“It’s my fault, I suppose.” The man sighed. “It was me who introduced him to the nightlife. I thought it was something he’d be interested in.”
“You should talk to him, Herr General.”
The man broke into mirthless laughter. “I can’t quite tell him to stop now, can I? He’s an adult now, a grown man. Who am I to order him around?”
“You’re still his father.”
Von Sielaff only nodded slowly. “All right, I’ll talk to him.”
For some reason, Johann didn’t believe he’d actually go through with the promise.
The cabaret, dark, smoke-filled and impossibly loud, was indeed filled with all sorts of uniformed men. Grouped around small tables, littered with liquor glasses, they leered at the stage where a scantily dressed girl was performing, her face reminding Johann of a painted mask. Someone brought cognac◦– on the house, of course! Johann cringed but drank because Willi drank and Willi’s father drank and the girl on Willi’s lap drank, this one though wearing a dress of some sort. Johann saw how Willi was staring at her while she danced on the stage, how General von Sielaff called up a maître-d without Willi noticing and slipped a few bills into his big palm. As soon as the act was over, the girl was promptly escorted straight to the General’s table and almost placed on Willi’s lap, by the maître-d himself. And the General was back to his sad staring and his small, miserable smile, desperately trying to buy the affection that had been long lost and which acknowledged no currency any longer.
Johann was almost relieved when, with a heavy head full of the effects of yesterday’s liquor, he waited for his morning train on the platform.
When Johann saw Willi climbing off the steps of the train and holding his hand out to a girl in a warm gray overcoat, his eyes widened in astonishment.
“I thought I’d bring Mina along.” Willi greeted him with his usual mischievous grin. “You don’t mind, do you?”
Instantly at a loss for words, Johann almost broke into laughter. You don’t mind, do you, was Willi’s signature way of saying, I already did something without consulting you and I’m assuming that it’ll turn out just grand. Johann loved structure and order more than anything and loathed surprises, yet this new stunt of Willi’s he just couldn’t resent, in spite of himself.
“Welcome to our little town,” Johann said quietly, shaking Mina’s gloved hand with the utmost gentleness. “I know it’s nothing like Berlin but—”
“It’s good to see you again,” she interrupted his mumbling, her cheeks emanating a soft pink glow.
Willi stood next to them, shifting his eyes from one to another and clearly doing his best to conceal a huge knowing grin.
“Heil Hitler!”
Johann turned around to the shout and saw his little brother Harald; right hand rigid and straight at the eye level, heels together, posture erect and frozen at attention. The train arrived later than they expected due to the previous night’s snowstorm which had slowed down all of the trains in the area. Harald, in his winter Jungvolk uniform, was waiting patiently along with his brother; finally touched Johann’s sleeve and asked him for permission to go inside the station to use the facilities. As it always happens, in his absence, the train had arrived.
Willi chortled in response and put his hand to his forehead instead. “Good morning, young fellow. You must be Harald.”
“Jawohl, Cadet von Sielaff!” Another shout followed in tow with the sharp click of the heels.
Eyebrows raised in amusement mixed with something else, Willi shifted his eyes to Johann. The latter only sighed and made a vague dismissive gesture with his hand.
“Harald hopes to be accepted into the Napola in February. So, he’s training for it.”
Willi’s smile dropped at once and Johann instantly recalled the reason. Wilhelm told him, during one of those rare moods of his when he allowed himself to open up to his friend that his father offered him an almost guaranteed acceptance into one of those elite schools, which, according to their propaganda, prepared future leaders of the Reich in their midst. Needless to say, in most cases, it meant mostly the SS, which Willi had grown to despise by the tender age of fifteen.
Only the best of the best would be accepted, the propaganda leaflet said, only the brightest, strongest, and the most inspired. It was the “inspired” part which caused Willi such revulsion. He could have easily proven his Aryan ancestry far beyond the recommended five generations; his academic reports only had excellent marks in them; he was a natural athlete and, as his teachers and Hitlerjugend leaders always remarked in his report; a natural born leader. The problem, which this natural born leader had with the National Political School, was that he utterly rejected National Socialism and everything that it stood for.
His mother raised him to believe that all people were born equal to one another and no one had the right to judge anyone. She was the strongest woman he’d ever known; in an age when a divorce was frowned upon and a woman, raising her children on her own and working for a living was something out of a fantasy book, she decided that she would be better off without her no-good husband and to hell with anyone who thought differently. Willi admired her greatly, admired her almost open disdain of social norms and particularly the newest racial policies and decided that she was much wiser than all of his political leaders put together.
“Why do you want to study at the Napola?” He asked Harald.
“It’s the best school one can only dream of!” Followed the passionate reply.
“Do you want to be in the SS too, when you grow up?” Willi demanded.
This time Harald shrugged with uncertainty.
Willi crossed his arms and said in a sudden loud voice, “do you know that your brother knocked out an SS man about two months ago? Broke his nose. Caught him square in the chin, too; the fellow went down like a sack of potatoes.”
Harald only stared at his brother with his mouth faintly ajar.
“Why would you tell him that?” Johann tilted his head to one side, reproach evident in his gaze.
“So that he’d know that sometimes belonging to ‘the best’ doesn’t mean shit. Sorry, Mina.”
“Nothing I haven’t heard from you before,” the girl countered, admirably unconcerned. “Did you really hit the SS man, Johann?”
Encouraged by a spark of interest in her eyes, Johann nodded somewhat bashfully.
“Good for you,” she offered with a coy smile, lifting her long eyelashes in a sideways glance.
They walked for some time chatting about their flying school and sharing the most amusing stories with Mina. Johann offered them to stop at a coffee shop to warm themselves with some hot chocolate before they continued to Johann’s house.
“I can’t wait for my parents to meet you both,” Johann admitted with a warm smile, handing his guests and little brother their cups.
“What about your friend Alf?” Willi inquired, taking a sip. “Is he waiting for us there or shall we pick him up on our way?”
Willi quickly put his cup down at the sight of Johann’s face.
“Alf doesn’t live here anymore.”
“Did they move?”
“Papa said, they just disappeared one day. The entire family. A German family now lives there. I went by their house as soon as I returned from visiting you but the lady who lives there now says that she’d never heard of them and doesn’t know where they went. No forward mail address, nothing.”