Ben Elton - Two Brothers

That news for which every other German longed, to be classified officially as a genuine six-generation ‘pure blood’, left Otto devastated. He really wasn’t a Jew and he could not turn himself into one no matter how much he might want to.

And so, like the Jews he could no longer claim to be, he must be exiled.

FRIEDA AND WOLFGANG were summoned to the local Gestapo Office about a fortnight after Otto returned from his trip to Saxony.

They returned ashen-faced.

‘They say that you are never to see us again, Ottsy,’ Frieda said, trying with Herculean effort to pull herself together enough to speak.

‘No!’ Otto shouted. ‘That can’t be true. Why? What’s the point of stopping us even seeing each other?’

‘They said we’ve been a corrupting influence for too long,’ Frieda explained through her tears.

Wolfgang took his bottle of cheap spirits and sank down on the piano stool, his head slumped forward.

‘They say it will be a serious criminal offence if we try to maintain any kind of relationship with you at all,’ he said, speaking into his chest.

‘But what if it’s me?’ Otto almost pleaded. ‘What if I’m the one who comes to you? They can’t blame you for—’

‘If you visit us,’ Wolfgang interrupted, ‘they’ll treat it as if we’ve kidnapped you, and Mum, me and Paulus will be sent to a concentration camp.’

The four of them stared at each other.

‘Tomorrow?’ Otto said almost mechanically. ‘They’re coming tomorrow?’

‘We’ll see you, Otts,’ Wolfgang went on, emboldened by the gulp of liquor he’d taken. ‘Somehow we’ll find a way. They can’t just pretend our family doesn’t exist.’

‘Of course they can’t and nor will we,’ Frieda said, sniffling into a handkerchief and trying to collect herself. ‘Somehow we will stay together.’

‘But if you see me they’ll punish you,’ Otto said in despair. ‘If I come around here they’ll take you away.’ He looked at Paulus. ‘We’ve been together since our first day on earth, Pauly. Now they won’t let us be brothers at all.’

Paulus was pulling himself together also, wiping the wet from his eyes with angry sweeps of his sleeve.

‘Maybe they’d let us see each other if we promised to fight,’ he said, trying to smile. ‘We wouldn’t find that too difficult, would we?’

Otto still did not cry but now he began to rage.

‘I’ll make them wish they never heard of me,’ he said banging his fist down on the dining table. ‘Any family that takes me in is going to regret it. I will make their lives hell. I’ll make them hate me for the Jew I still am! I’ll kill them if I have to.’

‘Otto, please!’ Frieda cried. ‘Don’t say that. You can’t fight these people. They’ll punish you.’

‘Punish me! What more can they do to me? I’m telling you, Mum, I don’t care!’

‘But I do care, Otto. And I’m your mother. Whatever those mad men say, I’m still your mother and you are only fifteen and you will do what your mother tells you!’

Otto was brought up short. Frieda’s tone was so incongruous and yet so very familiar. She’d used it so many countless thousands of times before. Almost by force of habit Otto cast his eyes to the floor, as if she’d been ticking him off for stealing biscuits from the treat tin or brandishing a dirty postcard that she’d found hidden in his bag. He almost found himself smiling.

‘And don’t grin like that when I’m talking to you!’ Frieda snapped, dabbing at her eyes. ‘You will wipe that smile off your face and listen to your mother! It is quite bad enough that you have to go away for a while, without me having to worry that you’re going to get yourself into terrible trouble when I’m not there to look after you.’ Frieda had regained her composure now. The issue of controlling Otto’s behaviour being more urgent to her than her despair at his having to go. ‘I have to know that you’ll be good, Otts. That you’ll do what they say, otherwise they’ll punish you terribly. You’re already marked, don’t you see? You’ve been brought up by Jews, they’ll be watching you. You have to toe the line. For my sake! Do you hear? Join the HJ, sing their songs, give their salutes. Swear death to the Jews, Ottsy! It’s the only way I’ll know you’re safe.’

Otto stared at his mother, his expression a terrible cross between fierce determination and abject despair.

‘All right, Mum,’ he said quietly, ‘I’ll be good.’

‘ Promise me, Otto.’

‘I promise,’ Otto said.

Frieda smiled and held him to her.

Behind Otto’s back his fingers were crossed.

Looking over his mother’s shoulder, Otto caught Paulus’s eye. He knew he could fool Frieda any time he wanted but he could never fool his brother.

‘Well then,’ Frieda whispered, ‘at least I’ll know you’ll be safe. Now let’s have no more quarrelling. Tomorrow you’ll leave and we won’t see you for a long time.’

‘When?’ Otto asked. ‘When do you think I’ll see you again?’

‘When this madness somehow subsides,’ Frieda replied. ‘That time will come.’

Sitting at his silent piano, staring blankly at the sheets of music propped up on the stand, Wolfgang sighed. He couldn’t help himself, perhaps he didn’t even know he’d done it. But that sigh spoke volumes. Wolfgang for one no longer believed that the madness would ever subside.

‘It will,’ Frieda said in answer to his unspoken thought, ‘and I’ll tell you why it will, Wolf. Because otherwise the only possible conclusion to all of this is complete destruction for Germany. They keep saying they’re rebuilding the nation but it’s so damned obvious they’re destroying it that even fools will soon see.’

Wolfgang shrugged.

‘No, don’t shrug at me like that, Wolf! I will not despair! We must not despair. This criminal state will end! You can’t survive for ever sustained only by violence. No society ever did or ever will. If these people continue to ignore every basic moral code, every fundamental prerequisite for civilization, they’ll murder themselves in the end and I think they’re far too cunning to allow that to happen. They like their fat life and their uniforms and their big black cars too much to risk losing them. So in the end they’ll compromise. Somehow they’ll compromise if only to avoid their own destruction.’

Wolfgang shrugged again. He simply couldn’t help himself, it seemed to be the only gesture he had left in him. ‘I hope you’re right, Freddy,’ was all he would say.

That night Paulus and Otto went to bed in the room they had shared since they were tiny babies and would now almost certainly never share again.

‘You had your fingers crossed, didn’t you,’ Paulus whispered, ‘when you promised Mum you’d keep out of trouble?’

‘Well, I didn’t want her to worry, did I?’ Otto hissed back defiantly. ‘And if you don’t want her to worry either you’ll keep your mouth shut about it, eh?’

‘So you’re not going to keep out of trouble, then? You’re going to fight the whole German state?’

‘What do you think, mate?’

‘I think you’re crazy.’

‘Hey, Pauly, you aren’t the one who tomorrow morning has to go and live with some Nazi fucking strangers! You’re still a Jew and even if you can’t go to the pictures at least you can live with your family. I’m going to a foster home and then what’s the betting some Nazi school, and you bloody well know they’re going to expect me to join the Hitler Youth. Well, I can’t face any of it, all right? None. I want to die, I want to bloody die right now. I’d be happy if they try to kill me because when they do I’m going to take one with me.’