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By Root 1173 0

officially denied," her mother always said. "The only thing not censored is propaganda, and the British lie as much as the Germans." All right, Claudette concedes, clumping down the stairwell. Maybe the BBC exaggerates Axis losses, but even Radio Berlin admitted that the Wehrmacht gave up ground in Africa and Russia. Mussolini really was deposed in July! The king of Italy replaced il Duce with Field Marshal Badoglio, the Fascist regime was abolished, and Badoglio let all political prisoners out of jail. The Italian soldiers said that was true! The Allies conquered Sicily last month and landed on mainland Italy just last week. Could that be propaganda?

Veering between confidence and fear, she settles for adolescent pique, which splits the difference, and knocks on the Brösslers’ door. No one answers, but she can hear Duno’s father yelling. "Herrmann Brössler’s lost everything but his voice," her own father said the first time they listened to an argument in the room below. "He was a big macher in Austria. An impresario! Now he’s got nobody to boss but his family. "

Claudette knocks again, jumping back when Duno suddenly appears. "What do you want?"

Rising onto her toes, she peeks over his shoulder. Frau Brössler’s packing, and little Steffi’s stamping her feet. "You can’t make me!" she weeps, while her nine-year-old sister, Liesl, insists, "Mutti, we can’t leave Tzipi!"

Duno grabs Claudette’s arm and shoves her back into the hotel hallway. "Ow! Let go of me!" she cries. "Has everyone gone crazy? The war is over! Why is Steffi crying?"

Duno stares with the arid contempt only a fifteen-year-old can produce on such short notice. "Stupid girl. Don’t you understand anything? "

She hates Duno, hates his condescension, hates his horrible red pimples and his big ugly nose. "I don’t know what you’re talking about," she says, rubbing her arm.

"When the Italians pull out of southern France, who do you think is going to march in?"

Her heart stops. She can feel it actually stop. "The Germans?"

"Yes, moron. The Germans."

"We’ve got to get out of here," she says, dazed. Duno rolls his eyes. "Where can we go now? There’s no place left!"

"We’re going east. We’ll follow the army into Italy."

"Over the Alps?"

"It’s the mountains, the sea, or the Germans," Duno says, relishing her fear because it makes him feel commanding and superior. "It’s Italy or—" He makes a noise and draws a finger over his throat.

"Duno!" His mother pulls the door closed behind her. "What is it, Claudette?"

Claudette has seen a photo of Duno’s mother from before the war. Frau Brössler’s prosperous plumpness has gone to bone, but if she had any decent clothes now, she’d look like Wallis Simpson: willowy, well groomed. Claudette tucks her wayward blouse back into a skirt she outgrew last spring and decides to cut her bangs. "If you please, Frau Brössler, my father said to ask if I may borrow trousers from Duno."

"Your father is a sensible man, Liebes. Come in. We’ll see what we can find."

Head high, Claudette flounces through the door, shooting a look of triumph at Duno, who is forced by hard-taught courtesy to stand aside and let her pass, but she stops dead when she catches sight of his father’s face. "Liesl, we cannot carry a birdcage over the mountains," Herr Brössler shouts. "No more than we can take your grandmother on such a climb!"

Duno picks up a china-faced doll and hands it to little Steffi. "We have to leave Tzipi behind," he says, kneeling in front of her. "There’s plenty of food for canaries here. He’ll be very happy. Oma will be all right, too," Duno says, eyes on his father. "The doctors and nurses are staying."

"Thank you, Duno," Frieda Brössler says quietly. "Stop arguing, girls. Bring only what you can carry with one hand!" She holds a pair of Duno’s trousers. "Take the woolen ones, Claudette. It will be chilly at high altitude."

ALBERT BLUM PUSHES tall shutters aside and leans from the window. In the street below, people are hurrying east on foot, but he himself closes his mind to fear and haste. Taking a seat at the little wooden