Chapter II

It was a cold February morning, everyone’s breath a cloud of steam. The sun was bright, but its warmth was weak and it was still low in the sky at that time of year. I stared up at the church in front of me. For as long as I could remember, it had been like a second home, but now it felt alien somehow.

Mama adjusted the placement of her hand on my shoulder, the slight movement bringing me back to the present moment. She stood to my left, clad in all black, and kept her handkerchief close in case she needed it. To my right was Otto. His face was paler than usual, and his expression was unreadable. It was certainly a massive change from the smile he usually wore, though. Lorelei and Max walked in front of the rest of us. I could hear Lorelei trying to hold back her tears, while Max just allowed himself to cry.

In front of them, even further down the funeral procession, the pallbearers carried the casket. They were my father’s five brothers and one of my older cousins. It was unreal to see them, faces solemn and dressed in black suits — and I could hardly even think about them bringing Father’s body to the church. I tried not to look at the casket and I even let Mama and Otto walk ahead of me to be further back. For the rest of the procession, I stared at the ground, focusing on my polished black shoes and the cobblestones beneath them as I walked.

Once inside the church, though, it was impossible not to acknowledge its presence. As the immediate family, we were seated in the front pew, and the casket was placed in the middle of the aisle next to us. Right there. Covered in a white shroud with a dark red cross. It felt like the placement was intentional in order to make me accept that he was really gone — but I didn’t want to.

It had been hard to lose him like that so suddenly. Father had never been the pinnacle of health. After all, his injuries from the Great War had taken their toll on him, but at least he did as well as he could. Until everything took a turn for the worst in the fall of 1937. It would seem that unseen war injuries could lie dormant until there was nothing that could be done. 

The doctor was convinced it wasn’t tuberculosis, but rather a kind of lung cancer. Apparently, mustard gas still destroys the lungs despite wearing a protective mask, and over time that damage can worsen. The doctor had seen it with other veterans before. The sins of the War coming back to haunt us, perhaps. 

It was a terrible way to go. The only thing that could be done for Father was to make him as comfortable as possible. Then there came a time when even that was futile, and it wasn’t long before he was gone. Everything that happened after that seemed like wading through a dense fog — like nothing was real anymore — and the guilt I felt was immense.

Father and I had never been particularly close. I was born sickly and with a hare-lip, which was a great expense to correct. Although the surgery fixed the most debilitating parts of the condition, I was still left with scars and speech impediments I had to overcome, and I remained weak and small. It seemed as if my impairments reminded Father too much of himself, so that drew his attention more to Otto: the child who was strong and ambitious. This, of course, built a resentment in me for my brother and especially Father. When I became a teenager, the resentment grew to the point where Father and I were constantly butting heads. I was soft-spoken and non-confrontational, so this manifested as passive-aggressiveness and — well — semi-deliberate indolence. 

As I sat there in the front pew of the church, staring vacantly at the casket, I couldn’t help but think of a time when I was thirteen and I was sitting in our living room on a cold winter afternoon, just drawing. From the time I was very young, I had been fascinated by birds. I can’t really explain why, any more than I can explain why I was obsessed with memorizing city maps or the types of trees that grew in the places I liked to explore. All I know is that I liked to draw all these things that fascinated me, and I needed to draw a picture of every species of bird I saw. 

That time, it was a nuthatch that had landed on our window sill.

“Milo!”

I flinched at the sound of Father’s voice, then turned around reluctantly to see him entering the room in his wheelchair. His hair, usually neatly parted down the middle, was falling a bit in the front, and his face was flushed in anger.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. “Just sitting around in here, doing nothing?” 

“I saw a bird on the window sill, and I wanted to draw it,” I explained, as if that would be a good enough excuse. 

It wasn’t. Father was unamused and unmoved. “Your mother asked you half an hour ago to help your brother chop firewood!”

Then I remembered she had, and I — as usual — had forgotten. Maybe I could memorize every street and every species of bird, but things I really needed to remember? Well — I had an opposite talent for forgetting stuff like that. 

“There’s a storm coming,” Father went on. “Otto’s out there all by himself! And you know full well that I can’t help him!”

“I’m sorry—I just got distracted— ”

Father scoffed. “Distracted? You’re always getting distracted! Forgetting things! Being lazy! It’s time you grew up and took some responsibility around this house.”

And this was often how it was much of the time in those days: Father yelling at me for having my head in the clouds and constantly comparing me to my brother. Otto is almost five years older than me, and the two of us couldn’t be more different. He’s always been the ambitious sort, driven, and wanting to make people like him. On the other hand, when I was younger, I was oblivious to the thoughts of others and really only wanted to spend my time drawing or being out in nature away from people. 

As I look back on all of this, I realize my father was probably just worried about me, and he didn’t know how to express it without being harsh. Growing up on a farm with five brothers and four sisters couldn’t have been easy for him, and I think having responsibility expected of him from a young age made him rigid in his way of thinking. Compared to his upbringing, I still had it much easier even with the Depression, and I had a lot of opportunities that he didn’t. However, Father could see how bleak society had become so quickly. I was lazy and air-headed — and those were traits the Party despised, because they didn’t make for productive members of the Volksgemeinschaft. I bet it terrified Father that I’d have to leave the comfort of home someday to live on my own in the world they’d created.     

At the time of Father’s death, though, I didn’t have the perspective to come to these conclusions. I really thought I was nothing but a disappointment to him, and then he was gone —gone forever— without a way for me to ever make it up to him. Or that’s how it seemed at the time, anyway — and this made it difficult for me to even know what I was feeling. 

Sitting in that pew in the church, with the colored light from the stained glass beaming down on me, the emotion that came to me still was guilt. Then, for some reason I couldn’t explain, there was anger. Lastly and hidden the deepest, there was profound sadness. 

I glanced over at Mama. She cried, her shoulders shaking, her mascara running. Next to me and on the other side of Mama, Lorelei and Max both cried too as the priest proceeded with the requiem. For a split second, I thought I might join them — allow the emotions to exit me in sweet release — but something stopped me.

To my right, Otto sat there, his grey eyes straight ahead. There was a solemness to the way he witnessed the requiem, but no tears. I had the choice then: to control my emotions or allow them to control me. To be a young man, like Otto — or a boy. And what sixteen-year-old wants to be considered a boy, even if that’s exactly what he is? So I decided not to cry. I saved that for later when we had arrived home, after all the aunts and uncles and cousins had left the house. 

Alone in my room, I tried to hold it back, but it ripped out of me anyway. A flood of painful, uncontrollable sobs that wracked my entire body. I cried until I thought, maybe, there was nothing left of me, and I was relieved that I had waited until no one could see me. It was the kind of thing  that would’ve brought unwanted attention to myself. I already felt guilty enough, and I didn’t want anyone to think I was being weak as well.

It was then I decided I would finally take on the responsibility Father always thought I should have. In the days following the funeral, I observed Otto. Not once did he cry or feel sorry for himself. Instead, he threw himself into being there for others. The fact that he didn’t fall apart meant that Mama had someone she could rely on, and that helped her out a lot. So I started to do the same. I wasn’t social like Otto, so I didn’t join Mama to converse with relatives who were in town or anything like that, but I picked up chores around the house, and I tried to make sure Lorelei and Max were doing all right. 

Strangely, it was a relief that many things began to change following the funeral. It made it so we all didn’t have to focus on our feelings for too long, because there was a lot to be done. After getting Father’s affairs in order and seeing visiting relatives off, the biggest change became our move.

While things in Reutlingen were all right, Otto wanted to get a better job to help out more. That proved to be difficult, though. Since the age of seventeen, he’d been working as an automobile mechanic, learning the trade. However, his boss had always made excuses for why he couldn’t have a raise or more hours. Although Otto was talented at what he did, it seemed he was stuck in a dead-end job, and that wasn’t something the family could afford anymore. 

Some time after the funeral, Otto saw an ad in the newspaper. Daimler Benz was hiring workers to build automobiles at their factory in Stuttgart. There were sign-on bonuses, and the pay and hours would be much better than the mechanic shop, so Otto thought it was the perfect opportunity. At first, he offered to take the job and move to the city himself. Stuttgart wasn’t that far away, so he could easily send money back and still visit on some weekends. After considering this, however, Mama decided we would all go to Stuttgart together.

“I don’t want to move to Stuttgart!” Lorelei shouted. We were all sitting around the dining room table as we had been discussing it. Mama gave Lorelei a look of pity, but she didn’t say anything. She just hugged Max closer to her as he sat on her lap, trying not to cry into his large, round eyeglasses. 

“All my friends are here,” Lorelei continued. “I can’t leave them!”

Otto kneeled down to be level with Lorelei and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Lori,” he said gently, “everything will be fine. Just think of it as an opportunity to make some new friends.”

“But, Otto,” Max said sheepishly, “what if we can’t make any new friends?”

Otto laughed. “That’s preposterous, Max. You both are kind and polite. You won’t have any trouble at all.”

“What if the people in Stuttgart are mean?” Max asked.

“There are mean people everywhere, but there are also nice people everywhere, too.”

Mama sighed. “Look,” she said, “I know this won’t be easy for all of us, but we’re a family and we stick together.” She smiled as she leaned forward to snuggle us all into a bit of a group hug.