One Day in Oradour by Helen Watts Read Free Book Online Page B

next morning and be proud of his son and love him for who he was.
    Klara never knew whether Gustav managed to make his father proud, for one day, not long after Gustav’s ninth birthday, she collapsed while clearing the snow from the steps on the back porch.
    When the doctor had been and gone, Otto tried to explain to a dazed Gustav why nothing could have been done to stop the bleeding inside Klara’s head.
    ‘She wasn’t scared, Gustav,’ he said, as he looked down at his son sitting in a state of shock halfway up the stairs. ‘It was so quick. Like switching out a light really. They call it a haemorrhage. These things can just happen, without much warning.’
    Even when his own heart was breaking, Otto offered his son no embrace, no strong arm around the shoulders, no shared tears. Only an awkward hand placed stiffly on his knee, and a moment’s pause, before mumbling about needing to make the ‘necessary arrangements’.
    He felt sorry for the poor lad, but sentimentality had never suited him terribly well. Otto always kept his emotions under control, locked deep inside him, as if in a secret safe inside his heart, and it was to here that he now banished the strangling grief caused by the loss of his beloved Klara. He was terrified that if he dared open that safe door, even just a tiny crack, in order to let Gustav in, he would never regain control.
    In bed that night, Gustav sobbed into his pillow. His father had been so brave all day and he didn’t want to let him down by being a crybaby. But he couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. He felt so alone, so completely lost. He ached for his mother, her gentleness, her kindness and her soothing words. If she were here now, he thought, she would stroke his hair and tell him everything was going to be alright.
    Gustav knew that life would be very different from that point on, now it was just Father and him. His mother’s death had left such a huge void in their lives, and Gustav was certain that his mother would have wanted him to try and fill that void with love. But to get close to his father, Gustav believed he had to rid himself of all the weaknesses he knew Otto saw in him.
    If he was too emotional, too sensitive, he would become more of a man and join the football team, learnhow to box or take up hunting. And if he was too slow at school, he would concentrate harder in class and spend longer on his homework.
    One way or another, he would make his father proud.
    By the time he reached his teenage years, Gustav had succeeded in burying the soft and gentle side of his character. Now long-limbed and athletic, he started to discover that he had a natural talent for most physical activities, and because he was good at the sports he played, he was more often than not chosen to lead the team. Having his talents acknowledged, and seeing his team-mates so willing to put their trust in him, was like a shot in the arm to Gustav and he quickly became addicted to this new sense of power and authority.
    Out of school, he joined a shooting club, and rapidly became his instructor’s favourite. He was quick to learn how to handle a gun and proved himself to have a sharp eye and a steady hand. To hone his new talent, Gustav saved up his pocket money and bought a second-hand air rifle and after that spent hours on his own in the woods near his home, shooting at rabbits, birds and squirrels. He never took any of his kills home, nor told anyone how many creatures he had hit, but he kept a secret tally in a little notebook in his jacket pocket, and each month set himself a new target to beat.
    But Gustav’s sporting successes seemed to count for little in his father’s eyes. What mattered most to Otto was education and academic achievement, and in that Gustav simply could not excel. No matter how much effort he put in, his school results were always disappointing, always lower than average.
    At first, his father blamed the teachers, and took it upon himself to give Gustav extra