Free Stay Where You Are and Then Leave by John Boyne Page A

said. “When he was a boy. He had an open face, like yours. There was kindness there once. Anyway…” He sighed and shook his head, looking up at the station clock. “I better be getting on. Same time next week, Alfie? You’ll be here?”
    â€œYes, sir,” said Alfie.
    â€œAll right then,” said Mr. Podgett, raising a hand in the air in salute as he walked away. “Until then, auf Wiedersehen , Alfie, as our Hun friends say.”
    Which wasn’t very wise of him, for three different heads turned as he departed and a man walked over to a constable and whispered something in his ear; a moment later, the policeman was following Mr. Podgett out of the station and on to the busy streets beyond.
    *   *   *
    By eleven o’clock, Alfie had shined three sets of shoes and spent a ha’penny on a sausage roll from the tea shop, which left him tuppence ha’penny up on the day so far. He’d seen a man be refused passage on the London-to-Cambridge train on account of drunkenness, and a small girl, only a year or so younger than he was, had stuck her tongue out at him as she walked past, hand in hand with an elderly lady.
    A man with a bright-red mustache had put up a series of recruitment posters around the station: one showed a nighttime image of London, with Big Ben and St. Paul’s Cathedral to the foreground. IT IS FAR BETTER TO FACE THE BULLETS THAN TO BE KILLED AT HOME BY A BOMB , it said. Another showed a smiling Tommy, clean and cheerful, with a rifle on his back. FOLLOW ME! it said. YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU . Alfie didn’t imagine that many of the soldiers looked that happy in real life.
    Just after noon, a young man passed by his shoeshine stand, glanced at him, walked on, and then stopped for a moment, looking up at the enormous clock on the wall. He checked his ticket before looking back at Alfie and down at his own shoes. He was about twenty-five years old and carried a cane in his left hand. As he made his way back, his bad leg dragged a little and Alfie tried not to stare. He wore a dark suit, a crisp white shirt, and a black tie, and he didn’t seem at all comfortable in any of them.
    â€œI think I could do with a polish,” said the young man, his voice betraying a mixture of refinement and anxiety. A moment later, he laughed a little, and Alfie didn’t know why; it was as if he were sharing a joke with himself. He sat down, placed his left shoe on the footrest, and Alfie got to work.
    â€œBusy this morning?” asked the man.
    â€œNot very,” said Alfie, looking up. “Tuesday’s always a bit quiet. I don’t know why. Monday’s the busiest day because everyone wants clean shoes for the start of the week, but I don’t work on Mondays.”
    â€œAny special reason?”
    â€œWe do history in school on Monday. I don’t like to miss it.”
    The young man laughed. “Very sensible,” he said. “I was never any good at history. I could never get my head round the kings and queens, the battles and the wars. All those stories about the dukes in the Tower—”
    â€œThe princes,” said Alfie.
    â€œWho was it who put them there, Richard the Second?”
    â€œRichard the Third,” said Alfie.
    â€œNames and numbers, that’s what it felt like to me, names and numbers. Good for you that you like it. My name’s Wilf, by the way,” he said.
    â€œAlfie,” said Alfie, thinking how nothing ever changed; more than four hundred years later, and everything was names and numbers once again.
    â€œNice to meet you, Alfie. Give them a good buff, will you? There’s a good chap. I can’t show up with dirty shoes. I took them out of the wardrobe this morning and couldn’t believe the condition they were in, even though I haven’t worn them in ages.”
    Alfie looked up as his hands ran a sponge dauber along the welt of the shoe. It crossed his mind