‘I don’t actually play children’s games any more.’
She looked up at him sadly, her brown eyes scanning him curi-
ously. He relished the effect of his cruelty and willed his own eyes to transmit cold indifference.
Once he had tolerated her. Once she had not been so irritating.
Once he too had been a child. He had even sat patiently while she
carefully cut a lock of his blond hair for a locket she had received as a birthday gift from an aunt. Rather too much hair in fact. She had held it aloft, examining it delightedly in the sunlight before kissing it and placing it in the locket. He had chuckled to himself, he
remembered. He would not do that now.
He touched her arm with his hand and felt her cold skin.
‘Let’s play something now,’ he said.
‘All right,’ she replied.
He ushered her into her room and closed the door behind them.
The snow was falling heavily outside and grey was turning into
dusk. They could barely see each other.
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He stood before her and with his hands on the outside of her
arms lined her up to face him directly. He looked down at her.
‘Have you ever kissed like them?’
‘Like who?’
‘Them. Like grown- ups.’
‘Do they kiss differently?’
‘Yes. Would you like to try?’
‘With you?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Well yes, I suppose.’
He reached down to the little girl and pulled her towards him,
holding her close to his body. He could smell her and feel her
warmth against his chest. He stroked her arm before placing his left arm around the small of her back, his other arm over her shoulder.
It was awkward, this manoeuvre that looked so natural in the mov-
ies, but eventually they were where he wanted them to be. Her
midriff was against his stiff penis, which also pressed against his own belly. She could not fail to notice it; he wanted her to.
He bent to place his mouth against hers. Her eyes were wide
open, startled. He liked the fear. She will be a pretty little thing one day, he thought. Their lips touched in a moment where he imagined
he must become a different human being altogether. Later he would
discover otherwise.
He pressed his mouth hard against her softness, moving insist-
ently to urge her lips apart. They did not open, and Lili’s mouth
muscles tightened. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, against her teeth, and eventually forced his way through. Uncertainly she submitted, opening herself reluctantly to him. Excitedly, he explored
with his tongue. This was the first time he had done anything like
this.
Eventually he gasped. She looked at him, fearful, out of breath,
and made to move away. But he still held her arms.
‘Did you like that?’ he said eagerly.
‘Well . . .’ she said doubtfully.
‘Shall we do it again?’
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‘I don’t know. If you like.’
He reached down again. This time it came more naturally. He
savoured the wet of her saliva on his tongue as it ranged again
inside, as if he were discovering something new and fundamental
about another. Even if it was only Lili. Gradually he freed his right hand and shucked up her skirt. She pulled away but he had her
firmly gripped by his other hand. His tongue continued to probe
while he found the elastic of her knickers, and insinuated his fingers underneath, feeling the marble- smooth skin of her thighs. She
squirmed but he pulled her hair with a sharp jerk that made her
compliant. To his annoyance she was whimpering. He found the
fleshy notch that he was seeking and ran his index finger up and
down it before locating his real objective. Roughly, he thrust his finger into the soft gap and she flinched. The second time he rammed
two fingers, meeting resistance from her pubic bone, and she yelped in pain. He released her and she collapsed on the floor.
He had had enough. Lili had served her purpose. She was weep-
ing silently and holding her belly. He sniffed his fingers curiously.
‘Filthy bitch,’ he muttered. ‘You dare say anything to anyone.’
Was that it? It had not been enjoyable. He walked the corridor
angrily towards the study. Maybe he should have done the whole
thing. Perhaps that was it. Maybe there was just nothing at the end of it all. Maybe that was the trick they played on you. All that excitement and then this. Nothing. Bitches. Thinking they could humiliate him.
ear to the door.
‘Sometimes I wish I too were a Jew,’ Schröder was saying.
‘You don’t really mean that,’ Konrad Taub replied.
‘Actually I do. I could at least hold my head high alongside my
friends who are being victimized. As it is, our nation is being divided, into the persecutors and the persecuted. Those who choose
not to become involved fall into the first category. We need people like you, Konrad.’
‘And you too, Albert.’
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‘But I do not oppose publicly. You do. You put yourself in the way
of danger for the sake of your fellow men. That is a particular sort of bravery.’
‘Or foolishness. And I’m quite careful. I sense my limits when I’m
writing.’
‘You go right up to them. You and Renate are courageous people.
You’ll be remembered in history.’
‘Perhaps for struggling pathetically against the inevitable,’ said
Konrad. ‘With words. Laughable. Now, you’re sure you’re happy
with me passing on the information you’ve given me?’
‘You’ll pass it on anyway. And yes, of course I’m happy. Anything
that impresses on them the seriousness of the situation. And of
course I will do more. Whatever is required.’
‘We need to consider networks. We need to think about what
damage can be done to the war effort.’
‘Whatever’s necessary. It’s too late now for half- measures.’
‘You’re a brave man, Albert, whatever you say.’
He turned his spite on them. These self- congratulating, self-
deluding fools, with their politics. His own father. Pathetic. Disgusting.
Thinking they could change the shape of things. Whatever their
fantasies, the real world was arranged rather differently. He knocked on the door, opening it hesitantly.
‘Father . . .’
‘Heavens, is that the time?’ said Konrad. ‘We must be getting
home. I have another meeting this evening.’
‘And I must get ready for the party,’ said Schröder. ‘Goodnight,
Konrad. Goodnight, Hans.’
2
The snow had stopped by the next morning, though it remained
bitterly cold. There was a layer of ice on the inside of the bathroom window when he rose at six and went through the ritual of his
morning wash as swiftly as he could.
His mother was already in the kitchen, standing by the small
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range. She poured him coffee and he wrapped his hands arou
nd the
steaming bowl. She took a bobbing egg from the pan and placed it
on his plate, along with two slices of rye bread and a generous portion of butter. He accepted them without thanks.
‘Where’s Father?’ he asked.
‘He’s left already. He has a meeting.’
He ate in silence as she watched him.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Nothing. You’re growing up quickly, that’s all. You’re not a little boy any more.’
He grunted and asked whether there was any cheese. He was
always hungry these days.
‘How are things at school, Hans? Are the boys still on about your
father?’
‘No, not really. They got bored with it.’ This was a half- truth. He had discovered strategies to reduce the abuse.
‘We’re on the right side, you know.’
‘I know. You’ve explained it enough.’
‘But if it gets too difficult at school you must tell us. We need
to talk about it. I may have to go and see Herr Professor Wolff
about it.’
‘No need,’ he responded gruffly, and thought with grim humour
of them speaking to his headmaster. What good did they think their
seeing Wolff would do? Konrad Taub, the pinko journalist regarded
with suspicion speaking with rumoured deputy Gauleiter candidate
Hermann Wolff ? Did they see some meeting of minds here? He had
his own means of sorting out the situation which did not require
their interference.
‘It’s all right. There’s no problem. My marks are all right, aren’t they?’
He knew they were. His parents were both intellectuals, that
term bandied about these days in disgust. At least it would mean
that the basic equipment for achievement was there. What he did
with it depended on him. He certainly would not be wasting his
potential in the same way as his parents on lost causes of one kind or another.
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‘I may be out when you get back, Hans,’ his mother said. ‘I have
a meeting in Neukölln. I’ll leave the key with Frau Schärner next
door.’
‘All right,’ he grunted, not interested.
He walked to school through dark streets. The glint of dawn had
yet to appear. The snow’s soft fluffiness had gone. Now it was fro-
zen and compacted underfoot. The thoroughfares had been cleared
efficiently but the pavements and walkways remained covered. As
least this meant there was no black ice. The hardened snow was
treacherous enough, but navigable. Vapour billowed from his nose,
and he heard himself inhale and exhale as he made his steady pro-
gress. The Jewish grocers at the corner of Wilhelmstrasse had again been burned overnight. Embers glowed and a group of callow
Brownshirts not much older than he was joshed with each other
and kicked at the smouldering remains to keep warm. Their voices
echoed in the muffled white cityscape.
Inside the school he felt instantly warm. The pipes and radiators
clicked and ticked as he made his way to the secretary’s office. Most boys would have been turned away sternly: not Hans Taub. She told
him to return at the end of school, at one fifteen.
The morning dragged. Latin was followed inevitably by math-
ematics, and then chemistry and German. Hans excelled in all of
these subjects, the primary reason why he remained popular with
his teachers in spite of his dubious parents. He gained a measure of respect too from his fellow pupils by helping them with their work.
At the end of school his classmates rushed out. Someone’s uncle
had been told by someone who had a brother in the Gestapo that
the Jewish jeweller at the top of Blumenstrasse was about to be
arrested and that the Brownshirts would be in charge of looting and ransacking. There was sport to be had, and just possibly the odd
watch to be acquired.
Hans remained in the building and sat waiting in the outer office
for admission to the principal’s study. He was reminded of a conversation the previous week with Herr Professor Wolff in the same
room.
‘I can understand why you are eager to join the Hitler Youth,’
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Wolff had said, ‘but we need to consider the effects. I am sure you do not want to cause a rift with your parents. In any case, I think there may be better ways for you to serve the Reich. I am sure the
Führer would prefer you to assist in different ways. There will be
time for glory in the future.’
He had made his choices accordingly and now had a proposal to
make. It was perilous but it was the only way out of the mess cre-
ated by his idiot parents.
‘Come in, Hans,’ said Wolff, a studious university professor and
senior Party member who had been parachuted into his post after
the dismissal of his unreliable predecessor three years before.
Another man stood in the room, altogether less bookish and more
practical.
‘May I introduce Herr Weber of the Gestapo.’
Weber seemed Hans’s sort of person. Upright, muscular and vig-
orous, he was younger than Hans might have expected. He shook
hands with a firm grip and looked into Hans’s eyes. Hans felt Weber might have been looking into his soul.
‘Now then,’ said Weber. ‘I understand you wish to do your coun-
try a service. Discreetly, I mean. You’ll be pleased to know I have experience in such matters. Involving discretion, that is. Now, will you tell me what you wish to say?’
Direct and to the point. This was what Hans wanted.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, faltering at first, but then gaining confidence. ‘I have something to offer you and I’d like something in return.’
Weber smiled. ‘A bargain. Yes, we can manage that, within rea-
son. It has to be right for both of us, however. How can I help you?’
‘My parents are foolish, sir. We both know that. I can’t help but
love them. I know what they’re doing is likely to lead them to prison but there’s nothing I can do to dissuade them.’
‘Have you talked to them?’
‘No, it’s not worth beginning to.’
‘That’s probably just as well. The less they know of your feelings, the better.’
‘That’s what I thought. But I’d like to save them from
themselves.’
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‘Admirable. Go on.’
‘I have information I think you’d want. But I want to protect my
parents as well.’
Weber smiled again, that smile that said every problem had its
solution. ‘I understand. A dilemma. Let’s see whether we can sort it out. What’s the information?’
‘I thought, sir, we might agree first on what should happen once
I’ve told you.’
‘Well, that depends, really. What did you have in mind?’
‘I’d like my parents to leave the country. I’d prefer to stay, but I’d have to go with them. They wouldn’t leave without me.’
‘I see. The information would have to be very important for us to
permit this. And while we might be prepared to see your parents
leave – the greater the number of disloyal irritants outside the Fatherland the better,
in one sense – actually to cause them to leave without making it obvious why would seem a problem. Deporting
them wouldn’t be a good example to set. Whereas if they simply
fled . . . Do you see?’
‘Yes. I’ve thought of that,’ said Hans.
‘Oh, good. Very good.’ Weber smiled again.
‘And on the first question, yes, I think my information would be
important enough.’
‘Hmm. We shall see. If I were to say yes in principle you’d have
to trust me first with this information. I’d give you my word, but
obviously if I genuinely believed what you told me was merely triv-
ial, there’d be no deal. Does that sound fair enough? Do you
trust me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good man. Then we can move forward. Deal?’
‘Yes, sir. Could I have it in writing?’
Weber laughed. ‘Deals like this aren’t usually subject to contract.
But yes, I’d be prepared to put my signature to something if it made you happier. For your own safety, however, I’d need to retain the
document.’
‘That’s all right, sir. I trust you.’
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‘All right, then. Fire away, Hans Taub.’
‘I overheard Albert Schröder and my father talking in Herr
Schröder’s study.’
‘This is the factory owner Schröder?’
‘Yes, sir. They were discussing the government and saying that
war’s inevitable.’
‘Yes?’
‘Herr Schröder said it was terrible. He and my father discussed
what could be done about the situation. He offered money to help
Jews leave the country. He wanted to help opposition to the Führer.
Later they discussed damaging the war effort in Herr Schröder’s
factories.’
‘Sabotage, you mean?’
‘Yes, sir. Herr Schröder told my father he was willing for his fac-
tories to be damaged if it harmed the German war effort. He asked
my father to pass this information outside the country.’
‘Anything else, Hans?’
Hans sensed that what he had said might not be sufficient.
‘Yes, sir. Herr Schröder told my father he’s a Jew. He has Jewish
blood.’
‘I see,’ said Weber, who had been noting this down. ‘This could be
important. Or possibly not. I simply don’t know. Can you remem-
ber exactly what was said, and by whom?’