Page 5

Leaving and spending a little time on her own sounded like heaven as soon as she said it.

If she slipped away now, the trains wouldn’t be as horribly overcrowded as they were in the late evenings and early mornings, and the city would be quieter.

Nuremberg was bursting at the seams, and finding any kind of space to breathe was a challenge, but there was a lake between the Zeppelin Field and the Glockenhof area of the city where Viktor’s connections had managed to secure them a hotel.

She could be out in the open air listening to the birds in less than half an hour. Except Pascal wasn’t ready to give up.

‘Oh, Noemi, come on. It’s our last night – you can’t spend that with your nose in a book.

What about if we did something fun first?

We could go to the youth camp – there’s going to be campfires and races, one of the older boys told me.

I’d go on my own, but I’d rather you came too.

I don’t really know anyone there, and I bet you’d win everything if you tried. You’re the fastest runner I know.’

Noemi sighed as her silent lake and her book disappeared.

She knew how disappointed Pascal had been that he wasn’t old enough to stay in a tent with the other Hitler Youth boys.

And he was right: she was fast, and she did like to win.

But she wasn’t sure that was a good-enough – or a sensible-enough – reason to stay.

None of the songs or the speeches had specifically mentioned Jews, but they’d all talked about the ‘right blood’ and the ‘right heritage’ and the importance of something called the ‘Aryan ideal’, and – whether she had reason to be or not – that made Noemi nervous.

‘Do you think they’ll let me join in? You know, given that?—’

‘You don’t have a uniform? It’s getting dark – no one will notice or care.’

He’d deliberately misunderstood her; he’d deliberately ignored the real issue.

It wasn’t the first time he’d done that, moving the conversation onto safer ground when Noemi tried to talk to him about how it felt to be Jewish and excluded.

It was odd and uncomfortable, and one day she would have to tackle him about it, but maybe not now.

Not when she could smell the smoke from the campfires drifting across in the wind, and the charcoal promise of roasting sausages.

‘Fine, you win. I’ll race you there.’

His cheer quickly turned into an outraged roar when she turned round quicker than he could and streaked away at top speed.

The youth camp was a sea of tents and energy and teenage boys trying to turn every activity into a competition.

Pascal was soon enveloped by a group who were intrigued by the fact he was wearing the same insignia as them but wasn’t in their camp, and were impressed when they discovered his age.

He blended in the moment he produced his collection of postcards and souvenir badges and offered to trade some.

Soon, he was regaling his new audience with stories of his climbing exploits in the Alps, which Noemi was too kind to point out were somewhat exaggerated.

Pascal was perfectly at home, but it was clear that the boys had no interest in her – they laughed when he mentioned how good she was at running and told her to go and play with the girls.

Noemi had no intention of doing that, although she said she would.

Unlike Pascal – whose shyness around new people rarely lasted more than a moment and who had no doubts about his right to a place at the centre – she was all too aware that she might not be made welcome.

She started to slip away instead, but the girls in question had been watching her, and they had other plans.

‘How old are you?’

The question seemed innocent enough, but after all the warlike songs she’d heard and ceremonies she’d watched, Noemi wasn’t convinced that anything in Nuremberg was innocent. She kept her answer to a very straightforward, ‘Thirteen.’

The girl who’d asked – who was indistinguishable from her equally blond friends in their identical black skirts and white blouses – nodded.

‘So old enough then to be in our junior league. But you’re not dressed correctly, and everyone else is.

’ She ran a critical gaze over Noemi’s loden green dirndl skirt and cropped jacket with its pewter buttons and red scroll stitching.

Then she raised her voice so her audience could hear her.

‘Or perhaps you’ve come in fancy dress, is that it? ’

Noemi’s fingers instantly started to curl, although she kept them hidden.

Her outfit wasn’t one she would have chosen – she was happier in a pair of lederhosen or trousers, something she could climb and run around in – but the skirt suit was what Bavarian country girls wore on smart occasions, and that made her proud of it.

And deeply resentful of the older girls’ sneers and giggles.

‘I’m not a member of the League of German Girls. It’s not compulsory.’

Her aggressor took a step closer. Noemi didn’t take a step back.

‘That’s true. But membership is important, as every decent girl who does join it knows.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to pledge their life and their loyalty to the Führer?

’ She paused and glanced round at her entourage before she turned back to Noemi.

‘Unless, of course, there’s something stopping you? ’

The wind had changed. They were both standing in the flickering light cast out by the campfire.

Noemi forced herself not to react as the girl leaned closer and started slowly scrutinising her hair and her face.

Suddenly, the cartoons she’d seen in a copy of the violently antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer , which a customer had left in the café and her father had burned, leapt into her head.

What’s she looking for? Horns? A bend in my nose? A forked tongue?

Noemi wasn’t foolish enough to ask. Or to show any trace of the fear pricking her neck when the girl grinned as if she’d discovered it.

‘You’re a Jew, aren’t you? You’re one of the ones they warned us about. The really dangerous ones who look all nice and respectable but are actually filled with poison. Is that it, Jew? Am I right? Have you sneaked in here with your nasty dark eyes and your ugly brown hair to infect us?’

Noemi felt the air snap as the word Jew hit it. She’d never felt so vulnerable, not even the first time she dangled from a rope on a rock climb. And there was nothing she could do if she wanted to stay safe but lie and deny it.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. What a stupid idea.’

She would have sounded far more convincing if her voice hadn’t immediately started to shake.

The older girl whooped and turned to her friends, her voice loud enough to catch the attention of some of the now arm-wrestling boys. ‘She’s a Jew – I knew it! We’ve caught ourselves a live one!’

Noemi twisted round, looking for Pascal, as the other girls began to move into a circle around her.

He wasn’t looking her way; he was too busy cheering on a boy who appeared to be intent on breaking his opponent’s wrist. She doubted he’d hear her even if she shouted, and she’d never reach him if she tried to run – the circle she was now trapped inside was too tight.

While she was trying to work out what to do, the group’s leader began goading her again. ‘What was the plan, little Jew? Were you going to rob us? Were you going to throw stones? Or are you here to cause a worse kind of trouble and throw a bomb at the Führer?’

The lead girl’s eyes were wild; her companions were breathing as heavily as horses readying themselves to stampede.

You have to show it who’s master. Don’t run or cower; snarl back. Maintain eye contact, and strike first and fast if you have to.

Once Hauke realised that his only child was going to explore the forests and mountains surrounding Unterwald with or without his permission, he’d taught her what to do if she was ever faced with danger, particularly from the grey wolves who came sniffing when the snow started to fall and hunting was harder.

She and Pascal had taken Hauke’s lessons and practised being hunter and prey until nothing could scare them.

Now her father’s words came flooding back to her and triggered the instincts buried deep in her bones.

The girl who’d started the bullying was quick, but she wasn’t quick enough.

Her hand shot out towards Noemi’s braids.

Noemi snatched it with a twisting grip that made her tormentor squeal.

The others immediately began moving even closer towards her, their bodies elongated by the campfire’s flames.

Noemi didn’t look at them. All she had to do to break the pack was cripple its leader.

She swung her other fist back and struck hard, with a punch that turned the girl’s nose into a gushing red waterfall. There was a moment of silence, then the screams flew like tortured cats. But the circle fell back exactly as Noemi hoped it would, and their leader fell screeching to the ground.

‘She hit me. The Jew hit me!’

The shout went up like a battle cry, but Noemi was already hurling herself through the space her punch had created, horribly aware that one stumble would set the wolves on her.

Unless he gets to me first and stops them.

She could see Pascal clearly now, and he could see her. His mouth and his eyes were saucer-like, but he didn’t get up. He didn’t make one move towards her.

‘Help me, please!’

Perhaps he hadn’t heard her. Perhaps he was too shocked to think.

Whichever it was, she didn’t have the breath or the time to call him again.

Or to worry about the shouts building into a tidal wave behind her.

This wasn’t one of the fairy stories she’d grown out of long ago; there wasn’t a prince about to ride to her rescue.

There was no one to trust to get her out safely except herself and her instincts, so Noemi gave herself up to those. And she gave up on Pascal.

She bit down on her panic before it snatched away any chance of escape, plunged into the darkness and ran.