We don't respond. The policeman hits us. With both hands. Right and left. We are bleeding from the nose and mouth.

"Admit it!"

We say nothing. He goes white, he hits us over and over again. We fall off our chairs. He kicks us in the ribs, in the kidneys, in the stomach.

"Admit it! Admit it! It was you! Admit it!"

We can no longer open our eyes. We can no longer hear. Our bodies are covered with sweat, blood, urine, and excrement. We lose consciousness.

In Prison

We are lying on the hard dirt floor of a cell. Through a tiny barred window, a little light is coming in. But we don't know what time it is, or even if it is morning or afternoon.

We hurt all over. The slightest movement makes us fall back into semiconsciousness. Our vision is fuzzy, our ears are ringing, our heads are pounding. We are terribly thirsty. Our mouths are dry.

Hours go by this way. We don't speak. Later, the policeman comes in and asks us:

"Do you need anything?"

We say:

"Something to drink."

"Talk. Confess. And you'll have as much as you want to eat and drink."

We don't answer. He asks:

"Grandfather, do you want something to eat?"

Nobody answers. He goes out.

We realize we aren't alone in the cell. Carefully we raise our heads a little and see an old man lying huddled in a corner. Slowly we crawl over to him and touch him. He is stiff and cold. We crawl back to our place near the door.

It is already night when the policeman comes back with a flashlight. He shines it at the old man and says:

"Sleep well. Tomorrow morning you can go home."

He shines it at us too, straight in our faces, one after the other:

"Still nothing to say? It's all the same to me. I can wait. You'll either talk or die here."

Later that night the door opens again. The policeman, the orderly, and the foreign officer come in. The officer bends down and looks at us. He says to the orderly:

"Telephone the base for an ambulance!"

The orderly goes out. The officer examines the old man. He says:

"He's beaten him to death!"

He turns to the policeman:

"You'll pay dearly for this, you vermin! If you only knew how you'll pay for all this!"

The policeman asks us:

"What did he say?"

"He said that the old man is dead and that you'll pay dearly for it, you vermin!"

The officer strokes our foreheads:

"My poor little boys. How dare he hurt you, that filthy pig!"

The policeman says:

"What's he going to do to me? Tell him I've got children… I didn't know… Is he your father or something?"

We say:

"He's our uncle."

"You should have told me. How could I have known? Please forgive me. What can I do to…"

We say:

"Pray to God."

The orderly arrives with other soldiers. They put us on stretchers and carry us out to the ambulance. The officer sits beside us. The policeman, flanked by several soldiers, is taken off in a jeep driven by the orderly.

At the army base, a doctor examines us immediately in a big white room. He disinfects our wounds, gives us shots for pain and tetanus. He also takes X-rays. We haven't broken anything except a few teeth, but they're only baby teeth.

The orderly takes us back to Grandmother's. He puts us in the officer's big bed and lies down on a blanket beside the bed. In the morning, he goes to fetch Grandmother, who brings us warm milk in bed.

When the orderly has left, Grandmother asks us:

"Did you confess?"

"No, Grandmother. We had nothing to confess."

"That's what I thought. And what happened to the policeman?"

"We don't know. But he certainly won't come back anymore."

Grandmother sniggers:

"Deported or shot, eh? The pig! We'll celebrate that. I'll go heat up the chicken I cooked yesterday. I haven't eaten any of it either."

At midday, we get up and go to the kitchen to eat. During the meal, Grandmother says: "I wonder why you wanted to kill her. You had your reasons, I suppose."

The Old Gentleman

Just after the evening meal, an old gentleman arrives with a girl who is bigger than us.

Grandmother asks him:

"What do you want?"

The old gentleman speaks a name, and Grandmother says to us:

"Go out. Go for a walk in the garden."

We go out. We circle the house and crouch down under the kitchen window. We listen. The old gentleman says:

"Have pity."

Grandmother replies:

"How can you ask me such a thing?"

The old gentleman says:

"You knew her parents. They entrusted her to me before they were deported. They gave me your address in case she was no longer safe with me."

Grandmother asks:

"You know what I'd be risking?" "Yes, I know, but it's a matter of life and death." "There's a foreign officer in the house." "Precisely. No one will look for her here. All you'll have to say is that she's your granddaughter, the cousin of those two boys."

"Everyone knows I have no other grandchildren but those two."

"You can say she's from your son-in-law's family." Grandmother sniggers: "I've never even seen my son-in-law!" After a long pause, the old gentleman goes on: "I'm only asking you to feed the little girl for a few months. Till the end of the war."

"The war may go on for years." "No, it won't last much longer now." Grandmother starts to snivel:

"I'm just a poor old woman killing herself with work. How can I feed so many mouths?" The old gentleman says:

"Here's all the money her parents had. And the family jewels. It's all yours if you'll save her." A little later, Grandmother calls us in: "This is your cousin." We say:

"Yes, Grandmother." The old gentleman says:

"You'll play together, the three of you, won't you?" We say:

"We never play." He asks:

"What do you do, then?"

"We work, we study, we do exercises."

He says:

"I understand. You're serious men. You don't have time to play. You'll look after your cousin, won't you?" "Yes, sir. We'll look after her." "Thank you." Our cousin says: "I'm bigger than you." We answer:

"But there are two of us." The old gentleman says:

"You're right. Two are much stronger than one. And you won't forget to call her 'cousin,' will you?" "No, sir. We never forget anything." "I'm depending on you."

Our Cousin

Our cousin is five years older than us. Her eyes are black. Her hair is reddish because of something called henna.

Grandmother tells us that our cousin is the daughter of Father's sister. We say the same thing to those who ask questions about our cousin.

We know that Father has no sister. But we also know that without this lie, our cousin's life would be in danger. And we've promised the old gentleman to look after her.

When the old gentleman has gone, Grandmother says:

"Your cousin will sleep with you in the kitchen."

We say:

"There's no more room in the kitchen."

Grandmother says:

"Straighten it out yourselves."

Our cousin says:

"I'm quite willing to sleep on the floor under the table if you give me a blanket."

We say:

"You can sleep on the seat and keep the blankets. We'll sleep in the attic. It's not very cold now." She says:

"I'll come sleep in the attic with you."

"We don't want you. You must never set foot in the attic."

"Why?"

We say:

"You have a secret. We have one too. If you don't respect our secret, we won't respect yours." She asks:

"Would you be capable of denouncing me?" "If you go up to the attic, you die. Is that clear?" She looks at us for a moment in silence, then she says: "I see. You two little bastards are completely crazy. I'll never go up to your filthy attic, I promise."