Every Man Dies Alone Read Free

they’ve heard some good news too: Göring is beaming all over his fat face, and the Führer is smacking his thighs with delight.
    The Persickes were all similarly rejoicing when Baldur asked, “Doesn’t anything strike you about that picture?”
    They stop and stare at him in consternation, so convinced are they of the intellectual superiority of this sixteen-year-old that none of the rest of them even hazards a guess.
    “Come on!” says Baldur. “Think about it! The picture was taken by a press photographer. He just happened to be there when news of the capitulation arrived, hmm? Probably it was delivered by phone or courier, or perhaps a French general brought it in person, though there’s no sign of any of that. It’s just the two of them standing in the garden, having a whale of a time…”
    Baldur’s mother and father and sister and brothers are still sitting there in silence, gawping. The tension makes them look almost stupid. Old Persicke wishes he could pour himself another schnapps, but he can’t do that, not while Baldur’s speaking. He knows from experience that Baldur can cut up rough if you fail to pay sufficient attention to his political lectures.
    So the son continues, “Well, then, the picture is posed, it wasn’t taken when the news of the capitulation arrived, it was taken some time before. And now look at the Führer’s rejoicing! His mind’s on England, has been for ages now, all he’s thinking about is how to put one over on the Tommies. This whole business here is a piece of playacting, from the photo to the happy clapping. All they’re doing is making fools of people!”
    Now the family are staring at Baldur as if they were the ones who were being made fools of. If he hadn’t been their Baldur, they would have reported him to the Gestapo right away.
    But Baldur goes on, “You see, that’s the Führer’s greatness for you: he won’t let anyone see his cards. They all think he’s so pleased about defeating the French, when in fact he might be assembling a fleet to invade Britain right now. We need to learn that from our Führer, not to tell all and sundry who we are and what we’re about!” The others nod enthusiastically: at last, they think, they’ve grasped Baldur’s point. “Yes, you’re nodding now,” says Baldur crossly, “but that’s not the way you act yourselves. Not half an hour ago I heard Father say in the presence of the postwoman that we were going to turn up at the old Rosenthal woman’s flat for coffee and cakes.”
    “Oh, the old Jewish cow!” says Father Persicke, in a bantering tone of voice.
    “All right,” the son concedes, “I daresay there wouldn’t be many inquiries if something should happen to her. But why tell people about it in the first place? Better safe than sorry. Take someone like the man in the flat above us, old Quangel. You never hear a squeak out of him, and I’m quite sure he sees and hears everything, and probably has someone he reports to. And then if he reports that you can’t trust the Persickes, they’re unreliable, they don’t know how to keep their mouths shut, then we’ve had it. You anyway, Father, and I’m damned if I lift a finger to get you out of the concentration camp, or Moabit Penitentiary, or Plötzensee Prison, or wherever they stick you.”
    No one says anything, and even someone as conceited as Baldur can sense that their silence doesn’t indicate agreement. To at least bring his brothers and sister round, he quickly throws in, “We all want to get ahead in life, and how are we going to do that except through the Party? That’s why we should follow the Führer’s lead and make fools of people, put on friendly expressions and then, when no one senses any threat, take care of business. What we want the Party to say is: “We can trust the Persickes with anything, absolutely anything!’”
    Once again he looks at the picture of the laughing Hitler and Göring, nods curtly, and pours himself a brandy