Korinna quickly finished eating and walked into the front room, the only other room they had downstairs. It was empty. Not even her father filled his overstuffed chair as he did every night after supper, blowing smoke rings at imaginary targets.
Checking once more behind the long sofa, Korinna finally gave up her search for her kitten and went back upstairs.
“Mother,” Korinna called, walking into her parents’ bedroom. The room was empty. Puzzled, she turned around and walked into her own room. Her mother stood in the middle of the floor, gently stroking the head of her kitten.
“Where did you find her?” Korinna exclaimed, taking the kitten from her mother’s hands.
“She was under your bed.”
“But I checked under the bed.”
“Maybe she slipped in while you were eating,” her mother suggested.
“Maybe.” She rubbed the silken head. “Where’s Papa?” she asked, changing the subject.
“He’s at a school meeting.”
Korinna raised her eyebrows. “This late?”
Frau Rehme reached over and patted the kitten’s tiny head. “He came home and left again. You slept through it.”
“When will he be home?”
“Soon. Seven at the latest.”
“What time is it now?”
Frau Rehme checked her watch. “Twenty until six.”
“Oh no!” Korinna exclaimed, heading toward the door.
“What’s wrong?”
Korinna dashed down the stairs, her kitten still clutched in her arms. “The Führer’s speaking on the radio!”
As her mother followed her down, Korinna turned on the old radio to the official station. Already Adolf Hitler’s voice was traveling over the radio waves with a special message for his people. The Jungmädel leaders had urged all the members to listen to their Führer tonight. Korinna always looked forward to hearing his radio broadcasts. She only wished she could see him speak in person.
For the rest of the half hour, Korinna sat in front of the radio listening to the Führer’s voice. At first the speech was quiet yet forceful, but soon the voice took on a moving ring. By the end of the speech, Adolf Hitler spoke at the top of his voice, over the cheers of his followers. What he said was always the same: Destroy the enemy, the Jews and the radical intellectuals, and out of the misery they were now in, a stronger more unified Germany would ascend. A Germany without poverty, without unemployment. The Third Reich that would last for one thousand years!
At the end of the speech, Korinna dropped her kitten on the sofa and stood up as it scurried out of the room. She lifted her right arm in a smart salute. “Heil Hitler!” She looked expectantly at her mother.
Frau Rehme, sitting on the sofa and darning one of her husband’s socks, looked up at her daughter. “Heil Hitler,” she murmured, then she went back to her sewing.
Korinna smiled and sat down next to her mother. “Isn’t the Führer wonderful?”
“Mmmmm,” Frau Rehme agreed.
“Mother! Weren’t you paying attention to him? His speech was wonderful!”
Frau Rehme shrugged slightly, but Korinna caught the subtle movement and she frowned.
Frau Rehme said, “His speeches are all beginning to sound the same.”
“He repeats himself only because he wants us to remember the important things.”
“What important things?”
“Who our enemies are, of course, and what we can look forward to when Germany wins the war and becomes the power it once was,” Korinna said, repeating the very words her Jungmädel leader had said the day before.
“And our Führer is going to do all this?”
“Of course.”
Frau Rehme put down her sewing. “At whose expense? At what cost?”
Korinna stood up. “Mother, I can’t believe you’re talking like this!”
Frau Rehme gently reached up and took her daughter’s hand. “Sit down, Korinna. I love the Fatherland as much as you, if not more because I’ve been alive longer. But you mustn’t follow blindly behind great promises.”
Korinna allowed her mother to pull her down beside her. “Mother, how can you question the Führer? Someone might report you.”
“Is that the only reason it’s wrong to question what one man is saying? Fear?”
“It’s not fear, Mother,” Korinna said impatiently. “It’s love and respect. I have nothing to fear from anyone, because I’m a loyal German, just like you, Mother. And you should never question the Führer, because he’s only doing what’s best for us.”
Korinna’s mother didn’t say anything. She picked up her darning and once again began to sew.
Korinna sat silently, watching her mother for a few moments. Finally she said, “Rita is going to tell our leaders about her cousin, Elsa Demmer.”
“Her own cousin,” Frau Rehme said with a sigh, shaking her head.
“Elsa said she felt sorry for our enemies.”
“Who? The English? The French?”
Korinna picked impatiently at a loose thread on the couch. “No, the Jews.”
Suddenly, they heard a muffled crash upstairs. “What was that?” Korinna whispered, afraid to move. She noticed her mother’s face looked pale, as though she had put on too much powder.
“Stay here,” her mother whispered firmly. She stood up and walked out of the room.
Korinna heard her mother make her way stealthily up the stairs. Then only silence. Korinna didn’t move. She strained her ears to hear anything at all. Had someone managed to break in upstairs? Had someone crept in the front door while they had been listening to the radio?
“Korinna!”
Korinna jumped up when her mother called. She raced upstairs. Her mother stood in the larger bedroom, looking at a fallen brass figurine, which normally sat on her father’s desk. She cuddled Korinna’s kitten.
Frau Rehme smiled. “This little rascal is into mischief already. I don’t think she’ll be playing with this statue any more.”
Korinna bent down and picked up the heavy brass figure and placed it back on the desk. Taking the kitten from her mother, she said, “She must be pretty strong to have knocked that thing onto the floor.”
Frau Rehme nodded in agreement.
Just then they heard the back door open.
“Hello,” Herr Rehme called, stomping the snow off his boots. “I’m home!”
Korinna and her mother hurried downstairs to the kitchen.
Frau Rehme reached up to give her tall husband a kiss on his smooth cheek. “Couldn’t you have come in the front door where we have a mat for all this snow?”
“The back door was more convenient,” he said shortly. He glanced down at his wife, and she said nothing more about it.
“Hi, Papa,” Korinna said, thinking the back door was rather inconvenient. It