This is something I wrote nearly a year ago for my English creative writing coursework. If it's a bit bare on the description, that's probably because it had a deadline and was rushed. Hope you like.
When the Gestapo Come Knocking
There was a hammering on the door, and it disturbed the former peace. It was not a rap-rap-rap, like you might expect, but a fast and furious, impatient showering of knocks, like the greeting of a petulant child. Ebbe lifted his head from the table – he was weary and irked from a night of hard labour. Two calves had been born, one had succumbed to heaven, and now the mother did little else than blubber and neglect her small babe.
The door was struck again, and again, until Ebbe stumbled towards it and wrenched it open. The cold air attacked his face almost immediately, widening his eyes to awareness. But it was the recognition of the figure that stood so surely before him which awoke him completely. The figure had an air to him, one of arrogance and content, as if nothing, not the hardness of the world or the people within it, could touch him. Perhaps it was an enviable thing.
But Ebbe was not a fool – he knew the figure right away, and its reason for being at his doorstep. The uniform, nearly completely back, with that bold, flamboyant armband – even an idiot would know who the figure was, and, more importantly, was he was there for. Ebbe stood still, unmoved, for that is how he had to be, to appear. The perfect German was unmoved and unaffected.
Later, Ebbe would remember what the man said. It was said so icily, so briskly, and in a clipped voice, familiar with these Gestapo, who were trained to be robotic. ‘You will let me come in?’ Ebbe, who knew only too well that this was an order, not a question, stood to the side a little and ducked his head.
‘Yes. Fine.’
As he entered, the man looked about the modest kitchen. He noticed the half-empty whisky bottle on the otherwise bare oak table, and the simplistic painting on the brown walls, of a field of yellow flowers. ‘Nice,’ he said, indicating.
Ebbe only said, ‘My wife.’
The man, who was called Friedrich, nodded to himself. Dead probably, dead from some typical, war-like situation. He briefly touched the embroidered swastika on his arm and sighed. Ebbe did not notice this, but stood against the wall with his eyes glued to his shoes.
Friedrich turned back to the old farmer and tested out a smile. ‘How do you feel about the Führer, Mr. Kessler?’ The Chancellor’s title was spoken out with admiration and with a ring of high praise, but there was an edge to it – to Ebbe, it seemed this Friedrich was thinking, ‘Ah, I have you now. Now you are helpless with fear.’ And indeed, Ebbe was. What man would not plead for his own life, or grovel at the idea of death? No man – was the answer, for man is human, not an automaton.
Ebbe did not need to think about his answer, and neither did he regret it. ‘Oh, I am grateful to him, mister. Before,’ for people had a thing of referring to pre-Nazi as just that, ‘my farm was to be run into the ground. But now, there is nothing but good news and good moves. I thank Hitler for that.’
Friedrich nodded a little, not believing a word. ‘Why do you live out here? On your own? Have you something to hide?’
‘Oh, no, sir! I have nothing to hide. A farmer must live far out – the animals need their fields and the people don’t like the smells. It’s better this way.’
Friedrich wandered the length and width of the kitchen, occasionally stopping to touch the tabletop or cabinet to check for dust. He thought to himself, ‘This man is too poor to be of any organisation… He is better left untouched.’ But every time he turned to look at the defendant, he was hanging his head, practically yelling that he had something to hide.
Friedrich hated liars. He met plenty of them. Rich liars, poor liars, manipulative liars, half-wit liars. His own father had been one, and a gambler, too. One time, as an angry adolescent, he had come home from his school to find his mother crying by the staircase. ‘Oh, my son,’ she had whispered, blind with tears, ‘I’ve killed him. I’ve stabbed him.’ Of course, Friedrich was devastated, and shocked, and he punched at the wall till his knuckles were bleeding and his mother was wailing that he should stop. He did, and then carefully decided what to do. By the time night fell down like a thick blanket, his father was gone. Taken to some back-alley with an almost empty bottle of gin in his hand, and left for someone to find him.
I cannot lie to you. Friedrich was not wholly mournful. His father was who had brought them down, down into the darkness. The young man doffed his shirt and grimy trousers, and wore his father’s suits. In some way, he took his father’s place but vowed to do right by his mother and his sisters. However, we are talking about the poverty and the depression of the years of mass-unemployment, generally caused by the Wall Street Crash. Only, the Jews were fine. Somehow, in any unfair circumstance, the Jews were always fine.
‘Might I ask of your reason for calling?’ piped up Ebbe, now. He was in front of Friedrich, his hands pushed into his pockets.
‘A call,’ replied the officer, with grey eyes suddenly more prominent. ‘Apparently, you’ve been helping Jews.’
‘That is not true. Who told you that?’
‘Cannot tell you. Let us just say, a concerned neighbour. Perhaps,’ he shrugged, ‘some do not support treason, in your area.’
Ebbe’s weather-beaten cheeks grew florid and he held up a large, calloused hand. ‘I assure you; I would not betray the government. Not when it forfeits my life! Please, if you must, search my house, look for these Jews. Please, sir, these are malicious lies, you must understand.’
‘Do you lie, though? Tell me, what are your beliefs about the cleansing? You have told me that the rise in employment and the economic success pleases you, but what of Hitler’s policies of race? You are of kindred blood, I hope?’
Ebbe had noticed the distinct change to Friedrich’s voice. The clipped, robotic tone was fled, and now a fast, angry voice replaced it. Ebbe shrugged and answered, coolly, ‘I cannot share your hatred of the Jews. I see not what to hate. I understand the want of one race, but not the extermination of the other.’
‘These are treasonous things to say!’
Now, Ebbe looked away, to the painting on the wall, the warm yellow juxtaposed against the backdrop of sludge-brown and kaki. Friedrich shook his head, focused his eyes, and cleared his mind of fury. He did not feel comfortable, or remotely happy, to be spoken to in this way. In other situations, the condemned would cry and whimper, sometimes beg, do anything to prove complete loyalty to the Führer. This farmer, whilst scared, would not lie about what he felt. Strangely, it was something to be admired.
‘Would you care for a drink, sir?’
Friedrich looked haughtily towards the bottle on the table. ‘What, your drug, there? No.’
‘Times are hard, sir. What else can a poor widower find happiness in?’
‘Hard!’ The officer shook his head in disbelief. ‘Times are infinitely better!’ He gestured around the room. ‘The hyperinflation – do you remember?’
‘How could I not?’
‘The only reason our economy is better is because of Hitler. And I,’ he smiled in self-belief, ‘am one of his people. “Army of the Saviour,” we call it. The Saviour of the Germanic people.’
Ebbe flicked a quick smile. ‘So long as you can swear by that.’
Perhaps, another time, Friedrich might have taken that remark as enough proof of betrayal. Death, even, might have befallen Ebbe, if Friedrich had wanted it so. I am unable to tell you the soaring power, the God-like feeling, which comes from that control. But things come in twos – burden came, too, and fear. Fear of yourself; what you have become.
Ebbe was one of those people who says something with extra meaning. The recipient of these remarks will feel invaded and realised. Indeed, Friedrich did. For a while, he had had his doubts. He had seen his fellow officers assault those weaker than themselves, make children cry, even kill the Jews, whether via manslaughter or not. He found it so hard to admit to himself the possibility that his people did more damage than repair. But even harder was that this stranger was to guess his thoughts when his own family could not.
Ebbe had seen women smile beamingly as the Nazis paraded the streets with their blood-red swastikas streaming about proudly, and then, once no longer in vision, let their smiles fall, and some cried. Ebbe had seen many things that others purposely chose to ignore. ‘JUDE’ sprawled on a window, to fuel a spirit that was growing to some, and dying to others.
But memories are no good; only present can be changed. Friedrich barged into Ebbe’s thoughts and trampled on them all. ‘You will show me any hiding places. Now.’
Ebbe closed his eyes briefly and opened them again. ‘I have no Jews here.’
‘Then I will look on my own. You defy the government?’
‘No.’
He was awhile, looking in the barn and pigpen, as if they were such animals that they should live there. And then he searched the upstairs and then even the cupboards, like Ebbe would stash little children in them. Eventually, he was forced to come back to Ebbe, who was red with frustration, and shrug.
‘There are no Jews here.’
‘Indeed.’ Ebbe gestured around. ‘I told you as much.’
‘I do suspect you. That is what angers me. You are not fearing us, nor idolising us, either. You do not bow or beg or say things quickly, like the others. Mr. Kessler, I fear, one day, you will betray our Führer, and then you will pay for it.’
Ebbe held out his hand and shook Friedrich’s. ‘I will take your advice.’
The officer glanced left, then right, and looked at his ruddy-complexioned palm. There was a curious shock that came from kindness, or just polite formality. It was not particularly rewarding. Guilt came, limply, into the blackened innards. A simple farmer; mind cobbled together with knowledge of cattle and grain. Only numbers known being costs of cows at the market and the prices of corn each harvest. Such a finely ignorant mind, he supposed, and that was a gift. Not to be stuck forever in the thick of it, watching people turn, in their helplessness, to new means of survival. He had once even come across a woman who hid her young children in a frosty icehouse, where none would think to look, she had guessed. But the Gestapo, like the most acute bloodhound, could sniff a person out a mile away. How they were able to… cruel minds will always find ways. After all, they do not care about trampling on innocents en route.
‘Are you going, then?’ asked Ebbe, with his face grave.
Friedrich realised that he was not needed, which he had known all along. Who asks for persecution? ‘Yes, yes. Goodbye.’ Quickly, he was through that knobbly door and into the bitter-cold morning air. Ebbe did not see him pull his black jacket-top all the closer around him, or close his eyes for a second or two. Ebbe only saw his wife’s lively painting on the wall, smiling at him.
‘We will live to see another day, at least,’ he confided, letting his voice fill out the room with the treacle-like sound of happiness. But Ebbe could not fool the dead, no more than he could fool himself.
