The Librarian of Auschwitz(76)
Lichtenstern gestures to one of the assistants to go and stand guard at the door, and Dita sits on a stool in the middle of the hut. The odd child looks at her with halfhearted curiosity, but most of them continue to examine the tips of their clogs. She opens the book, finds a page and starts to read. Maybe they can hear her, but no one is listening. The children are listless; many of them are lying on the floor. The teachers continue to whisper among themselves, chewing over what they know about the deaths of the September group. Even Lichtenstern is sitting on a stool, his eyes closed in an attempt to distance himself.
Dita is reading for nobody.
She begins with a scene in which the Czech soldiers, under orders from the Austrian high command, are traveling by train to the front, and ?vejk’s outrageous opinions manage to irritate an arrogant lieutenant called Dub, who inspects the troops when they reach their destination. He paces back and forth accompanied by his habitual refrain. “Do you know me?” he says. “Well, I’m telling you that you don’t really know me! But when you do know me I’ll reduce you to tears, you idiots!” The lieutenant asks them if they have any brothers, and when they say they do, he shouts that their brothers must be just as stupid as they are.
The sad-faced children are still sitting in their corners, although the odd one has stopped chewing his nails and a few others have even stopped staring at the ceiling and are watching Dita as she continues to toss words into the air. A few of the teachers have also turned their heads toward her, although they haven’t entirely abandoned their conversations. They can’t quite work out what Dita is doing on her stool. Dita goes on reading until the grim-faced lieutenant comes across ?vejk, who’s criticizing a propaganda poster in which an Austrian soldier is using his bayonet to skewer a Russian Cossack to a wall.
“What is it about the poster that you don’t like?” Lieutenant Dub asks him rudely.
“What I don’t like is the careless way in which the soldier is handling his regulation weapon, sir. The bayonet could snap when it hits the wall. Moreover, it’s a fairly useless action, because the Russian already has his hands in the air, so he’s surrendered. He’s now a prisoner, and you have to treat prisoners properly, because they’re people, too.”
“Are you insinuating that you feel sorry for that Russian enemy soldier?” the lieutenant asks maliciously.
“I feel sorry for both of them, sir. The Russian because he’s been bayoneted, and the soldier because they’ll lock him up for what he’s done. He must have broken his bayonet, sir, since the wall is stone and steel is not as strong. While I was finishing my military service, before the war, we had a sublieutenant who used more swear words than a veteran. On the parade ground, he used to shout at us: ‘When I say “attention,” you have to stare straight in front of you the way a cat does when it’s relieving itself.’ But other than that, he was a very sensible person. One time, at Christmas, he went crazy and bought a cartload of coconuts for the whole company. Ever since that day, I know how fragile bayonets are: Half the company snapped their bayonets, one after another, when they tried to open the coconuts, and the sublieutenant had us locked up for three days.”
Some of the children are now paying attention while others who were farther away have moved closer so they can hear better. Some of the teachers are still talking, but others are telling them to be quiet. Dita reads on with gentle determination. The sound of the words and ?vejk’s wisecracks have gradually silenced the muttering.
“They arrested our sublieutenant as well, and I was really sorry because he was a good person apart from his fixation with coconuts…”
Lieutenant Dub glares furiously at the childlike face of the good soldier ?vejk and angrily asks him:
“Do you know me?”
“Yes, sir, I know you.”
Lieutenant Dub’s eyes are popping out of his head. He starts to stamp his feet and roar:
“No, you don’t know me yet.”
And ?vejk answers in his sweet, deliberate way:
“Yes, I know you, sir. You belong to our battalion.”
“I’m telling you that you still don’t know me!” the lieutenant yells again, beside himself. “You may know my good side, but when you get to know my bad side you’ll shake with fright: I’m tough and I make people cry. So, do you, or do you not, know me?”
“Of course I know you, sir.”
“I’m telling you for the last time that you don’t know me, you ass. Do you have any brothers?”
“At your service, sir; I have one.”
At the sight of ?vejk’s guileless face and good-natured expression, the lieutenant becomes furious and shouts even louder:
“So your brother will be an animal just like you; he must be a complete idiot.”
“Yes, sir, a complete idiot.”
“And what does your complete idiot of a brother do?”
“He was a teacher, and when he was called up because of
the war, they made him a lieutenant.”
Lieutenant Dub looks daggers at ?vejk, who’s watching him with a kindhearted look on his face. Red with rage, Dub yells at him to get lost.
Some children laugh. From the back of the hut, Miriam Edelstein peeks out through her fingers. Dita continues to read more unexpected events and adventures of that soldier who, by pretending to be a fool, ridicules war, any war. Miriam looks up at her librarian. That small book with its stories has managed to bring the whole hut together.