The Librarian of Auschwitz(80)

There’s no doubt that love and madness have some common features.

Renée sighs. To get out of Auschwitz is the dream of each and every one of the thousands of prisoners caught between the fences and the crematoriums. She looks up, tugs on one of her curls and nibbles at it.

“No.”

“But you mustn’t be scared. It will work. It will be one of the days when some of my friends are on duty. There’ll be no hitch—it will be easy.… Staying here is just waiting for your turn to die.”

“I can’t leave my mother here by herself.”

“But Renée, we’re young—she’ll understand. We have a life in front of us.”

“I’m not going to leave my mother. There’s nothing more to discuss. Don’t insist.”

“Renée—”

“I’ve told you there’s nothing more to discuss. It doesn’t matter what you say, I won’t change my mind.”

Pestek thinks for a moment. He’s never been a pessimist.

“Then we’ll get your mother out as well.”

Renée starts to get annoyed. It all sounds like a lot of hot air, something entertaining that she doesn’t find the least bit amusing. There’s no risk for Pestek, but there certainly is for herself and her mother. They’re in no position to go around playing games about getting out of Auschwitz, as if it were a cinema where, if you got tired of the movie, you could just get up from your seat and leave.

“For us, being in here isn’t a game, Viktor. My father died of typhus, and my cousin and his wife were killed with the rest of the September transport. Forget it. This escape game isn’t funny.”

“Do you think I’m joking? You still don’t know me. If I say I’m going to get you and your mother out of here, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

“That’s impossible, and you know it. She’s a tiny fifty-two-year-old woman with rheumatism. Are you going to dress her up as an SS guard?”

“We’ll modify the plan. Let me work on it.”

Renée looks at him and doesn’t know what to think. Is there even the remotest possibility that Viktor is capable of getting the two women out of there alive? And if they got out, what would happen after that? Would two Jewish women escapees from Auschwitz and a traitor be able to hide themselves from the Nazis? And even if they could … would she link her life to that of a Nazi, even if he was a deserter? Does she want to spend the rest of her life with someone who, up till now, has not been troubled when it’s time to take hundreds of innocent people to their death?

Too many questions.

Once again, she falls silent. She limits herself to not saying anything, and Pestek understands her silence as acceptance, because that’s what he wants to believe.

*

It finally stopped raining, so Dita took advantage of the soup break to try and find the man from the Resistance. But the earth, which had become a sticky, muddy quagmire, seemed to have swallowed him up. She was circling the workshop when the prisoners had their break, but she didn’t come across him.

Now, sitting on her bench, she carefully smooths out the wrinkles in the French novel, which is missing its front and back covers, and applies some glue to its spine. The glue comes from Margit, who secretly removed it from the workshop to which she’s assigned, where they make military boots. Dita wants to do a thorough repair job on the book before she lends it to the only person who ever asks for it, a teacher with a somewhat sour disposition called Markéta. She has straight hair that is too gray for her age, and her arms are like sticks. They say she was governess to the children of a government minister before the war. She teaches one of the groups of nine-year-old girls, and Dita occasionally overhears her teaching a few words of French to her pupils, who are very attentive because she’s always telling them that it’s the language spoken by elegant young ladies. To Dita, the musical words sound like a language invented by troubadours.

Although Dita found Markéta somewhat distant and not interested in conversation, the teacher had asked Dita for the novel so many times that one day, Dita asked her if she knew the book. Markéta looked her up and down in utter amazement.

Thanks to Markéta, Dita was able to catalogue the book formally by its title and author, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. The teacher also told her that it was a famous book in France.

Today, Markéta asked her if she could have the book for a while, so once Dita has finished fixing it, she goes over to the stool where the teacher is sitting by herself, sunk in her thoughts. Markéta rarely talks to anyone, but Dita has given some consideration as to how she can approach her, and now is the time. The hut is quiet because Avi Fischer’s choir is having a rehearsal down the back, and they’ve driven everyone else away with their warbling. Without waiting to be invited, Dita plonks herself down on the neighboring stool.

“I’d like to know what this book is about. Would you tell me?”

If the teacher tells her to get lost, she’ll get up and walk away. But Markéta gives her a look and, against all the odds, doesn’t send her away. Rather, she seems glad of Dita’s company. And what’s even more surprising is that this woman of few words begins to tell her the story with unexpected warmth.

“The Count of Monte Cristo…”