The Big Lie Read Free

all up. Herr Hart was born in Germany and had lived in Berlin for much of his life. He had the accent so that made him particularly glamorous.
    But still, I can’t work it out, how we let them become so popular.

AUGUST 2012
    At our final garden gathering of the summer Herr und Frau Hart were at the peak of their popularity.
    There they were, at our back gate, immediately smacking lips and cheeks with our guests, throwing a ‘Grü β dich!’ and a ‘How are you?’ to the folk who couldn’t get close.
    ‘Where’s Clementine?’ I asked Herr Hart, lucky to get a word in sideways. I was desperate to see her. The Harts had just got back from their annual holiday and we had some serious catching-up to do.
    ‘She’ll be over in a little while,’ he said, his accent making those
t
s into delicious
d
s –
a liddle while
. ‘She’s just finishing some homework.’
    The Harts settled into a conversation with Herr und Frau Gross. The only thing they wanted to talk about that summer was Herr Dean. The Harts in particular (and perhaps all alone on our estate) were terribly excited about his rise to power after the death of our beloved Herr Erlichmann. ‘Liberal’ was a word they used for our new leader. ‘Nervous,’ was the word everyone else decided upon, trying not to make it sound too negative for fear of being reported.
    ‘He seems to stand for broadmindedness,’ Herr Hart said.
    ‘Well, as much as a man can. Within the current … framework,’ added Frau Hart, thinking her popularity made her immune to a grassing up.
    Perhaps this was what precipitated the Harts’ downfall – their rabbitting on about politics. Nobody was interested. What in the world did it have to do with us? They even began doing it over the dinner table when I ate at their house. Or at least Frau Hart did.
Don’t you think our leaders should be more like this and not do that? What if we changed this law and that law?
– as if this was somehow within their control or, more specifically, mine. Frau Hart would push me into a corner with her questions, spearing the air with her fork, while Clementine tried to hide her grin. Eventually Herr Hart would give her a look, and a sharp little ‘Jocelyn!’, indicating that he too had had enough of her wittering.
    ‘It’s high time there was more integration, don’t you think, Peter? Equality, if you like, Helen.’ This was what Frau Hart was saying to Herr und Frau Gross that August afternoon. ‘I really applaud Herr Dean for that.’ She was talking about the restructuring of the HJ and the BDM. ‘I mean, girls and boys are not different species!’
    Herr und Frau Gross were slowly nodding, their old faces confused, too embarrassed to tell Frau Hart that she was talking claptrap, that of course boys and girls were put on this earth for entirely different reasons. She was intimidating though, Clementine’s mum, with her big hair and her bright clothes and her fondness for touching other people’s arms. Intimidating also because everyone thought Herr Hart was my father’s very best friend.
    ‘But mainly we’re just so relieved it’s no longer compulsory, aren’t we, Simon?’
    Herr Hart closed his eyes in one slow, deliberate, emphatic nod, happy for his wife to be their mouthpiece.
    ‘Clementine is an artist, not a soldier!’ Frau Hart exclaimed. ‘It was just so ridiculous that she was being made to march in line and shoot to kill.’
    I nearly spat out my orange juice.
    Clementine? An artist?
I was thinking.
She’s utterly hopeless at drawing.
    But also the Harts had been terribly excited when Herr Erlichmann – when he was still in power before his very sad death – had introduced more military pursuits into the BDM, alongside all of our usual housekeeping tasks. (We still had to do those. The same amount. Our sessions were simply extended so we could fit it all in. I preferred it when we knew what girls were for. Because how were we supposed to do it all, to the same