Chapter IV

MILO

The next day after that is one I remember quite well, too. That was when Anton and his friends changed completely on me, almost as if the previous afternoon had never happened. When class let out for lunch, I made my way to the cafeteria. The day before, I had simply sat by myself, so I assumed that was what I would do again, but then, a familiar voice called out to me. 

“Guten tag, Milo!” 

When I turned to see that it was Anton greeting me so cheerfully, I was stunned. He even looked like a completely different person. Not so much in his physical appearance, but in the way that he carried himself. Instead of the arrogant smirk that seemed to be his default expression, he was smiling brightly, showing off his perfect white teeth.

“It’s so wonderful to see you again,” he continued. 

Wonderful to see me? I thought in confusion. The previous day he was ready to beat me up and now he thought it was wonderful to see me? 

“G-Guten tag,” I stuttered in reply.

Anton must have picked up on my apprehension, because his brows  furrowed slightly and he scratched behind his neck. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be so harsh on you. It’s just — the troop is very important to me. Maybe I take it a little too seriously sometimes…” 

I stared at him for a moment, uncertain of how to respond. It was unusual. No one had ever apologized for bullying me before, but Mama always taught me that kindness and forgiveness were important. Maybe Anton really had just been too passionate about Hitlerjugend, and maybe he did feel bad about how he treated me. Since he seemed to be giving me another chance, what was the harm in doing the same for him? 

“It’s alright,” I said finally. “I understand.”

Anton seemed relieved. “Thank goodness. How about you come join my friends and me for lunch?”

“Sure.”

I followed Anton through the rows of cafeteria tables until we reached the place where his friends sat. Of course, I noticed Arnold straight away. He looked less brutish, dressed in his school uniform instead of his Hitlerjugend one. To his left sat two boys I also recognized from the troop. One was energetic with ashy blond hair parted in the middle, and the other seemed quieter with dark hair and eyes and a long face. 

On Arnold’s right sat a tall, slender girl whose reddish-blonde hair was braided around her head into a tight bun. She seemed the flirtatious type, giggling hysterically at what Arnold was saying as she placed her hand on his shoulder. Across the table from them sat two other girls. One was very beautiful in a conventional kind of way, with long brown hair braided in two plaits. She sat primly, but you could tell by her expression that she was focused intensely on the conversation. The girl next to her was blonde and also had her hair braided into two plaits, but she also had fluffy, long bangs that covered her eyebrows. 

Of all the people at the table, this girl stood out to me the most. She seemed reserved, like she didn’t quite fit in with the group, and she had a cautious look about her. When she saw me, she glanced up and her warm brown eyes met mine. Then — just like I did — she quickly looked away.

Anton put his hand on my shoulder to guide me slightly forward. “Hey, everyone,” he announced. “I’ve brought Milo over to join us.”

The group paused their laughing and chatting to stare at us, and a flood of awkwardness poured over me.

Anton continued his introduction. “You’ve already met Arnold. This is Günther and Bruno.” He indicated the blond boy and the dark-haired boy. “My sister, Gretel.” The girl with the red-blonde hair — which made sense. “And Mina and Astrid.” The pretty girl with the braids smiled, and the shy girl just blushed.

“It’s nice to meet you, Milo,” Mina said. Anton took a seat next to her and put his arm around her. 

Of course, I thought, those two would be paired together. I looked around the table nervously, wondering where I should sit. The only spot with any space was on the other side of Astrid. Bashfully, I made my way over and sat down. As I pulled my lunchpail out of my rucksack, I glanced at Astrid briefly. She was pushing her potato salad around with her fork, and she was blushing a bit. 

“So, Milo,” Mina said, “what is it like in Reutlingen?”

I looked over at her, confused by her question, until I realized Anton probably told her about me. I wondered what he must’ve said. Did he tell her what a weakling I was and that he enjoyed making fun of me, or did he tell her how sorry he was for treating me the way he did, perhaps?

“Oh,” I said finally. “It’s quite nice. Much smaller than here, of course. And no … people don’t kiss their sisters there.” I turned to Anton and glared at him.

“That was only a stupid joke,” he said with a nervous chuckle.   

Astrid turned to give me a shy smile. “Doesn’t Reutlingen have the thinnest street in the world?”

It surprised me she knew that. Maybe she intrigued me so much because I could tell she was a bit like me: enjoying odd facts and memorizing interesting things. 

“Oh, yes!” I replied eagerly. “The Spreuerhofstraße. It’s not even an alley … more like a narrow gap between two buildings. Interestingly —”

“UGH!”

The outburst startled me. I looked to my right to see it was Mina. She was making a face, rolling her eyes, and for a moment I thought maybe it  was because of me. People frequently interrupted me and talked over me when I got to passionately talking about things. But then I realized — when she was done with her dramatic eye-roll — that her gaze was directed past me towards someone else. In fact, everyone at the table’s attention was directed toward whoever it was. Curiously, I glanced that way too.

The boy they glared at was tall, and he stood out amongst the crowd. Over his school uniform, he wore a long tan trench coat and a dark-green scarf — which was odd since it was almost spring. Unruly locks of long brown hair escaped from underneath the dark Homburg hat he wore, and — stranger still — he held an umbrella in the crook of his arm that he definitely didn’t need. The boy walked by with an air that he didn’t care about anybody or anything, least of all the fact that everyone in the cafeteria was giving him a dirty look — the dirtiest of which came from Anton and his friends. Only Astrid had no expression on her face. Instead, she stared down at her food awkwardly.

“Ew!” Anton’s sister, Gretel, squealed. “I can’t believe he keeps dressing like that!”

Mina rolled her eyes some more. “I can’t believe they still allow him to go to school here.”

I glanced over my shoulder to watch the boy walk to a table in the far corner of the cafeteria. There, he sat down next to two other boys dressed in a similar fashion, and his demeanor changed from aloof to affable when he greeted them. When I looked closer at the two boys, I recognized them from Hitlerjugend. Both were blond; one of them was very tall and skinny, and the other short and chubby. They were the two boys who had fallen far behind in their running with me at the previous day’s troop meeting. Then it struck me that I didn’t recognize the other boy from Hitlerjugend, and someone like him definitely wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. 

“Who is he?” I asked.

“That’s Lukas Richter,” Anton said with a disdainful sneer. “You’d do well to stay far away from him.”

“Why?”

Arnold leaned forward aggressively. “Because he’s a dirty Mischling, that’s why!” 

“His mother is a Jew,” Astrid added, barely above a whisper. 

I looked back at the boy — Lukas. That would certainly explain why I didn’t see him at the troop meeting… Those who were Mischlinge toed the edge of the Führer’s racial line. Were they “Aryans” or not? It was hard to say, and even the Führer himself was hesitant to decide — which led to convoluted laws. 

Mina looked at her nails. “I know Mischlinge are allowed to attend school still,” she said, “but it disgusts me.” 

“And that isn’t even the worst of it,” Anton went on. “He’s one of those degenerates that listens to American music and sympathizes with the Communists.”

I just stared at Anton, a bit stunned. I had never really understood the hatred that dedicated Nazis had for the Jews. Growing up I’d had neighbors, friends even, who were Jewish. Unfortunately, though, I had never stood up for anyone — but hearing these mean kids who were pretending to be my friends say such things made my blood boil like I’d never felt before. It reminded me of what they’d said to me the previous day.

It was one of those moments where I wondered what I was doing. If I’d had any sense, I would’ve left the table and gone to join Lukas right then and there. But I was a dummkopf teenager, so I didn’t. I just sat there, and finished my lunch with the bullies instead, remaining a coward that day.

That’s what a coward truly is. Not someone who is frightened amidst the chaos of war. No, a coward is someone who’s afraid to do what they know is right.