Max Read online

  I had to take it by storm.

  There was a terrible uproar outside; I could hear it more and more clearly. Screaming, roaring, howling, an onslaught of noise. Wow! My arrival on the scene was causing chaos. My mother’s cries were shocking. She showed no restraint. It was not very classy of her to let herself go like that. On the other hand, every scream was accompanied by a contraction that propelled me forward. I was grateful for that. I felt like a cannon ball catapulting towards the enemy.

  Mother was in real pain. She was gritting her teeth, just like on the night she met my father, when they made me. Worried she’d run out of steam at the last minute, I took a few breaks so she could recuperate. When I felt she was on the point of exhaustion, I whispered to her, ‘Hang in there! Don’t take your eyes off the portrait of our Führer!’ (I know there’s one in the birthing room. Actually, there’s one in every room of the Home.) ‘Our Führer is looking at you. You promised to give him a beautiful child, your first child. Now it’s time to keep your promise!’

  So she pulled herself together, gritted her teeth again, took a few big breaths and began to push, push, push harder, urged on by the midwife, whose voice I could hear loud and clear (what a screamer she was, too).

  Mother outdid herself from then on. She refused all medical assistance, including anaesthetic drugs. Bravo! It was all to her credit. And it worked in my favour: in the room next door, my rival was also making good time. Except that his mother, who was not as brave as mine, was given medical assistance, so the staff decided they could leave her for a while, and the whole medical team rushed to attend Mother and me. Josefa, the matron, along with three other nurses, joined the midwife. What a welcoming committee.

  Josefa placed her hands on Mother’s belly, right where I had positioned myself. Just as I was about to mount my attack again, she suddenly started screaming, ‘Oh my God! He’s so big! Oh, yes, he’s incredibly big!’ And she decided to call Doctor Ebner.

  SS-Oberführer Gregor Ebner.

  The maternity and paediatrics chief of medicine, the one who decides everything. Power over life and death. The Führer’s representative in the Home.

  I felt incredibly honoured. Just imagine, newly enlisted privates rarely have the opportunity to be granted assistance from their colonel in person. I had to show that I was up to the task, and demonstrate all my strategic skills in this final showdown, without forgetting that the aim was to keep Doctor Ebner in the room with Mother and me. Under no circumstances could he go and see what was happening in the next room, in case he helped my rival! I had to make the most of the situation: my rival’s mother’s pain had eased and she was pushing less. He was sure to fall behind. All I had to do was widen the gap. Pluck up my courage and mount my attack on The Cervix.

  As fast as I could.

  I went for it. I charged, headfirst. But I hadn’t calculated on the two bones that suddenly jutted into both sides of my skull. Huge spikes! There was I thinking my mother had wide hips. That was way too presumptuous of me…Nasty bones! My nose scraped against them, then my mouth, and my chin. But I ignored the pain and ended up with my head up against the wall of The Cervix. I charged even harder. Come on! Come on! Full speed ahead! I didn’t care about the disfigurements I was inflicting on myself. So what if I ended up with a skull like a mortar shell? Warriors don’t worry about their looks. Anyway, babies’ bones are malleable, and I was sure that, even if I had a squashed head on arrival, it would soon find its proper shape.

  The main thing was to be on the top of the list of births for the 20th of April. I mobilised all the troops I had for the attack and the wall began to give way. Oh yes, with every push, it yielded a little more, until…Wham! It opened up.

  I made it!

  I ejected myself into the world, just after midnight. Talk about precision.

  Doctor Ebner’s hands were the first things I saw. The white gloves made them look especially long, slender, pale and bony. Their appearance belied the strength with which they seized me. He slapped me around the head until I felt like I was in a vice; then he grabbed my shoulders and yanked, and yanked.

  I yelled to show that I was alive, and breathing.

  ‘Bravo, Frau Inge!’ Josefa shrieked. ‘It’s a boy! He is splendid. You should be proud of yourself.’

  Thanks for the compliment, but it wasn’t news to me.

  As I looked around more I spotted Doctor Ebner’s tall black boots, which were partly hidden by his white gown. They were magnificent. I would have liked to slide inside one of them; I could have made it my bassinet. I also noticed bloodstains on the gown. Mother’s blood. Or perhaps mine? I didn’t gag; I didn’t even hiccup. There’s nothing more normal than blood after a battle. I had to get used to that from now on. I fixated on the gold badge of the Party insignia, pinned to the collar of Herr Doktor’s gown. It was so beautiful, so shiny.

  I screamed. I kept screaming, because I wanted to grab that golden badge. I really liked it. But I couldn’t reach it, so I gave up and stared at Doctor Ebner’s face instead. Obviously my eyesight wasn’t yet functioning perfectly, but I could make out a bald head, smooth and shiny like the badge. I could see a big vein sticking out on the side of his temple, and I could see that his lips were as straight as the uppers of his boots. And tight, no sign of a smile. I saw that Herr Doktor was wearing round glasses, and that he was watching me with his bright, blue eyes. So bright they seemed transparent, a deep pool of water I seemed to be diving into, drowning. Icy water. Suddenly I felt cold, very cold.

  I screamed even louder. But I could still hear Josefa worrying about the mother next door. There was a problem with her baby who—what a dope—had managed to get knots in his rappelling cord! Josefa asked Doctor Ebner to go and check on her. He raised his left hand to tell her to be quiet—he was holding me tight against him in the crook of his right arm—and ordered her to sort it out herself with the midwife. Because he wanted to examine me first. Me.

  Oh dear…scary.

  I knew what that meant. Even though I had won the contest against the clock, my victory wasn’t yet confirmed. Just like Mother becoming a Sister, I had only passed the initial test before being anointed ‘Baby of the Third Reich, firstborn of the Aryan race’.

  The measurements test was still to come.

  There was a chart hanging in the birthing room. (This chart, like the portrait of our Führer, is in every room in the Home.) It shows the hierarchy of the Aryan races. At the top is ‘the Nordic race’; in second position, ‘the Westphalian race’, living in harmony with the land; and in third place, those from around the Balkans, ‘the Dinaric race’, with a deep sense of patriotism. The famous Bismarck and Hindenburg are two examples of pure Westphalians. But only one man alone symbolises the perfect union of these three superior races: the Führer.

  Which category was I going to fit in?

  With a sharp click of the scissors, Doctor Ebner cut my rappelling cord—I had no further use for it. Snap!—and took me into a nearby room. Away from Mother. She asked to hold me, but Doctor Ebner ignored her. As for me, a second ago I would have given anything to suck on a breast, any breast, and have a go at lying with Mother, who had what I wanted, but now I’d lost my appetite. Why? Because Ebner insisted that he not be disturbed under any circumstances.

  Not a good sign.

  He called in his secretary, who joined us in the room that looked like a laboratory, sat down at a desk and opened a big ledger. There were lots of columns drawn up on the blank page. My page.

  When Doctor Ebner asks to be left alone with a newborn, it’s a very bad sign. While I was still in Mother’s belly, I heard rumours that spread through the Home. (Some women can’t hold their tongue: magpies chattering nonstop and frightening the others.) It’s said that when Doctor Ebner—he alone (and his secretary)—examines an infant and finds it lacking, he ‘relocates’ it. He does it himself. Then his secretary writes ‘Stillborn’ (= code word) in the ledger.

  Believe me, I was worried stiff. I u
ttered a few requisite wails, but then, like Mother, I gritted my teeth—well, at least my gums. And, without so much as a whimper, I prepared myself for the worst. So what if my life was cut short? It belonged to my Führer.

  After washing me, the doctor laid me on a little table next to various instruments that were lined up neatly. Among them, I recognised a set of scales, a ruler, a compass and a little container, like a jewellery box, with five or six pairs of eyes—glass ones, not real ones—in different shades of blue. There was also a hair chart in different colours ranging from dark brown to the lightest blond. Lying by itself, away from the other instruments, was…a syringe.

  Ebner began the examination. ‘Height: 54 centimetres. Weight: 4 kilos and 300 grams.’

  They’re the only statistics I retained. There were so many that followed and I was screaming so much that I couldn’t hear Doctor Ebner’s voice reciting them very fast.

  Length of arms.

  Length of extended arms in relation to pelvis.

  Length of torso.

  Contour of chest cavity.

  Length of legs, penis, feet, hands.

  Finger-span, toe-span.

  Size of ears.

  Distance between earlobes.

  Distance between eyes.

  Then he checked my reflexes. Sucking reflex: he held up his finger and I grabbed it and sucked hard, greedily. His finger tasted like metal, like steel. Top quality Krupp. It tasted good. Rooting reflex: he stroked me in random places and I turned my head in the direction of the stimulus point. Then he held up his two index fingers and I grasped them, so tightly that he lifted me up. I went straight into the Automatic Walking reflex: one foot in front of the other, even if it was pretty lopsided. I felt like I was hooked onto a parachute. If Ebner let go of me, I’d crash for sure. I pushed down on the table when my legs reached it, but they felt as floppy as marshmallow. Next, Ebner started tapping me very hard. That startled me! Once again I extended my arms, fingers spread, then I held them against my chest, fists tight.

  Everything was going well, I was confident, I trusted my instincts, and Doctor Ebner seemed pleased. The vein throbbing on the side of his bald head had almost disappeared.

  He took the hair samples, placed them on my head and told his secretary to make a note that the down on my head was fair, very fair. (Twice fair, thank God!) He used the little box with the glass eyes to check my eyes. He chose an eye that was right at the top of the jewellery box and held it against mine. ‘2c!’ he exclaimed. ‘Check in two months.’ Given that the eye in his hand was blue, I deduced that mine were, too. Did ‘2c’ mean ‘twice blue’, like my hair was twice blond? In my opinion, I didn’t have anything to worry about on that account either—Ebner looked confident.

  Next my head was examined. A rigorous, meticulous examination. It seemed to go on for hours. Ebner spent ages palpating with his metallic fingers. The top, the sides, the back, the temples. The forehead. That’s when I started to lose the confidence I’d regained with the statistics, the reflexes, the colour of my hair and eyes. Oh dear, how I regretted struggling so ferociously in the trench before getting out, because—what an idiot—I’d given myself a misshapen head! It was oval, like a conical sugar loaf. Not round. Not round like Doctor Ebner’s head, to be precise. As he was bald, you could see that his was in the shape of a soccer ball, whereas mine was only a pathetic rugby ball.

  Stupid head.

  Poor me. Fancy failing the very last test, the final criterion for selection. When Doctor Ebner grabbed the compass and brought it up to my head, I no longer had any doubts about the verdict. My fate was sealed. It was perfectly obvious that the span of the compass was too wide. If only I had known. It would have been better if I had been born after my rival. Hey, I wondered idly, despite my distress, had he made an appearance in the meantime? At least that way I wouldn’t have damaged myself like this.

  Come on, Oberführer Ebner! Let’s get this over with. You might as well ‘relocate’ me straightaway, that’s what I deserve.

  The tip of the compass point drew near, nearer and nearer…I shut my eyes and clenched my little fists as it headed for my heart, which was beating like a drum. All my blood rushed to my head, I was bright red, my skull about to explode like a bomb.

  But I didn’t feel the compass tip stab me…What was going on? Did the doctor feel sorry for me? That wasn’t like him. Anyway, I didn’t want his pity. That would be dishonourable. So…instead of the compass, it was going to be the syringe I’d seen on the table earlier. Obviously! The syringe was for the ‘relocation’ injection.

  Despite my panic and my screaming—I hadn’t drawn breath the whole time—I saw Ebner scribbling a new set of figures on a scrap of paper. Then he did some sums out loud:

  ‘The cephalic index being the transverse diameter over the anterior-posterior diameter multiplied by one hundred, that gives us a result of…86 centimetres. Eighty-six centimetres! Mark that down quickly,’ he ordered his secretary. ‘The occipital ridge is prominent and there’s no frontal bulge. The cephalic index thus confirms what is visually apparent, namely the long and narrow head of the infant subject.’

  He paused for a minute then, still to his secretary, he uttered a word I didn’t understand: ‘Conclusion: the child is dolichocephalic,’ he said. ‘He fills all the criteria, without exception. He is perfectly suited for selection.’

  What? Was that a slip of the tongue? Did he say ‘perfectly’ instead of ‘not at all’? I no longer had a clue. ‘Dolichocephalic’, was that like ‘hydrocephalic’, those babies who had a whole lot of water in their heads? Who were disabled, imbeciles, like the inmates here before the asylum became a Home?

  Of course not. After writing Doctor Ebner’s words in the record book, the secretary joined him and leaned over me. All smiles, she went into raptures and heaped praises on me. So I put two and two together inside my deformed head—well, not that deformed, after all. I realised ‘dolichocephalic’ was the trump card that classified me as having a long head and being of the Nordic Aryan race.

  Hurray! Victory!

  That was it; this time I could really claim victory. And I didn’t hang back.

  I yelled and yelled.

  I got lots of presents after my birth. Lots of them.

  Firstly, traditional presents, the same ones all my buddies received: a candelabra, made by a prisoner from Dachau, and one mark (a symbolic amount). For each future birthday we will receive another mark and a candle for the candelabra.

  And as I was born on the same day as the Führer, I was entitled to a savings passbook, to be topped up regularly.

  Isn’t this a great start to life?

  Wait, that’s not all. Apparently I’m going to get a fourth present. A surprise. Josefa spoke to Mother about it without telling her what it was. But, given her excitement—she stiffened, went bright red, stood to attention and put her hand to her chest as if she was out of breath—I knew it wouldn’t be something trifling. It must be a special surprise, something important, impressive. Of course, I have an inkling, but I don’t dare think about something so amazing. Well, maybe? After all, why not? I got here first, I passed all the selection tests hands down, so…Oh, just thinking about it gives me cramps in my stomach! Okay, let’s see if my dream comes true.

  On the other hand, there’s one thing that annoys me: I still don’t have a name, not even a first name. There’s no hurry, according to the staff, since my friends and I don’t have to be registered in the state records, and because we won’t have our mothers’ names. Besides, no one knows anyone’s name here. The mothers are only called by their first names…No hurry. Easy for them to say! I want it to be decided, because in the meantime Mother is calling me ‘Max’, as if she had the right to choose my name. Worse still, every time she takes me in her arms, three times a day, she carries on with ‘my little Maxie-pie’, or showers me with all sorts of idiotic nonsense names: ‘my baby love’, ‘my darling’, ‘my little one’.

  I am not her l
ove. I am not her darling. I am certainly not little! I am big, strong, tough. Has she forgotten how I was conceived? Thank goodness Josefa is keeping an eye on things. ‘Frau Inge, come now!’ she often reprimands Mother. ‘Please speak correctly to this child. He is listening to you, he understands. Do not pollute his mind like that.’

  Mother must have made a terrible face, because Josefa added in a sympathetic whisper, ‘All right, if you are so keen to give him a nickname, I will let you have the one we thought of soon after his birth: Klein Kaiser. “Little Emperor”.’

  Klein Kaiser. Two Ks. Not bad. Anyway, it’s better than Max, for now.

  Mother is worried. She is doing her utmost to find a resemblance between us. I can tell by the particular way she has of staring at me sometimes, frowning, with a questioning, preoccupied expression. Judging by her slightly sour expression, I’d say we don’t look alike. What’s more, the other mothers agree: ‘Oh, don’t worry, this young man must take after his dad.’ And Mother has to rack her brains, gather her recollections: the dad, the dad…What was he like, this dad? She can’t remember. That’s normal. It was at night, it was cold, the sex was quick and Mother was only looking at the portrait of the Führer. Perhaps she just recalls a trace of his scent, or the bitter smell of his sweat, of a wine-fuelled breath, the echo of a voice, of a groan, the glimpse of a tattoo under an armpit—SS officers have their blood group tattooed there. It’s very useful when they need a transfusion.

  I get the feeling Mother occasionally has bad thoughts. I can sense it, and I feel it when she does that thing of suddenly going stiff when she’s holding me. Not much, you’d hardly notice it. Nevertheless, I can tell that a whole lot of thoughts are being tossed around in her head: questions, doubts. Regrets?

  Doubts are not good. Questions even less so. Never question yourself. Always have blind faith in our Führer.

  As for regrets, sorry, it’s too late.

  When I feel Mother wavering like that, I start screaming. Her attitude has unpleasant consequences for me. She just stares into space, lets her breast slide backwards, so her nipple slips out of my mouth; I can no longer hit the right spot to latch on, so I can’t feed anymore. Furious, I cry as loudly as I can and without fail I manage to attract the attention of Doctor Ebner, who, up there in his office, on the top floor of the Home, picks up his spyglass to check on the terrace, where we’re sitting with the others. Mother is instantly aware of the spyglass on her, scrutinising her every movement, and pulls herself together. She forces her trembling lips into a smile and starts feeding me again.