The Librarian of Auschwitz(79)
Dita makes an effort to help file down the tips of the girls’ spoons on a stone. Those whose spoons are done use them to sharpen the ends of splinters of wood into points. Sometimes the splinters have knots in them and can’t be used; at other times, the point snaps off and the process begins again. After a tiring hour’s work, the girls have splinters with sharp tips. Then Miriam carefully sets fire to some wood shavings in a saucepan, and scorches the ends of the splinters. Each splinter becomes a crude, sooty pencil with which the children can write three or four words. Paper is a scarce commodity, too, and Lichtenstern acquires it, a scrap at a time, by telling the Nazis he has to prepare lists.
Miriam dictates a few words to the girls, which they painstakingly write down. Dita stands to one side to watch them kneeling on the floor and using the stools as desks. It might all be very basic, but the girls work hard at their handwriting. The librarian picks up one of the pencil-splinters and a piece of paper. She hasn’t drawn for a long time, and her fingers fly over the paper, but the sooty tip wears out very quickly. Miriam Edelstein leans over Dita’s shoulder to have a look. She sees some vertical lines and a circle—that’s all the pencil was good for—but despite that, her eyes open wide in recognition.
“Prague’s astronomical clock,” she says wistfully.
“You recognized it.…”
“I’d recognize it even if it were at the bottom of the sea. For me, it represents the Prague of clockmakers and artisans.”
“Everyday life.”
“Life, yes.”
Dita feels the deputy director’s hand putting something inside the top of her woolen sock, and then, as if nothing had happened, they go back to correcting the girls’ work. When Dita touches her leg, she notices a small bump. It’s a real lead pencil. It’s the best present she’s been given in years. And it’s because of acts like this that everyone now calls Miriam Edelstein Aunt Miriam.
Dita spends the rest of the afternoon working busily on her drawing of Prague’s astronomical clock, with its skeleton, its rooster, its zodiac spheres, its patriarchs, and its leaning gargoyles. Several children have discovered that she’s drawing and come over to watch. Not all of them are from Prague, and some of those who were born there don’t even remember their city. Dita patiently explains that a skeleton rings a bell on the hour and then the figures begin to file out of one door and into another.
When her drawing is done, she carefully folds it and goes over to Arieh, Miriam’s son, who’s holding hands with some other boys and playing a game of semaphores. She puts the piece of paper in his pocket and tells him it’s a present for his mother.
Since she needs to keep herself occupied with something, she takes time to reglue Freud’s essay, which was out on loan and has returned with some of the spine unstuck. She also runs her hands over the pages, smoothing them down one by one after the hard day they’ve had.
*
SS First Officer Viktor Pestek is also happy as he brushes and then messes up Renée Neumann’s curls.
Renée lets him do it. She doesn’t allow him to kiss her or come any closer. But when Viktor begged her to let him brush her hair, she either couldn’t or didn’t know how to refuse him, or maybe she didn’t want to.
He’s a Nazi, a repressor, a criminal … but he treats her with a respect that’s hard to find among her own companions in the camp. At night, Renée has to sleep with her bowl under her arm or tied to her foot because robberies are frequent. There are women who sell their own bodies, and informers. There are also some very upright, staid, religious people who insult her and call her a slut for giving her mother a piece of fruit that was a present from an SS officer.
By contrast, the time she spends with Viktor is a moment of calm. Viktor—who does most of the talking while she listens—has told her that he worked on a farm before the war. She pictures him carrying bales of hay. If this damned war hadn’t broken out, he’d probably be an ordinary, honest, hardworking boy like any other. Who knows, she might even have fallen in love with him.
But this particular afternoon, Viktor is much more nervous than usual. He brings her a present each time they meet. He’s learned his lesson—this time he brings her a sausage wrapped up in paper. But the present he wants to offer her is something else.
“A plan, Renée.”
She looks at him.
“I have a plan for us to get away from here, get married, and start a new life together.”
She doesn’t say a word.
“I have it all worked out. We’ll walk out through the gate without raising any suspicions.”
“You’re mad…”
“No, no. You’ll be wearing an SS uniform. It will be after night has fallen. I’ll give the password, and we’ll calmly walk out. You mustn’t say a word, of course. We’ll catch a train and go to Prague. I’ve got a contact in that city. I’ve made some friends among the prisoners; they know I’m not like the other SS guards. We’ll get some forged documents and head to Romania. And we’ll wait there for the war to end.”
Renée looks carefully at this thin, rather short, somewhat awkward guard with his black hair and blue eyes.
“You’d do that for me?”
“I’d do anything for you, Renée. Will you come with me?”