Well after lights out that night, I woke to Pauwel screaming, and shot up with a sudden spell of nervousness. It was late and the cabin rumbled from thunder several kilometers off. Two other boys bolted up. The one closest to me, Lutz, was stock-still, his eyes locked on the plywood roof, his chest heaved from sudden fear. His silhouette, a high forehead, stumpy nose, and jutting jaw. A flash of lightning came through the windows and sank away in his eyes. Pauwel paced back and forth mumbling to himself. I didn’t get out of bed but lifted my body up on my elbows to see the shadow of my new friend moving at the foot of his bunk, holding the three-tone quilt with blue, red, and black squares that his mother had made for him.
Günter woke up and whisper-yelled to Pauwel, “What the hell are you doing?”
“There’s too many pieces,” Pauwel said. “Too many.”
“What?”
“Too many.”
Günter got out of bed and walked to Pauwel.
In his wild dreaming, Pauwel’s eyes were dark, emotive, and arresting as they held a hint of some exotic blood—Hungarian or perhaps Italian. His face had a strange elasticity to it. One moment it was expressionless, and then it would open up into an oversized grin that twisted his features and showed his large, square teeth and swollen upper lip.
“It fell apart.”
“What did?” Günter asked.
“It will take forever to put them all back. I won’t have enough time to do it.”
“Do what?”
“All these squares. They fell apart. There are too many pieces.” Pauwel was holding up the blanket and looked near tears.
“Your blanket?”
“Too many pieces.”
Günter put his hand on Pauwel’s forehead, and said, “It’s okay. Let’s get you back to bed,” and he led Pauwel back to his bunk by the bulb of his elbow, pulled the quilt over his body, and told him to go back to sleep. Günter, who had been so harsh earlier, was kind and gentle now, and the soothing sound of his voice surprised me.
“The blanket’s fine. It’s together,” Günter said.
“It will take my whole life to fix.”
“No. It’s okay,” I heard Günter’s reassuring words for quite a while that night.
I sat in the dark as the rain searched for a way inside and heightened the smell of the pine trees and musty wood floorboards. I was the last of the boys to fall back to sleep. I looked over the others. I presumed their dreams were like mine, both innocent and bloodthirsty.
After the bugle wake-up call, Garth teased Pauwel. “My blanky broke. My blanky broke.” He rocked back and forth with his hands on his stomach like he had terrible gas. He gave a fake laugh, “I’m sorry we were all there to see you go nuts last night.”
“You shouldn’t tease me,” Pauwel said. “I’ll tell everyone how I walked in on you pulling on your crank.”
“I don’t remember that,” Garth said.
“You were busy,” Pauwel said.
The rest of the boys laughed. I was happy to see my new friend hold his ground.
After breakfast we played tug-of-war with gas masks on. The glass eye lens of my mask steamed over from straining for breath. I let the fog sit but Edwin wiped his away by sticking a finger inside the lining seal.
“You’re dead, Edwin,” Günter yelled. “Step out of the line. Dead men still can’t help their teammates pull. When are you going to learn that one?”
I kept pulling with the other boys. Part of me was happy to be better at something than Edwin. Ludo, however, had mastered tug-of-war. He looped his strong arm over the rope, grabbed it from the bottom, and leaned backward so his bicep curled into a coiled snake.
After a lunch of fish stew that tasted like the salt sheen of a tidal flat, our troop cabin went to the firing range and began practice for what we were told would be the camp’s final games. For which we would practice every afternoon for the next two weeks.
In the evening, we lounged around our cabin reading magazines that had been placed in the bunkhouse. They were a thrill to read. The Hitler Youth were regularly issued Wille und Macht, Will and Power Monthly magazine. The other publications included Die Kameradshaft, Comradeship, which had a version for the Bund Deutscher M?del, the League of German Girls, called M?delschaft, and a yearbook called Jungen eure Welt, Youth, Your World. We took turns reading to one another. Sometimes we read from the girls’ magazine.
Timothy lay shirtless on his bunk. His head rested on one hand and with the other hand he rolled the few soft brown armpit hairs he had between his thumb and forefinger.
“I’m going to get myself a job at a girls’ camp. I’ll perform virginity tests. Get to feel how warm they are. Hold up a breast. Feel its weight. Do the other breast. Stuff like that. I’ll be busy for years.”
The thought of him touching anyone was revolting, but even hearing the word breast made my prick stiff.
Of course I thought of Hilda then. Hilda’s red hair. Green eyes. Lean, porcelain limbs. She lived in the first farmhouse down the road from us. Her kneecaps had soft golden hairs that I wanted to place my palms over. Let them sit there. Feel the bone. The warmth. When we walked home together, surreptitiously I ogled the slight, nearly imperceptible movement of her breasts beneath the fabric of her sweater.
That night Günter and the other older camp counselors met outside and huddled behind the cabin smoking cigarettes. They stood, posing as soldiers.
While they were out, Timothy woke up a group of his friends and for some reason tapped me on the feet to come with them. Edwin, Ludo, and Pauwel were still sleeping. I was scared of Timothy and his friends, but wanting to gain their approval, I got up and blindly followed them outside.
I could hear the counselors talking from behind the cabin.
“The Russians have smelly old pussies where their hearts should be,” one said and the rest laughed. One choked midexhale and then coughed out a laugh.
The phrase “smelly old pussies” set into my mind on repeat. I imagined it set to music. Organ music. “Smelly old pussies. Smelly old pussies.” The phrase blasted over parishioners and then circled back as an echo. Over and over the perverse music played out in my head until we were past the cabins, and I realized Timothy and the boys all held flashlights in one hand and rocks in the other. When I saw that I froze.
“Come on,” Timothy said.
“I think I’ll head back,” I said.
“No. Come on.”
“I’m going to go back.”
“No. Come with us.”
Timothy must have sensed my fear as he handed me an extra light and a stone of my own. “Here. Come on.”
We snuck to the edge of the burn pit where camp trash was tossed and stood in a line shoulder to shoulder.
“On three,” Timothy said.
I wanted to run away before they tossed me in.
“One. Two. Three. Now.”
The boys all flashed their lights on and as they spotlighted rats they heaved their stones.
“Got one,” Garth said.
“Me too,” Lutz said.