Dagmar noticed them.
‘My God, Ottsy,’ she gasped, leaning over the balcony of the first stair landing.
Otto looked up at her, standing like Juliet in the famous English play they had been made to read in translation at school. Her luxurious auburn hair framing such perfectly proportioned features. The huge dark eyes enchanting, bewitching.
‘Come up to my room,’ she said.
Frau Fischer turned away, returning to her shuttered drawing room and to the memories of her gilded past, leaving Otto to run up the stairs, two at a time.
Once safely ensconced in Dagmar’s bedroom he held out his clenched fist towards her, turned it upwards and opened his fingers.
‘For you,’ he said.
There lying in the palm of his hand were the SA man’s shirt buttons.
Dagmar looked down at them and gave a little gasp.
‘You got them,’ she said. ‘You did it.’
‘Yeah. I did it … I did it for you.’
She looked at him and smiled.
Otto felt weak at the knees.
‘It’s nice to see you smile, Dags,’ he stammered. ‘You don’t seem to very much these days.’
‘Whenever I try to smile,’ she said, ‘before long I see the pavement. And the boots all around me. And Mother and Father, with their tongues out …’
‘Don’t, Dags.’
‘Sometimes I see the station platform and those men pulling at Daddy but mainly I see that pavement outside the shop. And my face is pressed against the paving stone. In my dreams I can actually
smell
it.’
Otto didn’t attempt to answer; he and Paulus had long since come to understand that there was a place where Dagmar had been and where a part of her would always remain, which was beyond any comfort they could offer.
Except perhaps that was not quite true tonight. Perhaps in doing the wild and stupid thing he’d done he’d helped her just a little. Given her a momentary respite from her own pain and bereavement.
She played with the buttons in her hand for a moment, then let them fall one by one on to the glass surface of her dressing table,
clack – clack – clack
.
‘Someone else is the victim for once,’ she whispered. ‘Someone else was lying on the ground with boots all around them.’
Then she gave Otto a cigarette, a Gitane.
She had done the same thing many times. But this was different. Spine-tinglingly different. She lit the cigarette for him. Putting her full, soft lips around the end and taking the first puff before handing it to him.
What touched her lips then touched his.
Otto was literally quivering with desire. His hands were shaking despite his every effort to still them.
After he had taken a drag or two, she reached over and plucked it from his lips, took another deep draw herself and then put it back in Otto’s mouth. Her lipstick was red on the white paper, he could taste it along with the smoke.
Otto had never dreamt that having a ciggie could be so sexy or so sophisticated. He felt as if he’d grown up a whole decade between puffs.
When the cigarette was nearly burnt down, Dagmar took it from Otto’s lips for the final time and ground it out in the crystal ashtray that sat beside her dolls on the dressing table. Then she drew Otto towards her and kissed him, full on the mouth. This was no furtive, stolen moment, like it had been at the Kempinski hotel, but slow and rich and generous.
Her lips opened beneath his and then he felt her tongue brush against his.
Otto’s mind spun cartwheels in almost blind delirium. This was ecstasy pure and simple. He tried to concentrate; he was, after all, living through the most important and most ecstatic moment of his life.
The kiss lasted a moment longer before Dagmar stepped back and smiled at him.
Otto imagined the ecstatic moment was over but he had no complaints. Had he dropped dead then and there he would have died a happy boy.
But then he felt her soft lips against his ear.
‘You can put your hand in my blouse if you like,’ she whispered.
No dream had ever come more true.
For three long years Otto had wanted nothing so much on earth as to put his hand in Dagmar’s blouse and now quite suddenly that sublime moment had arrived.
She kissed him as he pulled at the sweet-smelling cotton, dragging the hem from beneath the waist of her skirt. Then he put his hand underneath, moving it upwards, across the soft skin of her ribs. He felt one of her breasts, first through her brassiere and then, slipping his fingers inside the wired garment, touched the nipple beneath.
He was shivering with excitement. And it seemed to Otto that so was Dagmar.
This was an unexpected development. It had never even
occurred
to Otto that she might feel passion too. He would never have flattered himself to imagine that a goddess such as she could reciprocate his desire. All he had ever dared hope was that she might
tolerate
it in return for undying devotion and lifelong service.
And yet she seemed to shiver too.
For a moment they stood together, pressed against the dressing table, lips working at each other’s mouths. Otto trying simultaneously to both lose himself in and yet also remember forever the extraordinary ecstasy of actually
touching
Dagmar’s breasts.
Then she pushed him away.
‘No more,’ she gasped. ‘We should stop before … Not because I don’t want to … but because I
do
…’
Dagmar reddened as the sentences trailed away.
Otto grinned a grin so broad it seemed to split his face in two. He had come so much further than ever he had dared to hope.
‘This is the best night of my life,’ he stuttered. ‘I mean literally. Honest. Just the best … literally.’
Dagmar smiled too. A true and genuine smile, a smile that for a moment seemed free of pain. The smile not of a hunted and a haunted Jew who was celebrating the mugging of an enemy, but simply of a young girl just turned fifteen who was growing up and had properly kissed a boy for the first time.
‘Thanks for my buttons,’ she said, tucking her blouse back into her skirt. ‘Although I don’t really think I want to keep them. Do you mind?’
‘No, I don’t think you should either,’ Otto replied, still red-faced with delight. ‘I’ll take them and chuck ’em, shall I?’
‘Only if you absolutely promise to throw them down the first gutter. If you kept them and they were ever found …’
‘Don’t worry.’ Otto smiled. ‘Paulus may be the clever one but I’m not
completely
thick you know.’
The mention of Paulus made them both think for a moment. Looking into each other’s eyes in silent acknowledgement that the dynamics of all their lives had changed.
‘I’d better go,’ Otto said.
He scooped up the buttons and made for the door, stumbling over the thick rug and nearly upsetting a little table crowded with stuffed toys and ornaments.
‘Ottsy,’ Dagmar said, ‘you know you and Pauly always tell me that one day I’ll have to choose?’
‘Yeah,’ Otto gulped.
‘Well, I have. I love Pauly but … I’ve chosen you.’
The Adopted Son
Berlin, 1935
IT WAS VERY late when Otto returned home having, it seemed to him, almost floated across Berlin on a cloud of happiness, descending to earth only once in order to dispose of the buttons in a great mound of horse shit on Köpenicker Strasse.
It was late but to Otto’s surprise, Wolfgang, Frieda and Paulus were still up.
They were waiting for him.
His family.
‘About bloody time,’ Paulus snapped. ‘Mum and Dad want to talk to us and they won’t tell me what it’s about on my own so we’ve had to wait for you and I haven’t been able to study all evening.’
‘I’m heartbroken, mate,’ Otto said. ‘Oh, by the way, Dagmar’s agreed to be my girl. Sorry but that’s how it goes.’
Whatever Paulus had been thinking about his mother’s strange behaviour he forgot it at once in the face of this terrible pronouncement.
‘You’re lying!’
‘Ask her if you like,’ Otto replied. ‘Ring her, she’ll be up.’
The devastation on Paulus’s face made Otto wish he hadn’t put it so bluntly, but then he knew there was never going to be any easy way to say it.
Paulus got out of his chair; he looked close to tears.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ he said, trying to sound calm. ‘Whatever it is you want to say will have to keep. I’m tired, I’m going to bed.’
Frieda smiled. A sad smile.
‘No, Pauly,’ she said, ‘you have to stay. I want to talk to you both. You’ll have to fight about Dagmar another time.’
‘Fight’s over,’ Otto said smugly. ‘I’ve won.’
Perhaps it was the word ‘fight’ that gave Frieda pause for thought. She had been so intent on what she needed to say that she had not noticed Otto’s dishevelled appearance.
‘Where have you been, Ottsy?’
‘Out,’ Otto replied.
‘Is that blood on your shirt?’ Frieda asked, fear starting in her eyes.
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
Paulus knew. ‘You’ve done it, haven’t you?’
Otto merely shrugged.
‘Done what, Otto!’ Frieda asked with rising alarm. ‘Tell me what you’ve done.’
Otto did not reply but instead went and grabbed some bread and put the kettle on the gas. Frieda turned to Paulus.
‘What’s he done, Pauly?’ she said. ‘You obviously know.’
Now it was Paulus’s turn to shrug.
‘Him and his mates said they were going to mug a storm trooper. I suppose they must have done it.’
‘Thanks,’ Otto said, putting beef dripping on his bread. ‘Big mouth, eh?’
‘You’d have boasted about it in the end anyway,’ Paulus replied. ‘Just like you’ve obviously been boasting to Dagmar.’
‘Oh, Ottsy,’ Frieda said.
‘Well what if I did! I’m proud of it! We slapped those bastards about a bit and made them squeal like the cowards they are. And next time I’m going to do one on my own. Man to man. I’ll kill him too. I only didn’t kill one tonight because Paulus bloody begged me—’
‘I didn’t
beg
you, mate!’ Paulus snapped. ‘I
told
you you’ll make it worse for all of us!’
‘How? How can it be any worse? We’re not even citizens any more. We get spat at on buses! Pushed out of shops. Kicked and punched every day. Our girls are insulted and worse. We can’t join anything, we can’t go anywhere! They’re taking everything away from us! Everything!’
‘Keep your voice down, you stupid bastard,’ Paulus hissed.
Wolfgang and Frieda were sitting at the table in silence as Otto and Paulus traded harsh words.
‘Yeah that’s right, Pauly, whisper! Whisper in your own home! Don’t you see? We’re crawling! They are making us Jews crawl. Well this Jew ain’t crawling any more! I made Dagmar smile tonight because I took a bit of revenge for her dad. When did you last see her smile? We have to stand up for ourselves. Nobody’s going to help us Jews. Everybody hates us even in the countries that pretend they don’t! Only Jews can help Jews!’
Otto had taken his flick-knife from his pocket. He was brandishing it as he spoke. ‘I’m sick of this,’ he said. ‘I’m going out.’
‘Otto!’ Frieda said, her tone demanding silence. ‘Don’t you dare leave this house. You have to listen to me. We have to talk.’
Otto stopped. The boys glanced at each other and then looked at their mother. Something was up. They fell silent.
‘Yes, Mum?’ Otto said almost contritely.
Frieda looked at him steadily. The time had come.
‘Ottsy, baby. Darling boy … darling son. You’re not a Jew.’
Both boys stared at her for a moment.
Paulus was the first to speak.
‘What?’ he said. ‘What’s that supposed to mean, Mum?’ Then his voice brightened. ‘Hey! Have you found us a goy in the family records! Wow, Mum, are we
Mischlinge
? Some
Mischlinge
can still use the swimming pools!’
Frieda shook her head sadly. ‘I’m not talking about you, Pauly. Or your father and me. I’m talking about Ottsy. I’m sorry, darling. I never wanted it to come out like this.’
‘What? What to come out?’ Again it was Paulus who asked. Otto was still silent.
‘Otto. Darling. Daddy and I love you more than life itself. You know that, don’t you? Paulus and you are our darling boys and …’
Now Otto spoke.
‘What are you trying to tell me, Mum?’
Frieda tried to speak. Words she had been preparing in her mind for so long. Trying to think of a way to show her son that she loved him with all her heart and that what she had to tell him was good news. That unlike the rest of the family, Otto had a chance, a chance for a normal life. A life without fear.