Chapter 6
A week passed. Then a month. Maria tended to Bruno well enough, and Bruno began to regain some of the vitality he had had when he was just a child.
He didn't consider himself a child. Not after what he had seen in Auschwitz. And he had seen plenty of things, mind you. Murder, starvation, men huddled in a pool of their own vomit.
He remembered a boy, around nine years old, in his third year at Auschwitz. He had been very tiny, very unhealthy. The soldier had called everyone out into the cold to run. Within a few minutes, the child had grown tired, his breathing labored. The soldiers had kept shouting "Faster!", but the child just couldn't run anymore. Since he couldn't run, the soldiers saw him as a waste, and when everyone had gone to their quarters, a shot rang through the air. That one shot had haunted Bruno for a while.
Whenever he remembered things like these, Bruno always pushed these memories away. As the weeks went by, he tried hard to move on. He couldn't dwell on it forever. He wanted to be free, and he couldn't if he was still in the camp in his mind.
He focused on gaining more weight and getting healthy. This was mostly for Maria, who always treated him as if he were going to snap at the slightest touch.
"You need some weight on you Bruno; it would do you well," she was always insisting, to which he always responded, "Not if I gain too much. You wouldn't want me to roll down the stairs, would you?"
Maria always laughed at that. Bruno loved it when she laughed. It reminded him of Berlin and made him feel like everything was going to be okay. Maria was like a grandmother to him now. He remembered his other grandmother, but she had passed away, and he couldn't much remember her laugh. The only thing he could remember very well about her was her love for theatre and her argument with his father.
Bruno always asked Maria when his father was coming. She simply responded, "Soon."
He wanted to see his father, but was always worried it wasn't for the right reasons. As the days went by, he continually found himself thinking of the argument he would say to his father, the questions he would ask, the responses to his responses. They always were about Auschwitz. It always started with, "How could you not know your own son was at Auschwitz?" His father was always speechless of course, to which he would then add a very dramatic speech about not knowing and suffering and you should have tried to find me. Then his father would say he did try to find him, and Bruno would make a very snappy, witty retort.
Normally, after these little episodes, Bruno would shake his head and feel ashamed, and then feel angry because it wasn't his fault his father was an incompetent fool. Whenever this thought pushed into his mind, which was quite often, Bruno fought it back and found himself slamming doors, partly in anger towards himself, and partly in anger towards his father.
However mad he was at his father, Bruno always tried to find a reason to forgive him. It was his father after all. Maybe his father didn't know it was wrong.
But Bruno knew that his father would never allow that to happen to Gretel or him. So why would he allow it to happen to those children and fathers and grandfathers?
Maybe he didn't think it was wrong to do it to those people, Bruno would think to himself. To which he would then respond, Animals are less than people, and from what I see, they are treated better than we were in Auschwitz.
Bruno began to face his reencounter with his father with apprehension. What if his father had known? What if his father had let it happen to punish him?
When this thought circulated in his mind, Bruno thought back on his life before Auschwitz, and try to find something, anything that might have been justification to allow Bruno to go missing for so long.
Bruno knew it was mostly his fault for sneaking out and exploring the grounds. But they could have made an effort.
Bruno often found himself lying wide awake at night pondering his life and what things may have been like if he hadn't met Shmuel, if he hadn't decided to 'explore'.
After many sleepless nights, he came to the conclusion that he would have been as ignorant and narrow-minded as his father and Kotler.
He decided one day that he'd tell Maria what he thought.
"Maria," he called.
"I'm in you father's study," she called back.
"Maria," began Bruno when he entered, "can I talk to you?"
Maria set down her dusting cloth and smiled at him. "Sure, Bruno. What ails you?"
Bruno told her almost everything, from start to finish. He told her about Auschwitz, about Kotler, about how he was scared to meet his family, his father most of all. He still couldn't tell her about Shmuel. He wasn't ready. Maria listened attentively, and never interrupted.
When he finished, Maria remained silent for quite sometime.
When she spoke, she said, "I once had a fight with a good friend of mine."
Bruno, confused as to the relevancy of this information, remained silent.
"A certain friend of ours," she continued, "told her that I had spread a dreadful rumor. We fought out in the snow like a pair of wild hounds," she said with a laugh, "until one of our friends finally told us what happened."
With a sigh, Maria sat down in the armchair facing the window. "It turned out that it had been spread by a friend of ours who had been upset," Maria said, scratching her head. "I don't even remember why anymore."
Bruno was silent for a moment. "I don't get it," he said bluntly.
"The point is, Bruno," Maria said patiently, "That my friend fought me because she had believed what she had been told was true."
Bruno blinked. Maria smiled and said, "Your father was a victim of false information. He was told something that sounded true, and got caught up in the moment."
"So he believed that killing innocent children and families would help Germany?" Bruno struggled to hide the contempt and resentment in his voice.
"Yes. Bruno," Maria implored when she caught his expression, "your father did what he thought was right by his country. He was caught up in a whirlwind of patriotism."
"And we suffered for it," said Bruno quietly.
"Bruno –"
"He killed people," Bruno said, fighting back tears, because (and bruno always tried to be honest with himself) he didn't want to look like a child.
"Bruno," Maria began, but Bruno was too overwhelmed by emotions to let her finish.
"I spent six years living off bread crumbs and water with rat shit floating in it! He could have stopped it, you know," yelled Bruno, knowing he was going to regret yelling at Maria, but not quite caring at the moment. He was too angry; too hurt. "He could have done more. Sent in better food, clean blankets. But he was too busy 'caught up in a whirlwind of patriotism.' Fuck his patriotism!" Bruno kicked the oak desk. He began pulling out books and throwing them on the floor.
"Fuck Germany!"
BANG!
"Fuck Kotler!"
BANG!
"FUCK AUSCHWITZ!"
SLAM! Bruno had cleared off a series of shelves, and moved to the next book case.
"Six damn years – " Bruno grunted with effort as he swung another row of books off a shelf.
"-Not fair –"
THUMP!
"Shit!"
"BRUNO!" shouted Maria, "Such language!"
"I'm entitled! I want to know, " Bruno said, after he had caught his breath. "Why didn't he find me?"
"Bruno, he didn't know where you went," Maria said softly.
"Why?" Bruno's voice had reached a hysterical pitch.
"He didn't expect you to be there."
"'He didn't expect me to be there,'" mocked Bruno. "What – what? Did he think his son too German to get lost in Auschwitz?"
Maria simply watched him.
" Why couldn't he find me? " Bruno insisted, his voice getting louder.
"Bruno, this isn't good for you. Calm down." Maria stood. Her eyes were frightened.
"Calm down? Calm down? I wasted six years of my life, Maria! Six years! I thought mothers were supposed to know where their children were! What happened to that?"
"Bruno, no one could have guessed –"
"Gretel did!" Bruno's voice had risen once more. "Gretel did! How come she could and those idiots couldn't?"
"Bruno," Maria said soothingly, "your parents may not have been the smartest, but I know they love you very much. They would never hurt you."
"Maria," sobbed Bruno, "I can't remember them. I can't remember them at all. It's like, like my memory was wiped clean. Nine years worth of memory," he said, more to himself then to Maria, "gone in six."
"You remember them. You just need something to trigger the memory. You've had a lot on your mind," Maria said gently. Bruno knelt to pick up the books he had thrown on the floor. Maria joined to help him, but he shooed her away.
"It's my mess," he muttered. "My fault. I'll put them back."
Maria sighed and ruffled his hair. "Bruno, it's okay to cry, you know."
He sniffled indignantly and said, "Big men don't cry, they tear."
At this, Maria laughed sadly and said, "Pardon. They tear."