Quietly, he walked toward it with the matchbox in one hand, the candle in the other.
From the other side, the three men and one woman climbed to the hinges. “The best scores in the class,” said one of the monsters. Such depth and dryness. “Not to mention his athletic ability.” Damn it, why did he have to win all those races at the carnival?
Deutscher.
Damn that Franz Deutscher!
But then he understood.
This was not Franz Deutscher’s fault, but his own. He’d wanted to show his past tormentor what he was capable of, but he also wanted to prove himself to everyone. Now everyone was in the kitchen.
He lit the candle and switched off the light.
“Ready?”
“But I’ve heard what happens there.” That was the unmistakable, oaky voice of his father.
“Come on, Rudy, hurry up.”
“Yes, but understand, Herr Steiner, this is all for a greater purpose. Think of the opportunities your son can have. This is really a privilege.”
“Rudy, the candle’s dripping.”
He waved them away, waiting again for Alex Steiner. He came.
“Privileges? Like running barefoot through the snow? Like jumping from ten-meter platforms into three feet of water?”
Rudy’s ear was pressed to the door now. Candle wax melted onto his hand.
“Rumors.” The arid voice, low and matter-of-fact, had an answer for everything. “Our school is one of the finest ever established. It’s better than world-class. We’re creating an elite group of German citizens in the name of the Führer. …”
Rudy could listen no longer.
He scraped the candle wax from his hand and drew back from the splice of light that came through the crack in the door. When he sat down, the flame went out. Too much movement. Darkness flowed in. The only light available was a white rectangular stencil, the shape of the kitchen door.
He struck another match and reignited the candle. The sweet smell of fire and carbon.
Rudy and his sisters each tapped a different domino and they watched them fall until the tower in the middle was brought to its knees. The girls cheered.
Kurt, his older brother, arrived in the room.
“They look like dead bodies,” he said.
“What?”
Rudy peered up at the dark face, but Kurt did not answer. He’d noticed the arguing from the kitchen. “What’s going on in there?”
It was one of the girls who answered. The youngest, Bettina. She was five. “There are two monsters,” she said. “They’ve come for Rudy.”
Again, the human child. So much cannier.
Later, when the coat men left, the two boys, one seventeen, the other fourteen, found the courage to face the kitchen.
They stood in the doorway. The light punished their eyes.
It was Kurt who spoke. “Are they taking him?”
Their mother’s forearms were flat on the table. Her palms were facing up.