BLOOD IS SPILLED

Opa left the door open and stood there, staring into the night as if Wolff’s car might come back.

Mama had quietened down and I kept stroking her hair, wanting to make her feel better, but then my hand felt wet and when I looked down, I realised why she hadn’t tried to get up. There was blood. A lot of blood.

No one had noticed it in all the commotion, but we saw it now, pooling on the floor, oozing between the floorboards. It was sticky on my fingers and soaking into my pyjamas where she’d been resting her head.

‘Hannah!’ Oma said. ‘You’re bleeding. Quickly Walther, help me get her up.’ She took Mama’s hand and together they pulled her to her feet.

‘I’m fine,’ Mama was saying, ‘fine,’ but she had trouble standing because her legs didn’t do what they were supposed to. They kept softening and she sagged as if she were going to drop to the floor again.

The blood was running down her face, along her neck and soaking into her nightclothes. It was everywhere, and I began to panic.

‘Help her,’ I said. ‘Please. Help Mama.’

They sat Mama at the table, then Opa went to the cupboard and took out the box of medical things.

Mama still looked woozy as Oma tried to clean away the blood, but she was more alert than before, and when Opa brought her some water, she took the glass and drank every last drop. Her hands were shaking, but she didn’t drop it, and when she was finished she asked for more.

‘I can’t stop this bleeding.’ Every time Oma wiped away the blood, more oozed from the gash on the side of Mama’s head. ‘You must have knocked it on the corner of the table when you fell. It’s just too deep. You’ll have to go to the hospital.’

‘Come on then.’ Opa started to stand. ‘Help me get her to the car.’

‘No,’ Mama said, ‘you stitch it.’ Then she looked at Opa. ‘Go and find out what’s happening to my Stefan. That’s much more important.’

‘I don’t have what I need for this,’ Oma told her. ‘You need a hospital.’

‘Someone should be here.’ Mama argued. ‘What if Stefan comes home and there’s no one here?’

‘You’re right,’ Opa agreed. ‘Your mother and Karl should stay here. We can manage on our own.’

So Oma bandaged Mama’s head to keep the bleeding under control and Opa drove her away into the night, leaving Oma and me alone.

When they were gone, the house was quiet. Oma and I sat opposite each other at the kitchen table and we didn’t speak for a long time.

Mostly, I let my blood boil and thought about what Wolff had done.

I couldn’t believe he had taken Stefan away, and I couldn’t believe he had hit Mama. I kept seeing it over and over again and I remembered all the times he had smiled that awful smile at me, and how he had asked me to tell him if I ever heard anything about Edelweiss Pirates. Criminals, he had called them, but I bet they never hit women. I bet they never took boys away in the night, like the Nazis did. I bet they never pointed their pistols at defenceless families.

‘He’s an animal.’ Oma spoke with tight lips. ‘I could—’

‘Kill him,’ I finished for her.

She looked up at me.

‘I know I could,’ I said. ‘I hate him.’

‘Hush now,’ Oma warned. ‘Keep those things to yourself.’

‘Who’s going to hear? I could kill him.’ I raised my voice and stood up, wanting to say it over and over. I imagined ripping that gun out of his hand and shooting him, firing bullet after bullet after bullet. ‘I want to kill him.’

‘Don’t ever let anyone hear you say that.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Well you should care. You’ve got your mama to think about. And us. Look what’s happened already, because your brother’s been running about with those Edelweiss Pirates.’

‘You knew about them,’ I said. ‘You knew what the flower meant. You knew who they were.’

‘We told him not to get involved with them.’

‘But you hate the Führer just like they do. I know it.’ I banged my hand on the table. ‘You didn’t tell me the truth. You didn’t trust me.’

‘Karl—’

‘You didn’t trust me.’ I almost shouted the words. ‘You thought I would tell.’

‘And did you?’ Oma fixed me with a stare. ‘Is that how Wolff knew about Stefan?’

I felt a cold shudder run through me. ‘What?’

‘Wolff said someone told him. Was it you?’ Her words were slow and deliberate and full of suspicion. ‘Did you tell Wolff about Stefan?’

‘No. Of course not. He’s my brother. Why would—’

‘You reported him once before.’

My mouth fell open and I stared, not knowing what to say. The awful secret I had been holding down began to rise to the surface, bringing with it the most dreadful feelings of shame and guilt.

‘When he was arrested last year,’ Oma said. ‘You reported him. It was you.’

‘What? No I—’

‘We all know it was you.’

Oma’s words were like bullets; each one punching through my heart. Each one letting me know what a terrible, terrible person I had been.

All I could do was stand there, mouth opening and closing, because she was right and I didn’t know what to say.

I had betrayed Stefan. My own brother. He had spent a week in boot camp and come home with his head shaved because I had reported him.

Me.

‘Why did you do it, Karl? What could you have been thinking?’

I sat down as the overwhelming mixture of feelings drowned my anger. My guilt was coupled with regret, the fear of having been found out, the realisation of why no one trusted me, and the relief of finally being able to let go of my secret.

‘Stefan knew it was you.’ Oma looked at me. ‘The interrogators taunted him with it. They laughed at him for being reported by his own brother. He said it wasn’t your fault, though. He forgave you. He knew the Nazis were in your head.’

‘Not any more.’ I put my hands over my face and bit my lip to stop the tears. ‘Not any more. I wouldn’t do it again.’

‘You didn’t say anything to Wolff?’

‘No. I promise.’ My eyes began to well over. ‘I’ve changed. Everything’s different now. Everything.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ I sobbed. ‘I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Stefan. I wouldn’t. I promise.’

‘I believe you,’ Oma said, coming round the table to hug me. ‘I really do.’

As she held me, I tried to overcome the terrible knowledge that my own secret was no longer a secret. Everyone knew what I had done. Everyone knew that Stefan had been in trouble because of me. I was afraid that maybe I had let something slip this time, that maybe I had given Wolff a reason to come looking for Stefan. And I kept thinking about how the leaflet was mine – if I hadn’t kept it, Stefan would still be at home.

Some time later, the key rattled in the lock and the front door opened, bringing in a waft of cool night air.

Oma and I hurried into the hall and Mama was there, standing in the doorway. I couldn’t help myself from rushing over to hug her.

Her skin was pale and her head was swathed in the biggest bandage I’d ever seen. She looked like a wounded soldier. There wasn’t any blood on her face now, and someone must have washed it from her arms, but there were still crusty bits stuck in the skin of her knuckles and around her fingernails. The front of her nightdress was caked with it, too. A reddish-brown mess that would probably never come out.

Mama hugged me back and we stood like that for a while before Oma told me to let go of her.

‘You don’t want another fall,’ she said.

Once Mama was sitting down, Opa explained that they’d been to Gestapo Headquarters on the way back from the hospital. He wanted to bring Mama home first but she was insistent.

‘Of course I was insistent. I want to find out where my son is and I want everyone to see what that man did to me.’

‘Was he there?’ I asked, trying not to think about Herr Finkel and about Lisa’s papa. ‘At Headquarters?’ Just thinking about the place made me feel sick, and I was terrified for my brother.

‘He’s there,’ Opa said.

‘You’re sure?’

‘As sure as I can be. They wouldn’t let us see him, though. No one would even talk to us, but I saw them bring in two others. A boy and a girl.’

‘Do you know who they were?’ I asked, wondering if they had caught Jana.

‘I didn’t get much of a look at them,’ Opa said.

‘And how did they know?’ I was sure that the Hitler Youth boys couldn’t have identified us. It was too dark. ‘How did they know about Stefan? Who told them?’

Opa gave me a suspicious look, as if he wasn’t sure what to say, but I knew what he was thinking.

‘No,’ Oma told him. ‘We’ve had a talk. It wasn’t Karl.’

‘Good.’ Opa let out his breath and nodded. ‘Good. Well. They just want to scare him, I expect. After that they’ll send him home. Stefan will be here in the morning.’

‘Do you really think so?’ I asked.

‘Of course,’ Opa replied, but he didn’t sound as if he really believed it.