CHAPTER 1 – Coloured triangles

It was only the shape of him I saw at first, on my bedroom wall, standing stock still between two posters. One was of Disney heroines, which I had never taken down because my mother had bought it for me on my fifth birthday. In some silly way, it felt as if its removal would be like ripping her out of my consciousness. The other poster was Munch’s painting, ‘The Scream’, which frightened yet intrigued me. 

	Not that I had any, but if friends were ever to come up to my room, depending on whether they looked at the Disney or the Munch, they might have assumed that I was either much younger or older than my actual age. 

	At the time, I did not know that the shape between the posters was Dieter. He did not speak at that stage. I got the impression that he approved of the princesses. His attention, however, quickly shifted to the other image. He appeared to be twisting round to examine the chaotic swirls, and although he had no features as yet, somehow or other I knew that he was pulling a face. 

	During one visit, I am pretty certain I heard hissed words coming from the spot where he hovered: Entartete kunst, which I now know to mean degenerate art. If it was entartete, it struck me as a little incongruous that he seemed so fascinated by it. The notion came to me that he was drawing some kind of energy through his sense of repulsion; the more he stared, the more substantial he became.

	Each time he reappeared on my wall, he seemed less vague. I would have taken the Munch poster down, only now, he wasn’t paying it much attention. Instead, he was peering at me. It made it almost impossible to sleep. The shadowy, eyeless form of Dieter on my wall staring at me, me staring back at him, willing him to fade away.

	Only later did we begin to converse. 

	“How did you trace me?” 

	My voice was faint, barely more than a whisper, and did not even feel as if it belonged to me.

	Even though his mouth was still shadowed, I could tell he was smirking. 

	“At first, I was searching for a red triangle,” he mused.

	Of course, I knew what that meant. It marked me out as an enemy for political reasons.

   “But seeing you here,” he sneered, “I realise I should have been looking for a black one.”

   I understood this, too. It was the sign for those who had been locked away for being ‘asocial’ or ‘work-shy’, and included those who were mentally ill.

   ‘Blöd,’ he now mouthed at me. 

   ‘Stupid!’

   I’ve been called worse.

   Nevertheless, it did not bode well. If I was lucky, I might just get away with forced sterilisation. 

   “Perhaps, I’ll make you a double triangle. Black on red.”

CHAPTER 2 - The Führer's Birthday

The preparations were going slowly. I had never seen Anneliese looking so impatient. Normally, she was the quiet, calm one, but now she was agitated. It was as if her husband, Hans, was being deliberately slow. Rosa, their daughter, was sitting quietly at the other side of the room, a large, rather tatty, flag draped over her lap. I was hovering with a pair of scissors, snipping away at any frayed edges while Rosa sewed patches over the small holes. 

   Every so often Hans would glance in our direction, pulling a face or winking. Aware of her mother’s uncustomary mood, Rosa would turn away to hide her grin. 

   “Why did you put the flag in that old store cupboard where all the moths go?” Anneliese demanded to know.

   “I don’t think I did leave it there. I’m sure it was in a suitcase. Maybe the moths opened it and moved it. Who could have guessed they would have gone for our beloved swastika flag? Perhaps, they are Communist moths.”

	Rosa spluttered, quickly, pretending she was coughing when her mother twisted round to glare at her. After fixing all of us with a stern stare, Anneliese resumed arranging flowers for the basket. 

	“Do you think we should report them?”

	Hans was managing to retain a serious expression.

	“Who?” snapped Anneliese.

	“The moths,” said Hans. “After all, who knows what they are plotting!”

   This time Rosa could not disguise the snigger.  

   The prolonged silence in the room was more meaningful than any response, Anneliese’s stance conveying her irritation more effectively than anything else. We continued with the repairs, waiting for the tension to subside. Finally, Anneliese stood back to inspect her flowers, before switching two of them around and nodding with satisfaction.

   “It’s not as if it means, anything. Everyone does it on the Führer's birthday,” she muttered. Then, steering her husband towards the front door and lowering her voice to a whisper, she added something else. “For the sake of the girls. We need to be seen to conform.”

   Hans nodded, taking the two hanging baskets she was holding for him to affix outside. He paused.

   “I was not joking about them being clever. Do you know that when they metamorphose into adult moths, their bodies and brains get turned into soup - and yet they still remember things they had learned as caterpillars?”

   Anneliese gave him a gentle nudge.  

   “They can re-educate us all they like,” added Hans, quietly, “but they cannot make us forget.”