The Traitor's Emblem Read Free Page B

always ahead of his classmates, and of Professor Wirth, too, who bored him immensely. Paul read everything he could get his hands on, gulping it down like a drunk on payday. He only feigned attention during lessons, but always ended up top of the class.
    Paul didn’t have friends, however hard he tried with his classmates. But in spite of everything, he did enjoy school, because the hours of lessons were hours spent away from Jürgen, who attended an academy where the floors weren’t made of linoleum and the edges of the desks weren’t chipped.
    On his way home Paul always took a turn around the Garten, the largest park in Europe. That afternoon it seemed almost deserted, even by the ubiquitous red-jacketed guards who would reprimand him whenever he strayed off the path. Paul made the most of this opportunity, and took off his shabby shoes. He liked to walk barefoot on the grass, and bent down distractedly as he went, picking up a few of the thousands of yellow pamphlets that the Freikorps planes had dropped over Munich the previous week, demanding the Communists’ unconditional surrender. He threw them in the bin. He would gladly have stayed to clear up the whole park, but it was Thursday, and he had to polish the floor of the fourth story of the mansion, a task that would occupy him until dinnertime.
    If only he weren’t there . . . thought Paul. Last time he locked me in the broom cupboard and poured a bucket of dirty water onto the marble. Good thing Mama heard me shouting and unlocked the cupboard before Brunhilda found out.
    Paul wanted to remember a time when his cousin hadn’t behaved like that. Years ago, when they were both very small and Eduard would hold their hands and take them to the Garten, Jürgen used to smile at him. It was a fleeting memory, almost the only fond memory of his cousin that remained. Then came the Great War, with its orchestras and parades. And off marched Eduard, waving and smiling as the truck that carried him away gathered speed and Paul ran alongside it, wanting to march with his big cousin, wishing he were sitting beside him sporting that impressive uniform.
    For Paul, the war had consisted of the news he read each morning posted on the police station wall, which was on his way to school. Frequently he had to slip through a thicket of legs—something he never found difficult, as he was as thin as a rake. There he read delightedly about the advances of the Kaiser’s Army, which daily took thousands of prisoners, occupied cities, and expanded the borders of the Empire. Then in class he would draw a map of Europe and amuse himself by imagining where the next great battle would take place, and wondering if Eduard would be there. Suddenly, and quite without warning, the “victories” started happening ever closer to home, and the war dispatches almost always announced “a return to the position of security originally envisaged.” Until one day a huge poster announced that Germany had lost the war. Underneath was a list of the price that would have to be paid, and it was a very long list indeed.
    Reading that list and the poster, Paul had felt as if he’d been deceived, cheated. Suddenly there was no cushion of fantasy to mitigate the pain of the increasing number of thrashings he received from Jürgen. The glorious war would not wait for Paul to grow up and join Eduard at the front.
    And there was certainly nothing glorious about it at all.
    Paul stood there for a while, looking at the blood at the entrance. In his mind he rejected the possibility that the revolution had started again. Freikorps squads were patrolling the whole of Munich. This puddle seemed fresh, however, a small anomaly on the great stone whose steps were large enough to fit two men lying end to end.
    I’d better hurry. If I’m late again, Aunt Brunhilda will kill me.
    He debated a little longer between fear of the unknown and fear of his aunt, and the latter prevailed. He took the little key to the service