Ben Elton - Two Brothers

‘Ottsy—’

‘I’m telling you, Paulus. The only way I can get through this is to hate them. Hate them and fight them and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’

‘And if you get killed? What about Mum?’

‘Well, maybe she’ll never even know, Pauly,’ Otto snarled. ‘You think about that. She’s wrong when she says the Nazis will be finished one day. She may be right about most things but she’s wrong about that. They’ll never be finished. They’re going to last a thousand years, just like the bastard says. And they won’t stop until they’ve killed us, Pauly.’

‘Killed who?’

‘The Jews.’

‘But you’re not—’

‘I’m still a fucking Jew, you bastard, and I’ll smash your face in if you say I’m not. They’re going to kill every Jew they can in the end. It says it on the wall at school, Death to Jews . But you won’t let that happen to our family. I know that, Pauly. You’re too bloody clever and so’s Mum. You’ll find a way to get out. And I probably won’t even know! I’ll be left here, on my own, living with the enemy. I’m being exiled, Pauly, and I’d rather die.’

Paul went and sat beside his brother on Otto’s bed.

‘Ottsy, mate. We’d never leave you behind, you know that.’

‘They won’t let me out, Pauly, don’t you see? They need me for their bloody army. That’s all the HJ is about, military training. Hitler wants me for a soldier. But let me tell you, mate. By the time I’ve finished, they’ll either have to let me go or kill me, and right now, I don’t care which.’

‘Ottsy, you’ve got to stop talking like that. We’ll find a way out. I promise.’

‘Maybe. But I doubt it,’ Otto said.

Then he went and brushed his teeth. As he passed through the living room he saw his father, still slumped at the piano in the dark. The bottle, empty now, lying on the floor beside his stool.

‘Dad,’ Otto whispered, ‘go to bed.’

‘Later, son,’ Wolfgang replied, without looking up.

‘Dad, you’ve got to pull yourself together a bit,’ Otto went on. ‘Mum’s going to need you now.’

‘Yeah. That’s right,’ Wolfgang said but without conviction. ‘I’m not being a lot of help, am I really?’

There was nothing more to say so Otto continued on to the bathroom. When he returned Wolfgang was still sitting, slumped in the darkness at his silent piano.

Later, after the lights in their room were out, Otto whispered once more to his brother.

‘Pauly.’

‘Yeah, mate?’

‘I want you to do something for me.’

‘Yeah. I know. You want me to tell Dagmar, don’t you?’

Otto smiled to himself in the darkness. ‘We might not be the same blood, bro, but you can still read my mind. The thing is, I don’t think I can go to her myself even if I get the chance.’

‘No, I don’t think so either,’ Paulus whispered. ‘After what the Gestapo have said I think we have to presume they’ll be watching you at least for a while and will go after any Jews you try to contact.’

‘Yeah. I think that’s true.’

‘I’m sorry, mate,’ Paulus said, trying to smile. ‘Just when she’d let you have a bit as well. You lucky bastard. I still can’t believe she let you feel her up! If I’d known she was going to go that far I’d have beaten up an SA man myself.’

‘Yeah. Well, you get her all to yourself now, don’t you? So who’s the lucky bastard then?’

‘You know I wouldn’t have wanted it that way, Otts.’

‘You sure ?’

‘Well… almost sure.’

They both laughed.

‘Better go to sleep, I suppose,’ Paulus said. ‘If you’re going to fight every Nazi in Germany you’re going to need your strength.’

‘Yeah… So this is it, eh? My last night at home.’

‘Looks that way. Night, bro.’

But there was one last thing Otto wanted to ask.

‘Pauly?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Have you wondered at all what he would have been like?’

‘Who?’

‘Him. Your twin. The real one. The one who was with you inside Mum, the one who died. If he had lived and I’d never turned up. What he would have been like?’

‘Of course I haven’t, Otts,’ Paulus whispered. ‘I don’t need to, do I? I know what he would have been like. He’d have been exactly like you. Because he is you.’

‘THAT WAS THE last night me and my brother ever spent together,’ Stone said. ‘The Gestapo arrived the following morning.’

Despite their previous arrangement not to meet up until after his return from Berlin, Stone had decided to call Billie and to ask if she could see him.

He knew that to do this was against the unspoken rules of their relationship. But sitting alone in his flat, after spending an entire day with the deeply irritating and unsettling MI6 double act, Stone had realized that he did not want to wait until he got back from Berlin to see Billie.

Not least because he was not at all sure that he ever would come back from Berlin. A trap was waiting for him there. Of that he had become quite certain.

He hadn’t expected Billie to agree to come out. He had presumed she’d be busy. Busy with her young, carefree, potential-packed life. Busy associating with people who were not crippled by history.

Busy being properly alive.

‘I know we said we wouldn’t meet up in the week but…’ he began over the phone.

‘Baby, you said dat, not me,’ Billie corrected him. ‘Personally I don’ like to make no rules. I like to be spontaneous.’

‘Spontaneous?’ Stone said. ‘That sounds like a nice thing to be. I think I can just about remember what it is.’

‘Well, let’s be spontaneous now then. Let’s go out for a drink on a school night. How’s dat for wild and reckless?’ Billie laughed. ‘Do’an worry, baby, it do’an mean we be married nor nuttin.’

They agreed to meet on Piccadilly and chose a little pub halfway down St James Street from the Ritz. As they entered Stone noted the looks they got from the other clientele. He was used to it but it always irritated him. Black people were still pretty rare in pubs up West and a white man with a black woman always drew attention. Particularly a woman such as Billie who was young, beautiful and dressed as ever in as eye-catching a manner as she could contrive. That evening she had on white stiletto shoes, tight denim pedal-pusher jeans and an equally figure-hugging pink cashmere sweater which extended over her bottom and was tied off at the waist with a black patent leather belt. To top it all off she wore a rakish tweed trilby hat perched on top of her magnificent jet black bouffant.

‘I know what they’re all t’inking,’ Billie whispered as Stone returned from the bar with their drinks.

‘They’re thinking “Lucky bastard”. That’s what they’re thinking,’ Stone replied.

‘No, man. They’re t’inking how much she chargin’ ’im an’ could I afford it meself.’

Stone set the drinks on the table. A pint of bitter and a port and lemonade on either side of their packs of cigarettes, hers French, his American.

‘So you jus’ felt like some company then?’ Billie asked.

‘Yes. I suppose. Something like that. This Berlin trip. It’s got sort of complicated.’

‘Everyt’ing about you is complicated,’ Billie replied with a laugh. ‘It’s kind of interestin’ an’ sort of cute but you don’ wanna overplay it. A girl could get bored only gettin’ to meet ten per cent of a fella.’

‘I thought you told me to keep my demons to myself,’ Stone said, smiling.

‘That was when I only knew you a week,’ Billie replied. ‘Now it’s been t’ree months. Maybe it’s time you let a couple out. You know, jus’ one or two every now and den.’