coming forward. ‘I’ll be all right, Mama.’ He sounded so brave, but I could see the way he trembled.

‘Frau Friedmann?’ Wolff put a hand out to one side to indicate that she should move out of his way. ‘If you please.’

Mama kept her head high. She looked right into Wolff’s eyes. ‘What happened to the boy I remember from school? What happened to Gerhard Wolff?’

‘I became Kriminalinspektor Wolff, and I have a job to do.’

Mama shook her head at him. ‘How can you sleep at night?’

‘I sleep very well,’ he said as he brought Stefan in front of him. ‘And I will sleep even better once I know that all of the Führer’s enemies have been silenced.’

When we stepped back to let them pass, Wolff glanced down at me with a contented and smug look that made me feel so mad.

‘Where are you taking him?’ Mama asked with desperation as she followed Wolff and Stefan down the stairs towards the front door. ‘Where are you going?’

‘He’s just a boy,’ Opa pleaded. ‘Only sixteen. It was just some silly prank.’

‘Open the door,’ Wolff ordered Stefan, and when he did, we saw two SS guards smoking cigarettes by the small truck parked behind Wolff’s car. It was the same kind of truck they had used to take Herr Finkel away.

As soon as the soldiers saw Wolff, they stood to attention, throwing their cigarettes onto the road where they bounced and sprayed a glitter of glowing ash. Coming forward they glanced at the rest of us standing in the hallway, then took hold of Stefan, walked him to the truck and slammed the door shut behind him.

‘You men should be ashamed of yourselves,’ Mama shouted at them. ‘Ashamed.’

Oma took her arm to quieten her down, stop her from saying something we would all regret.

‘Please,’ Opa begged Wolff. ‘He’s just a boy. Don’t you remember what it was like to be a boy? To do something stupid? To make a mistake?’

Wolff turned so he was facing into the house, and he looked at each of us in turn. He kept his chin up and his head still so that only his eyes moved. Then he raised his arm and said, ‘Heil Hitler’.

Before he could lower his arm, though, Mama stepped forward. She held herself straight and strong and stared Wolff in the eye, curling her lip with distaste. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Gerhard Wolff.’

Wolff sneered. ‘It’s Kriminalin—’

‘Shame on you.’ Mama’s hand came up like a flash and slapped him across the left cheek with a loud smack.

Before Mama could hit him a second time, though, Wolff struck her so hard in the face that he knocked her backwards. She stumbled away, tripped on the mat and collapsed to the floor with a crash.

I immediately rushed to her, crouching and holding on to her.

Opa’s hands tightened into fists and he started to step towards Wolff, but Oma reached out to hold his arm. Opa stopped, looked at Oma, then took a deep breath and came to Mama’s side.

Mama didn’t try to get up. She turned so her head was in my lap and she sobbed and sobbed, and I held her and stroked her hair. When I looked up at Wolff, feeling hatred burning in my blood, I saw that he had taken out his pistol and was pointing it down at Mama as if he intended to shoot her right there. His face was no longer calm, but was a picture of fury. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw clamped tight, his breathing heavy.

I held Mama’s head as I stared at the dark barrel of the gun, then looked Wolff in the eye, wondering what he was going to do.

He continued to point the weapon at her for a while longer then, slowly, he lowered it so his arm was hanging at his side. He stood in the doorway like that for a moment, then holstered the pistol and tried to compose himself.

‘One Friedmann will be enough for tonight,’ he said, straightening his hat. ‘Perhaps I will come for you another time. Heil Hitler.’ Then he turned on his heels and went to his car.

When Wolff drove away, the truck followed close behind.