“It’s really nothing,” Johann muttered, embarrassed.
“Well, it’s everything to me. Thank you and… well, good night.”
“Good night, Willi.”
The boy was already back in his bed, snoring softly and Johann lay for a long time, staring at the ceiling and thinking how wonderfully well everything turned out after all. To hell with that reprimand; Willi opened up to him and called him his friend and that was much more important. People were always much more important to Johann than all the papers and notes put together.
THREE
November 1938
The morning dawned drowned-gray. Dressed in their sports suits, drenched to the bone due to the slanting rain, the cadets lined up outside for basic infantry training. The instructor, with a bearing and an attitude of a right drill-sergeant, marched along the line, shouting in the faces of his new charges what they were about to endure at his hands.
“I know that you imagine yourselves as some sort of playboys, in fancy uniforms and with silk neckties, flying your little planes and visiting your multiple lady-friends in your free time. But, before you get to those planes, you will have to learn what the everyday soldier must go through, for once your fancy little plane takes a hit and you are forced to bail, guess what you become? That’s right! An ordinary infantryman! And it’s up to me to teach you how to survive on that land because let me assure you right now, it’s a much more challenging affair than your fancy aerobatics.”
Johann suppressed a chuckle as Willi grunted next to him, rolling his eyes◦– a stunt which fortunately went unnoticed due to the instructor turning all of his attention to some unlucky fellow at the beginning of the line.
“Why are you shivering? Don’t look down, look me in the eye when I’m talking to you! You’re not a dog; you’re a future soldier and I’ll teach you how to act like one if you haven’t learned it yet! What is your name?”
The cadet mumbled something inaudible due to the torrential rain and the vicious howling of the wind. Johann ignored shivers passing down his spine and pulled himself up even more, turning into a rigid statue; not because of the instructor’s shouts but solely to prove to himself that he was stronger than nature itself.
“Louder!”
“Joachim Hall!”
“What happened, Cadet Hall?! Are you cold?! Drop down and perform fifty pushups at once!”
From the side of his eye, as he stared straight ahead as was prescribed, Johann saw the cadet drop down into the mud. The instructor, with his whistle shimmering glumly on his neck, was slowly stalking along the line, repeating from time to time to all the unfortunates who also couldn’t control their involuntary trembling any longer.
“Name? Are you cold too, my little, delicate nancy-boy? Fifty pushups!”
White clouds of vapor coming out of his mouth, the instructor was approaching Johann and Willi. Johann stilled himself, applying all of his willpower; passed the test under the beady, scrutinizing eyes and exhaled only when the instructor passed Willi as well. The temperature that morning plunged just below zero. The grass was white with ice under their feet when they first stepped on it before the clouds broke down and decided to drown them all in icy rain.
Most of the instructors at the basic flying school were demanding but likable fellows◦– former pilots, whom cadets looked up to and who they aspired to become. They were reasonably firm but just, invariably dressed in immaculately pressed uniforms, had creases on their trousers as sharp as a razor and talked in calm, confident voices◦– unlike this infantry training drill-sergeant whom Johann disliked for that very bellowing of his.
“Only an ignorant person uses his voice when he can’t use reason; only a powerless person uses force when he can’t use diplomacy.” Johann’s father once noted in one of his quiet pearls of wisdom, while the two were working on one of Herr Brandt’s training gliders outside. “A true leader never raises his voice. He inspires the others with his actions, his personal example.”
“Is that why the Führer always shouts?” Johann whispered back; bit his lip at once but instantly broke into a wide grin as he caught a bright reciprocal smile from his father.
“Yes. That’s why all of them shout.”
Johann knew better than to express the same sentiments around anyone besides immediate members of his more than liberal family. His father had always possessed the sharpest sense of justice and always taught his sons what he believed in. And so, instead of, “we only love and respect those of German blood,” which the teachers drilled into the boys’ heads at school, he taught them that, “we only love and respect those, who deserve our love and respect, regardless of their race, nationality, or religion.” Johann found that it made more sense anyway. Why should he love and respect the headmaster’s son, who was a little weasel and a snitch, who invariably reported to his father every single student, who dared to greet his classmate with a “good morning” instead of the prescribed “Heil Hitler”? He much more preferred respecting Alf, who, even though he wasn’t of German blood, was still a much better German than the schoolmaster’s son, in his eyes.
Herr Brandt saw Johann off to Vienna with a light heart; his oldest son was already an adult who knew how to think for himself but it was his youngest one, Harald, about whom he worried◦– he confessed it to Johann right before Johann’s departure. A few days ago, a new teacher replaced the old one◦– beloved by every single student◦– and demanded at once that little boys who were only ten years of age, act like little Gestapo agents.
“Our new teacher told us that Herr Schmitt had lost his position because he was ‘politically unreliable.’ He also told us that older boys from the Hitlerjugend will initiate a Streifendienst and will report us to the teacher if we don’t follow the doctrine,” little Harald mumbled, munching on his marmalade sandwich. “They will watch us at school and in the streets too. He said, if we go near Jewish shops, we’ll be reported. If we don’t greet each other with the salute, we’ll be reported. And if we don’t report someone, who didn’t reply to us with a salute, we’ll be reported. He said I must report you all too if you don’t salute me back. But I would never report you, Papa! And I’d never report Mama or Johann,” Harald even shook his blond head vehemently in the confirmation of his words but then paused in uncertainty. “But how do they know if we don’t greet each other properly? The teacher said that Der Führer has eyes everywhere. Does that mean he can see us now?”
“No, son, he can’t,” Herr Brandt rushed to reassure him. “The teacher is just trying to scare you like your Mutti used to scare you with the big gray wolf so that you wouldn’t wander into the forest alone.”
“There’s no wolf there, Vati,” Harald grinned. “It’s a children’s tale. I’m not a child anymore. I’m a Jungvolk member.”
“Adults tell each other tales too, Harald. ‘To keep them out of the forest.’ Like the one that the teacher told you about Der Führer watching you all the time. Der Führer is only a human; he’s not some all-mighty God.”
“The Führer needs soldiers, not nancy-boys which you represent in your current state!” The instructor’s barking, as he was back to abusing one of the cadets, cut into Johann’s thoughts. “You can’t do fifty pushups? You’ll be lying face down in the mud until you’re done and I don’t care if you drown in it! The rest of you◦– fifty sit-ups with your arms stretched in front of you, as though you’re holding a rifle, the right to hold which you haven’t deserved yet; now!”