Nie wieder is now

Political horror, depictions of hate, historical references, and gender-based tension.

The sky is a thick, unbroken grey above the bench where Maxine sits. Five bottles line up beside her — escape from the dull day. High above town, so high she could be up in that pea soup sky, she unscrews each bottle: turmeric yellow, lime green, burnt orange, royal purple, baby blue. Potions to spark some magic; to transform base, boring matter and alchemise the day.

Carefully she paints half of each nail, alternating along the little row of bottled colours. She waits a few seconds for the autumn wind to do its work, and then starts on the second half. It’s fiddly, the brushes are small, and once a dog bounds up to the bench, its tail knocking two of the bottles over. She manages to scoop them up before the paint spills. The owner starts to apologise — “Entschul —, ” before lowering her eyes, smacking her leg, calling the dog brusquely to her side, leashing him, and walking briskly away.

Maxine’s smile slips as she recaps the bottles, pocketing them. Snuggled in her winter coat, her friends call her Brown Bear, her long lean body disappearing in the fake-fur fuzz. There have been reports of real bears returning to the German Alps. People were full of wonder until the talk turned. Such huge creatures. So wild. So unpredictable. Signs started to appear: Achtung! Bär.

Here in Landsberg she is the only bear. The town is too far away from the Alps for one to amble along the medieval cobbled streets, to peer into the chocolate and tea shops or pause at the watchtowers. More’s the pity. There are enough fish in the river which flows through the town to feed one. A bear, she thinks, might admire her colourful claws — if it wished to join her, scooping trout from the Lech’s sparkling waters.

Day is drawing in. The first sounds of commuter traffic trapped in town, and there is just enough time to grab a bite to eat at home before her friends arrive. Somewhere behind all that grey, the sun is setting; the damp knows, it is already on the rise.

Maxine’s route takes her along a high path, parallel to the town below. In the distance, the round prison snags her gaze, a floater she wishes she could just blink away. Everyone who lives here knows the grim history of that building. Locked inside those circular walls, penning a book that should never have been written. Mein Kampf, except his time behind bars didn’t seem like much of a battle: released after serving only nine months of a five-year term — the lightest sentence for high treason. Apparently he’d been well behaved in prison and had often received visitors.

The tourist centre runs regular walking tours. Highlights include standing on the promontory to watch the river rushing over the weir: the white horses of the Lech tossing their watery manes.

Maxine lives here; she’s never joined the tourists and has no idea if they journey on up to the prison. She’d like to think that rather than marking the Beer Hall Putsch and what came after, they head back into town, drink a maß or two, link arms, and laugh about men in leather trousers. The things they think up. The things they do.

Hope is like her butterfly fingers, clasped tight in her pocket — something she wishes she could let fly.

As she turns away from the park and into her street, the prison disappears from view. Yet even as she opens the door and calls out to see if anyone’s home, she can still feel its round eye burning into her back.

Her mum is on the phone when Maxine comes in, shrugging off her bear pelt, pouring herself a glass of water.

‘Just a tick, Dad,’ she says, moving the mobile away from her mouth. ‘Dinner’s in the saucepan. What time you off?’

Maxine lifts the lid. Steam from the pasta and tomato sauce rises, then hangs there, clouding the air.

‘Soon. You mind if I eat now?’

The voice of her Opa fills the kitchen, hundreds of miles removed from where he’s sitting in London.

‘Max? That you?’ The voice is cracked with age, but the views it holds are watertight, strong. ‘Never seem to hear from you any more, lad.’

The lid in her hand feels heavy, like a cymbal. That crashing word in her ears — lad.

The extractor starts up with a loud sucking noise, and she feels she is going to condense, be swallowed by that gulping mouth that has suddenly opened.

‘That’s right, Dad. It’s Max,’ her mum says quickly, words tumbling over each other like she could speak them away. ‘He can’t talk. He’s got a college event.’

The spoon is in Maxine’s hand, but she can’t eat the lumpen pasta, stuck in its thick red sauce at the bottom of the pan.

She should take the phone now. Break it to him. She’s old enough. But instead she stands, the whooshing sound louder and louder as her sense of self drains away. Lies in her mother’s mouth. Lad. Max. No one here has called her that for months.

She puts down the lid and spoon. Her mother’s voice drifts across the kitchen — Yes, she’s seen the pictures he’s sent over. The flags, all along the suburban streets. Who would have thought it? No, there’s nothing like that here.

Maxine picks up her coat and says, more loudly than she meant to, ‘Thank God.’

This time her mother lowers the phone and holds it against her chest.

‘You want a lift in, love? It’s Monday, remember.’

It takes a moment for the words to register.

‘Doubt there’ll be a Montagsdemo today.’ Her mum looks at her — eyes asking her to relent, to be chaperoned like a child. ‘Cold weather will keep them away. I’ll be fine.’

Down in her room, she tugs on a layered skirt and winds the bubblegum pop of pink about her neck, a scarf to keep the biting autumn wind at bay.

In the mirror, she pencils in tendrils of colour — rainbow hands painting a rainbow face. When the doorbell rings, a glitter bear opens the door to her friends. Her Opa would never recognise his grandson, but Maxine has painted herself back from the kitchen’s brink.

A steep walk down into the historic heart of the town; arms linked, voices rising, ready to lift that grey sky. A cloudburst of friends, raining colour in their clothes, their makeup, the brilliance of their smiles.

They haven’t always been this close, and over the years the group has changed: grown bigger, then smaller; lost faces before finding others. Now, in their final school year, the old ties of friendship are drawing them tighter. They knot fingers, loop arms, as if time will never untie them.

From somewhere behind them, the growl of tractor engines — a mud-clogged thrum in the town’s throat. Louder. Closer. Then the machines emerge, soil spraying from their giant tyres, pitchforks raised like spears, holding aloft handpainted signs: Land, Leute, Heimat!

An ageing Fendt trundles alongside them, belching smoke. Affixed to the chimney, a wood-chip board proclaims: Unser Land. Unsere Zukunft.

‘There goes the German future,’ Maxine says, her laugh spluttering into a cough as the diesel fumes hit. ‘Right there.’

The parade lumbers along the curve in the road, disappears from view, the noise replaced by the thump of a lone drum and the sudden blast of a klaxon. With a startle of wings, the town’s pigeons take flight, pepper gunning the sky.

‘Let’s go another way,’ says Maxine, watching the birds settle hesitantly on a distant roof. ‘We’ve time. Ten minutes still.’

But the others are already pulling her across the crossing, smirking at the farmers — all felt hats and feathers — clambering down from the parked tractors. The headlights knife through the gathering gloom, blades of white light, yet the friends join hands and dash across.

On the other side, a group has gathered. Casting long shadows, they stand like ancient stones as the drum beats on. Suddenly it feels to Maxine like someone has lifted her small hometown and placed it far out on a windswept plain, where feet stamp, chants break and hands are capable of holding clubs. Of using them.

Her own hands grip those of her friends.

Two little figures flit free of the circle, woollen hats pulled low against the creeping cold. Squeals, as one child lunges for the other’s scarf and a chase ensues across their new playpark — white bars of light to jump, swinging shadows to crouch in and hide.

Every Monday evening, while their parents beat the drum and guard the town, the children play. They cannot see the danger their mother and father insist surrounds them. They cannot see the ghosts their parents say have already come.

There are no ghosts. But there is a glitter bear with rainbow eyes, stepping into the glare of a tractor’s light, stooping down; turmeric yellow, lime green, burnt orange, royal purple, and baby blue hands, gripping the chalk, writing the words.

Nie wieder ist jetzt

She wants to write the words again, and again, and again.

Write so that writing makes the words true, makes them last — for at least another eighty years.

Wants to imprint her hope on the cobblestones, so passersby making for the bus, for work, for school, can read them. They should walk on them, the words stamped to the undersoles of shoes. All over town, the words should travel, pedalling bikes, boarding trains, accelerating out into the countryside, boarding planes.

Words taking wing.

Never, ever, again.

She’s getting ready to write when the kick lands — well-aimed and football-fast — jolting the chalk out of her hand. Like a match striking her skin, the skin blazes where the shoe caught. She lurches up, skirts snagging round her legs, nearly throttled by her own scarf.

The face high above the foot is grotesque — a gash for a mouth, dark hollows for eyes. As she scrambles up, back, away, she sees a black-gloved hand rise… and fall. The drum thumps so close it feels like it could hammer the heartbeat out of her chest.

But her friends are at her side, taking her by the injured hand, tugging her away from that hate-mask and the chorus behind it.

Away, away — out of the cold and the dark, into the bright glare of the school building. The Aula fills with noise as students cast off coats and take their seats. On stage, a screen flickers to life. Abi Ball 2026: Planning Committee, is met with a collective cheer. The student rep climbs the stairs, and the presentation begins.

Maxine sits, hiding the grazed knuckle with her other hand. The nails are broken — chips of turmeric yellow, burnt orange, and baby blue. Flashes of black-gloved hands, drumming, like flints struck together. The hurt lodged inside, like a flying spark.

There is much to discuss for the ball. Ideas are presented, questions raised. The food: Bavarian or international? The music: Oompa or pop? When the discussion turns to a dress code, Maxine pushes back her chair. As the student rep insists it should really be a black-tie event — girls in dresses, boys in suits — she squeezes her friend’s hand and leans in to whisper that she just needs some fresh air. Back in a bit. She shoulders through the double doors, leaving the throb of voices behind.

Night has fallen fast. Not a star in the sky — those thick bands of cloud have snuffed out every one. She doesn’t need light to find her way to the Lech. The noise of rushing water grows louder as she reaches the river, mist from the weir dampening her cheek.

Galloping horses, kicking up angry spray. Hooves pounding in her head. A rainbow bear, lost in her furry coat, looking far larger than she feels.

She would like to tip back her head — mouth as wide as the river is long — and roar. Rake her claws across the sky, tear open the old grey, let in the stars.

They’re watching, just beyond the clouds, she knows. But other eyes are too.

Black-gloved hands, beating a summons.

Maxine turns as the ground seems to ebb beneath her. In her ears, her blood drums.

A human face with a mask of hate.

For a moment, the figure is still, before lowering the drum and raising a hand. The chalk crumbles from the fist.

White as ash.

White as bone.

Light as one beautiful breath —

Lifting on the cold autumn wind.

Then gone.