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Within a short time, his comrades' breathing became slower and steadier, but unlike his friends, Siggi found no sleep.
It wasn't as if he wasn't tired, the day, like all the others at Allenstein, had once again been exhausting, but he didn't want to fall asleep.
He was too afraid of wetting his bed again. It had happened again only yesterday and although Siggi had done everything he could to hide it, Justus von Jaucher had of course noticed. It seemed he even enjoyed humiliating the boy, looking at him with such a disgusting grin.
So Siggi had to take his mattress outside and pee on it in front of half the school. Not only was it an absolute embarrassment, but now every one of his comrades knew about his problem and they had all seen him crying. Though german boys are not supposed to show any feelings.
But he couldn't even help it and he was not doing it to annoy von Jaucher or Peiner or anyone else. If Siggi had the choice - any possibility - to do something about it, he would do it immediately. He had already tried everything: he hadn't drunk anything after lunch, but that only led to him almost passing out during one of the many cross-country marches. He had also simply not slept, but as a result he dozed off in German class and thus earned himself several hours of detention as well as a good reprimand. And he had also prayed, many many hours. But that had only led to his gradually losing faith in the Father. If he existed - a Saviour and Redeemer - why did he not help Siggi?
Perhaps it was all punishment for what had happened to him at home. Maybe he hadn't been brave enough to endure his mother's screaming and his father's beatings. Maybe he should have stifled his tears better or followed the rules even better, even more strictly.
And perhaps he should also have endured the touching better.
Every few weeks his father had slipped into his bed long after the sun had set. You mustn't tell anyone about this, he had said. It had always been their dirty little secret that he had never told anyone about and would never say a word about in the future.
That's how proud his parents had been of him when, at just two and a half years old, he hadn't even wet himself at night. But at the age of seven it started again, one night after Siggi's father visited him for the first time at night. He still remembered it clearly, the image visited him in regular dreams. It was the only incident Siggi really remembered, the others were blurred, as if a thick fog had settled over them.
It had rained that night and the wind whipped the branches of the tree outside his room against his window. His parents had taken him and his little brother on an outing that day, to the lake nearby, where they went swimming and ate sandwiches. At that time, the sun was still shining and it had been a warm summer day, the last carefree moment in his life.
The weather had changed just as quickly as his view of the world. In retrospect, Siggi found all the circumstances fitting, within moments the bright sunshine turned into a dark thunderstorm.
He had always been afraid of thunder, he feared the bright lightning might destroy their house or set the nearby forest on fire. So he was all the more relieved when his bedroom door opened and the bright glow of the light in the hallway revealed his father standing on the threshold in only his underwear. Siggi hadn't asked any questions, but had just let his hero climb happily into his little bed.
If only he had known then that such a brief moment would change his life so much.
When he was sent to the Napola in Allenstein at the age of eleven, it was in a way a relief for him. Of course he was afraid of the unfamiliar comrades, the teachers and the fact that he would only see his parents in the holidays, but the joy that Siggi would no longer have to put up with his father most of the time outweighed his worries.
But at that time he didn't know that Allenstein was no bed of roses either. On the contrary, this place hardly had anything left of a school, it was rather a pure military training that the boys had to endure there.
Siggi couldn't find his way between shooting exercises, early morning sports and race drills. He was simply not made for such an authoritarian environment, he wanted comfort and affection, but no one seemed to promise him anything like that. He had never even experienced something like that, neither from his mother nor his father. At least not in an honest way.
Nor did he seem to connect with his roommates. He was little like them, was much quieter and more reserved and much more introverted. He often looked at Albrecht and Friedrich and he couldn't help but envy their intimate friendship. Although he knew that Albrecht was anything but in agreement with the rules of the asylum, at least he had Friedrich to support him, to be there for him and to talk to.
Siggi, on the other hand, had no one, not a single true friend and no one else he could confide in. Nor did he have anyone who could miss him should he ever be gone. It would be a salvation for him - and for his mother, who worried about him despite everything. And who was ashamed of him, but who wouldn't be, with a seventeen-year-old bed-wetter as a son?
And who knows, maybe there was such a thing as a God after all, who held open the gate to heaven for him.