Chapter Four
Stephen didn’t tell me if the Allies had received my letter. I assumed that they hadn’t, because he would have told me or given me a tiny hint. And anyway, it could take months for the letter to even make it, and months before I got an answer back.
“Emilia!”
My mother peered into my room. “Dinner is ready,” she said, before turning sharply and leaving.
“How was the rally?” Frau Muller asked, watching me closely as she chewed her food. I shrugged. “Fine.” “How was Sophie?” she pressed. I sighed. “Fine.” Frau Muller exchanged a glance with my father. “Sophie called earlier to say that you noticed the new Hitler Youth today,” Herr Muller started, and suddenly my worry exploded in a volcano of anger. “So what?” I snapped, so suddenly that Herr Muller’s eyebrows shot up and Frau Muller gasped. “So what if I noticed that a new troop member joined? It won’t change anything! I could never like someone so close to Hitler!” “Emilia Muller!” Herr Muller shouted after me as I dashed up the stairs. “You show the Fuhrer some respect!”
I dashed upstairs, sitting down hard on my bed. I glanced up at my bookshelf in the corner, my eyes catching on a book my father had given me, called The Poisonous Mushroom. It was about how the Jews were poisonous, eager to kill families and destroy our country.
I snatched up the book, and ripped the pages in the middle in half. After a second, I threw the whole book out the window.
How could my parents – former Jews – own a book accusing themselves and their people as disgusting little no-good worms? How could they accuse me as someone worth nothing who cared about nothing but themselves?
They drank their sweet tea and ate their rich biscuits without a thought of where the produce came from.
They laughed with their Nazi friends, sipping vodka as if there is no war.
As though millions of people aren’t being murdered that instant.
“Who wrote this?” Adolf shook the hand that clutched a crumpled letter. “Sir, we do not know,” Heinrich Behnham protested, looking at the letter with distaste. They had sat in Behnham’s stuffy office for hours, and yet Adolf still waited for an answer.
Why couldn’t they just think for once? Why did they have to let one letter slip through the sensors? Hadn’t he taught them to use tight security? Surely he needn’t go over each and every rule they needed to follow?
“Who wrote this?” Adolf demanded again, waving his fist near Behnham’s nose. Behnham backed away. “Sir, all the sensors found were a small set of fingerprints,” Behnham tried to explain, but clearly Hitler had had enough of his protests. “Well? If you found fingerprints, go find the one who wrote the darn thing!” he was beginning to lose his temper again. Behnham opened his mouth, but Adolf interrupted, “Don’t you go opening your stupid mouth, man! Go find the idiot who wrote the letter!”
Behnham’s eyes widened. Adolf almost never raised his voice. Not unless he made one of his passionate speeches about Jews.
“Sir, there is nothing we can do, unless you want us to search all of Germany for someone who we have no information about,” Behnham tried to explain, but knew it was a lost cause when Adolf’s face turned a purple-y sort of red. “Then do that! I don’t care how long it takes, but no one is taking over my rule over Germany!”