Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II (Operation Kinderspion)

by Adam Gidwitz

Once there was a boy who had two immortal creatures living on his shoulders. This was the fourth most interesting thing about him. The first most interesting thing about Max—that was his name—was that he was a genius. He could make a working radio from the junk at the bottom of a trash can, and he could usually predict what someone was going to say ten minutes before they said it. The second most interesting thing about Max was that, when he was eleven years old, his parents sent him away from Germany, where he was born and grew up, to England. All by himself. Even though he’d never been there, didn’t know anyone there, and barely spoke any English. The third most interesting thing about Max was that, when he got to England, he fell in with spies. Real, honest-to-goodness spies. A lot of them. And the fourth most interesting thing about him was that he had two immortal creatures living on his shoulders. But that’s probably what you have the most questions about, so let’s start there. The two immortal creatures appeared the day his parents sent him to England.

Now, Max was smart enough to know that Stein and Berg couldn’t really be on his shoulders. They were figments of his imagination. Products of the terrible trauma of being separated from his parents and his homeland. They had to be. Nonetheless he decided, for the moment, to play along. “So where did you come from?” Max asked the creatures. “I come from Germany!” said Berg. “Or, what people now call Germany. It’s had lots of different names since the beginning of time. ‘Ugg.’ ‘Flurp.’ ‘The Holy Roman Empire.’ But no matter what you call it, I am a spirit of that land! Some people refer to me as a kobold.” Max had heard of kobolds in fairy tales. They were what we, in English, might call hobgoblins—little creatures that cause mischief, like hiding your keys under the couch or raising the toilet seat in the middle of the night so in the morning when you sit down you fall in. “I, on the other hand,” said Stein, and then he added, “uh, other shoulder, I guess…am a spirit of the Jewish people. I also cause mischief. Usually by sticking myself to someone and making their life miserable. It’s my speciality. My kind have had lots of names since the beginning of time, but these days people tend to call me a dybbuk.” Max had heard of dybbuks, too. They were supposed to be evil spirits, who possessed people and tormented them. He had always expected them to look scary. Neither Stein nor Berg looked scary. They looked like little old men. Balding. With round noses and round bellies. Ne...

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“looked”… I can’t believe that of ALL of the times I’ve 📖 this, THIS is the first time I noticed the mistake. It’s probably because it’s corrected when 🎙️ during the 🎧. I still 📖 this at LEAST twice without the 🎧 playing and should have caught it with my 👀‼️

Max was sitting in the last row, as always. His teacher, Professor Goldenschaft, was writing something on the chalkboard. Professor Goldenschaft stepped aside so the students could see what he had written. On the dusty chalkboard, in large yellow letters, were the words JEWISH SCIENCE. Max and the three other Jewish boys in the class sank down in their chairs in the back row. They did this whenever the subject was Jewish anything. “Actually,” Professor Goldenschaft said, “we should write: so-called Jewish science, shouldn’t we? Who can tell me why?” Pause. Max knew exactly what was coming. He tried to slide a little lower in his chair. “Max? Why should we write the words ‘so-called,’ before ‘Jewish science’? Explain!” There were rumors that Professor Goldenschaft had been a good teacher once. In fact, when he was not teaching from the Nazi curriculum, but instead teaching something neutral like grammar, he was still a good teacher. Not kind, but clear and precise and fair. But when Professor Goldenschaft was teaching from the Nazi curriculum, he changed. He became…cruel. “I don’t know, Herr Professor. Why should we write the words ‘so-called’ before ‘Jewish science,’ sir?” Max did his best at these times to be as respectful and invisible as possible. If he could manage to repeat the exact words Professor Goldenschaft said, he was less likely to make a mistake. As long as he watched his tone. If he repeated Professor Goldenschaft’s words with the wrong tone, he was liable t...

That afternoon, in Mr. Ken’s car, Anthony said to Max, “What’s a Yid?” David cut in, “It’s what they call Jews like us, Anthony.” Anthony thought for a moment. “So I am a Yid?” David looked at Max, suddenly unsure. Max had heard his people called too many awful things back in Berlin to even remember them all. And he had asked his parents the same question, a hundred different times in a hundred different ways. So Max told Anthony what his papa always used to tell him, translating it into English as best he could: “We are Jews, Anthony,” he said. “They call us names when they want us to feel weak. But we are not weak. We are tough. Tougher than they are.” Anthony nodded and turned to gaze out the window at the traffic. After a few moments, he turned back to Max. “Why do they want us to feel weak?” David and Anthony waited for Max to say something. As if Max would have the answer to the question that both of these boys silently asked themselves every day at school. But Max didn’t know. He only wished he did.

At the word liar Max’s attention suddenly went to the letter in his pocket. Was he lying by hiding this letter from Uncle Ewen? And Berg had asked a very reasonable question: Why was he hiding it? Ewen went on, apparently unaware of Max’s interior monologue. “But being a spy is not about lying, Max. It is about the creation of fictions. To enter enemy territory under a false name, with a false background, one must invent a whole history. It’s like writing a novel.” Ewen chuckled. “We’ve got quite a few novelists in our department, actually. A young man named Ian Fleming. And Admiral Godfrey writes spy novels, did you know that?” Max, forcing himself to forget about the letter, joked, “Are they just strings of curse words?” Ewen laughed. “They’re actually not half bad. But the writing of a fiction—a fake background—isn’t the hardest part of spycraft, though you have to do a frightfully good job lining up all the pieces, making sure your cover identity is airtight. Much harder by far, though, is living the fiction.” Max was quickly becoming very aware how hard it was to live a fiction, given that he was trying not to mention the letter in his pocket and was consequently sweating through his shirt. Ewen was saying, “You have to have a strange relationship with truth to live a fiction, Max. You have to believe the fiction you’re living, and your mind needs to be totally and utterly free from the truth. Except.” Ewen stopped and emphasized the word. “Except. You cannot lose the...

“Who is here?” Max asked in the tense silence of the lift. No one answered. Once they reached the basement, Admiral Godfrey led them down a corridor of concrete walls and rubbish bins, to a steel door painted red. He pivoted toward Max. “Just tell the bloody truth and you’ll do fine. All right?” “What is happening?” Max demanded. But Godfrey was already turning the knob on the red door. Max tried to get an answer out of Ewen, or Jean, or Chumley. Or at least some reassurance. He got nothing. “Why does everybody look so miserable all of a sudden?” Stein asked. Berg replied, “Yah. I like miserable, but they are creeping me out.” Admiral Godfrey pushed open the door. Max took in the room and swallowed hard. What had once been a basement storage room was now set up for a trial. Along the left wall of the room were four empty chairs. In the center of the room, facing each other, were two more. And at the far end of the room was a long table. Two men were sitting at that table. One appeared to be a general in the army, given the decorations on his olive uniform. He wore a sour frown on his weather-beaten face, and when they entered, he was reading a dossier through preposterously small spectacles. To the left of the general was a man who looked like an alumnus of St. West’s School—an Old Wet—who sported long boyish hair despite being more than fifty years old. The Old Wet was watching them curiously as they entered. There was a third chair at the long table. Empty. “Come right i...

“What?” Max asked the kobold. “Ask him if he has ever visited Munich,” Berg repeated. “What are you doing?” asked Stein cautiously. “Are you trying…to help him?” Berg looked very upset. With himself. He didn’t answer. Stein turned to Max. “I don’t know what Berg is up to…but at this point, what do you have to lose?” Which was exactly what Max had been thinking. Dr. Brown was over at the long table. The general had stood up and was shaking Dr. Brown’s hand. The Old Wet was waiting his turn. They were all studiously ignoring Winston Churchill, who was glancing at a golden pocket watch. Quite loudly, Max said, “Excuse me, Dr. Brown.” Dr. Brown appeared to freeze. Then slowly, oh so slowly, he turned to face the boy he’d just dismissed. He said, with menacing innocence, “Yes?” Speaking deliberately and very clearly, Max said, “Have you ever visited Munich, Dr. Brown?” The doctor furrowed his otherwise perfectly smooth brow. “Certainly,” he said. The room had become very quiet. Berg said to Max, “When was the last time?” So Max said to Dr. Brown, “When was the last time?” Dr. Brown looked uncertainly at Max’s team and then at the general and the Old Wet. “It was 1936. October.” Berg said, “Did he have any of those huge pretzels?” “Uh, what?” “Okay, forget that one. Did he meet any other doctors there?” So Max said: “Did you meet any other doctors in Munich?” Dr. Brown snapped, “What is the meaning of these questions?” “Any Nazi doctors?” Berg added. “Any Nazi doctors?” repeated...

Lieutenant Chumley was driving, Uncle Ewen was in the passenger seat, and Jean and Max were sitting in the back. The military-issued Humber Snipe—Britain’s Jeep—rattled over the dirt road, through a wide heath as the sun set. Bare bushes were pushed around by strong gusts of wind. Which made Max very nervous, because he was about to get in an airplane. He’d never been in an airplane before. Neither had Berg or Stein. They were not thrilled. “Flying is for birds! And angels! And fairies!” Stein was saying. “Look at my face! Do I look like a fairy to you?” “I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this. Please don’t make me do this,” Berg pleaded. Max had never heard him sound so earnest. Or scared. It was kind of sweet. But Max wasn’t really paying attention to the panicking passengers on his shoulders, because a conversation he’d overheard between Admiral Godfrey and Uncle Ewen was banging around in his head. Max had spent the last week studying the details of his mission. He’d studied the photos of every important person who might walk in or out of the Funkhaus. He’d learned his cover identity upside down and inside out. He’d been drilled over and over again on where to go and what to do if he suspected his cover had been blown. At the end of it all, Admiral Godfrey had wished Max good luck. And then he’d taken Uncle Ewen aside. “Listen here, Ewen. How much does the boy know? Worst case, what can he tell the Jerries about us?” Lieutenant Chumley was showing Max the photographs...

“Max.” Uncle Ewen had turned to face him in the back of the Humber. “Yes, Lieutenant Commander?” “There’s one more thing I need to tell you before I let you go.” Max swallowed and waited. Uncle Ewen said, “You’ll be making your way back to your apartment building in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin, as we discussed.” Max nodded. “And you’re certain you know how to get there?” “I lived there for eleven years. I know how to get there,” Max assured Ewen for the fifth time that day. “Right. Well, when you arrive, you’ll want to ring the fourth bell.” “Of course,” lied Max. The fourth bell was Pastor Andreas Maas’s apartment. Max would be living with the pastor, pretending to be his nephew from the countryside, and taking on the name Max Maas. That way he could pretend to be a Lutheran Christian—not a Jew. But his parents lived right below Pastor Andreas, and secretly Max was planning to spend as much time with them as possible. Every night, of course. And even during the daytime, when he could get away with it. And he would not be ringing the pastor’s bell first. He had already imagined the whole thing. Ringing his parents’ bell in the dead of night. Them being terrified that it was the Gestapo. They would look out the window, and Max would step back into the street and wave—and they wouldn’t be able to believe it. They would rush downstairs, and open the door, and he would leap into their arms. His mother’s first, certainly, and then his father would wrap them both in an ...