The Other Me (20 page)

Scarlett turns and she isn’t smiling. ‘I’ve never seen you dance. I’ll only know you when I see you express yourself through movement – because it’s who you are, isn’t it?’

I sink back onto the bed playing with my thumbs, winding them round and round each other. I pinch one until it hurts. My body is alive with the fizz of adrenalin.

But she’s right. I get up slowly and begin. I’m feeling awkward, clumsy; too aware of Scarlett’s intent gaze. But within seconds, I’ve lost myself: stretching and dipping, contracting and swaying. Music plays inside my head. I break away from remembered choreography. I’m not looking at Scarlett. I’m alone. My body can’t lie. I dance out the ache inside, my longing for Cosmo, my sorrow for the lost people in my life, for Mum, and all those people I don’t know, the invisible ones that move beyond the edges of sight. I’m expressing my feelings with every extension through fingers and toes, every curving line.

When I stop my skin is hot. I’m panting, ribs rising and falling. I hear the passing traffic in the street. Notice the dust motes caught inside the sunlight coming through the grubby windows.

Scarlett and I hold each other’s gaze, and I stop breathing. I wonder if she can really see me. My hands hang by my side. I wait.

Scarlett says in a quiet voice, ‘My offer stands. Let me know when you’re ready.’

She’s sitting before her mirror, applying foundation and powder with practised fingers, humming to herself as if I’m not there.

Mrs Perkins’ new cat is in the apple tree. It must have gone up after the birds. It clings to a branch meowing pitifully, pink mouth open, its yellow eyes fixed on me. Hooked claws dig into mottled bark. I stand below and make enticing noises, clicking my tongue. The cat thrashes its tail and stares down at me.

It rained heavily last night and leaves drip onto my upturned face. The damp trunk offers no footholds. I fetch the stepladder out of the shed and place it at the foot of the tree. Carefully, I edge upwards, testing the rungs one at a time. I stretch out my fingers. ‘Here kitty,’ I whisper. He gives me a haughty stare. It’s clear that he isn’t going to meet me halfway.

I stand on the top rung, praying that the ladder won’t slide from beneath me, and make a wild grab, managing to catch the animal around its middle. I haul it off the branch, but it seems to stretch like elastic in my hands, tenacious claws clinging to the tree. I have to yank to release them, and wince, imagining I hear the snapping of tiny hooks. Rammed tightly under my arm, it writhes and struggles in a frenzy of desperation, as if it’s become ten cats. A panicked paw flashes past my face. Pain sears. I nearly fall. Nearly drop the cat. He’s scratched me just below my eye. But his protest must have exhausted him. He gives up and flops in my grip like a furry rag-doll. I back down the ladder using one hand, soft grey fur crushed against me.

I slip through the hall and out of the front door before my father appears, and ring Mrs Perkins’ bell. She emerges with a look of indignation on her face.

‘My baby!’ She holds out red-tipped hands for him.

I hand him over. His ears and tails droop. ‘He was stuck in our tree.’

She hugs the cat, drowning his head between her mountainous breasts. The cat shoots me a disbelieving look and lets out a low wail. She turns to leave.

‘Mrs Perkins…’

She stands, head cocked, one foot on her doorstep.

‘Are you sure you heard my mother… screaming?’ I put my hand to my stinging cheek. ‘Couldn’t it have been… something else. A fox maybe?’

‘You think I don’t know what a fox sounds like?’ She shakes her head with such vigour that her gold necklaces shimmy across her chest. ‘I’ve not a shadow of doubt. It was your poor mother. Heard it night after night, and my Harry heard it too. We were going to call the authorities. It didn’t seem right.’

The door shuts with a bang. I pat the raised line on my cheek and look at my finger, at the small dots of gleaming red.

I remember the terrible sound of the foxes – how exactly they mimicked the sound of a woman or a child being murdered. Mrs Perkins is lying. She would have gone ahead and called the police if she’d been sure that it was my mother making that noise.

ERNST

1937, Germany

Meeting Sarah and Daniel at the cottage has become a habit. Sometimes, with farm duties and German Youth activities, it’s impossible to get away. Or I can’t give Otto the slip. But I usually manage it twice a week. We have prearranged times, and we leave notes if we miss each other. We read, chat, eat the food they smuggle in their pockets; we play cards. Daniel and I talk about science; we spread a map of the world on the floor to plan the trips we’ll take one day, adventures we’ll have in Africa and Australia. We’ve stopped talking about what’s happening at home. It’s become a kind of unwritten rule.

Once, in the kitchen, when Daniel wasn’t there, I kissed Sarah on the cheek, brushing my lips across that plump rise of flesh below her eye. Both of us pretended it hadn’t happened. We avoided looking directly at each other for days afterwards. But her embarrassment was thrilling because I knew then that she felt the same:
her
chest tightened,
her
heart raced, when I was near. I’ve stopped bothering to remind myself that they are Jews. There’s no point – it doesn’t make sense.

On my fourteenth birthday, I graduated into the Hitler Youth, and Otto followed eleven months later. We both have our daggers at our belts with the inscription ‘Blood and Honour’ engraved on them. Otto has risen in the ranks, becoming Section Leader. He loves the role. ‘Eyes right. Stand down.’ He pokes his face into other boys’ and tells them they are a disgrace to the Fatherland.

Winkler favoured Otto. And in the older squad our new Section Leader, Scholz, feels the same about my brother. Otto looks like the perfect Nazi. And he’s strong, fast, brave, and disciplined – always the first to volunteer and the first to answer questions. He’s a star pupil, the ideal boy soldier.

We’re all outside the club house after the Tuesday meeting, getting on bicycles, or heading back home on foot, chatting and calling out friendly insults to each other through the pale evening, when Conrad Lange steps in front of my brother.

Conrad puffs his chest out, his mouth pressed into a line. ‘What I want to know, Meyer, is where are your papers? Where’s your family report?’ He pokes a finger at Otto. ‘How come we all have to prove we’re true Aryans – and you don’t? You and Ernst, you could be anyone. Gypsies.
Mischlinge
. Hell. You could be Jews!’

A small crowd gathers around both of them. I hold my breath, waiting for the punch. Instead, Otto reaches for a rope hanging from his belt. He doesn’t say anything. Casually, with thoughtful concentration, he winds it around his own bare arm. We’ve been practising knots, and they are still twisted into the rough fibre.

With deliberate movements, Otto begins to saw at his skin with the rope, pulling it up and down the same patch of flesh. Conrad glances at Otto’s arm and then at his face. He shuffles his feet in the dry grass.

‘What are you doing?’ his voice croaks. I see the edge of Conrad’s tongue as he licks his lips.

Otto says nothing. The force of his looking could bore a hole in Conrad’s skull. Otto beckons to another boy from the group that’s gathered around. He indicates that the boy work the rope for him. ‘Harder,’ Otto tells him between gritted teeth. He holds his arm out. And the boy works the gnarled rope knot up and down Otto’s arm until it shreds his skin, and the flesh underneath flushes purple, raw, with shiny pink patches and flecks of blood.

Conrad glances away.

‘Watch.’ Otto’s lips are tight. ‘This is for my country. This is how much pain I can stand for my Führer.’

Conrad steps backwards.

Otto holds out the rope. ‘Let me see you do it.’

Conrad’s face is drained of colour, and he continues backing away, murmuring, ‘You’re crazy.’

‘No. You’re a coward!’ Otto shouts after him.

The other boys pat Otto on the back, examining his ruined arm with expressions of nervous admiration. I see Scholz looking out of the club house window, his slight smile before he moves away.

Otto’s arm takes weeks to heal. It becomes a slimy, weeping sore. Bettina baths it with salt water. He sits meekly while she dabs at it, exclaiming over his stupidity. Eventually, it grows a thin layer of pale scar tissue and he no longer needs Bettina’s nursing. I notice that he begins to hang around her more, offering her advice on how to do her chores more efficiently and even carrying things for her if they’re heavy. He is developing bigger muscles in his chest and arms. He does press-ups every day before bed, grunting and panting while I’m trying to sleep.

The horses are out in the field, and the stable door is open. Bettina is standing guard at the threshold, watching as Otto stalks a loose hen. The hen is darting backwards and forwards along the back wall, her speckled feathers fluffed up, apple-pip eyes bright with fear. Otto lunges, rolling shoulder first into the straw. The hen squawks as she makes a desperate leap into the dusty air, and Otto bounces up empty-handed, feathers between his fingers. Bettina laughs and claps. ‘Nearly!’

Panting, Otto glares at the hen. He plucks straw from his jumper as he waits for her to settle. When she begins to peck amongst the hay again, he throws himself at her fast as an uncoiling spring. This time he grabs her around the middle. Triumphantly, he hoists the bundle of feathers up with both hands, pinning the wings neatly, and presents her to Bettina. Bettina tucks the hen under her arm. ‘Bad girl. Next time the fox will get you.’

Grinning, Otto leans forward to plant a kiss on her lips. Bettina gasps, stepping away, so that Otto’s mouth slides across her chin. She lifts a hand and slaps his cheek. I hear the sting of fingers against flesh. Without waiting for his response she marches past, the hen jolting in her grip.

‘Bitch.’ Otto stares after her, rubbing his cheek. ‘She thinks she’s too good for me. Well, too bad for her.’ He folds his arms. ‘She’s a slut anyway. She’s been with Bruno Stein. He boasts about it all the time. I want a girl who’s pure and innocent. An angel. That’s what I’m looking for.’

Since I can remember, my brother has had nightmares. I used to think he’d outgrow them. But they’ve got worse as he’s got older. He’s much too big for his bed, and however he positions himself, tucking himself up, burrowing into the thin mattress, he loses the blanket, and his feet or his shoulders stick out. I’ve got used to waking suddenly in the dark, hearing him crying out. Sometimes I creep over to him and sit on his bed and stroke his damp hair back from his forehead, try to rearrange his covers over him. He trembles and moans, the nightmare clinging to him. In the morning, he doesn’t seem to remember. If I ask him about it, he smiles and shrugs and says that I’m imagining things. He’s never slept better.

Meyer doesn’t want us to go to the Nazi party rally at Nuremberg. There’s too much to do on the farm. But he has no choice. It is an order. Otto and I have never been further away than the local town. There is a whole week of festivities. We stay in tents pitched in neat lines. There are games and marches. And on the last day, Hitler comes to talk to the whole rally. Sixty thousand Hitler Youth stand motionless in their ranks. Flags with eagles’ heads and the sword and hammer snap and flutter above a mass of fair heads. Drums and trumpets sing out, cymbals clash. Every uniform is clean and pressed. Not one person steps out of place. A woman with a camera hurries among the lines of boys, filming us.

When Hitler appears on the podium a great roar goes up and every arm is raised in a
Sieg heil
. The ground shakes. And then a hush falls as he speaks, chopping the air with his hands, his voice trembling with emotion as he tells us that the Germany of the future will have no ranks and no classes. ‘You, my youth,’ he shouts, ‘never forget that one day you will rule the world.’

He stares out at the crowd, his sweeping arm including us all. ‘You are flesh from our flesh. Blood from our blood,’ his voice echoes.

My throat constricts with pride. Despite the distance between us, I swear he’s looking right at me, picking me out.

Otto is at the end of the line. I can’t see him without turning my head. But he is thinking the same thing as me. Nobody ever claimed us as flesh and blood before. The seduction of it washes through my body. I begin to understand that it makes Otto feel more than important: it makes him feel safe. Inside that vast mass standing shoulder to shoulder, with the Führer spreading his arms to embrace us, I feel safe too.

On the way home in the train, Otto wets his mouth and stares out of the carriage window, his eyes moving greedily over the landscape as if he wants to devour everything he sees. And although our voices are hoarse with shouting and singing, we all begin to sing again, a marching song. Otto’s voice rises until it is the loudest in the carriage, the veins in his neck swollen with effort, blood pumping blue and thick at the base of his neck.

We arrive home to a dark, sleeping farm. We slink into our beds, hungry and exhausted. But neither of us can sleep. I hear Otto tossing and turning, his feet hanging over the edge of the cot. I am filled with adrenalin. Heady words repeat in my mind. Drums and cymbals clash and stamp. Flags strain high up, soaring towards the clouds, towards the promise of a new Germany, and a new future for us. A boy can grow to be powerful and important in Hitler’s Germany.

When we go to feed the horses the next morning, Meyer turns up, mouth set in a line, his face heavy with resentment.

My fingers fumble around the bridle. Berta twitches her head, knocking my hand and I drop the whole thing, the heavy, silver bit clunking against Meyer’s toe.

He glares at me, his fingers scrabbling at his belt buckle.

‘Leave him.’ Otto steps between Meyer and me and looks him in the eye. ‘Put that away. You’ll never beat us again,’ he says.

I am startled by his tone of cold authority. My little brother has grown up. It isn’t just the fuzz of hair on his cheeks, the muscles in his shoulders and his towering height – he’s taller than Meyer now – it is his certainty. Meyer’s mouth droops. His hand goes to his belt again and then falls away. He spits in the straw. ‘Think you’re a big man now.’