Although Richard Keller kept a meticulous eye on the company’s finances, his real passion has always been opera. Some businessmen furrowed their brows when they learned of Mr. Keller’s excessive fondness for warbling. He even took lessons—at his age!
Ota thinks his father is the most serious man in the world, and that’s why he never stops singing, either out loud or sotto voce. When the emissary from the Jewish Council informed half the occupants of his section in Terezín that they were being deported to Auschwitz, some shouted, others cried, and the odd one banged his fists against the wall. His father, however, quietly began to sing the aria from Rigoletto when they kidnap Gilda, and the Duke of Mantua is overcome with grief: “Ella mi fu rapita!… Parmi veder le lagrime.…” His voice was the deepest, the sweetest, of them all. Maybe that was why, little by little, silence descended until only his voice remained.
Mr. Keller gives Ota a wink when he sees him. The old man has lost his business and his house—both requisitioned by the Nazis—along with his dignity as an upper-class citizen. But he hasn’t lost his inner strength or his willingness to crack jokes.
When Ota sees that his father is well and chatting with his fellow workers about that day’s deaths, he heads off toward Block 31. He looks around, and what he sees is sad: emaciated people dressed in rags like beggars. He never thought he’d see his people looking like this, but the more broken they seem to him, the more aware he is of his Jewishness.
He’s left behind the period of his adolescence when he allowed himself to be bewitched by the teachings of Karl Marx, when he believed that internationalization and Communism were the answers to all of history’s problems. There was a moment when he didn’t know exactly where he belonged: He was the son of an upper-class family, he flirted with lounge-room Communism, he was Czech, and he was a Jew. When the Nazis entered Prague and began to round up the Jews, Ota finally realized his place in the world: Blood and a thousand-year tradition tied him so much more to the Jews than to any other group. And if he had any doubt about who he was, the Nazis ensured that he wouldn’t forget it for a single moment of his life by sewing a yellow star on his chest.
That was why he joined the Zionists and became an active member of the hachshara movement, which prepared young people for the aliyah, the return to Palestine. He remembers with pleasure and a touch of melancholy those excursions where there was always someone with a guitar and time to sing songs. In that fraternity, there was something of the primitive spirit he had been looking for—a community of musketeers where it was all for one and one for all.
He began to make up his first tales during those nights around the campfire telling horror stories. In those days, he occasionally bumped into Fredy Hirsch. Fredy struck him as one of those people whose convictions had no chinks. That was why he was so proud to be under his command in Block 31.
These are not good times …
But Ota is an optimist. He has inherited his father’s ironic sense of humor, and he refuses to believe that the Jews aren’t going to get out of this rough patch, given their history of constant setbacks. And in order to get rid of such bad thoughts, he returns to the story he’s going to tell the children, because there must be no end to stories, so that imagination never stops and children continue to dream.
You are what you dream, Ota says to himself.
Ota Keller is twenty-two years old, but his self-assurance makes him seem older. He is telling the children a story he’s told many times before. It’s a story of his own invention, so if he forgets any detail, he just replaces it with another. It’s about a traveling rogue who sells silent flutes, which have no holes because, he says, in this way the magnificent sound they produce will be heard only in heaven.…
“And you wouldn’t believe how many people bought his flutes—until one of his customers was a child.”
When he gets to the end of the story, his listeners stampede toward the door with that sense of urgency typical of childhood. Each minute is lived intensely because right now is everything. Ota watches them rushing off, and he also sees one of the assistants whizzing toward the exit like a rocket, her shoulder-length hair swinging to the rhythm of her steps. The librarian with the long, skinny legs is always running.…
She seems to have the face of an angel, but her energetic way of moving and gesticulating suggests to Ota that if she doesn’t get her way, the devil takes over. He’s noticed that she doesn’t usually speak with the teachers; she hands over the books and picks them up again with a nod of her head, always in a hurry. But then again, he thinks, she might be pretending to be in a hurry in order to cover her shyness.
And Dita has indeed raced out of the hut. She doesn’t want to bump into anyone because she’s got two books hidden under her dress, and that’s highly inflammatory material.
Earlier, when she’d gone to Fredy Hirsch’s cubicle to hide the books in her care, the door was locked. Even though she knocked several times, no one answered. She found Miriam Edelstein in the corner of the hut where the teachers gathered with their stools to chat. Miriam told her that Fredy had been called away without warning by Kommandant Schwarzhuber and had forgotten to leave the key to his cubicle with her. She took Dita aside and quietly asked her what she intended to do with the two books that hadn’t been picked up when morning classes ended.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”
Miriam nodded her agreement and gave her a look that told her to be careful. Dita didn’t provide any further information. That was her right as librarian. The two books she was carrying in her secret pockets would sleep with her that night. It was dangerous, but leaving them in the hut didn’t strike her as a safe alternative.
Almost all the children had dispersed, while the tutors had taken others out behind the hut for sports training. But there was a group of boys and girls of mixed ages still inside the hut listening attentively to Ota Keller. Dita was impressed by the young teacher who knew so much and had such an ironic way of speaking. She was about to stay and listen to what he was telling them—she thought it was something to do with Palestine—but she had a date with a scoundrel by the name of Švejk. She overheard a few of the teacher’s words, however, and was surprised by what he was saying. It wasn’t a class in politics or history, which was his usual fare in the mornings, but a story. And she was struck by the passionate way in which he was telling it. She found it intriguing that such an educated and serious young man could tell stories with so much enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is very important to Dita. She needs to be enthusiastic about things in order to keep going. That’s why she puts her heart and soul into the task of distributing the books—paper ones in the morning, and “living” ones in the afternoon when things are more relaxed. In the case of the “living” books, she’s organized a roster for the teachers who have become talking books.
If she were prudent, the two books that haven’t been placed in the secret hiding spot would remain hidden under her smock until the next morning. But Dita can’t resist the temptation to find out what her friend Švejk is up to, so she goes off to read in the latrines, a barrack with long rows of black, foul-smelling holes.
She makes herself comfortable in an inconspicuous corner. It occurs to her that Švejk and his creator, Jaroslav Hašek, would have found it a most appropriate place in which to read. In the introduction to the second part of his book, Hašek observes that
people who get angry at vulgar expressions are fainthearted, and real life will sneak up on them. In his writings, Eustachius the Monk says of Saint Louis that whenever he heard a man farting loudly, he would start to cry, and prayer was the only thing that would calm him down. There are various people who would like to have transformed the Czech Republic into an enormous salon with parquet floors you could only walk over wearing tails and gloves—a place where the exquisite traditions of the upper crust world would be maintained and where, protected, the wolves of the elite could give themselves over to their worst vices and excesses.
In here, with hundreds of holes fully occupied every morning, poor Saint Louis would be praying nonstop.
When Dita leaves the latrines, she has to walk carefully because the ground is icy.
After she reaches her hut, Dita searches out her mother. Usually she’s a chatterbox, and she tells her mother stories about Block 31 or about the children’s pranks, but this evening she says nothing. Liesl feels the hard outline of the books under Dita’s dress when she hugs her, but she doesn’t say a word, either. Mothers always know more than their children think they do. And in this closed world, news leaps from one bunk to the next like the bedbugs.
Dita thinks she’s protecting her mother by not telling her what she does in Block 31. She doesn’t know that it’s actually the reverse. Liesl understands that, by pretending to be ignorant about Edita’s activities, she allows her daughter to worry less about causing her pain and to feel more tranquil. She won’t be a burden to her teenage daughter.
When Dita asks if she’s been tuning in to Radio Birkenau, Liesl pretends to be angry. “Don’t make fun of Mrs. Turnovská,” she tells Dita. In fact, she’s pleased that Dita is making jokes again. “We were talking about cake recipes. She didn’t know the one with blueberries and grated lemon peel! We’ve had a very pleasant afternoon.”
A very pleasant afternoon in Auschwitz?
Dita wonders if her mother is starting to lose her mind. Maybe that might not be such a bad thing. They’ve been through some very hard days in this horrible month of February.
“There’s still an hour before curfew. Go and visit Margit in her hut!”
Liesl does this often in the evening: throws Dita out of their hut, tells her to go and see her friends, makes sure she doesn’t stay inside surrounded by widows.
As Dita walks toward Barrack 8, she feels the books swaying slightly under her dress. She thinks her mother has shown amazing strength since the death of her husband.
She finds Margit sitting at the foot of a bunk with her mother and her sister Helga, who is two years younger than Margit. She greets the family. Then Margit’s mother, who knows that the teenagers are happier talking about things on their own, says she’s going to find one of her neighbors. Helga stays where she is, but her eyes are drooping and she’s almost asleep. She’s mentally and physically exhausted because she was very unlucky with the job she was given sorting mountains of clothes of the dead people.
Undertaking such hard physical labor with just a liquid drink in the morning, soup at midday, and a piece of bread at night would leave anyone exhausted. Dita, with her habit of giving everyone a nickname, secretly calls Helga Sleeping Beauty, but hasn’t called her that out loud since she realized that Margit didn’t find the nickname the least bit amusing. But in fact it is exactly what she is: an extremely thin, almost emaciated adolescent who falls asleep from exhaustion as soon as she sits down anywhere.
“Your mother has left us on our own.… How considerate she is!” Dita says.
“Mothers know what they have to do,” Margit replies.
“I was thinking about my mother as I was coming over here. You know her. She seems so fainthearted, but she’s so much stronger than I could ever have imagined. Since my father’s death, she’s continued to work in that stinking workshop without a single word of complaint; she hasn’t even caught a cold in that wooden icebox we sleep in.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I once overheard a couple of young women who sleep near us … Do you know what they call my mother and her friends?”
“What?”
“The Old Hens Club.”
“That’s terrible.”
“But they’re right. Sometimes they all begin to speak at once from their bunks and they make a racket like hens in a farmyard.”
Margit smiles. She’s very discreet, and she doesn’t think it’s a good idea to make fun of older people, but she’s also pleased to hear Dita joking again. It’s a good sign.
“And what have you heard about Renée?” Dita asks.
Margit becomes serious. “She’s been avoiding me for days.”
“Meaning what?”
“Well, not just me. As soon as she finishes work, she goes off with her mother and doesn’t speak to anyone.”
“But why?”
“People are gossiping.”
“What do you mean, gossiping? About Renée? Why?”
Margit feels a bit uncomfortable because she can’t find the right words to tell her friend.
“She’s on good terms with an SS officer.”
There are certain lines that can’t be crossed in Auschwitz–Birkenau, and that’s one of them.
“Are you sure it’s not just a rumor? You know people invent all sorts of things.”
“No, Dita. I’ve seen her talking to him. They stand beside the entry guard post because people usually don’t go there. But you can see them perfectly from Barracks One and Three.”
“Do they kiss?”
“Good God, I hope not. I get the shivers just thinking about that.”
“I’d rather kiss a pig.”
Margit doubles over with laughter, and Dita realizes she’s starting to speak like the good soldier Švejk. What’s even worse is that she quite likes the idea.
At that very moment, a few huts away, Renée is removing nits from her mother’s hair. It keeps her hands and her eyes busy but otherwise leaves her free to think.
She already knows that the other women criticize her. She doesn’t think it’s a good thing to accept the friendship of a member of the SS, either, even someone as well-mannered and attentive as Viktor.
Viktor?
Friendly or otherwise, he is a prison guard. Even worse, an executioner. But he behaves himself with her. He gave her the fine-toothed comb with which she’s freeing her mother of the lice. He also brought her a small jar of red currant jam. She and her mother had spread it on their nightly pieces of lumpy bread and enjoyed their dinner for the first time in months. They hadn’t tasted that flavor for such a long time! Vitamin contributions like that can prevent illness and save your life.
Should she be unfriendly to this young SS man who has never asked her for anything in return? Should she reject his gifts and tell him she wants nothing to do with him?
She knows that many of the women who criticize her would take what they could if they were in the same position. They’d take it for their husbands or their children or whoever, but they’d take it. It’s easy to be honorable when people don’t put an open bottle of red currant jam and a slice of bread in front of you.
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 Švejk’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 Švejk’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. Křižková gives a satisfied smile at this display of authority and signals them to come over to her immediately.
The Librarian of Auschwitz Page 19