by John Boyne
'I have a new friend,' he began. 'A new friend that I go to see every day. And he'll be waiting for me now. But you can't tell anyone.'
'Why not?'
'Because he's an imaginary friend,' said Bruno, trying his best to look embarrassed, just like Lieutenant Kotler had when he had become trapped in his story about his father in Switzerland. 'We play together every day.'
Gretel opened her mouth and stared at him before breaking into a laugh. 'An imaginary friend!' she cried. 'Aren't you a little old for an imaginary friend?'
Bruno tried to look ashamed and embarrassed in order to make his story more convincing. He squirmed on the bed and didn't look her in the eye, which worked a treat and made him think that perhaps he wasn't such a bad actor after all. He wished that he could make himself go red, but it was difficult to do that so he thought of embarrassing things that had happened to him over the years and wondered whether these would do the trick.
He thought of the time he had forgotten to lock the bathroom door and Grandmother had walked in and seen everything. He thought of the time he had put his hand up in class and called the teacher 'Mother' and everyone had laughed at him. He thought of the time he'd fallen off his bicycle in front of a group of girls when he was trying to do a special trick and cut his knee and cried.
One of them worked and his face started to go red.
'Look at you,' said Gretel, confirming it. 'You've gone all red.'
'Because I didn't want to tell you,' said Bruno.
'An imaginary friend. Honestly, Bruno, you're a hopeless case.'
Bruno smiled because he knew two things. The first was that he had got away with his lie and the second was that if anyone was the Hopeless Case around here, it wasn't him.
'Leave me alone,' he said. 'I want to read my book.'
'Well, why don't you lie down and close your eyes and let your imaginary friend read it to you?' said Gretel, delighted with herself now because she had something on him and she wasn't going to let it drop in a hurry. 'Save you a job.'
'Maybe I should send him to throw all your dolls out of your window,' he said.
'You do and there'll be trouble,' said Gretel, and he knew that she meant it. 'Well, tell me this, Bruno. What do you and this imaginary friend of yours do together that makes him so special?'
Bruno thought about it. He realized that he actually wanted to talk about Shmuel a little bit and that this might be a way to do it without having to tell her the truth about his existence.
'We talk about everything,' he told her. I tell him about our house back in Berlin and all the other houses and the streets and the fruit and vegetable stalls and the cafes, and how you shouldn't go into town on a Saturday afternoon unless you want to get pushed from pillar to post, and about Karl and Daniel and Martin and how they were my three best friends for life.'
'How interesting,' said Gretel sarcastically because she had recently had a birthday and turned thirteen and thought that sarcasm was the very height of sophistication. 'And what does he tell you?'
'He tells me about his family and the watch shop that he used to live over and the adventures he had coming here and the friends he used to have and the people he knows here and about the boys who he used to play with but he doesn't any more because they disappeared without even saying goodbye to him.'
'He sounds like a barrel of laughs,' said Gretel. 'I wish he was my imaginary friend.'
'And yesterday he told me that his grandfather hasn't been seen for days and no one knows where he is and whenever he asks his father about him he starts crying and hugs him so hard that he's worried he's going to squeeze him to death.'
Bruno got to the end of his sentence and realized that his voice had gone very quiet. These were things that Shmuel had told him, but for some reason he hadn't really understood at the time how sad that must have made his friend. When Bruno said them out loud himself he felt terrible that he hadn't tried to say anything to cheer Shmuel up and instead had started talking about something silly, like exploring. I'll say sorry for that tomorrow, he told himself.
'If Father knew you were talking to imaginary friends, you'd be in for it,' said Gretel. 'I think you should stop.'
'Why?' asked Bruno.
'Because it's not healthy,' she said. 'It's the first sign of madness.'
Bruno nodded. 'I don't think I can stop,' he said after a very long pause. 'I don't think I want to.'
'Well, all the same,' said Gretel, who was becoming friendlier and friendlier by the second, 'I'd keep it to myself if I were you.'
'Well,' said Bruno, trying to look sad, 'you're probably right. You won't tell anyone, will you?'
She shook her head. 'No one. Except my own imaginary friend.'
Bruno gasped. 'Do you have one?' he asked, picturing her at another part of the fence, talking to a girl her own age, the two of them being sarcastic together for hours at a time.
'No,' she said, laughing. 'I'm thirteen years old, for heaven's sake! I can't afford to act like a child even if you can.'
And with that she flounced out of the room, and Bruno could hear her talking to her dolls in the room across the hall and scolding them for getting themselves into such a mess while her back was turned that she had no choice but to rearrange them and did they think she had nothing better to do with her time?
'Some people!' she said loudly, before getting down to work.
Bruno tried to return to his book, but he'd lost interest in it for now and stared out at the rain instead and wondered whether Shmuel, wherever he was, was thinking about him too and missing their conversations as much as he was.
Chapter Fifteen
Something He Shouldn't Have Done
For several weeks the rain was on and off and on and off and Bruno and Shmuel did not see as much of each other as they would have liked. When they did meet Bruno found that he was starting to worry about his friend because he seemed to be getting even thinner by the day and his face was growing more and more grey. Sometimes he brought more bread and cheese with him to give to Shmuel, and from time to time he even managed to hide a piece of chocolate cake in his pocket, but the walk from the house to the place in the fence where the two boys met was a long one and sometimes Bruno got hungry on the way and found that one bite of the cake would lead to another, and that in turn led to another, and by the time there was only one mouthful left he knew it would be wrong to give that to Shmuel because it would only tease his appetite and not satisfy it.
Father's birthday was coming up soon, and although he said he didn't want a fuss, Mother arranged a party for all the officers serving at Out-With and a great fuss was made to prepare for it. Every time she sat down to make more plans for the party, Lieutenant Kotler was there beside her to help, and between them they seemed to make more lists than could ever possibly be needed.
Bruno decided to make a list of his own. A list of all the reasons why he didn't like Lieutenant Kotler.
There was the fact that he never smiled and always looked as if he was trying to find somebody to cut out of his will.
On the rare occasions when he spoke to Bruno, he addressed him as 'little man', which was just plain nasty because, as Mother pointed out, he just hadn't had his growth spurt yet.
Not to mention the fact that he was always in the living room with Mother and making jokes with her, and Mother laughed at his jokes more than she laughed at Father's.
Once when Bruno was watching the camp from his bedroom window he saw a dog approach the fence and start barking loudly, and when Lieutenant Kotler heard it he marched right over to the dog and shot it. Then there was all that nonsense that Gretel came out with whenever he was around.
And Bruno still hadn't forgotten the evening with Pavel, the waiter who was really a doctor, and how angry the young lieutenant had been.
Also, whenever Father was called away to Berlin on an overnight trip the lieutenant hung around the house as if he were in charge: he would be there when Bruno was going to bed and be back ag
ain in the morning before he even woke up.
There were a lot more reasons why Bruno didn't like Lieutenant Kotler, but these were the first things that came into his mind.
On the afternoon before the birthday party Bruno was in his room with the door open when he heard Lieutenant Kotler arriving at the house and speaking to someone, although he couldn't hear anyone answering back. A few minutes later, as he was coming downstairs, he heard Mother giving instructions about what needed to be done and Lieutenant Kotler saying, 'Don't worry, this one knows which side his bread is buttered on,' and then laughing in a nasty way.
Bruno walked towards the living room with a new book Father had given him called Treasure Island, intending to sit in there for an hour or two while he read it, but as he walked through the hallway he ran into Lieutenant Kotler, who was just leaving the kitchen.
'Hello, little man,' the soldier said, sneering at him as usual.
'Hello,' said Bruno, frowning.
'What are you up to then?'
Bruno stared at him and started thinking of seven more reasons to dislike him. 'I'm going in there to read my book,' he said, pointing towards the living room.
Without a word Kotler whipped the book out of Bruno's hands and started to flick through it. 'Treasure Island,' he said. 'What's it about then?'
'Well, there's an island,' said Bruno slowly, to make sure that the soldier could keep up. 'And there's treasure on it.'
'I could have guessed that,' said Kotler, looking at him as if there were things he would do to the boy if he were a son of his and not the son of the Commandant. 'Tell me something I don't know about it.'
'There's a pirate in it,' said Bruno. 'Called Long John Silver. And a boy called Jim Hawkins.' 'An English boy?' asked Kotler. 'Yes,' said Bruno. 'Grunt,' grunted Kotler.
Bruno stared at him and wondered how long it would be before he gave back his book. He didn't seem particularly interested in it, but when Bruno reached for it he pulled it away.
'Sorry,' he said, holding it out again, and when Bruno reached for it he pulled it away for the second time. 'Oh, I'm so sorry,' he repeated and held it out once more, and this time Bruno swiped it out of his hand quicker than he could pull it away.
'Aren't you quick,' muttered Lieutenant Kotler between his teeth.
Bruno tried to step past him, but for some reason Lieutenant Kotler seemed to want to talk to him today.
'All set for the party, are we?' he asked.
'Well, I am,' said Bruno, who had been spending more time with Gretel lately and had developed a liking for sarcasm. I can't speak for you.'
'There'll be a lot of people here,' said Lieutenant Kotler, breathing in heavily and looking around as if this were his house and not Bruno's. 'We'll be on your best behaviour, won't we?'
'Well, I'll be,' said Bruno. 'I can't speak for you.'
'You've a lot to say for such a little man,' said Lieutenant Kotler.
Bruno narrowed his eyes and wished he were taller, stronger and eight years older. A ball of anger exploded inside him and made him wish that he had the courage to say exactly what he wanted to say. It was one thing, he decided, to be told what to do by Mother and Father-that was perfectly reasonable and to be expected-but it was another thing entirely to be told what to do by someone else. Even by someone with a fancy title like 'Lieutenant'.
'Oh, Kurt, precious, you're still here,' said Mother, stepping out of the kitchen and coming towards them. 'I have a little free time now if- Oh!' she said, noticing Bruno standing there, 'Bruno! What are you doing here?'
'I was going into the living room to read my book,' said Bruno. 'Or I was trying to at least.'
'Well, run along into the kitchen for the moment,' she said. 'I need a private word with Lieutenant Kotler.'
And they stepped into the living room together as Lieutenant Kotler closed the doors in Bruno's face.
Seething with anger, Bruno went into the kitchen and got the biggest surprise of his life. There, sitting at the table, a long way from the other side of the fence, was Shmuel. Bruno could barely believe his eyes.
'Shmuel!' he said. 'What are you doing here?'
Shmuel looked up and his terrified face broke into a broad smile when he saw his friend standing there. 'Bruno!' he said.
'What are you doing here?' repeated Bruno, for although he still didn't quite understand what took place on the other side of the fence, there was something about the people from there that made him think they shouldn't be here in his house.
'He brought me,' said Shmuel.
'He?' asked Bruno. 'You don't mean Lieutenant Kotler?'
'Yes. He said there was a job for me to do here.'
And when Bruno looked down he saw sixty-four small glasses, the ones Mother used when she was having one of her medicinal sherries, sitting on the kitchen table, and beside them a bowl of warm soapy water and lots of paper napkins.
'What on earth are you doing?' asked Bruno.
'They asked me to polish the glasses,' said Shmuel. 'They said they needed someone with tiny fingers.'
As if to prove something that Bruno already knew, he held his hand out and Bruno couldn't help but notice that it was like the hand of the pretend skeleton that Herr Liszt had brought with him one day when they were studying human anatomy.
'I'd never noticed before,' he said in a disbelieving voice, almost to himself.
'Never noticed what?' asked Shmuel.
In reply, Bruno held his own hand out so that the tips of their middle fingers were almost touching. 'Our hands,' he said. 'They're so different. Look!'
The two boys looked down at the same time and the difference was easy to see. Although Bruno was small for his age, and certainly not fat, his hand appeared healthy and full of life. The veins weren't visible through the skin, the fingers weren't little more than dying twigs. Shmuel's hand, however, told a very different story
'How did it get like that?' he asked.
'I don't know,' said Shmuel. 'It used to look more like yours, but I didn't notice it changing. Everyone on my side of the fence looks like this now.'
Bruno frowned. He thought about the people in their striped pyjamas and wondered what was going on at Out-With and whether it wasn't a very bad idea if it made people look so unhealthy. None of it made any sense to him. Not wanting to look at Shmuel's hand any longer, Bruno turned round and opened the refrigerator, rooting about inside it for something to eat. There was half a stuffed chicken left over from lunch time, and Bruno's eyes sparkled in delight for there were very few things in life that he enjoyed more than cold chicken with sage and onion stuffing. He took a knife from the drawer and cut himself a few healthy slices and coated them with the stuffing before turning back to his friend.
'I'm very glad you're here,' he said, speaking with his mouth full. 'If only you didn't have to polish the glasses, I could show you my room.'
'He told me not to move from this seat or there'd be trouble.'
'I wouldn't mind him,' said Bruno, trying to sound braver than he really was. 'This isn't his house, it's mine, and when Father's away I'm in charge. Can you believe he's never even read Treasure Island}'
Shmuel looked as if he wasn't really listening; instead his eyes were focused on the slices of chicken and stuffing that Bruno was throwing casually into his mouth. After a moment Bruno realized what he was looking at and immediately felt guilty.
Tm sorry, Shmuel,' he said quickly. 'I should have given you some chicken too. Are you hungry?'
'That's a question you never have to ask me,' said Shmuel who, although he had never met Gretel in his life, knew something about sarcasm too.
'Wait there, I'll cut some off for you,' said Bruno, opening the fridge and cutting another three healthy slices.
'No, if he comes back-' said Shmuel, shaking his head quickly and looking back and forth towards the door.
'If who comes back? You don't mean Lieutenant Kotler?'
'I'm just supposed to be cleaning the glasses,' he said, loo
king at the bowl of water in front of him in despair and then looking back at the slices of chicken that Bruno held out to him.
'He's not going to mind,' said Bruno, who was confused by how anxious Shmuel seemed. 'It's only food.'
'I can't,' said Shmuel, shaking his head and looking as if he was going to cry. 'He'll come back, I know he will,' he continued, his sentences running quickly together. 'I should have eaten them when you offered them, now it's too late, if I take them he'll come in and-'
'Shmuel! Here!' said Bruno, stepping forward and putting the slices in his friend's hand. 'Just eat them. There's lots left for our tea-you don't have to worry about that.'
The boy stared at the food in his hand for a moment and then looked up at Bruno with wide and grateful but terrified eyes. He threw one more glance in the direction of the door and then seemed to make a decision, because he thrust all three slices into his mouth in one go and gobbled them down in twenty seconds flat.
'Well, you don't have to eat them so quickly,' said Bruno. 'You'll make yourself sick.'
I don't care,' said Shmuel, giving a faint smile. 'Thank you, Bruno.'
Bruno smiled back and he was about to offer him some more food, but just at that moment Lieutenant Kotler reappeared in the kitchen and stopped when he saw the two boys talking. Bruno stared at him, feeling the atmosphere grow heavy, sensing Shmuel's shoulders sinking down as he reached for another glass and began polishing. Ignoring Bruno, Lieutenant Kotler marched over to Shmuel and glared at him.
'What are you doing?' he shouted. 'Didn't I tell you to polish those glasses?'
Shmuel nodded his head quickly and started to tremble a little as he picked up another napkin and dipped it in the water.
'Who told you that you were allowed to talk in this house?' continued Kotler. 'Do you dare to disobey me?'
'No, sir,' said Shmuel quietly. 'I'm sorry, sir.'
He looked up at Lieutenant Kotler, who frowned, leaning forward slightly and tilting his head as he examined the boy's face. 'Have you been eating?' he asked him in a quiet voice, as if he could scarcely believe it himself.