Читать книгу The Flight - Bryan Malessa - Страница 8

Chapter 4

In the months that followed, Karl was so busy at school that he hardly saw Mr Wolff – until one afternoon, when he glanced out his bedroom window: strangers were talking to him outside his shop and examining his identity card. He had shown it to Karl one morning when they met on the road that led from the railway station. Mr Wolff had been to the capital. Karl had studied the card, which bore a large ‘J’ imprinted in the middle.

‘They want me to change my name to Israel now,’ Mr Wolff had said. ‘Israel and Sara.’

After the men had left, Mr Wolff remained outside his shop for a long time, staring across the square. When he finally turned to go in, he saw Karl and paused, briefly, before disappearing back inside. Karl felt uneasy about having spied on him in such an uncomfortable situation.

But he felt far worse when, on his return from school a few weeks later, he discovered that Mr Wolff had gone. When Karl asked his mother what had happened she didn’t answer. A few hours later he asked her again. She told him to mind his own business. Later still, when she found him in his room, looking out of the window at Mr Wolff ’s shop, she relented. He knew something was wrong because she avoided his eyes.

‘They took Mr Schultze, too,’ she said.

‘Where did they go?’

‘I don’t know. They put them in a truck.’

‘Are they coming back?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What about his shop?’

‘I told you, I don’t know!’

He knew he should not ask any more. They stared out of the window without speaking. Ida slid her hand along Karl’s arm and clasped his hand in hers. He continued to look out of the window, first at the linden tree in the centre of the square, then at the church where he and Mr Wolff had sat together. Eventually, Karl asked if he could go outside.

‘I want you to stay in,’ his mother said softly. ‘They might come back to do something to his shop.’

In the months after Mr Wolff ’s disappearance, the children ran up the hill to the churchyard each day when their parents let them out to play. Once, Karl led the others into the church and up the stone stairs to the turret. Halfway up they came to a door that had been sealed with bricks. Karl placed his palms on the bricks, as Mr Wolff once had, and said, ‘The secret tunnel is in here.’ He explained that behind the bricks another stairway led down into the earth. ‘The tunnel may have caved in by now,’ he added and told them that the other end had also been sealed. No one in the village was sure any longer exactly where it came out.

When they left the church the children stopped and turned back to look at where they imagined the hidden stairs led down into the earth. A noise from the rooftop distracted them. They looked up and saw balanced carefully on the peak a stork’s nest made from twigs with a large bird in it. Atop the ridgeline of each house in the village ran a single strand of taut wire affixed to two boards secured at opposite ends of the roof to prevent the heavy birds from landing and keeping the home owners awake at night as they created a racket building nests. Suddenly the stork took flight and swooped down towards them. The children scattered in all directions.