I’m not dead.

I’m in the infirmary.

Doctor Ebner is at my bedside. Again! What time is it? An hour after the fight? A day? A month? A year? I haven’t the faintest idea.

My whole body hurts; it’s in shreds. I want to cry, howl, so I can breathe, so I can get some air inside me. Like a newborn baby. Like when Ebner pulled me out of the belly of the mother-whore who gave birth to me.

I try to get up. It’s not easy standing to attention when you’re lying down, when you feel like you’ve lost your limbs. I’m going to cop another lecture…This time I really overstepped the mark. I’ll be sent away from Kalish and I’ll never be assigned another mission. And so on and so forth…But I don’t give a damn about what Ebner’s going to say to me. I don’t give a damn about anything, including him. And anyway, I’ve had enough of being shacked up with him, ever since the beginning of my wretched life.

His speech is not at all what I expected. ‘Jungmann! Hand-to-hand contact is one of the most important disciplines taught in the Führer’s elite schools. Hand-to-hand confrontation allows future young leaders to get rid of the fear of killing. Your fight today has shown that you are eligible to enter a Napola. This is a huge honour for you. The Potsdam Napola, near Berlin, will welcome you as soon as you have recovered from your wounds. That is, in four days’ time.’

He raised his arm in a salute, clicked his heels, and left.

My brain is set on slow motion. I can’t quite grasp the meaning of what I’ve just heard. When I put my hand to my head, I feel bandages. They must be blocking the circulation of messages to my brain. Or all those blows to the head mean that I’m no longer dolichocephalic: I’ve turned into an idiot.

I try to recall exactly what Ebner said, as well as the tone he used. He didn’t give me hell after all; he praised me. He told me I was going to where I’ve always dreamed of going: a Napola. And not just any old Napola, one of the best, near Berlin, when I could have ended up in one that was in the occupied territories in the east. So, that’s good. Very good. But why did he address me so formally? Is he already treating me like a fully fledged Jungmann?

My heart is pounding. Even though it hurts to move, I roll over onto my side.

There’s Lukas, lying in the next bed.

His head is bandaged too, his face is swollen, and his right arm is in plaster. He looks like a mummy. Sitting up in bed, his back wedged comfortably against a pillow, he looks over at me, lifts up his left arm and waves.

‘They thought they’d got the better of me,’ he says, pointing at the door Ebner has just shut behind him. ‘All because I garbled a bit of German in front of them. I didn’t need them to teach me German; my mother spoke it fluently.’

He stops, grabs a plate from his bedside table and stuffs a big piece of bread and bacon into his mouth. Completely uninhibited, he chews and smacks his lips.

‘Didn’t you ever wonder why I came back and hid in the tree, when I could have got clear of that piece-of-shit monastery?’ he continues.

I shake my head. Just hearing his voice, I am lost for words.

He finishes munching, swallows, gulps, then burps loudly. ‘I came back to get you, you little jerk!’

Little jerk, yourself.

But I don’t care about him calling me names. I’m used to insults; I hear them all day long, even if they’re not aimed at me. Anyway, Lukas’s insults are better than the silence he’s inflicted on me for so many months. What he said before the ‘little jerk’ bit is what’s important.

To get me. Came back. Me. He came back to get me.

I can’t believe my ears, and my voice has still not come good.

‘I owe you,’ continues Lukas. ‘That’s all. But don’t get any ideas. Once we’re even, that’s it—we’ll never see each other again.’

After the bacon, he gobbles a big bowl of soup, then hoes into an apple. I can tell from the empty plate and bowl on my bedside table that he’s already downed my rations while I was asleep. I get the impression he could devour the furniture; although, you have to admit, he’s got some catching up to do. I’ve got a terrible migraine and the noise of his chewing is like a drill inside my eardrums.

‘What’s up? Swallowed your tongue? You used to be a chatterbox.’ He finishes the apple, gulping down the core and pips, and spits the stalk onto the floor. ‘That tall bald guy who was here before, he said we were going to a Napola. What is that exactly?’

‘It’s…a school. A really good school.’ (Phew! My voice came back.) ‘That’s where the best members of the German youth are trained to become soldiers and then future leaders of the Third Reich.’ I’m proud of my description.

‘The best members of the German youth?’ he repeats, picking his teeth with his fingernails.

‘Yes. The sons of senior officers. It’s really a great opportunity for us. Well…for you,’ I add condescendingly. ‘For me, it’s normal.’

‘The sons of SS officers, you mean?’

‘Yes!’

He doesn’t say anything for a while, just stares at the ceiling. ‘Well, then, we’re off to a bad start,’ he says finally. ‘A very bad start.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m a Jew.’

I’ve lost my voice again.

Worse. Total paralysis.

I can’t think at all.

I don’t know what to say. What to think. My head is spinning, I feel sick. It feels like the ground is shaking, the whole world crashing down around me.

A Jew. He’s a Jew. Lukas.

The one I thought of as a brother. The one I bent over backwards to protect. The one for whom I flouted all the most basic rules dictated by our Führer. The one I risked my life for. In the end, I would have done better to let him die.

He’s staring at me, relishing the look of shock on my face. He’s not even ashamed of the admission he’s just made. In fact he looks pleased with himself. He’s smiling. He’s taunting me again with that little snide smile; that wretched, goddamned smile he used on me when I was caring for him after he was tortured by the wardens. And that ghastly grin is even more odious today, on his swollen, bruised lips, still streaked with dried blood.

‘So? What are you going to do?’ he asks arrogantly. ‘Will you denounce me?’

I’m silent.

‘Yes? No?’

I still don’t speak.

‘Okay, while you’re deciding, I’ll have a little nap. I’m knackered!’

He lies down on his side, his back to me, and within a minute I can hear him snoring.