Schatzi

22

After a couple of weeks, Eli was up and about again. He spent as much time as he could wandering the streets of Berlin, searching for Peter. He walked as far as he could before he had to go back home out of sheer exhaustion.

And by home, he meant his parent's house. Going back to his and Peter's house was too painful. He didn't want to look at their kitchen where they did their questionable cooking that never really turned out right. He couldn't bear to look at the sofa where they'd lounged for hours on their first day in the new house on his birthdays. He knew he'd break down if he looked at their bed, sheets probably still rumpled from that night when he'd stormed out.

Kristallnacht they were calling it- that night. 9th November, 1938. It had felt like such a normal day, but now it was going to go down in history. To him, it would always be just the day he lost Peter, but he'd already heard stories from all across the city of others who'd lost family and friends. Hundreds of people gone, possibly thousands. Mainly Jewish. Just from that one night. One night, and everything changed.

"Eli?" His mum said, peeking her head around the door, a letter gripped in her hand. "For you, I think. It's from the house anyway," she smiled, walking in and placing it in front of him on his desk.

He reached out and opened the envelope, glancing at the writing scrawled on the front. Neat handwriting but smudged a bit. The name Otto was written instead of his. He took the letter out and scanned it quickly. He put it down on the desk and walked away, not saying anything.

"Eli? What is it? What does it say?" His mum said worriedly, rushing over to read the letter.

"It's Lotte."

"One of the lesbians? What's happened to her? Is she alright?" She said quickly, pausing reading the letter. She'd heard about Lotte and Evelin from her son. She knew he liked them a lot because they weren't as loud and brash as a lot of the other members of his and Peter's little group were.

"No. No, she's fine. The letter is from Lotte. She wants me to come to the next meeting. She says it's important."

"Oh," he mum sighed in relief. "Well? What's so bad about that? I thought you'd be happy seeing your friends again."

"They're not my friends," he snapped, walking over and snatching the letter from her hand. "They are Peter's friends." He ripped the letter up, scrunching the tiny pieces up in his fist. "Were Peter's friends. I don't want to see them."

He ignored his mum's worried gaze and walked out of his room and into the living room where the rest of the people staying in the house were sitting and a fire was roaring in the hearth. He dropped the bits of letters into the fire and turned around to take a seat himself.

He'd felt weird since Peter disappeared. Weird being he hadn't felt too bad. He'd cried for a day straight when he found out, but after that, he was fine. He didn't feel anything. Just blank. Nothing. He hadn't cried, he hadn't broken down. He hadn't got that horrible tightness in his chest, that deep unsettling panic that he always had. Just empty.

He curled up on the armchair, with his legs over the arm of the chair so he was sitting on it sideways and let his head drop against the other armrest. He sighed and looked at the others in the room from upside down. His father was still there, mainly because he was too scared to leave now. They patrolled the streets now. The police arrested more and more people every day. His father wasn't even religious anymore. He said he'd given it up. But they all knew that wouldn't make any kind of difference if he was arrested.

Peter's mum didn't stay with them, but she spent a lot of time at their house. She did a lot of the house keeping because she said she liked doing it, and she knew his mum was too busy trying to find and keep jobs constantly. And with her came the kids. Five of them now. He'd met the first four before, but then Peter abandoned his family, so Eli never saw them either. Brigitte's fifth child was very cute, but Eli hated the tiny little thing more than he could put into words. The child of a Nazi. Born specifically to grow up to be that. Bred like cattle. It was disgusting.