The Librarian of Auschwitz(63)
Viktor says he’d like them to get engaged when all this is over. She never replies. He talks to her of Romania, describes his village and how they celebrate their main feast day with sack races and an enormous sweet-and-sour stew in the square. Renée would like to hate him; she knows it’s her duty to hate him. But hate is too much like love: Neither of them is a matter of choice.
*
Night falls in Auschwitz. Trains continue to arrive in the darkness, depositing more disoriented innocents who tremble like leaves, and the red glow of the chimneys marks out the ovens that never stop. The inmates of the family camp try to sleep on their flea-infested mattresses and to overcome their fear-inspired insomnia. Every night gained is a small victory.
In the morning, another round of face-washing in the metal troughs, and the immodest lowering of underwear and hiking of dresses to perform bodily functions along with three hundred other people. Then the painfully slow head count on another freezing day. The cold ground turns their clogs into shoes of ice. The guards leave the camp, their lists dotted with crosses beside the names of those who have not survived the night. Finally, Fredy Hirsch closes the barrack door and raises an eyebrow. The children raucously break ranks and go to their stools, a few teachers stop by the library, and a new day begins in Block 31.
What Dita craves is the lunchtime soup. It’s comforting. And more to the point, it marks the start of the afternoon when she can share again the adventures of that spendthrift soldier who’s always putting his foot in it and who has become her friend. One of the Austrian officers in charge of ?vejk’s battalion is a brute called Dauerling. His superiors value him because he treats his soldiers severely, even hitting them at times.
Reading is a pleasure.
But there are always people ready to spoil any party. Busybody Mrs. Nasty, unmistakable with her dirty bun and display of wobbling skin, leans into Dita’s refuge. She’s with another teacher who has tiny, almost microscopic eyes.
The two women plant themselves in front of Dita, scowl, and order her to show them what she is reading. She holds out the sheets of paper and one of them grabs the book. The pages come loose and the worn threads that hold them to the spine are on the verge of breaking. Dita makes a face, but she bites her tongue.
As the teacher reads, her eyes widen more and more. The loose skin under her chin wobbles with indignation. Dita fights the urge to smile at the thought that Mrs. Nasty’s expression is no different from that of some of the officers in ?vejk’s regiment at some of his witty remarks.
“This is unacceptable and indecent! No girl your age should read this perverse material. There are inadmissible blasphemies in here.”
Just then, the two deputy directors and the teachers’ immediate superiors, Lichtenstern and Miriam Edelstein, emerge from of Hirsch’s cubicle. Mrs. K?i?ková gives a satisfied smile at this display of authority and signals them to come over to her immediately.
“Look here, this is supposed to be a school, no matter how dirty it is. As deputy directors, you can’t allow our young people to read vulgar pulp novels like this. The worst blasphemies I’ve heard in my life are contained in this book.”
To emphasize her comments, she asks them to listen to an example of lack of respect for the church hierarchy and the foul things said about a priest and a minister of God:
He’s as drunk as a skunk. But he has the rank of captain. No matter what their rank, God has given all these military chaplains the gift of always being able to fill themselves with drink to the point of bursting. I was once with a priest called Katz who was almost prepared to sell his soul for a drink. As it was, he sold a sacred container and we drank every last cent he got for it; and if someone had given us a little something for the Church, we would have spent that on drink as well.
Mrs. K?i?ková slams the book shut when she realizes that Lichtenstern is making a huge effort to stop himself from laughing. Dita keeps an eye on the harm being done to the book’s pages, which are on the verge of coming away from the spine. K?i?ková asserts that this is a very serious matter and demands that the book be banned. She continues to wave the pages in the air and again questions what sort of values they are inculcating in their youth if they allow them to read such books.
Dita, tired of seeing her wave the book back and forth like a fly swatter, jumps up, plants herself in front of the teacher even though she is fifteen centimeters shorter, and asks her most politely, but with steel in her voice, if she would let her have the book for a moment “… please.” And she emphasizes the please so forcefully that it sounds as if she’s hitting the older woman over the head with it. The teacher, caught unawares, holds out the mistreated pages with an offended look.
Dita takes the book with care, adjusts the loose sheets, and reinserts the dangling pages. She takes her time, and the others, intrigued, watch how she smooths the sheets and mends the book as if she were dealing with a war wound. Her hands and gaze show so such respect and care for the old book that not even the indignant teacher dares say a word.
Eventually, when everything is back in its place, Dita carefully opens the book and addresses herself to the circumspect Lichtenstern and Miriam Edelstein, who has a neutral look on her face. She says that it’s true this book contains tales like the ones the teacher has read. But it also tells stories like the following one. And then it’s her turn to read:
The last resort for those who didn’t want to go to the front line was military prison. I met a teacher who, as a mathematician, didn’t want to go and shoot in an artillery regiment. He stole an officer’s watch so they’d put him in prison. It was entirely premeditated. War neither impressed nor fascinated him. He believed that shooting at the enemy, and firing projectiles and grenades to kill the math teachers on the other side who were just as unfortunate as him, was colossal stupidity, an act of brutality.