Johann nearly beamed in relief at the command; he could swear his toes would freeze to the ground hadn’t it been dispatched.
The remainder of the practice proceeded in the same manner. The instructor abused them unmercifully, both physically and mentally and as though the poor shivering horde didn’t suffer enough, he had sent them on a five-kilometer run, which he would time◦– and God help you if you didn’t make it back in under twenty-five minutes!
Johann always excelled in sports despite his delicate frame; it was the academics which came to him with some difficulty. Willi◦– he couldn’t stop marveling at his friend◦– managed to get excellent grades without bothering to open his textbook once and ran marathons with such ease as though he had been training for the Olympics and not getting over yet another hangover nearly every morning. Walter, the prodigy pilot and the most studious of the group, also managed to keep up; it was Rudolf, his black bangs falling in his eyes, who started falling behind very quickly. Johann slowed down to cheer him up a bit, waving the rest of his friends to go ahead.
“Come on, Rudi!” Johann clapped his hands, running backward to encourage Rudolf with a smile. “We passed the three kilometers mark! Two more and we’ll go to the showers and then have our lunch! Just push yourself a little more!”
“I can’t,” Rudolf moaned, holding his side. “I was never a good runner. Go on without me. I don’t want him to punish you for not making it in time.”
“I won’t leave you alone!” Johann protested. “Come on; together we’ll do this, you’ll see! I won’t run fast, just try to match my steps and breathe through the nose, not through your mouth. Steady, deep breaths!”
“I can’t… My side is killing me.” Rudi stopped altogether, his palms resting on his knees as he struggled with catching his breath.
“No, no, no! Don’t stop, you’ll only make it worse!” Johann was already pulling him by the soaked sleeve of his gray sports suit with a Luftwaffe eagle embroidered on it. “Little steps. Run as slow as you can but don’t stop!”
They were the last ones to turn onto the finish line. As soon as the instructor saw Rudolf’s arm around Johann’s shoulder, who was nearly dragging his roommate after himself, he trotted towards the couple, seething with fury.
“What do you think you’re doing, you numbskull?! The enemy will not wait for you to pick up all of your comrades who can’t run fast enough! In the army, it’s each for their own, you fucking crap-head! Drop him this instant and march towards the finish line!”
Johann only pursed his lips into a thin unyielding line and stubbornly refused to let go of his comrade’s arm.
“Drop him this instant, I said!!!” The instructor bellowed in his ear, bristles of spit mixing with rain on Johann’s cheek. “If you refuse to follow my orders, I’ll leave you without lunch and dinner today and have you stand in the courtyard till the lights-out!”
“Johann, leave me,” Rudolf implored him quietly, prying his arm free. Johann pulled it back, supporting him by his waist with a most unwavering determination. At last, both made it across the finish line, where the rest of the cadets were waiting.
“Congratulations,” the instructor addressed them sardonically. “Your heroics just cost you both your lives. The enemy caught you and has taken you prisoner, or worse◦– killed you both. Are you satisfied with yourself, Cadet Brandt?”
“Jawohl, Herr Instructor. I didn’t leave my comrade and I’ll die happy, knowing that my conscience before him is clear.”
“You’re an idiot then. Well? Why are you still here? Didn’t I tell you that I’ll send you standing at attention in the courtyard for the rest of the day if you don’t follow my orders? Go on, trot along, Cadet Brandt! I’ll be checking on you from time to time; I better not find you sitting on the ground!”
By four o’clock, the rain had finally stopped. Thick fog replaced it, growing denser, more impenetrable with each passing minute, obscuring the silhouette of the school from sight, turning it into a ghost house. By five, Johann had lost almost all feeling in his shoulders, back, and legs. By six, he could swear he’d drop any moment now, either from hypothermia or from exhaustion. A little after six, Herr Hauptmann himself appeared with Willi in tow and silently motioned Johann to follow him. This time it was Willi, who nearly carried Johann’s collapsing frame, on his shoulder, back into the welcoming warmth of the school.
In the Hauptmann’s office, the fire was lit. He ordered Johann to undress and sit in front of it at once. Willi was already waiting with a towel in his hands, with which he started vigorously rubbing his friend’s skin that had taken on a grayish tint. Herr Hauptmann, meanwhile, poured him three fingers of cognac and forced him to drink it. Johann’s teeth shuddered uncontrollably as they came in contact with the rim of the glass.
“You did the right thing,” the Hauptmann spoke in a low voice. “Not abandoning your comrade. We never abandon our kind. That fellow, your new instructor he’s a bit…” He sighed, waved his arm in a dismissive gesture.
“I know,” Johann grinned with lips which didn’t listen to him too well. “My brother Harald has a teacher like that at school. Also teaches them all sorts of nonsense.”
The Hauptmann hid a grin and poured him more cognac. Johann finally felt warm.
FOUR
November 1938
Johann woke up from someone shaking him frantically and cringed at the overpowering smell of liquor assaulting his senses.
“Willi, what the hell?!” he groaned. Ignoring the disheveled boy, who was desperately trying to tell him something, he shoved him off of himself, pulled the blanket over his head and turned to the other side.
“Will you listen to me?” Willi hissed into his ear, his voice strangely sober.
Johann sat up after Willi had yanked the blanket off him, his eyes shining with some odd gleam in them. The window, through which he’d climbed in, was still open, icy gusts of November wind biting exposed skin on Johann’s neck. Willi was out of breath, his hands closing and unclosing into fists.
“What is it?” Johann probed gently. “Did you get in trouble with the police?”
“No.”
“Did the sentry catch you at the gates?”
“Don’t be daft! Had he caught me, I wouldn’t have been here talking to you, would I now?”
“What is it then?”
“You have to come with me.”
“Have you gone off your head?” Johann tried to make out the time on his wristwatch in the scant light provided by the moon. “It’s almost two in the morning! We have to be up in four hours.”
Willi shook his head vigorously, sending his long bangs falling over his eyes. His forehead shone with a thin film of sweat; Johann had just now taken notice of it. “You must come with me. You must see this.”
“Willi, I told you already, I’m not going to any of those parties of yours! And especially in the middle of the night! What’s gotten into you—”
“They’re beating the Jews. The synagogue is burning.”
Johann sat on his bed in silence for some time, trying to make sense of Willi’s nonsense. “What?”
“The Jews. People are beating them in the street. The SS are there too… I ran to a local Kripo office as soon as I saw this but instead of getting out into the street and restoring order, they started interrogating me as to who I was and what I was doing out at this hour. In the end, one of them simply told me to mind my own business and go back to school before he reported me… Johann, I know what I saw! Yes, I have been drinking but I’m not drunk! I didn’t just imagine all that!”