Emptiness dwarfed the Wolfes as they gathered around their television. This feeling was crammed into all corners of the family room—withering the wildflowers in the coffee-table vase, livering the silver picture frames with black tarnish spots. Everywhere Felix looked, he was reminded of the absence, but it was the chair that haunted him the most. Its sagging mustard-colored upholstery had been Martin’s favorite place to read. How many evenings had his older brother sat there, leafing through an abridged version of Mein Kampf, trying to pretend he understood it?
Now it was a shrine. Empty for a reason none of the Wolfes talked about. The wool throw Martin had left crumpled there on the morning of the twins’ twelfth birthday was unmoved. Two years’ worth of dust fuzzed its sterling yarn.
There was a lot of dust in the Wolfe house these days. Drifts of it built up on shelves, settled on the pages of unopened books. Felix’s mother seemed not to see it. Then again, she wasn’t really looking. Most of her time was spent inside her bedroom, shades drawn. It was a rare morning that she got out of bed.
This was one of those rare mornings. Felix and Adele had both been excused from school to watch the New Germania rally. (A chance to watch the Führer speak, their headmaster explained, was far more important than class. It promoted national unity and raised morale.) Adele had wanted to use the free time to sneak off to the racetrack, but Felix decided that the Wolfe family could use a dose of unity and raised morale, so he persuaded his sister to watch the speech. He’d also urged his parents to join so they could watch as a family.
But even when they were all together, it wasn’t the same. His parents sat on the sofa, one cushion between them. His mother’s stare was on the television: glass meeting glass. His father’s skin was scarred with days’ worth of engine grease—over his knuckles, under his fingernails. Adele sat on the rug, her expression screwed tight in a way that meant she wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Felix couldn’t blame her.
He didn’t quite know where to sit. Martin’s chair was off-limits, and the cushion between his parents held the same untouchable aura. In the end, he settled on the rug behind his twin sister, in front of the couch.
None of them spoke as they watched the screen. The Führer had not yet appeared. A band was playing; the cameras switched back and forth between the musicians and the crowd. Frankfurt’s morning was drizzly outside the Wolfes’ windows, but Germania’s skies spread cloudless against the Reichssender lenses. Rows and rows of rally attendees were singing party anthems, faces lit with sunlight and fervor.
His mother’s foot started to move in time with the music, tapping Felix’s back. She began to hum, giving the song a skeleton frame. Papa started singing. He knew all the lyrics. His husky voice shifted through the dust, fleshing out his wife’s tune. Even Adele joined in after a few stanzas.
It wasn’t enough just to listen to his family’s chorus. Felix opened his mouth and did his part. The song took shape.
For the last time, the call to arms is sounded!
For the fight, we all stand prepared!
Already Hitler’s banners fly over all streets.
The time of bondage will last but a little while now!
There was still a space. But for a moment, Felix could make himself forget the silence of Martin’s full baritone, never again to join theirs. For a moment, he could stare at the screen’s light—at Germania’s new stones and smiling faces, at the brass band and banners—and feel no distance at all.