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April 20th

Dear Otto,
      I just got your letter yesterday. It takes so long for them to come here! I laughed when I read that story about all the rain. You must have looked like half drowned rats! It hasn't been raining here as much, but it has been very hot, much hotter than usual. Mama says if it doesn't rain soon, all the plants in the garden will-

"Alina!" Mama was calling me. "Jacob is at the door!" Sighing, I set aside the letter and straightened my skirt. Sure enough, there was Jacob, dressed in his Hitler Youth uniform. He now had long pants, which he wore with the same pride as a baby peacock. Why not wear the uniform? It was the Führer's birthday after all. I smiled up at him. How good it felt to really smile!
"Alina, I've come to take you to the cinema." The formality of his words almost made me laugh, roll my eyes, and ask for the old Jacob back. "So? What do you think?" I stifled a laugh when his voice cracked on the last syllable.
"Ja." To my shame, I was sure I was blushing. Mama smiled as well, for the first time in a long while.
"Don't get back too late!" she said as she shut the door behind me. Jacob offered me his arm. Clara must have told him how to behave if he was taking me somewhere special, but this was neither special nor a romantic outing. It was the cinema, nothing else. I accepted his arm, but did not appreciate the fluttering feeling it gave my stomach in the slightest. The whole of Felsental had been scrubbed from top to bottom for the occasion. Nazi flags flew from everyone's house, mimicking the strings of pennants that were draped over storefronts. The older boys had spent hours nailing one string, crossing the street, nailing it, and crossing back to achieve a rick-rack of sorts. I wanted to help but of course Frau Schmidt had vehemently refused. At least my ferocious, pig-nosed teacher and I would only be in each others' company for a few more weeks. The celebration had put everyone in high spirits; children held mass Fußball games in the streets and empty crates for goals, grocers had sales on longed for items like salt, sugar, and meat.
"Have you had any letters from Otto?" Jacob asked. I kicked a runaway ball back into the street.
"Yes, he's nearly done with training now."
"Peter's planning to join the Party, you know. He'd do well as a soldier. He can run fast, he's strong, all those things we learned about, remember?" Yes, all those things we had been told the ideal Aryan citizen or solider could do. I remembered that lesson well; running and climbing intrigued me far more than cooking.
"I know what our parents have said, but I really think that maybe Hitler-" I twisted and kicked him in the back of the knee.
"Ow!" he cried, rubbing it as he walked. He grimaced. "Some way to treat a man who's taking you to the movies." I scoffed. Man? A man who's not even fourteen? In any event, I had bigger issues to cover.
"Stop right now. Right now before you get our parents into trouble." I said as we walked on, feigning a laugh and barely managing what I knew was a tight smile.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Alina! All I'm saying is that-"
"Jan." The word hissed itself from my lips before I had even known I said it.
"See that's where you're wrong. I know he's safe." I blinked. Shock and excitement clogged my throat.
"Where? How...how do you know?" Oh this was too good to be true, it had to be. Maybe? Maybe things were turning out for us? Jacob smiled and shoved his hands in his pockets.
"You'll see, once we get to the cinema. I saw it about a week or two ago." My bubble of anticipation buoyed me as I sprinted the next block and a half, my friend closing at my heels like a greyhound. The minute we were there, Jacob slapped the money on the counter and bought popcorn at a record speed. For a fleeting moment I remembered my conversation with Otto before he left-ha! He might get a chuckle when I told him about the popcorn and Jacob's odd behavior. The man selling tickets yelled at us to slow down, but that didn't stop us from sprinting down the dimly lit, carpeted hallways until we got into the theater.
"Did any spill?" I asked Jacob, nodding to the popcorn. He shook his head. He had a vice grip on the rolled top of the waxy paper bag; none of that precious buttery-salty goodness was going anywhere. Frankly, we couldn't afford to loose any. The lights darkened, and a public service announcement came onto the screen about the Party. Jacob elbowed me in the rib.
"Look! This is what I was telling you about." I blinked as my eyes adjusted and stared at the screen. The video began droning on about how the Jew was our enemy. I clenched my jaw and shot a livid look at Jacob. "Just give it a minute," he whispered. With a huff I sat back and continued to watch. Sure enough, the images changed to the housing in which our Jewish neighbors were now staying in. They were small, but sturdy houses all in rows with gardens in the front. A woman even held up some of the produce she had just collected, posing for the camera. Children, all smiling, sat in rows as they were taught in a school house by their teacher. Everyone the film showed was well fed, happy, and healthy. One by one, I felt my muscles relax. Hitler was taking better care of Jan than we could have at home. I floated on a cloud of such unimaginable joy, not even joy, elation, that I did not even remember to watch the film. All I wanted was to tell Mama and Papa and write to Otto about what I had seen. We sprinted home faster than we had going to the theater. I threw the door open with a bang, hitting Jacob's nose in the process with an awful crunch. He said some things my mother would have smacked me for, but I kept on running.
"Mama! Mama!" I cried, "Mama! Mama, you won't believe it!"
"Why are you shouting?" She gasped when she saw Jacob, and for the first time I took in the damage. His face was already black and blue under the eyes, and his nose was bleeding badly. He shrugged, eying the odd angle and bruised coloring his nose had taken in the hall mirror.
"I've gotten black eyes and bloody noses before, it's not so bad." Gingerly, I tapped his nose, causing him to howl in pain.
"Forget your bravado, it's broken." He glared at me from behind the hand cupping the fractured bone.
"You don't even know what that means!" He growled as Mama sat him at the table with dishcloth full of ice. Taking a wooden spoon, she whacked my knuckles. I flinched, but I knew it was nothing compared to what I had caused Jacob to feel.
"Es tut mir so leid," I said. He harrumphed in return, which I figured was good enough.
"Now, what was it that you were so desperate to tell me?" Mama said, hands on her hips. It was her best no-nonsense pose.
"Mama, you won't believe it! Jacob and I saw a short film in the theater today about where they take the Jews! It's so nice where they are, with enough food for everyone and even a school!" Mama folded her lips, trying to be doubtful though her eyes held a glimmer of hope. At last she shrugged and turned to the cabinets.
"Perhaps you are right," she said. So when I was walking Jacob home, and we saw the many Jews trudging down the streets toward the train station, their eyes vacant and weary, I smiled at them. I smiled at the Gestapo officers who marched around them at all sides, their steps purposeful and neat as their uniforms. I knew that where they were going was so much better than here, and I was happy for them.
________________
I sent my letter to Otto that night as I walked with Papa and Mama to the square. I hopped on one foot, then the other, then the other, as I hummed the songs the Bund auf Deutsche Mädchen had sung today in the parade. How jealous I was, watching them march by carrying their flags and sing their songs, too young to join them until July. Jacob had been allowed to march with the boys, though he was also still too young, adding insult to injury. Well, he easily looked as old as the other boys anyway. As we neared the square, I stopped hopping and straightened my uniform jacket and hat, making sure my braids hung flat against my chest. I wanted to show the girls of the Hitler Youth that I was just as grown up as they were. Just over two months, I thought and walked calmly into the crowd. Wriggling through, I found a place next to Jacob and his heavily bandaged nose. He smiled at me.
"I can tell the other boys I got into a fight," he whispered as we listened to the speaker.
"What do you think that's for?" I whispered back, nodding to the large bonfire that was blazing wildly in the center of the square, infront and to the left of the speaker.
"I don't know," he whispered back. "Maybe for those?" It was growing hard to hear him over the adamant shouting of the speaker, who was growing quite red in the face, but I followed Jacob's eyes. Stationed around the fire were wheelbarrows of books, I didn't know how many, but they were all on the verge of overflowing. The speech rattled on and on, with the occasional response from the crowd, like school children encouraging a bully into a fight. Suddenly, there was a shift toward the wheelbarrows, and a large volume was shoved into my hands by and elderly member of the community.
"Go," he said, his voice cracked with age, "burn the book!" The man was gnarled and hunched over like an old tree, with liver spots speckling his face. The remaining quantity of his hair, which had long gone to white, stuck out from under his cap like shredded tissue paper. Sure, he was old and of no threat to me, but the bonfire blazing in his iridescent blue eyes have him a menacing quality about him. A man this fearful-like would be dangerous to disobey, so
I hurled the book into the fire. With sudden strength, he hurled his after mine, and smiled.
"Good girl," he said, far less terrifying when he smiled, and patted me on the shoulder clumsily, like a trained bear. What good was the book anyway? The red-bound book was not written in German, the true, pure language of the-
I stopped myself, mentally. Those were not my words my mind had said, but those of my teachers, and instructors at the Hitler Youth meetings for the younger girls. But, wasn't it true? Here was a leader, a Führer, who was rescuing a drowning country. Was it not right to support him? Wasn't it-?
I walked home silently, a few yards ahead of Mama and Papa. Alone in the world, it seemed, with only my confused and jumbled thoughts for company.