Young Adi

The air smelt fresh, clean and crisp. A young boy stepped into his stone bricked school brightened by the morning light that filtered through the windows. His friends took their places around him as the teacher exclaims in German, “Adi? How are you today?” The young boy smiles brightly at his teacher and takes his seat at a long pine table near the front of his class.

The boy’s face is open, oval and handsome. The young teacher has often mentioned to his parents in a greeting that he looks exactly like his mother. Perfect double eyelids frame his large eyes. His nose is sharp and straight, curving into a small mouth that tucked into his chin. His brunette hair, cut by his mother is combed forward, ruggedly framed his face. However, what the teacher considered most striking about young Adi was how his light blue eyes contrasted with his jet-black hair.

Today’s lesson is math, simple six-year-old math. The teacher scribbled each question on the black board. The town school with grey bricks is quiet except for pencils tapping on paper as the students marked down numbers. Adi’s bright blue eyes flicked to the board and back to the paper, tapping the answers out. He was done as always, before the rest of the class. A couple of jealous boys sneered ,”muttersohnchen.” This meant “mother’s boy” in German. The young teacher looked up from the attendance roll she was holding and smiled gently at Adi.

After school was over, Adi strolled back to his home with some friends; his brown shoes making small imprints on the dirt road. Adi’s little body looked quite poised clothed in a dark brown jacket, white shirt and black shorts. The little boys chatted happily in their Bavarian accents, distinguishable from the standard German with their rolling “r”. It was a healthily blue and beautiful afternoon in the town for Adi to have a little escape with his friends, but not today. Today he would have to help his father with some farming.

“Adolf!” his father Alois Sr. barked angrily at him when he saw his son coming up the dirt track.

“You little wretch, you are to be home sooner! I will beat you later!” Alois yelled, flinging his pitchfork to the ground. Adi was used to such threats from his authoritarian father who was sometimes drunk. The farm smelled of the freshly digested grass in cow manure mixed with the afternoon’s warmth. Adi tore of his jacket and flung it on a seat, running to his father’s orders. His father had beaten both him and his beloved mother before.

Adi grabbed the pitchfork resting on the mud and looked around to see his father’s broad back. He shot his father a quick, angry look before tossing the golden hay into a wooden wheelbarrow half his size. At the time, there was nothing else he could do. His brown shoes now dirty and muddy, young Hitler averted his gaze to the blue sky and wondered what the future might hold.