10. Ralph
May 12, 2024 at 5:14 AM
I ran my hands along her perfect curves, sometimes squeezing her assertively. She was impossibly pure.
...I couldn't get clean. The washing machine my father had bought five years ago would not clean. There was a big ochre stain on the most visible part of it, catching the eye.
— Leave it alone, mate, — Bruno said without taking his cigarette out of his mouth, — it won't come off.
— I...won't...give up. — I muttered, scrubbing at the stain with the fury of a beast.
Adler was sitting on the kitchen table in his underwear, puffing on a cigarette like a locomotive, switching on a gramophone and singing along to the singer's voice coming from it. Saturday afternoon the boys and I decided to spend at my house, loafing around. My father was away on a business trip to Frankfurt am Main and would be back in three days, so we had the house all to ourselves. I spilled some brightly coloured shit on the washing machine, for example, and have been trying to clean it up for ten minutes to Bruno's sarcastic laughter. The song had changed to "Drei lilien" and Adler was yelling at the top of his lungs:
— Und sterbe ich noch heute, so bin ich morgen tot, dann begraben mich die Leute ums Morgenrot!..
Dilley next to me rolled his eyes. At the next verse Schultz shouted the words furiously and, judging by the muffled sound, hit himself on the chest with his fist. My friend looked fiercely in the direction of the failed singer and clenched the bullhorn in his hand, spilling the ash on the floor. It looked like a bomb was about to go off in here.
Adler shouted "warum vidibum" again, thumped the table with all his might, and Bruno couldn't take it anymore.
— Shut the fuck up! — he roared, whirling into the kitchen. — My ears hurt!
— Don't point your finger at me, Dilley, or I promise I'll shove it up your ass!
— What? Adler Schultz is threatening to stick his finger up my assehole? He can't even do that.
— Speak for yourself, you four-story tall man! — I'm not interested in your assehole, because it's as narrow as a faggot's!
He paused, realising that he had said too much, and lowered his eyes ashamedly. I looked at Bruno. He looked calm, but I could see that there was a storm raging in his gooseberry green eyes.
— Look, mate, I'm sorry. I'm a moron, I shouldn't have said that.
— It's okay, forget. Just please stop being so proud of your country, you can't just fuck up anything you can get your hands on. All right?
They clapped each other on the shoulders. I got tired of watching this and threw a wet rag smelling of alcohol at my friends. It hit Schultz's eagle face. He started spitting it out.
— Ralph, are you crazy? Why are you throwing rags?
— I'm sick of this! Instead of helping, one of you stands around making stupid jokes and the other one's singing songs in his pants!
— I think that stain looks like someone peed on the washing machine. — Dilley's silly jokes again.
I sighed and gave up on it–it wasn't going to come off anyway, and I didn't want to get a smack from my dad. The radio said, "Heavy casualties at the front...hunger...lack of warm clothes...deaths..."
— The soldiers can't escape it, — I said, — it's the same for us.
— Don't push it, — Adler grimaced, — we understand.
Bruno was silent, nervously wringing his fingers. "I've had enough of this," I thought, and switched off the receiver. The lighter button clicked-Dilley took a quick, nervous puff and coughed. The room stank of cigarette smoke, and I decided to open a window. A sense of inevitability and doom hung thickly over our heads. We're in for it.
— Guys, let's go to that old house by the hill. — Adler suggested, — It's been a long time since we've been there together.
Bruno and I immediately agreed. The abandoned two-storey wooden house at the foot of the hill, hidden in the trees, was a favourite place for drunks and morphine addicts. But it was also popular with youngsters like us. A year ago, Adler had brought there his old gramophone and jazz records, which was a real treasure, for this genre of music was forbidden in the Reich.
We, dressed in short-sleeved white shirts and black trousers, left the house and rode our bicycles to the hill. As we passed the square, we noticed a large number of soldiers standing in even ranks listening to the fierce and enthusiastic speech of Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger. Even from a distance one could see how he was gesticulating vigorously and how saliva was flying out of his mouth. But Gottlob was far from the Führer's eloquence. A loud "hurrah" was heard, and hundreds of hands were raised in the air. What happened next, I didn't hear. We passed the square, the schools, the houses, and finally came to the Munich hill. Going round it, we found ourselves in a small forest and wandered along familiar paths to the derelict. It was still standing, only the roof had a hole in it from the weather and some of the windows on the first floor had been smashed out. Leaving the bikes by a pine tree, Adler, Bruno, and I walked onto the porch, the rotted boards creaking as we entered. There was no door to the house. The spacious hallway greeted us with beams of light and dust reflected in them. On the left, a door that had come off its hinges led to the kitchen, where a table and kitchen cabinets and a rusty refrigerator stood. On the right it led to the living room with very dusty but soft and bouncy armchairs and a sofa. Against the wall was an 1893 Blüthner piano with five keys that didn't work. When Bruno found this out, he was very upset: as a keyboard lover, he had always dreamed of playing an instrument by this manufacturer.
We walked up the central staircase upwards, creaking oak steps. There were three rooms upstairs: a bathroom, a bedroom with a double bed and a small study, where Adler Schultz had hidden a gramophone with records behind a desk. I was the first to enter the room and realised that something was wrong-the desk had been pushed back and overturned, and the leg was broken. I froze in the passage.
— What happened? — Dilley asked.
— I think they found our stuff.
— It can't be, we're not....
— Quiet! - Schultz hissed, — there's someone here. I can hear it.
He put his finger to his lips and pointed with his head at the lightly swaying, thick, lettuce-coloured and long curtain. Suddenly it twitched too sharply and stopped. Yes, there was definitely someone there and he knew he had been found. We froze and heard a quiet and rapid breathing. Adler jumped up and pulled the curtain aside. We saw a twelve-year-old boy with black as pitch hair and eyes of the same colour, a "Jewish schnozz"-the tip of his nose curved downwards, like a hook, and his wings raised, and his narrow, long face made him look like a Jew, an untermensch. And he was holding our records.
My friends also recognised the boy as a Jew. There was the sound of a trigger being pulled, and before I could even open my mouth, a shot shattered the silence of the room.
Bruno Dilley was holding his Walther P38 in his hand, the barrel of the gun still smoking. Bruno's face was aloof and cold-blooded. Not a muscle in his face moved, and his eyes glittered maliciously and predatorily. I, overcome with fear and disgust, looked at where the boy was hiding, and I was nearly turned inside out. The skull of the Untermensch had been shot through near the nose with nothing left of it. Exactly in the middle. The little Jew's face was covered in blood, the vessels inside the nose were visible, purple bubbles bursting. The curtain behind the murdered kid was dyed red, a bright stain on the light-coloured fabric. The small hands still clutched Lionel Hampton's "Flying Home" record.
— Why did you do it, — I wheezed, — why?
— To rid the world of more filth. — Bruno shrugged.
Adler's eyes glittered suspiciously. He seemed to notice that I was looking at him and turned away.
Suddenly the door of the wardrobe next to me flew open, and a second boy jumped out, dashing out into the street. Bruno, still holding the Walther, ran to the broken window and squinted one eye, aiming to kill the fleeing boy.
— No! I roared.
And it worked on my friend.
Dilley turned slowly and looked at the dead, skinny body of the Jew and his eyes cleared. Bruno turned pale, his hands shook and dropped the gun, which fell to the floor with a clatter, then he collapsed to his knees and wept loudly and desperately. Adler and I rushed to him. Bruno was shaking and breathing heavily, his hair dishevelled and tears streaming down his cheeks.
— I'm a motherfucker! — He yelled, — Bastard, bastard! Kill me!
He beat his fists on the floor, leaning his forehead against it and fumbling for a weapon, his tears mixing with saliva. Schultz, tears in his eyes, carefully took the gun and put it in his pocket. He put his arm round his grief-stricken friend's shoulders, and I did the same. Bruno was still crying, so weak and defenceless at that moment.
The hysteria passed after half an hour. He sat with his back against the wall, staring at the ceiling with a blank and unseeing gaze, a cigarette in his mouth.
— Why, — he muttered, — why did I do it?
We were silent. Words were unnecessary. He turned to me and said with a pleading look in his eyes:
— I think I'm going to hell after this, and you'll stop talking to me...
Bruno looked at the boy, his eyes moistened again and he hid his face in his hands.
— I'm a creature. A creature. — He whimpered muffled.
— We have to bury him.
Adler struggled to say the words; he was white and his eyes were red. I agreed with him. The children, even Jewish children, were not guilty of anything, they were not part of this war. And to take their lives meant only one thing: among rare people, you would forever be a scumbag. A fucking piece of cow shit. But Bruno, he... seemed seriously remorseful for what he'd done. Adler and I will forgive him for that.
We found a secluded spot at the end of the overgrown garden, between the bushes, and Bruno started digging the grave, alone. In a rage he dug and dug, savouring the work, and every drop of sweat, every callus was a tribute to the boy who had died at his hand. He dug deeper and deeper, digging into the hard earth, drowning his grief in sweat. The grave grew deeper and deeper. I pushed Adler, and we both grabbed our shovels and joined each other, digging in silence until the hole was deep enough.
I wrapped the body with a plaid I found in the house and covered the boy's eyes. I placed him carefully in the hole, and Bruno took the Flying Home record out of my pocket and put it in his hands.
— I'm sorry, mate, — he whispered, — forgive me.
After the ceremony we returned to the house, devastated and broken. Bruno immediately sat down at the piano and started playing some cheerful, inappropriate tune, Schultz handing him the gun as soon as he thought he had calmed down. I stood in the middle of the hall and stared blankly into the distance. The kid was alive, and now he's gone. Tonight, somewhere in the city, a mother will not wait for her son to come home. Never to see him again. That fact made my own eyes water and my nose water. Adler was in the living room, and I could hear him sobbing and sniffling quietly. He loved children, always playing with them when they asked, fixing their toys and bikes. This death touched his soul. No one spoke to anyone afterwards and no music was played. They just sat alone with their thoughts.
The stomping of boots on the porch was heard, and everyone was alert. The silhouette of a woman appeared in the doorway. A young, slender woman. Lorna. She must have been around at the time of the murder.
She stood in the doorway, trembling but determined, like a tigress, electrified. Her dark eyes glittered and her hair shone. There was something exceptional about her: she was angry and frightened, but she was fearless in the face of danger. With wide, confident steps she came towards me, and looked me in the eye with undisguised rage and contempt.
— You wanted to shoot my brother, — she said furiously.
— Lorna, we didn't...
— Shut up! You scared the hell out of him! You killed his friend, so what if he was Jewish, and you wanted Paolo too!
I took a step towards Lorna, tried to take her hands, but she recoiled, shook her head furiously, blinking a lot.
— He's a kid...he mustn't see this... — She burst into tears.
I stood there like a dummy, unable to approach her, unable to comfort her. I could only watch the crying girl helplessly. I felt that I was beginning to weep at my own insignificance. Bruno stood up from behind the piano, walked over to Lorna and gently placed the Walther in her shaking hands. She looked up at him in horror.
— You can kill me. Right now. I deserve it.
He stood before her so defenceless and submissive, ready to accept death.
— No! No!
She threw her weapon to the floor and staggered suspiciously. I was just in time to pick her up. The girl was losing consciousness.
She woke up a minute later, lying on a dusty sofa. Bruno and Adler left the house, saying they couldn't stay here any longer. We agreed to meet at this place tomorrow. Lorna opened her eyes and pulled herself up on the couch, noticed me sitting on the chair and cringed.
— Lorna...
I started to walk towards her, she crawled to the far side.
— I'm sorry, I'm sorry...It's...we didn't mean it.
Dropping to the other half, I looked at her, a frightened, hunted Lorna.
She jumped up and was about to leave, but I was done of all the running around. I grabbed her wrist and pushed her against the wall, Lorna staring at me with frightened eyes, her chest heaving. Holy shit! She's so beautiful! I shortened the distance between our faces, not trying to ignore my inner desires, she turned away and tried to break free, but I held the girl's wrists tightly. Lorna struggled for a while longer, then apparently gave up. I looked down at her. Her eyes widened. I saw my reflection in the depths of her dark eyes: a dumbfounded idiot wanting to kiss her again. To hell with the consequences.
— You...
— I'm sorry, I'm sorry, — I said, tilting my head toward her.
— We hadn't finished talking. — Lorna kept her eyes on my lips.
— Fuck it.
Lorna gasped when my lips touched hers. I pressed down on her, hard and demanding, moaning the sweet taste on my tongue. She cried out softly and leaned back against the wall, running her hands through my hair. I kissed her deeply, the fire between us igniting instantly. I whispered her name, my hands sliding down her back, down the cotton material of her dress to the hem. One hand pressed her against the wall, the other travelled up her thigh until my fingers touched the lacy edge of her underwear. She pressed her hips against me as if offering, her hands touching my back, pulling me tightly against her.
— Lorna!
She instantly pulled away from me. Her cheeks flamed and her eyes glistened as she adjusted her dress, muttering: "Shit, shit, shit." The sound of her brother's voice made my erection evaporate. I smoothed my hair, adjusted my shirt, and put on my mask of calm. Paolo instantly ran up to his sister and wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in her dress. Lorna stroked his black hair. I squatted down and held out my hand to the boy. He looked at me with a very sad look and timidly placed his hand in mine.
— I'm sorry, mate.
— There's no one to play with now. He was the only one I really made friends with around here.
— What was his name?
— Maurice. Maurice Katz.
His big eyes widened in horror, and Paolo looked at me.
— Are you gonna turn them in? I gave the last name.
— Never. No way in hell. I promise.
He nodded and tugged on his sister's arm, clearly saying he wanted to go home. I stood up and looked into Lorna's eyes. I could still feel our kiss on her lips, and just the memory of it made me hot.
— Um, bye.
She nodded at me and suddenly grabbed me by the collar and pulled me to her, giving me a lubricated and quick kiss. Lorna smiled slyly.
— I'll see you around, Herr Stelmacher. See you soon.
They left the old house, and I heard their footsteps on the grass for a long time. I groaned exhaustedly and walked back to my bicycle, remembering to say goodbye to the Jewish boy.
