The Librarian of Auschwitz(21)
He doesn’t take part in the conversations the rest of the teachers have at the end of the day. Nor would he be particularly welcome. Most of them think he’s crazy. On those afternoons when his students are playing with the other groups at the back of the hut, he’s usually sitting by himself. Professor Morgenstern makes origami birds out of the few scraps of paper that have been discarded because there’s no more space to write on them.
On this particular afternoon, when Dita approaches him, he leaves a small piece of paper half folded and hastily stands up to greet her with a small dip of his head. He looks at her through his cracked glasses.
“Miss Librarian … it’s an honor.”
His greeting, which flatters her and makes her feel grown up, strikes her as somewhat peculiar. Just for a moment, she wonders if he’s making fun of her, but she quickly rejects that possibility. His eyes are kind. The professor talks to her about buildings; he was an architect before the war. When she tells him that he still is one and he’ll continue to put up buildings, he smiles.
“I don’t have the strength to raise anything anymore, not even my own body from this very low bench.”
For several years before he arrived in Auschwitz, he had been unable to pursue his career because he was a Jew, and his memory is starting to fail, he tells her.
Morgenstern confesses to Dita that he sometimes asks her to bring him a book, but then gets distracted and talks about other topics and doesn’t even get around to opening it.
“So why do you request it?” Dita asks him reproachfully. “Aren’t you aware that we have a limited number of books and you can’t ask for them on a whim?”
“You’re right, Miss Adler. You’re absolutely right. I beg your forgiveness. I’m an egotistical and capricious old man.”
And then he stops talking, and Dita doesn’t know what to say, because he seems genuinely distressed. And then, for no obvious reason, he suddenly smiles. In a low voice, as if he were telling her a secret, he explains that having a book in his lap while he talks to the children about the history of Europe or the exodus of the Jews makes him feel like a real teacher.
“That way, the children pay attention to me. The words of a crazy old man are of no interest to them, but if the words come from a book … that’s another matter. Within their pages, books contain the wisdom of the people who wrote them. Books never lose their memory.”
And he brings his head up close to Dita as if to entrust something very mysterious to her. She can see his untidy white beard and those tiny eyes.
“Miss Adler … books know everything.”
Dita leaves Morgenstern absorbed in his origami, attempting to make what looks like a seal. She feels the old professor has a few screws loose, but even so, he makes sense.
Lichtenstern waves Dita over. He looks irritated—the same way he looks when he’s out of cigarettes.
“The director says he likes your suggestion.”
The deputy director watches her closely for any display of triumph, but her expression is serious and focused. Secretly, she is overjoyed.
“He’s given his approval; so be it. But at the first sign of an inspection, the books have to be hidden quickly. That is your responsibility.”
Dita nods her agreement.
“There is one point on which I have absolutely not compromised,” Lichtenstern states more cheerfully, as if this might restore his wounded pride. “Hirsch kept insisting that he would wear the hidden pockets in case there was an inspection. I’ve made him see the stupidity of this plan. He has to receive the guards—he’ll be right next to them, so he can’t be found carrying any package. A different assistant will be with you in the library each day.”
“Perfect, Seppl! We’ll launch the public library right away!”
“I find this business with the books a total madness.” And he sighs as he heads off. “But is there anything in this place that isn’t mad?”
Dita leaves the hut happy, but also nervous, as she thinks about how she’s going to organize things. She’s busy thinking when she runs into Margit, who’s been waiting for her outside. Just then, they see a man coming out of the makeshift hospital barrack. He pulls a cart; in it, a body covered with a piece of canvas. It’s so common to see corpses going past that hardly anyone seems to notice anymore. The two girls walk on in silence until they come across Renée, a young friend of Margit’s. Her clothes are covered with mud after a day spent working in the drainage ditches, and the bags under her eyes make her look older.
“You really lucked out with your work assignment, Renée!”
“Bad luck follows me everywhere…” she says somewhat enigmatically to make sure she captures the attention of the two girls.
She gestures for them to follow her down an alleyway between two of the huts. They find a spot at the back of one of them, a few meters away from a group of men who, given the way they are whispering and looking around warily, must be talking politics. The three girls huddle together to try and keep warm, and then Renée starts to talk.
“There’s a guard who looks at me.”
The other two girls exchange puzzled looks. Margit has no idea how to respond, but Dita gets cheeky.
“That’s why they pay the guards, Renée. To watch the prisoners.”
“But he looks at me in a different way.… He stares. He waits until I step out of line once roll call is over, and then he follows me with his eyes; I can feel them. And he does the same thing again with the afternoon head count.”