The Librarian of Auschwitz(55)
Dita confesses to the professor that she hates herself for running away, for being unable to cry, for failing her father, for not being able to save him. She hates herself for everything. But the old professor tells her that her tears will come when her anger departs.
“How can I not feel anger? My father never hurt anyone, he never showed disrespect toward anyone.… They took everything away from him, and now, in this revolting hole, they’ve even taken away his life.”
“Listen very carefully to me, Edita. Those who go no longer suffer.”
Those who go no longer suffer.… He whispers to her over and over again.
Morgenstern knows that the comfort he’s offering is scant—worn-out and old-fashioned—something old people say, but in Auschwitz, it’s the medicine that helps people to endure the sadness they feel for those who have died. Dita stops twisting her fingers, nods in agreement, and slowly sits down on the bench. Professor Morgenstern puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a somewhat wrinkled and faded origami bird. He offers it to Dita.
The girl looks at the battered paper bird, as vulnerable as her father has been recently. As fragile as the mad old professor with his broken glasses. They’re all so fragile.… And then she feels insignificant and unexpectedly weak. Her rage subsides, and the tears finally flow.
The old architect nods approvingly, and she cries her heart out on old Morgenstern’s shoulder.
“Those who go no longer suffer.…”
No one knows how much suffering still awaits those left behind.
Dita raises her head and wipes her tears with her sleeve. She thanks the professor and tells him that she has something important to do before breakfast is over. She rushes off to her hut. Her mother needs her. Or maybe she needs her mother.
What difference does it make …
Her mother is sitting with Mrs. Turnovská on top of the air intake of the unlit stove. As she approaches the two women, Dita sees her mother sitting very still, lost in thought while Mrs. Turnovská, her own empty bowl on the ground, is drinking the morning tea from Liesl’s bowl, and dipping into it a small piece of bread which the just-widowed Liesl must have left uneaten the night before.
The former fruit seller looks embarrassed when she sees Dita staring at her mother’s bowl.
“Your mother didn’t want it,” she says, somewhat taken aback at Dita’s unexpected appearance, which has caught her red-handed. “I kept insisting … and it was almost time to go off to the workshop.… We would have had to throw it away.…”
Dita and Mrs. Turnovská look at each other in silence. Her mother is far away; she must be going through a world of memories. Mrs. Turnovská extends the bowl toward Dita so she can have the last few sips, but Dita shakes her head. There’s no reproach in her eyes, just a mixture of understanding and sadness.
“Please finish it. We need you to be healthy so you can help Mama.”
Her mother’s serene face resembles a statue made out of wax. Dita crouches down in front of her, and her mother reacts by moving her eyes. She focuses on her daughter, and her neutral expression finally breaks. Dita hugs her hard, holds her tightly, and at last, her mother cries.
15.
Viktor Pestek is from Bessarabia, originally a Moldovan territory which, in the nineteenth century, became part of Romania, a country that supported the Nazis right from the start. His SS uniform, the gun at his waist, and his First Officer stripes make him a very powerful person in Auschwitz. He is a superior being with thousands of people at his feet who can’t even address him without permission. Those same thousands of people are obliged to do whatever he tells them or he will order their death without turning a hair.
Anyone who sees Pestek walking with his proud swagger, his cap pulled down, and his hands behind his back would think he was indestructible. But in Auschwitz, little is what it seems. No one must know, but this SS man is cracking on the inside: For weeks he hasn’t been able to rid himself of the image of a particular woman.
She is, in fact, a very young woman, and he hasn’t exchanged a single word with her; he doesn’t even know her name. He saw her one day when it was his turn to supervise a work group. On the surface, she looked like any other Jewish girl—shabby clothes, a kerchief on her head, and a thin face—but she performed a seemingly insignificant gesture that mesmerized him. She took hold of one of the blond curls falling over her eyes and unrolled it until it was long enough for her to be able to chew on it. It was a trivial movement, one she performed unwittingly, but which, without her being aware of it, made her unique. Viktor Pestek has fallen in love with that gesture.
That day, he examined her more carefully: She had a pleasant face, lovely golden hair, and the vulnerability of a goldfinch in a cage. And then he couldn’t stop staring at her the whole time he was in charge of the guard detail. He tried to approach her a couple of times, but couldn’t make up his mind about talking to her. She seemed to be afraid of him, which didn’t surprise him.
At the time he joined the Romanian Iron Guard, everything seemed fantastic. They gave you an attractive light brown uniform, took you away to camps to sing patriotic songs, and made you feel important. It was even fun, at first, to pull down the disease-ridden huts belonging to the Gypsies who lurked on the outskirts of his village.
Then things started to get complicated. Fistfights became fights with chains, and then came the guns. He knew some of the Gypsies, but more than that, he had Jewish friends—like Ladislaus. He used to go to Ladislaus’s house to do homework, or they’d go hunting for chestnuts in the woods. One day, almost without realizing it, he had a torch in his hand and he was setting fire to Ladislaus’s house.