Chapter 63
Quill
Levi
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Myuu
August 27th, 1967
Father is not proud of me. Because I brought home my first bad grade.
He slapped me. Thirteen times. Until my nose bled.
Mother avoided my gaze, as if I didn't exist. For the rest of the week.
But it was just a slip-up. A stupid mistake that I shouldn't have made.
I'm always the best. Even if that will never be enough for Father.
October 5th, 1967
The boys at school crushed my ball today and beat me up on the sidewalk. They've been doing this since I was ten. Because they're jealous. Because their fathers are jealous.
I know they talk about my father. That they hate him because he's the best prosecutor this country has ever seen. And I'm going to be just like him.
I wanted to get up, but there were too many shards of glass in my knee, so I stayed lying down until a boy from my class came to me.
Levi Brockman.
His blond hair is wavy. He also has the brightest blue eyes I've ever seen.
Father forbade me from playing with Levi. He doesn't care that Levi is the only boy who doesn't push me around, that he shared his sandwich with me on the first day of school, and that he always invites me over to his house.
“I'm a Nazi,” I said to Levi.
He pulled the shards out of my knee anyway.
“You're a boy, just like me.”
He took off his black scarf and wrapped it around my leg. Then he helped me to my feet and supported me as he walked me down the street.
We didn't exchange a single further word, but since that day he sits with me every lunch break and glares at anyone who comes near me.
He is a Jew.
I want to hate him.
But I can't.
He is a boy, just like me.
October 6th, 1967
Mother wanted to know what happened to my knee, and I told her I had fallen and a boy had pulled the shards out. She immediately asked if it was the Jewish boy in my class and slapped me when I didn't answer.
“Please don't tell Father,” I begged her.
She just stared at me, horror in her eyes.
At dinner, she ignored me and hardly ate anything.
Father didn't notice any of it. He was upset the whole time about the repeal of racial laws and the loss of authority of the state.
Anyway, I wanted to give Levi his scarf back today, but he has a new one. And he doesn't seem to mind that I'm wearing this scarf.
It's warm. Warmer than my own. Anyway, it feels good to wear it.
Levi is good at school too, but he doesn't want to be a lawyer. He wants to be a doctor, like his father. And he thinks I would make a good lawyer.
He's nice to me. And I hate it. Because it makes me like him.
October 23rd, 1967
Martin tried to lock me in my school locker again, but Levi, who is taller than all of us, dragged him away and beat him bloody.
That was six days ago. Since then, no one has called me a Nazi anymore. They all avoid eye contact with me. They respect me. Because of Levi.
Levi doesn't usually beat anyone up. He's strangely friendly, smiles a lot, and always carries his little sister from first grade on his shoulders on the way home from school, and every time they start singing songs about God.
Until a few days ago, I used to hide behind the linden trees whenever he walked home with her because I didn't want the other boys' parents to see me with the Brockmans. I don't want Levi to get in trouble with his parents, or worse, with my father.
But today he invited me for ice cream, and we both ate chocolate and vanilla scoops on a small bridge in the park while Leah, his sister, stacked rocks on the bank of the creek.
“Is it true that your friends push you around?” Leah asked me.
“They're not my friends.”
“Someday, when you're a successful lawyer and I'm a doctor, they'll wish they had been your friends,” Levi simply said, smiling as he threw a rock into the water.
I stared at him a little too long. And I'm ashamed of that.
Taken by the Night
Petri Alanko
November 7th, 1967
Eduard Richter had been visiting, with his son, of course. A quiet young man, thirty-six. Joseph's father is a judge in D.C. He himself is a lawyer, trained by Father.
Father wants him to train me someday, but Joseph always looks at me as if I were a thorn in his side.
Can't Father train me?
Joseph's son, Anthony, is in the parallel class and always looks away when the boys beat me up because he's afraid they'll beat him up too someday.
They hate him and laugh at him because he always plays with the girls, as if he has to hide behind them. Just like I do with Levi.
I like Levi more than Anthony. Anthony is a coward. But he's second best in our year and I know Joseph wants him to become a lawyer too.
November 10th, 1967
I often hear Mother crying, but I ignore it because Father says that tears have no place under this roof.
He's right. We shouldn't be weak.
The other lawyers in town laugh at Father, but he's the best and earns the most money of them all.
Still, I can't stand it when Mother cries.
I went into her bedroom and she flinched and pushed something under her pillow.
“My boy, please go study or play or...”
She didn't finish the sentence, just kept crying. But when I took the next step, she jumped up, wiped the tears from her eyes, and disappeared from the room as if nothing had happened.
But the bruises on her face spoke volumes.
Whenever Father has visitors, she tries to hide or cover up his traces. But when someone does happen to see her, they all stare at her for three seconds. Three seconds in which I want to punch them all.
But then they just smile, greet her and leave, as if there were nothing on her face that cries out for help.
It's normal. It should be normal. Their wives probably look the same. But it doesn't feel normal...
November 11th, 1967
No... What have I done? I shouldn't have run back into the bedroom and ripped the pillow away...
I know that star. Father has burned several of them.
But to see it on the chest of five people in a family photo. A family photo of Mother when she had still been a young girl...
No. This must be a joke. A nasty figment of my imagination.
I'm pure. I'm Father's son.
Mother is pure. She is the daughter of...
No.
What has Mother done?
November 12th, 1967
I am a Jew.
If Father finds out...
December 3rd, 1967
Eduard Richter died, and we went to his funeral. Afterwards, Father hosted a memorial gathering for him. On our property.
I had wanted to secretly meet up with Levi, but instead I was forced to sit quietly at a table next to Anthony Richter and eat overly sweet cake among hundreds of important men I didn't know.
“I saw you with Levi,” Anthony said.
Everything inside me stiffened.
“I never asked him to play with me.”
“But still, you meet up with him. On the bridge by the creek. With him and his sister.”
My heart raced. My lungs contracted.
If Anthony knew... then his father would soon know as well.
I let the knife slip off the table and pressed it against Tony's leg, and he stared at me as if I were a monster. A...
“You never saw me with those people, understand?”
He just nodded and continued eating his cake before going to play with the girls, while I promised myself I would never even speak to Levi again.
He reminds me of something I want to cut out of myself.
Too late, I noticed that Father was talking to Joseph and that they were both looking at me.
Never before had Father's eyes burned so intensely. Filled with anger. Never before had he beaten me until I couldn't get back up and Mother knelt down next to me, crying and screaming my name.
Anthony had told his father that I had threatened him with a knife. Even worse, he had told Joseph about Levi.
December 13th, 1967
Whenever possible, I hide from Levi. Since then, he's been eating alone again. And so am I. In a storage room where no one can find me.
I hate Anthony. He's not only a traitor, he's a snitch, just like his father.
Father should be on my side, not on Joseph's. But Joseph is like a better son to him. He was there first. And he sees me as a rival.
I hate Joseph Richter. That man is everything I am not. Above all else: A pure German.
I haven't spoken to Mother since I found out about her secret.
How could she lie to Father?
If he finds out, he'll leave her. He'll leave me behind and I won't be able to become a lawyer, never be able to prove to him how proud he can be of me. Of his only son.
December 18th, 1967
Today is the first day of Christmas break.
I like these days because all the children are distracted. They throw snowballs back and forth as if there were something fun about throwing frozen water at each other.
When I saw Levi and Leah on the sidewalk, I wanted to run home quickly, but he called out my name.
And only today did I realize how much I missed him.
Levi gave me a box wrapped in gift paper, the kind I'd only ever seen at the Richters' house and on TV.
“Merry Christmas,” he said to me.
“Merry Christmas, Troy!”
Leah grinned at me with a smile that for a moment reminded me of Mama's family photo.
The two of them went home and it started to snow, but since I couldn't take the gift home with me, I was tempted to throw it away.
I couldn't do it. Instead, with my heart pounding, I tore it open and stared down at the toy train like a crazy person for ten minutes.
December 19th, 1967
Father found my train set and smashed it to pieces.
I hate Christmas because every time he beats us as if he were being paid for each blow. But after he had smashed every train carriage under his leather shoes, he beat me unconscious.
Father hates me. And it's all because of Anthony.
There was one good thing: he spared Mother and she baked cookies with me while Father went off hunting in the woods.
I also found one of the train carriages under my bed. Father must have overlooked it.
The Cellar
David Julyan
December 22nd, 1967
I thought Father was angry with me. But he took me hunting with him. Something he never does. He always goes hunting alone. Always.
There is a hunting club in Maplecrest. The fathers of the boys in my class who always push me around until I scrape my knees are all members of this club. But Father doesn't want to hunt with them.