Labour for Love

A tale of two brothers

It was the day of august 6th 1942, well I think it was, the date never mattered to a man like me, In my world I never waited on time, time waited on me.

But I do remember one thing that was always constant in Germany, the black thick smoky clouds that illuminated the face of the sun for so many years, I know not if it was from the bombs, or from the factories, but what I do know is that for all my life the clouds only had one colour black.

I remember as I grabbed my pouch and dusted my running shoes as I prepared myself for my brother, I wore a grey shirt, grey trousers and brown shoes for all my life, I guess I was considered lucky, back then that trend was a sign of either incredible wealth or royalty.

'Krager','Krager', the deep voice called out my name a couple of times from the roof above me, it wasn't the first time I had heard my name from above, but I always looked a couple of times to reassure if my name e was being called from heaven.

A peach coloured hand reached down from the roof above me, 'grab on, come on we ain't got all day krag', is was at that moment that I realized it was my brother reaching down onto me, well that and the fact that he's the only person who knows how much I hate people calling me krag, but in such a dangerous place you can never be too sure.

'Who are you?' I replied the voice with a stern tone, 'Who else do you think would waste their time on you, come on before you make me come down there and throw you up here myself.' 'If you really are my brother.' I replied in a shaking tone this time. 'Do our secret knock.' 'Seriously!' The replied in an aggrevated tone 'That thing we made when we where like, 6, alright'

It amazed me not only to see that my brother did our secret knock perfectly, but the fact that he still remembered things those times, when life was still easy, when mum was still alive, but ever since then my brother and I had grown far apart from each other.

I tightened the strap of my pouch round my waist, tightened my shoelace and jumped to reach for my brothers hand, he pulled me up and helped me to my feet, 'Ah Asill you really do have weird morning routines' I said panting heavily, 'What is it this morning?', 'There's a planned ambush by the polish down at the other side of town, Dad has a hundred men moving down south to check it out, it's expected to happen in two hours from now, we can't make it if we run but we can if we use the high road.' 'Oh no, Asill not this again, last time we almost got killed.' I responded him with exhaustion and anger.

'That's cause we weren't ready Krager but we're older now.', 'No, that's cause we where fighting men twice our age, who had guns, while our weapons where sticks and stones, literally.'

'Come on Krager, if you ever really want to be general of the greatest army in the world and fill in father's shoes one day, you must display courage.'
'There you go again, everything always has to revolve back to this doesn't it.'
'Come on Krager father always said that true leadership is displayed through courage, what better way to prove to him that we truly are courageous.'
'True leadership is shown through wisdom not stupidity, and the person who will father's shoes, would have to be alive to fill them won't he, and besides you work so hard to display courage and prove that you would die for a country to a man who sits behind an army of men and yells out orders while he watches them die.'

I thought at that moment that my brother would end up speechless and quit trying to convince me, but he had a better response than I thought he would, he simply ended the conversation took a step back, took a deep breath and leaped from one roof to another. I glared at him with shock at his reply to my comment, it was then that I began to wonder if it was worth still arguing with him.

'Don't you ever feel useless Krager? Locked up in a large building all day.'
'Well we could have it worse, we could be wandering round the streets broke.'
'Sometimes I just get this feeling like I should be doing more for our country, like dad does, look at the way everyone looks at him with respect.'
'I doubt the people of this country would agree, everyone looks at him with fear not respect.'
'I just want to be remembered for doing something for Germany, I just want to be someone that when I die people would still talk about me.'

That was the first time in my life that I ever looked at my brother with respect. He then leaped onto another roof and looked back at me before he said 'Besides I bet you can't catch me' and at that moment I gave into my brothers plan and we leaped from roof together, making noise in the neighborhood , disturbing the whole town, but no one said anything, they dare not, truthfully me and my brother couldn't have given a dam, if we disturbed anyone, we where feared as much as our father was, anyone who stepped out of line with us could immediately face their death.
Everyone knew who we where and we didn't know any of them, we were worshipped like royalty.

Now all of that, that happened became just a fading memory in my head, but the words that remained crystal clear in my memory, was when my brother said 'Bet you can't catch me.' It made me imagine a world where my brother and I actually cared for each other, my brother and I had fun but the truth is that when push comes to shove my brother and I care about no one else but ourselves, can you possibly blame us, our father executed his two older brothers and younger sister, as well as his only wife just for power, so he kinda taught us that in the entire world the most important this is your life.

The worst kind of life I could ever see myself having is that of my father, a man who at teenage age had a great passion for music, but was forced to give that up and become the General of the Nazi army, a man who preaches honour and self-discipline, yet has 12 wives in a system where polygamy is illegal. When I think of the word hypocrit the only thing that pops into my head is my father.

I always believed that deep in his heart my brother really cared about me, but what happened later that day is what really showed me the truth.