‘Time’s up?’
Herr Weimar let out a big sigh. ‘For acting like an idiot. There’s zero tolerance for people like you in this country – for Jews. You’d have to be a blind idiot to try and make it so easy for people to come after you.’
Then he put his glasses on his nose. ‘So, I ask you again, are you an idiot?’
Jürgen swallowed. ‘No, sir.’
‘Good. Your detention will consist of cleaning the school bathrooms.’
Jürgen’s eyes widened.
‘Every day for a month.’
‘It’s probably the only way he could get away with not expelling you,’ said Asta, wisely, on their way home from school.
Jürgen looked at her. ‘That’s not true! I’m sure there’s a lot of things I could do besides cleaning toilets – you have no idea how filthy those boys can be. And when they find out it’ll be even worse – they’ll make it unbelievably disgusting!’
‘Probably,’ agreed Asta. ‘But I don’t think giving you lines or making you stay behind would have mollified Udo or his mother – they want to see you either humiliated or expelled.’
‘I don’t see how they have the power to do that – not yet anyway.’
Asta nodded. ‘That’s the problem – there could still be a “yet”.’
Jürgen balled his fists. ‘It makes me want to get back at Udo all the more for this. The little wimp. You know that he smashed an egg into Hans’s hair and called him a “filthy Jew” the other morning? There was no punishment for that. Or when he tripped another boy whose mother is married to a Jew down the stairs?’
Asta nodded. ‘A month – two months ago – he would have been given the cane, now they’re frightened of him – and his parents.’
Jürgen nodded. ‘I wish I’d been expelled instead.’
Asta shook her head. ‘Don’t say that – that’s when Udo wins.’ Then she looked at him with a grin. ‘So, tell me again about how he screamed? Did he wet himself?’
Jürgen grinned in response, a dimple appearing in his freckled cheek. ‘Like a girl – or worse, actually, even you don’t scream that badly. But no, he didn’t wet himself, unfortunately. Maybe next time?’
And the two laughed so hard they could barely breathe when they entered their flat.
When they got inside, their father was waiting for them, and the laughter died quickly in their throats, the air turning to lead as it sank into the pits of their bellies.
‘Did you have a good day?’ he asked Jürgen coldly.
‘Er—’ began Jürgen.
‘Well, it sounds to me like you did – as I was called out of surgery to discuss your antics at the school.’
‘Papa – I—’ Jürgen began. His eyes were wide with fear.
‘It was my fault, well, my idea to buy the tarantula,’ said Asta. ‘Punish me, not him!’
Papa shook his head, then took a sip of whisky. He looked tired.
‘You kids – it’s time you grew up. We’re hanging here by a thread, don’t you understand? It’s not the time to act like fools.’
They blinked.
‘But, Papa,’ said Jürgen, ‘it was just a silly prank and Herr Weimar has said that now I must clean the bathrooms for a whole month – I mean, that’s not fair, Udo Van der Welt tripped a boy, who fell on his arm—’
Their father stood up. ‘You know, maybe I’m the fool. I am quite sure that I never gave you the impression that this world was fair but if you haven’t been listening to the news – if you haven’t figured out that things are about to get a whole lot more unfair, well… then I don’t know what to tell you. Except, maybe… think. Use your head. Maybe your brain will start working when you start cleaning those toilets.’
Then he turned on his heel to leave, saying over his shoulder, ‘And if I ever get interrupted during a surgery for something like this again, cleaning toilets will be the least of your worries.’
As predicted, the boys turned the bathrooms into a virtual pigsty, bringing in things – from marbles to dolls’ heads – to block the pipes. They smeared mud on the walls and piled rubbish into the sinks at the end of each day. As the news of his punishment spread, Jürgen started to go in an extra hour earlier to clean, and he always had an audience, with lots of the boys arriving earlier too to be a spectator and offer some advice. ‘Don’t forget to really put your elbows into it this time,’ said one as he used the plunger to sift out a doll from one of the toilets, masking his nose with his other hand as the foetid smell rose. He flung the doll’s head into the bucket then frowned, giving a low whistle.
‘What?’ asked the boy.
‘It’s mad – come see.’
The boy hurried forward to look inside, then pulled a face at the soiled doll’s head covered in excrement.
‘It’s just a doll’s head,’ said the boy.
‘But it looks just like your mother!’ said Jürgen.
Luckily the janitor intervened before a fight broke out. ‘Out – out of here, boy, get to class.’
Then he smacked Jürgen over the back of his head. ‘You want to get another month of this?’
Jürgen shook his head as he moved on to the next blocked toilet, the bile rising in his throat. ‘No.’
‘Then keep your stupid trap shut from now on.’
Which he did. It was the longest month ever, but by the end of it even the boys had stopped coming in early and few bothered taking the time to make the bathroom more of a mess than it already was. The joke had become stale.
But not for Jürgen, who had learnt his lesson at last.
In April, things went from bad to worse. The news came on the radio that the schools were closed for an extra month, and at first Jürgen and Asta, like all the others, were excited at the prospect of an extended holiday. Except that when they returned, both their schools were now run by the Nazi Party. And Like Udo Van der Welt had predicted back in January, all the Jewish staff had been dismissed. Including Jürgen’s head teacher, Herr Weimar, who was married to a Jewish woman, and was now being called a ‘half-Semite’.
In fact, it was uncertain if the twins would even be allowed to attend the schools themselves. Things had started to escalate since March, with storm troopers marching into cities and terrorising the Jewish population in an attempt to segregate them from the rest of society. They’d attacked shop owners, and those in civil service, dragging them into the streets and making them perform humiliating acts. Local police were powerless to stop them and when news of their behaviour leaked into the overseas press, painting the Nazis in less than a favourable light, it only made them persecute the Jews even more. On 1 April, there was a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned business, with the word ‘Jude’ or the Star of David painted on windows. They marched through towns, inciting hatred and terror which led to spurts of violence. The boycott didn’t work, as people continued to shop at the businesses in the days that followed, but the tone had been set, and six days later a new law called the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service dismissed Jews from public service unless they could prove their non-Jewish parentage. Similar laws that affected lawyers and doctors soon came into effect.