“Two personal objects only on the night table. The suitcase will be removed. This is an example of how your cot will be made.” The Schlafsaalführerin Liebrich waved her hand across the bed. The sheets were murderously clean and folded into sharp corners. The bedding looked thin. Something must have revealed itself on Sarah’s face, because the dormitory leader screwed up her nose in disdain. “You will find it quite adequate. The room is warm enough, even in the winter. We are not permitted to become soft. Luxury is a weakness. We must be hardy, pious—”
“Fröhlich, frei,” Sarah chimed in.
The girl carried on as if she hadn’t heard. “We wake at six. Wash and report for exercise before breakfast. You will follow the others.”
“Cold showers, I assume?” Sarah spoke almost under her breath. She looked away to the duplicate cots and white cabinets. Bare floorboards, immaculate washstands and the omnipresent portrait of the Führer, rendered in cheap oils – it had all the charm of a hospital ward.
“Of course. You aren’t going to cause us any problems, Haller?” A question, but not a question.
Sarah fixed her eyes on Liebrich’s. “Not at all.” Give ground. Nod, something.
“What happened to your nose? Are you a troublemaker?” Liebrich sneered.
Sarah resisted the temptation to touch it. The faded bruising must still be visible. She had grown used to it. “Only if someone gets in my way.”
Dumme Schlampe. This was going all wrong. The girl was taller, bigger, even though she was two years younger. She would make a difficult enemy and, besides, Sarah was on her ground. Whoever occupies the battleground first and awaits the enemy will be at ease.
Concede, withdraw.
“I’d be very careful, Haller,” Liebrich threatened.
“Just fair warning.” Sarah extended a hand. “Ursula.”
“Heil.” Liebrich jerked her arm into a salute. Sarah felt her skin warm like she’d been slapped, but she slowly, deliberately raised her arm and extended it, letting each muscle tighten until it too made a salute.
“Heil,” she said, very clearly and with as neutral a tone as she could muster. “I’m still Ursula. Ursula Haller.”
Liebrich ignored her. “The vigil is at seven. Someone will collect you. Do everything they say and do not embarrass us, Ursula Haller.” She turned on her heel and marched away. Sarah waited for the door to slam, but the handle was oiled and it closed noiselessly. No slamming of doors here…and no noises of approach. She looked at the floorboards. Thick, old, but there would be creaks. They would have to be learned.
Sarah sat on the bed, the heat of her exchange fading away like the daylight in the windows. A show of strength? Maybe. A new enemy? Maybe that too. Not even a first name. The cot was hard and cold. It might as well have been a stone slab. She had a stomach-cramping longing for the camp bed in the Captain’s airless little box room, with its musty blankets. It was the realization that she had, for a short time, been safe. Virtually untouchable.
Sarah seized on this longing and strangled it, squeezing its pitiful and pathetic neck. She was not safe. She had not been safe for as long as she could remember. Safety was an illusion. Forward motion was everything; to hesitate meant losing balance. Commit. You have a job. A role to play. The audience is arriving and you are hidden away, already in costume. This is the Half, the waiting time before the curtain. Who are you going to be?
I am Ursula Bettina Haller, she answered. Good little dumb National Socialist monster. Nobody’s enemy. Everybody’s friend.
Alles auf Anfang. Beginners, please, the voice replied.
“Are you Haller?” asked another, tiny voice. It took Sarah a moment to realize that someone had spoken out loud. At the door was a small and fragile-looking girl. She had untidy plaits and absurdly large and frightened eyes. “I’m Mauser, but everyone calls me die Maus.”
“I wonder why?” Sarah smiled.
“Me too,” the Mouse replied. The girl was so insubstantial that had the doorway been empty, it would have left a greater impression. If there was a less persuasive argument for the die Herrenrasse, the master race, Sarah had yet to see it. She wondered how someone so weak had gained entry to the school. Maybe she, too, played the piano.
The Mouse squirmed and continued. “Are you ready to join the others?”
“I hope so.”
Sarah had seen vigils before. Catholics in May, with torches, banners and candles processing the streets in the twilight, singing hymns to the Christ’s mother. This was just the same but with a new messiah.
The girls marched down the corridors in well-drilled rows, illuminated only by candlelight, singing softly of the glory of the Fatherland, the virtue of its women, and their love for their leader. They entered the Grand Hall from different directions and merged seamlessly, their fringed banners and flags sliding into place at the head of the formation. They paraded up the grand staircase to meet the older girls descending it and, turning, they formed a massed choir in front of the rank of teachers by the entrance door. Then, after a silence, one soprano voice soared into life and sang an aria to a hardy Alpine flower and how much the Führer loved it.
Sarah had been escorted to the back of the lines of girls on the ground floor and kept out of the way. She recognized again just how easy it must be to open your heart to all of this. It was unquestionably moving. Every tiny element seemed designed to call out: Join us. National Socialist events were always filled with crowds, with torches, with fire, with thick embroidered banners. In the darkest corners, hidden from the firelight, one more convert could slip unnoticed into the throng. If you pushed to the front, there were always willing hands to clap you on as you burned books, kicked bakers and smashed shop windows.
She had sometimes stolen into a cinema many, many kilometres from home. The walk hurt her feet, but although cinemas weren’t officially forbidden to Jews until later, it was safer to be somewhere where she wouldn’t be recognized. Besides, she had no money. There she was always rewarded with anonymity and a broken back door. She could sneak in and wedge herself against the threadbare velvet seats in the corner, well out of the sight of curious usherettes. When she was eleven she had inadvertently crept into a film of a really big Nazi rally, The Triumphant Will or something, and had sat in rapt amazement at everything she saw. It was beautiful, like an extended dance routine, better choreographed than any American musical she had ever seen. It had seemed to glow from within, a golden sunrise from a forgotten, better childhood, with a god descending from the clouds, bringing joy and inspiration. More than that, it seemed an entire argument for National Socialism. The order, the grace, the majesty. Who wouldn’t want to belong to that?
“Where are you from, my friend?” called the fresh-faced youths in uniform before others replied one by one, a roll call of German cities and towns. Everybody was there. So swept up in it was she that for those two hours she forgot these were the exact same people throwing stones at her windows and beating her in the street. Making a link between this beautiful dance of pride and celebration and the hate, pain and humiliation they were dishing out seemed impossible. She must have got it wrong somehow. It took most of the walk home to break the spell. Her blisters and thirst reminded her why she had been made to walk twenty kilometres to find a picture house that she could sneak into.
The singing had stopped and one of the teachers had stepped forward to speak. His voice was monotonous, so Sarah quickly lost interest. “A bright future…a glorious inheritance… Polish aggression…enemies of the Reich from the outside and from within…taking your place…the annual River Run, an example of your strength and commitment…”
She scanned the crowd for Elsa Schäfer. Among the rows of seemingly identical pupils, immaculate in their Jungmädel and BDM uniforms, it seemed an almost hopeless task, until her eyes were drawn to one tall Final Year girl near the top of the staircase.
She had wavy golden hair tamed in pigtails and her face was clear, fresh and welcoming, pale like alabaster with striking grey eyes. Her arms were muscular and her hips broad. She was a poster for the Third Reich come to life. Around her gathered a group of young women straight from the pages of Das deutsche Mädel. Each had strong features, athletic builds and high ranking BDM uniforms, yet it was clear who was their leader.
Behind this girl was Elsa. She was fifteen like Sarah, but she was about ten centimetres taller – the kind of growth and maturity that came with a good diet, or enough food of any kind. Her hair was thick and glossy in a way that Sarah’s could be when she had time to care for it. Her eyes were wide and friendly, with a touch of vinegar hiding in their vitality.
Then Sarah sensed that she was being watched. Their leader was staring at her intensely. Sarah tried to break eye contact but found that she could not. After an uncomfortable and drawn-out moment the girl looked away, but only to nudge one of the others and point Sarah out.
Sarah knew, instinctively, that this was a bad thing. She could spot a gang forming with mischief in mind and knew there would be no avoiding it. This leader would be the gatekeeper to the group and there could be no approach to Elsa without her say-so.
Sarah willed herself to look elsewhere.
The teachers were an unremarkable and miserable-looking collection of ageing suits and hair pulled into buns so severe the wearers must have had constant headaches. Herr Bauer was wedged into an oversized seat at the back. Hovering to one side was the SA officer Klaus, his brown uniform letting him blend into the shadows.
Sarah leaned over to her escort.
“Mouse, who is that in the uniform? Is he a teacher?”
The Mouse glanced quickly left and right. “That’s Sturmbannführer Klaus Foch. He’s not a teacher, he’s just sort of there. He’s in charge of the political purity of our – you know – thoughts. He doesn’t do much…”
“Not a music teacher, then?”
The Mouse raised her eyebrows. “Oh, oh…yes, he likes the piano. He likes music. Or rather, he likes the girls who play music.”
“Silence,” whispered one of the older girls further down the line. The Mouse went quiet and bowed her head, but she bounced a little on her toes and kept sneaking a peek at Sarah. After a moment she leaned over again.
“Apparently he was very high up in the Sturmabteilung, you know, the SA, a friend of Röhm’s and everything. Somehow Foch survived the Blood Purge when the Führer executed everyone else in the SA, but they say the old skeleton has never been the same since. He’s a little, you know, funny…”
This time the older girl reached over, grabbed the Mouse’s plait and pulled it. “I said shush,” she said, giving the hair one more slow tug before releasing her. Sarah kept looking straight ahead and watched this out of the corner of her eye. She counted thirty seconds before glancing over to the Mouse again. A single tear had drawn a line down her cheek. A bubbling fury threaded its way around Sarah’s temples, so she slammed her eyes shut.
There was no film of bullied little girls in that movie of the rally, but Sarah knew that around the edges and out of view, hair was being pulled, just as windows were smashed and innocents dragged off to some camp for re-education.
Choose your battles, Sarah. This is survival of the fittest.
Like she’d opened the door to the street on a winter’s evening, Sarah went cold. She realized her transformation to little monster had already begun.
The teacher finished railing against the plans of the Poles and Slavs to oppress the German-speaking people of Europe and was now promising, with regret, a swift and decisive response. His voice rose in volume but lost none of its dullness.
“You must believe in Germany as firmly, clearly and truly as you believe in the sun, the moon and the starlight. You must believe in Germany as if Germany were yourself. As you believe your soul strives towards eternity. You must believe in Germany – as your life is but death. And you must fight for Germany until the new dawn comes.”
To this climax, the girls saluted and shouted the Führer’s name over and over. It began as a unified chant, but the words and patterns dissolved into a hysterical, excited howling. Grins fixed, eyes wide, faces flushed.
Each time Sarah joined in, it was like a piece of her died away. Dumb, monster, dumb, monster, she repeated to herself. She felt increasingly grubby and unwashed.
Finally the ceremony was over and the lines of girls broke into babbling groups. Electric lights flickered into life all over the hall, making everything seem smaller and more childish.
Sarah looked for Elsa Schäfer, but in the disorder she seemed to have vanished. There would be no quick win this first night. Seeing it this way, the scale of the challenge dwarfed her, as did the danger. How long before someone turned and pointed at the dirty Jew among them? Sarah was about to ask the Mouse what they were meant to do next when a voice yelled over the hubbub.
“You, new girl! You don’t know the songs.”
The girl’s voice had command: a Berlin accent that spoke of expensive housing and servants. Sarah felt the Mouse dissolve away before the tall girl, the leader, who strode towards her.
She was flanked by her entourage of high-ranking BDM uniforms and almost imperceptibly, they encircled Sarah. She had received enough harassment on the streets of Berlin and Vienna to know where this was going, but she quelled the need to flee.
Enter Little Monster, stage left. She pauses. She has no need to fear.
“I’m sorry?” she said, tilting her head to one side and saucering her eyes. Her heart fluttered in her chest, so she breathed out slowly and silently through her nose.
“How did you get this uniform if you don’t know our songs?” The girl smiled.
“Oh, well, that’s a little embarrassing. I was travelling with my parents a lot and my time with the Jungmädel was very patchy. My uncle is hoping my education will improve here.” She was about to add, “I’m sure it will!” brightly, but stopped herself.
“Where were you?” said the girl curiously.
“Spain, mostly. My father was in the Condor Legion.”
“Oh, good. Bombing the Republicans into mulch, I hope.” More smiles. “What is your name?”
“Haller, Ursula Haller.” This is going too well, she thought. Something more was on its way.
“Well, Haller.” Smile. “You will come to see me tomorrow night and sing each song we sang tonight. For every mistake, for every word you get wrong, Rahn here will pull out one strand of your hair.” Smile. “That will improve your education, won’t it?” Wide-eyed innocence, agreement, satisfaction.
Sarah looked at Rahn, a muscled mountain of a girl whose arms threatened to burst from her shirt. The leader was still smiling, with no trace of anger or hate, while the others smirked. She nodded at Sarah and walked away, calling out, “Shall we say sunset? Yes, let’s.”
Now everyone was looking at Sarah. Her lips felt dry. Was she blushing? Her neck was warm. The totality of her defeat was shattering, as was its speed. Close your mouth, dumme Schlampe, you look like a fish.
“Von Scharnhorst. She’s the Schulsprecherin, the Head Girl.” The Mouse had reappeared and moved from foot to foot. “We only sang four songs tonight…or was it five? Not sure. The Ice Queen is going easy on you.”
“That’s still a lot of hair,” croaked Sarah.