John Boyne - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

On most days the young lieutenant looked very smart, striding around in a uniform that appeared to have been ironed while he was wearing it. His black boots always sparkled with polish and his yellow-blond hair was parted at the side and held perfectly in place with something that made all the comb marks stand out in it, like a field that had just been tilled. Also he wore so much cologne that you could smell him coming from quite a distance. Bruno had learned not to stand downwind of him or he would risk fainting away.

On this particular day, however, since it was a Saturday morning and was so sunny, he was not so perfectly groomed. Instead he was wearing a white vest over his trousers and his hair flopped down over his forehead in exhaustion. His arms were surprisingly tanned and he had the kind of muscles that Bruno wished he had himself. He looked so much younger today that Bruno was surprised; in fact he reminded him of the big boys at school, the ones he always steered clear of. Lieutenant Kotler was deep in conversation with Gretel and whatever he was saying must have been terribly funny because she was laughing loudly and twirling her hair around her fingers into ringlets.

‘Hello,’ said Bruno as he approached them, and Gretel looked at him irritably.

‘What do you want?’ she asked.

‘I don’t want anything,’ snapped Bruno, glaring at her. ‘I just came over to say hello.’

‘You’ll have to forgive my younger brother, Kurt,’ said Gretel to Lieutenant Kotler. ‘He’s only nine, you know.’

‘Good morning, little man,’ said Kotler, reaching out and-quite appallingly-ruffling his hand through Bruno’s hair, a gesture that made Bruno want to push him to the ground and jump up and down on his head. ‘And what has you up and about so early on a Saturday morning?’

‘It’s hardly early,’ said Bruno. ‘It’s almost ten o’clock.’

Lieutenant Kotler shrugged his shoulders. ‘When I was your age my mother couldn’t get me out of bed until lunch time. She said I would never grow up to be big and strong if I slept my life away.’

‘Well, she was quite wrong there, wasn’t she?’ simpered Gretel. Bruno stared at her with distaste. She was putting on a silly voice that made her sound as if she hadn’t a thought in her head. There was nothing Bruno wanted to do more than walk away from the two of them and have nothing to do with whatever they were discussing, but he had no choice but to put his best interests first and ask Lieutenant Kotler for the unthinkable. A favour.

‘I wondered if I could ask you a favour,’ said Bruno.

‘You can ask,’ said Lieutenant Kotler, which made Gretel laugh again even though it was not particularly funny.

‘I wondered whether there were any spare tyres around,’ Bruno continued. ‘From one of the jeeps perhaps. Or a truck. One that you’re not using.’

‘The only spare tyre I have seen around here recently belongs to Sergeant Hoffschneider, and he carries it around his waist,’ said Lieutenant Kotler, his lips forming into something that resembled a smile. This didn’t make any sense at all to Bruno, but it entertained Gretel so much that she appeared to start dancing on the spot.

‘Well, is he using it?’ asked Bruno.

‘Sergeant Hoffschneider?’ asked Lieutenant Kotler. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. He’s very attached to his spare tyre.’

‘Stop it, Kurt,’ said Gretel, drying her eyes. ‘He doesn’t understand you. He’s only nine.’

‘Oh, will you be quiet please,’ shouted Bruno, staring at his sister in irritation. It was bad enough having to come out here and ask for a favour from Lieutenant Kotler, but it only made things worse when his own sister teased him all the way through it. ‘You’re only twelve anyway,’ he added. ‘So stop pretending to be older than you are.’

‘I’m nearly thirteen, Kurt,’ she snapped, her laughter stopped now, her face frozen in horror. ‘I’ll be thirteen in a couple of weeks’ time. A teenager. Just like you.’

Lieutenant Kotler smiled and nodded his head but said nothing. Bruno stared at him. If it had been any other adult standing in front of him he would have rolled his eyes to suggest that they both knew that girls were silly, and sisters utterly ridiculous. But this wasn’t any other adult. This was Lieutenant Kotler.

‘Anyway,’ said Bruno, ignoring the look of anger that Gretel was directing towards him, ‘other than that one, is there anywhere else that I could find a spare tyre?’

‘Of course,’ said Lieutenant Kotler, who had stopped smiling now and seemed suddenly bored with the entire thing. ‘But what do you want it for anyway?’

‘I thought I’d make a swing,’ said Bruno. ‘You know, with a tyre and some rope on the branches of a tree.’

‘Indeed,’ said Lieutenant Kotler, nodding his head wisely as if such things were only distant memories to him now, despite the fact that he was, as Gretel had pointed out, no more than a teenager himself. ‘Yes, I made many swings myself when I was a child. My friends and I had many happy afternoons together playing on them.’

Bruno felt astonished that he could have anything in common with him (and even more surprised to learn that Lieutenant Kotler had ever had friends). ‘So what do you think?’ he asked. ‘Are there any around?’

Lieutenant Kotler stared at him and seemed to be considering it, as if he wasn’t sure whether he was going to give him a straight answer or try to irritate him as he usually did. Then he caught sight of Pavel-the old man who came every afternoon to help peel the vegetables in the kitchen for dinner before putting his white jacket on and serving at the table-heading towards the house, and this seemed to make his mind up.

‘Hey, you!’ he shouted, then adding a word that Bruno did not understand. ‘Come over here, you-’ He said the word again, and something about the harsh sound of it made Bruno look away and feel ashamed to be part of this at all.

Pavel came towards them and Kotler spoke to him insolently, despite the fact that he was young enough to be his grandson. ‘Take this little man to the storage shed at the back of the main house. Lined up along a side wall are some old tyres. He will select one and you are to carry it wherever he asks you to, is that understood?’

Pavel held his cap before him in his hands and nodded, which made his head bow even lower than it already was. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said in a quiet voice, so quiet that he may not even have said it at all,

‘And afterwards, when you return to the kitchen, make sure you wash your hands before touching any of the food, you filthy-’ Lieutenant Kotler repeated the word he had used twice already and he spat a little as he spoke. Bruno glanced across at Gretel, who had been staring adoringly at the sunlight bouncing off Lieutenant Kotler’s hair but now, like her brother, looked a little uncomfortable. Neither of them had ever really spoken to Pavel before but he was a very good waiter and they, according to Father, did not grow on trees.

‘Off you go then,’ said Lieutenant Kotler, and Pavel turned and led the way towards the storage shed, followed by Bruno, who from time to time glanced back in the direction of his sister and the young soldier and felt a great urge to go back there and pull Gretel away, despite the fact that she was annoying and self-centred and mean to him most of the time. That, after all, was her job. She was his sister. But he hated the idea of leaving her alone with a man like Lieutenant Kotler. There really was no other way to dress it up: he was just plain nasty.

The accident took place a couple of hours later after Bruno had located a suitable tyre and Pavel had dragged it to the large oak tree on Gretel’s side of the house, and after Bruno had climbed up and down and up and down and up and down the trunk to tie the ropes securely around the branches and the tyre itself. Until then the whole operation had been a tremendous success. He had built one of these once before, but back then he had had Karl and Daniel and Martin to help him with it. On this occasion he was doing it by himself and that made things decidedly trickier. And yet somehow he managed it, and within a few hours he was happily installed inside the centre of the tyre and swinging back and forth as if he did not have a care in the world, although he was ignoring the fact that it was one of the most uncomfortable swings he had ever been on in his life.