november free chapter - two brothers by ben elton

7/30/2019 November Free Chapter - Two Brothers by Ben Elton

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Copyright Ben Elton 2012. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/ben-elton/two-brothers-9780593062067.aspx


2/28

Also by Ben Elton

Stark

Gridlock

This Other EdenPopcorn

Blast from the Past

Inconceivable

Dead Famous

High Society

Past Mortem

The First Casualty

Chart ThrobBlind Faith

Meltdown

2

BEN E LTON



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TWO BROTHERS

Ben Elton

3

TWO BROTHERS

BANTAM PRESSLONDON TORONTO SYDNEY AUCKLAND JOHANNESBURG



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TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS6163 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA

A Random House Group Companywww.rbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britainin 2012 by Bantam Press

an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright Ben Elton 2012

Ben Elton has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designsand Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblanceto actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this bookis available from the British Library.

ISBNs 9780593062050 (hb)9780593062067 (tpb)

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out,

or otherwise circulated without the publishers priorconsent in any form of binding or cover other than that

in which it is published and without a similar condition,including this condition, being imposed on the

subsequent purchaser.

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The Random House Group Limited supports the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC),the leading international forest-certification organization. Our books carrying theFSC label are printed on FSC-certified paper. FSC is the only forest-certification

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Printed and bound in Great Britain byClays Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

4

BEN E LTON



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Two Brothers is dedicated to two cousins, my uncles:

Heinz Ehrenberg, who served in the Wehrmacht

1939 to 1945,

andGeoffrey Elton, who served in the British army

1943 to 1946.

5

TWO BROTHERS



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6/28

The Girl on the Cart

Berlin, 1920

Frieda Stengel woke from a dream filled with tiny kicks to findher nightdress and her bedding soaking wet.

It was past dawn but the coming of day had done little to

relieve the darkness and gloom of the long freezing night that had

preceded it. Her breath hung heavily in the dull light as she shook

her husband awake.

Wolfgang, she whispered. My waters have broken.

He sat up in bed with a jolt.

Right! he said, staring about wildly, struggling to surface.Good! Everythings fine. We have a plan.

Im not in labour yet, Frieda said soothingly. No pain. No

cramps. But theyre on their way, thats for sure.

Keep calm, Wolfgang said, tumbling out of bed and tripping

over the boots hed left close at hand for just such an awakening.

We absolutely have a plan.

Frieda was expecting twins and so had been guaranteed a place

in a hospital for the delivery. The Berlin Buch medical school was

several kilometres across the city from Friedrichshain, where they

lived. As she struggled into her clothes Frieda could only hope

that the babies were in no hurry.

Wolfgang took his wifes arm and they groped their way down

the five flights of stairs from their apartment to the street below.

There was a lift but it was ancient and rickety and they had

decided that the tiny iron cage was not to be trusted for such acrucial journey.

Imagine if we got stuck and you had the babies between

7

TWO BROTHERS



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7/28

floors, Wolfgang joked. Its only licensed for three people! That

bitch of a concierge would probably report us to the housing

collective.The sky that lowered over the young couple as they stepped out

on to the icy pavement was so dark and so grey that it might have

been forged from iron in the furnaces of the famous Krupps

foundry in Essen and then bolted above Berlin with rivets of steel.

Berlin seemed always to be huddling beneath such gunmetal skies.

The war winters and those that followed had been cruel indeed

and as the wet and frozen early morning workers hurried past the

young couple, bent low in the teeth of biting eastern winds, it washard for Frieda and Wolfgang to remember that there had ever

been any other season in Berlin but winter. That there had

once been a time when every tree on Unter Den Linden had

dazzled in garish bloom and up and down the Tiergarten old

gentlemen had removed their jackets and girls had gone without

stockings.

But spring and summer were a distant memory in that February

of 1920, a dream of better times before the catastrophe of theGreat War exploded over Germany. Now the skies seemed always

to have been beaten out of cannons and to thunder as if just

beyond the horizon in the fields of Belgium and France and across

the endless Russian steppes real cannons still roared.

There were of course no taxis to be found even if they could

have afforded one, and inevitably the trams were on one of their

regular strikes. The Stengels had therefore arranged to borrow a

hand cart from the local greengrocer.

Herr Sommer was waiting for them when they arrived outside

his shop, with the cart and a bouquet of carrots tied up with

ribbons.

Pink and blue, Sommer said, because Wolf assures me youre

going to have a boy and girl. An instant family, all the bother

done with in one go.

Theyll both be boys, Frieda replied firmly. So watch out fortrouble, theyll be pinching your apples in a few years!

If I have any apples, the grocer replied ruefully as Wolfgang

8

BEN E LTON



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8/28

began to push the cart away, slipping and clanking across the icy

stones and cobbles.

Just then there was a burst of automatic gunfire somewhere ina nearby street, but they ignored it, as they also ignored the shouts

and the screams that followed the clattering boots and the sound

of breaking glass.

Gunfire, boots and breaking glass were just the sounds of the

city to Wolfgang and Frieda, they didnt really notice them any

more. As commonplace in Berlin as the cry of the newspaper

vendor, the bird song in the parks and the rattle of the trains on

the elevated railway. Everybody ignored them, keeping theirheads down, hurrying along, hoping not to be delayed in getting

to whatever queue it was they were planning to join.

Fucking idiots, a one-legged veteran muttered as he scuttled

past on his crutches.

You got that right, Wolfgang replied to the back of the mans

shaven head and little army cap.

The newspapers called these ongoing disturbances a

revolution but if it was a revolution it was of a peculiar Germankind. Civic authority continued to function and business was still

done. Kids still played on the pavements. Secretaries were at their

typing machines by eight thirty. The police still checked the

licence discs on parked cars, even while their owners were in a

nearby cellar kicking somebody to death or being kicked to death

themselves.

Berlin simply carried on with its own affairs while Communist

gangs and right-wing Freikorps militia killed each other during

their lunch breaks.

Frieda and Wolfgang carried on too, or at least Wolfgang did,

sweating over the cart handles, despite the cold, as he pushed his

wife through the rubble-strewn streets, swearing and cursing

his way around the occasional barricade until finally arriving

before the splendid steps of the famous five-thousand-bed

teaching hospital on Lindenberger Weg, the largest in all Europe.Wolfgang pulled up his cart, drawing deep, painful breaths of

freezing air, and took down Friedas bag.

9

TWO BROTHERS





9/28

Heavy enough, isnt it? he gasped. Do you really need all

these books?

I might be in for a while, Frieda replied, sliding herself heavilyover the tailboard and down on to the pavement, wincing

as her swollen ankles took the weight. I need to get some work

done.

Well, Im with you on that, Fred, Wolfgang agreed, treating

himself to a smoke. You married a musician. A musician who at

some point hopes to find himself living in the style to which he

would like to become accustomed.

Youre a composer, Wolf. Frieda smiled. Not just a musician.I told my parents I was marrying the next Mendelssohn.

God help us, I hope not. Too many damn tunes. Kaffee und

Kuchen music aint for me, Freddy, you know that.

People like tunes. Theypay for tunes.

Which is why I grabbed myself a nice clever girl when I had the

chance. Every jazz man needs a besotted lady doctor to look after

him.

Wolfgang took Frieda around her huge waist and kissed her.Frieda laughed, disengaging herself. Im not besotted, Im

barely tolerating. And Im not a doctor either. Not yet, theres the

little matter of my final exams. And be careful with my books.

Theyre all borrowed and they fine you if theres even a tiny crease

in a page.

Frieda was studying medicine at the University of Berlin. She

even had a grant of sorts, a fact her deeply conservative parents

still had difficulty believing.

You mean they pay for your education? Even women? her

father had enquired incredulously.

They have to, Pa. Most of the boys are dead.

But all the same. Women doctors? her father replied, con -

fusion reigning behind the solid, timeless certainty of his

close-cropped Prussian moustache. Who would trust them?

Who will have a choice? Frieda countered. Its called thetwentieth century, Pa, you really ought to join some time, its been

going two decades already.

10

BEN E LTON



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10/28

Youre wrong, her father said with sombre gravity, it began

only recently, when his Imperial Highness abdicated. God only

knows where or when it will end.Friedas father was a policeman and her mother a proud house-

wife. He brought in the salary, she ran the home and raised the

children. Their attitudes had been formed under the Kaiser, and

the political and cultural earthquake of the post-war Weimar

Republic had left them reeling. Neither of them understood a

government which while unable to stop gunfights on the high

streets concerned itself with sexual equality.

Or a son-in-law who was happy to begin a family despite notbeing able to afford to pay for a taxi to take his wife to the hospital.

I think if Papa saw you pushing his pregnant daughter to her

confinement in a grocers cart, hed take out his gun and shoot

you, Frieda remarked as they laboured up the hospital steps

together.

He nearly shot me forgettingyou pregnant, Wolfgang replied,

searching in the pockets of his jacket for the hospital admission

papers.If you hadnt married me he would have done.

Right, this is it. Were here.

All around them sick, cold people crowded, bustling in and out

of the great doors of the hospital.

Ill come back this evening, Wolfgang said. Make sure theres

three of you by then.

Frieda gripped his hand.

My God, Wolf, she whispered, when you put it like that . . .

Today theres just you and me, tomorrow therell be you, me

. . . and our children.

A gust of wind caused her to shiver. The harsh, rain-speckled

chill penetrating her threadbare clothing. Once more Wolfgang

folded her in his arms, no longer playfully but this time

passionately, almost desperately. Two, small, cold people huddled

together beneath the unforgiving granite columns of theenormous civic building.

Two young hearts beating together.

11

TWO BROTHERS





11/28

Two more, younger still, warm in Friedas belly.

Four hearts, joined by love in the harsh squalls of another,

greater heart. One made of stone and iron. Berlin, heart ofGermany.

Thats right, Wolfgang replied. You, me and our children. The

best and most beautiful thing that there ever was.

And for once he spoke without smiling or trying to make a

joke.

Yes, that ever was, said Frieda quietly.

Well then. Lets get to it, Fred. Its too bloody cold to be stand-

ing around being soppy.There was no question of Wolfgang waiting at the hospital.

Very few expectant fathers in post-war Berlin had the leisure to

hang about outside maternity wards waiting to hand out cigars in

the traditional manner. Herr Sommer needed his cart back and

Wolfgang, like everybody else in the city that terrible winter,

needed to begin queuing.

Theres meat at Horsts, he said, as he began to descend the

steps to where he had left the cart. Lamb and pork. Im going toget some for you if I have to pawn my piano. Youll need the iron

if youre going to feed our little son and daughter.

Our little sons, Frieda replied. Itll be boys. Im telling you, a

woman knows. Paulus and Otto. Boys. Lucky, lucky boys.

Why lucky? Wolfgang called back. I mean, apart from having

the most beautiful mum in the world?

Because theyre twins. Theyve got each other, Wolf. This is a

tough town in a tough world. But no matter how tough it gets

our boys will always have each other.

12

BEN E LTON



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12/28

Tea and Biscuits

London, 1956

Stone stared at the hessian-covered table in front of him. At the

teacups and the biscuits and the block of yellow notepaper with

the fountain pen on top. He focused on the black Bakelite telephone

with its sharp angular edges and its frayed, double-twisted, brown

fabric cord. It must have dated from the early 1930s.

What had he been doing when that cord was new?

Fighting, no doubt. Or running in terror along some Berlinpavement looking for an alley to dodge down. He and his brother

chasing each others heels, two teenage boys in mortal fear for

their lives.

Stones eye followed the cord down off the table, across the

slightly warped, ruby-coloured linoleum and into a largish black

box screwed to the skirting board. He fancied he could hear

the box humming but it might have been the distant traffic on

the Cromwell Road.

He shifted nervously in his seat. He had never quite got used to

being interviewed in bare rooms by government officials. Even

now he could not quite persuade himself that he was safe.

Even now some part of him expected violence.

Except of course that this was England, they didnt do that sort

of thing here. Some of Stones more left-leaning acquaintances

sneered when he said that. But then they had never had themisfortune to live in a country where sudden and absolute

violence was the norm and not the exception.

Stone looked once more at his interrogators. A classic pair. One

short and rather plump, balding, with an officious little soup stain

of a moustache, his beady eyes flicking constantly at the biscuits.

The other not much taller but thinner, standing in the corner of

the bare windowless room, watching through slightly hooded

eyes. It felt to Stone like he was in a scene from a movie. That hewas being questioned by Peter Lorre while Humphrey Bogart

looked on inscrutably, keeping his own counsel.

13

TWO BROTHERS



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13/28

You are travelling to Berlin in the hope of meeting up with

your brothers widow.

This was the second time the shorter man, Peter Lorre, hadasked this question.

Or was it a statement? It was certainly true. But how did they

know?

They had read Dagmars letter. Obviously.

Presumedwidow, Stone replied, evading the question. A life-

times experience had taught him that it was usually wise to

withhold any information from the authorities until forced

to divulge it.You dont think your brothers dead?

There has never been any actual proof of it.

You mean a corpse?

I suppose so.

Your brother is certainly presumed dead, Lorre replied,

finally capitulating to the biscuit plate and choosing a shortbread

finger. Killed by the Russians during the battle for Moscow in

1941.That is what I was told, Stone said, after the war, by the East

German authorities.

Have you any reason to doubt it?

No. None at all. Ive always hoped, thats all. My brother

generally had a plan. He would have been a hard man to kill.

The Waffen SS tended to be made up of hard men to kill. At

least until they started recruiting boys. Your brother joined in

1940, didnt he?

Was there a hint of a sneer? Stone felt his anger rising. What

right did this smug little man, munching on his shortbread finger,

have to judge? He hadnt been where his brother had been. Where

his mother and father had been. And Dagmar.

Again the guilt.

Survivor guilt, the shrinks called it.

My brother wasnt a Nazi, Stone stated firmly.Of course he wasnt, Peter Lorre replied, and now the sneer

was unmistakable. None of them were Nazis, were they? Or so

14

BEN E LTON



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14/28

they all claim now. And the Waffen SS wasnt really proper SS

anyway, was it? They never ran the camps. You cant blame them.

My brother was married to a Jew, Stone said.Yes, we know. Dagmar Stengel, ne Fischer. You are travelling

to Berlin to meet her. Is that not the case?

Stone stared at the cups and saucers once more. He didnt like

telling them his business, but it was clearly a rhetorical question

and he didnt want to be caught in a lie.

Yes. Dagmar Fischer, he admitted.

Dagmar Stengel.

I knew her as Dagmar Fischer. She married my brother after Ileft Germany.

When did you last see Mrs Stengel?

Stone drew deeply on his cigarette and closed his eyes. How

often had he relived that moment? The whistling and shunting of

the trains. The smell of her hair. The martial music on the loud-

speakers that made it so hard to whisper the things he needed to

say.

In 1939, he answered.In Berlin?

Yes. In Berlin.

And after the war? Did you try to find her?

Of course. I tried to find all my family.

You were in Germany?

Yes. With the army. I worked in the Displaced Persons camps,

with the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. You know

all this, its in my records.

So, Peter Lorre observed through a mouth filled with biscuit,

well placed to look for an elusive Jewess?

Elusive Jewess. Such a phrase. The little man clearly had no

idea of the casual contempt and innate suspicion contained within

it. An elusive Jewess? Stone repeated. What the hell do you

mean by that?

I mean Frau Stengel of course.Then bloody well say so.

There was a moments silence.

15

TWO BROTHERS



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15/28

Frau Stengel then? Lorre resumed. You didnt find her?

No.

What happened to her?I never found out.

One more anonymous victim of the Holocaust?

I presumed so.

But you now think she survived?

Stone paused for a moment, considering his reply.

I have recently allowed myself to hope that she did.

And why would that be?

Stone was trying very hard not to become angry. Getting angrynever helped. Not with the sort of people who sat behind green

hessian-covered tables with cups of tea and empty yellow

notepads.

What is this about? Stone asked. I dont understand why you

want to know, or why I should tell you for that matter.

Its very simple, the plump man replied, breaking a second

biscuit in two and taking the larger half. If you cooperate with us

youll soon be on your way. If you dont, then theres any amountof red tape we can tie you up with pretty much indefinitely. You

might not get to Berlin until the year 2000, by which time you will

be a very old man and Berlin will long since have been reduced to

a pile of smouldering radioactive rubble. So just be a sensible

chap and answer our questions. Why do you now hope that

Dagmar Stengel is alive?

Stone shrugged. The supercilious little swine knew anyway.

Because she contacted me.

Out of the blue?

Yes. Out of the blue.

After seventeen years?

Thats right.

And youre sure it was Frau Stengel?

That was the rub. He was sure. He was absolutely sure. The

writing, the tone, and the memories the note contained. Andy e t . . .

She said shed survived most of the war in Berlin as what they

16

BEN E LTON



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16/28

called a submarine, Stone replied, avoiding Lorres question.

But the Gestapo picked her up in June 44 and shipped her to

Birkenau. It seems she escaped.A rare feat indeed.

Such things happened, rarely, but they happened. She says she

got out during the Sonderkommando revolt at Crematorium IV

and saw out the war fighting with Polish Partisans. After that, the

Soviets put her back in a camp along with the rest of the surviv-

ing Polish resistance.

Quite a story.

But not impossible. Dagmar had been tough and resourceful forall her refined manners.

I can see you found it hard to credit, the plump man said,

looking steadily at Stone. Not surprising, after so long. However,

I am here to tell you that the story is true. Or at least its conclusion

is. Dagmar Stengel is alive and well and living in East Berlin.

The surge of joy he felt was like the sudden, heady rush that

sometimes overtook him in his dreams. When it was he and not

his brother on the beach at Wannsee entwined in DagmarFischers rain-dappled arms.

How do you know? Stone asked, trying to keep his voice from

shaking.

We know lots of things.

Stone banged the table with his fist. The cups rattled. The

ancient telephone receiver jumped in its cradle. This was his

business, not theirs. His family. His life. How dare they act as if

it was some game!

How do you know! he demanded. Tell me!

Sources, the plump man replied, ignoring Stones passion and

idly succumbing to the other half of his second biscuit,

confidentialsources.

Are you MI6?

MI6 does not exist, Mr Stengel.

Stone! My name is Stone. Its been Stone for fifteen bloodyyears!

Yes, you changed it, didnt you?

17

TWO BROTHERS



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17/28

Again a tiny sneer. This time not for the German who claimed

not to have been a Nazi but for the sneaky Jew who had changed

his name to hide his Jewey-ness. That was the Brits, they liked itboth ways. Just because theyd saved the world for decency and

fair play didnt mean the bloody Yids could start getting above

themselves.

I changed my name, Stone snapped, because the army advised

me to. The British army. If Id been taken in action and theyd

found out I was Jewish, Id have been gassed.

All right. Keep your shirt on, the little man said with a

patronizing smirk. We knew that.You know a bloody lot.

We try to.

Because youre MI6, Stone said. The Secret Service.

Cant tell you that, can we, Mr Stone? Then it wouldnt be

secret.

Peter Lorre smiled and wiped his mouth, clearly pleased with

his little joke.

Stone should have guessed it from the start. Just the layout ofthe room was proof enough. Bare, save for a table, tea, biscuits,

paper and a phone. Not a book, not a pamphlet, not a memo. No

chart on the wall, no wastepaper bin under the table, not even a

paperclip. What normal office was ever like that? Even the police

had posters on their walls.

And then there was the double act. The chatty one, the silent

one. Classic, of course. Such a clich. He really should have

guessed. They were spooks all right.

And they said Dagmar was definitely alive.

Once more the surge of joy.

Shed survived. Berlin. The camps. The gulags. Shed survived

them all.

And through all that dreadful darkness she had remembered

him. He who had loved her.

He who still loved her.Who would always love her.

18

BEN E LTON



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18/28

Twins

Berlin, 1920

It turned out that Frieda was right, she was carrying two boys,

but the labour was long and difficult and only one of them

survived it, the other choked on a twisted cord.

Im sorry, Frau Stengel, the doctor said. The second child is

stillborn.

Then they left her alone.

Not out of any sense of delicacy but simply because the hospitalwas so busy. Four years of war, followed by the spitting, splutter-

ing dud of a revolution, had left nobody with much time for

niceties, particularly the medical profession. Frieda, who had not

herself suffered any complications during the birth, was aware

that they would be wanting her little bare yellow-painted room

back. She did not have much time.

Hello, little one, Frieda whispered, struggling to find it in her

heart to welcome one baby while bidding farewell to the other.

And goodbye, little one.

She did not want her joy in the living, breathing creature that

lay in one arm to be drowned for ever in her tears for the lifeless

little bundle that lay in the other, but at that moment Frieda did

not see how it could be any other way. She knew that she would

forever mourn her child who never was.

Auf Wiedersehen, my darling, she breathed.The mean light from the single forty-watt bulb that hung

unshaded above her bed fell on the bundles tiny grey face, pinched

and wrinkled like an ancient Chinaman. The other bundle began to

cry, a tiny bleating sound at first, which grew in volume as the little

creature discovered the power of his lungs. Frieda turned her gaze

from the miniature Chinese death mask to the crying baby and then

back again. One pale and dull in death, the other shining and grow-

ing redder and redder in the dawning of life.Auf Wiedersehen und guten Tag. Guten Tag und auf

Wiedersehen.

19

TWO BROTHERS



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19/28

Then the doctor returned with an old nurse who took the dead

baby from Friedas arms. Smile for this one most of all, Frau

Stengel, the nurse said, making the sign of the cross over it. Hesspared the misery of this world and instead begins at once to

savour the joy of the next.

But Frieda could not smile. She didnt believe in a next world

and so knew only the misery of the present one.

Then the doctor spoke.

Frau Stengel, I hesitate to speak with you being so recently

bereaved but I feel I must. Theres a young woman in a nearby

ward. Or rather there was. She died an hour ago. You survivedand lost a child, this woman died while a child lived . . . a boy.

Frieda only half heard him. She was watching as the old nurse

took a part of her away. Not to the better place she promised but

to the cellar of the hospital and the incinerator. There would be

no flowers, no prayers. Germanys ongoing agony dictated that

the disposal of corpses, no matter how innocent and tiny, was an

efficient and mechanical affair. The bundle had been in her body

for nine months; it would be ashes in not many more seconds.Im sorry, doctor, Frieda said, what was it you were saying?

A mother and child?

Just a child, Frau Stengel. The mother died delivering him and

his father is dead too. A Communist. Shot at Lichtenburg.

Frieda knew about the massacre in the suburb of Lichtenburg.

A thousand workers arbitrarily rounded up by Freikorps and

shot in the street with the full connivance of the Minister of

National Defence. It was scarcely even mentioned in the papers at

the time, murder being so common in Berlin, even mass murder.

But Frieda was the sort of person who took trouble to remain

informed.

The dead girl was estranged from her parents, the doctor con-

tinued. They didnt want the child of a Red in the family and now

that their daughter is dead they want it even less. Theyre tired

and poor and not interested in any bastard orphan grandchild.It was as if the dull bulb above her bed burned a little brighter

as Frieda began to understand.

20

BEN E LTON



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20/28

The bundle was gone but it could live again. All the prepar-

ations she and Wolfgang had made, all the love that had grown in

their hearts for two babies, would not go to waste. That love wasneeded, desperately. A little soul was waiting to be claimed. She

would have twins after all. Paulus would have his Otto and

Otto would have his Paulus.

Frau Stengel, the doctor was saying, I know that you are

distressed but would you possibly consider

Bring me this baby please, Frieda replied before the doctor

could even finish his sentence. Bring me my son. He needs me.

But your husband, the doctor began, surely you must askMy husband is a good man, doctor. He will feel as I do. Bring

me our second son.

Moments later there was a new bundle on Friedas arm where

the ancient grey Chinaman had lain so briefly. This one red-faced,

bespittled and howling like its new twin. Two healthy babies, one

in each arm. It was as if time had stood still for the previous hour

and only now was Friedas labour complete.

Guten Tag, und guten Tag, Frie

november free chapter - two brothers by ben elton

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