Germany churned, like a boar hungering. Erich tried to be a model student. He listened intently when Herr Schneider hollered about the Jews’ corruption; or praised the Führer as their savior; when he stated Germany’s irrefutable right to reshape Europe. Letters from Erich’s father came less frequently, and even they began to preach Hitler’s gospel. When Erich’s classmates spoke gleefully of fighting, killing, even dying, he echoed their sentiments.

But he did not believe in his heart. He grew certain a schoolmate, or Herr Schneider, or even his mother, would one day peer into his eyes and see his devotion to the Führer was not true. They would discover he’d set foot in a Jew’s house, that he coveted a Jew’s paintings.

Nevertheless, over several months Erich stole three books on art and figure drawing from the local library. Each one he studied fervently in his room, sometimes copying down pages or entire chapters, working past bedtime by candlelight. When he finished, he stealthily returned the volume, excusing his visits by renting out tomes on German history. He swelled when the librarian complimented his diligence, his ruse intact. Only at home did he remove from his bag a new manual on painting, or sketching, or a history in pictures of the great impressionists.

Occasionally his mother asked him for a drawing. He sketched her someone from town: Herr Richter, the butcher; Frau Braun, the seamstress. His mother would praise him, then tell him not to let it affect his studies, after which his hobby would go unmentioned for months. She did not know he continued to sketch the girl with the violin; he hid those works beneath a pair of frayed trousers in the bottom right drawer of his dresser with the broken scrollwork.

In September of 1933, a few weeks after Erich’s fifteenth birthday, two soldiers and an official with an oiled mustache visited. His mother answered the door. Erich, certain they’d come for him, crouched beside his open window, listening. “Frau Gunther?” asked the official.

“May I help you?” his mother asked. “Is something wrong?”

“I am afraid so,” the man replied. “There’s been an accident, you see . . .” And as the man detailed what had befallen Erich’s father, his mother began to weep.

                                                   *           *          *          *          *

Erich’s father was buried three weeks later, when the train carrying his body finally arrived. They held funeral services at the small slate brick church. Erich did not cry. He could not.

The man in the coffin was practically a stranger—emaciated, gray-skinned, mostly bald, and lacking many teeth, his mouth hanging slightly open. He’d been embalmed but not well; he smelled putrid. Dressed in his finest gray suit, his right sleeve was pinned up, empty. According to the official, his shirt had caught in a conveyor, which then took his entire arm.

After the funeral, Herr Schneider allowed Erich and his mother to ride in his new DKW Sonderklasse, a sleek black two-seater. The procession slowly followed the town’s new motorized hearse to the outskirts, making sure those on foot could follow.

“A terrible thing,” Schneider murmured, as they went.

“He should have been more careful,” Erich’s mother said. “The factory should have been more . . .” She cut off, dabbing her tears with a handkerchief.

“You cannot blame him,” Herr Schneider said. “Or the factory. None of this would have happened if not for our enemies. They have no regard for us, our livelihoods. We have become slaves. Your husband gave his life to throw off that yoke. He is a hero, madam.”

Erich’s mother cried anew. Herr Schneider placed a hand on her knee. Erich, pinned up against the passenger door, only watched.

The cemetery stood atop a hill overlooking town, a smattering of silver birch trees scattered amid the headstones, rigid like soldiers. His father was lowered in a plot set aside several years ago by the priest Herr Weber; Erich’s mother’s plot sat next to it. Erich wondered if he should have plot of his own, if he’d die younger than his father.

The next morning, he complained of a stomachache, and his mother allowed him to remain home. After lunch, she went to Kehl for groceries, picked up by Herr Schneider. Erich waited for several minutes, then tore open his bottom drawer. He grabbed his drawings—the first rough early sketches, the recent detailed portraits—and marched down to the hearth room. He stoked the cast-iron stove, etched with Job and the whale. He tossed in the papers.

The fire swelled. His drawings curled and blackened.

The woman with the violin smirked even as she burned, falling to embers, then ash.

Next Chapter: Chapter 7: Max