John Boyne - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

‘I’m sure he has his reasons,’ said Father, attacking a leg of lamb.

‘All he wants us to do is study history and geography,’ said Bruno. ‘And I’m starting to hate history and geography’

‘Don’t say hate, Bruno, please,’ said Mother.

‘Why do you hate history?’ asked Father, laying down his fork for a moment and looking across the table at his son, who shrugged his shoulders, a bad habit of his.

‘Because it’s boring,’ he said.

‘Boring?’ said Father. ‘A son of mine calling the study of history boring? Let me tell you this, Bruno,’ he went on, leaning forward and pointing his knife at the boy, ‘it’s history that’s got us here today. If it wasn’t for history, none of us would be sitting around this table now. We’d be safely back at our table in our house in Berlin. We are correcting history here.’

‘It’s still boring,’ repeated Bruno, who wasn’t really paying attention.

‘You’ll have to forgive my brother, Lieutenant Kotler,’ said Gretel, laying a hand on his arm for a moment, which made Mother stare at her and narrow her eyes. ‘He’s a very ignorant little boy.’

‘I am not ignorant,’ snapped Bruno, who had had enough of her insults. ‘You’ll have to forgive my sister, Lieutenant Kotler,’ he added politely, ‘but she’s a Hopeless Case. There’s very little we can do for her. The doctors say she’s gone past the point of help.’

‘Shut up,’ said Gretel, blushing scarlet.

‘You shut up,’ said Bruno with a broad smile.

‘Children, please,’ said Mother.

Father tapped his knife on the table and everyone was silent. Bruno glanced in his direction. He didn’t look angry exactly, but he did look as if he wasn’t going to put up with much more arguing.

‘I enjoyed history very much when I was a boy,’ said Lieutenant Kotler after a few silent moments. ‘And although my father was a professor of literature at the university, I preferred the social sciences to the arts.’

‘I didn’t know that, Kurt,’ said Mother, turning to look at him for a moment. ‘Does he still teach then?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Lieutenant Kotler. ‘I don’t really know.’

‘Well, how could you not know?’ she asked, frowning at him. ‘Don’t you keep in touch with him?’

The young lieutenant chewed on a mouthful of lamb and it gave him an opportunity to think of a reply. He looked to Bruno as if he regretted having brought the matter up in the first place.

‘Kurt,’ repeated Mother, ‘don’t you keep in touch with your father?’

‘Not really,’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders dismissively and not turning his head to look at her. ‘He left Germany some years ago. Nineteen thirty-eight, I think it was. I haven’t seen him since then.’

Father stopped eating for a moment and stared across at Lieutenant Kotler, frowning slightly. ‘And where did he go?’ he asked.

I beg your pardon, Herr Commandant?’ asked Lieutenant Kotler, even though Father had spoken in a perfectly clear voice.

‘I asked you where he went,’ he repeated. ‘Your father. The professor of literature. Where did he go when he left Germany?’

Lieutenant Kotler’s face grew a little red and he stuttered somewhat as he spoke. I believe… I believe he is currently in Switzerland,’ he said finally. ‘The last I heard he was teaching at a university in Berne.’

‘Oh, but Switzerland’s a beautiful country,’ said

Mother quickly. ‘I haven’t ever been there, I admit, but from what I hear-’

‘He can’t be very old, your father,’ said Father, his deep voice silencing them all. ‘I mean you’re only… what? Seventeen? Eighteen years old?’

‘I’ve just turned nineteen, Herr Commandant.’

‘So your father would be… in his forties, I expect?’

Lieutenant Kotler said nothing but continued to eat although he didn’t appear to be enjoying his food at all.

‘Strange that he chose not to stay in the Fatherland,’ said Father.

‘We’re not close, my father and I,’ said Lieutenant Kotler quickly, looking around the table as if he owed everyone an explanation. ‘Really, we haven’t spoken in years.’

‘And what reason did he give, might I ask,’ continued Father, ‘for leaving Germany at the moment of her greatest glory and her most vital need, when it is incumbent upon all of us to play our part in the national revival? Was he tubercular?’

Lieutenant Kotler stared at Father, confused. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he asked.

‘Did he go to Switzerland to take the air?’ explained Father. ‘Or did he have a particular reason for leaving Germany? In nineteen thirty-eight,’ he added after a moment.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know, Herr Commandant,’ said Lieutenant Kotler. ‘You would have to ask him.’

‘Well, that would be rather difficult to do, wouldn’t it? With him being so far away, I mean. But perhaps that was it. Perhaps he was ill.’ Father hesitated before picking up his knife and fork again and continuing to eat. ‘Or perhaps he had… disagreements.’

‘Disagreements, Herr Commandant?’

‘With government policy. One hears tales of men like this from time to time. Curious fellows, I imagine. Disturbed, some of them. Traitors, others. Cowards too. Of course you have informed your superiors of your father’s views, Lieutenant Kotler?’

The young lieutenant opened his mouth and then swallowed, despite the fact that he hadn’t been eating anything.

‘Never mind,’ said Father cheerfully. ‘Perhaps it is not an appropriate subject of conversation for the dinner table. We can discuss it in more depth at a later time.’

‘Herr Commandant,’ said Lieutenant Kotler, leaning forward anxiously, ‘I can assure you-’

‘It is not an appropriate subject of conversation for the dinner table,’ repeated Father sharply, silencing him immediately, and Bruno looked from one to the other, both enjoying and being frightened by the atmosphere at the same time.

‘I’d love to go to Switzerland,’ said Gretel after a lengthy silence.

‘Eat your dinner, Gretel,’ said Mother. ‘But I was just saying!’

‘Eat your dinner,’ Mother repeated and was about to say more but she was interrupted by Father calling for Pavel again.

‘What’s the matter with you tonight?’ he asked as Pavel uncorked the new bottle. ‘This is the fourth time I’ve had to ask for more wine.’

Bruno watched him, hoping he was feeling all right, although he managed to release the cork without any accidents. But after he had filled Father’s glass and turned to refill Lieutenant Kotler’s, he lost his grip of the bottle somehow and it fell crashing, glug-glug-glugging its contents out directly onto the young man’s lap.

What happened then was both unexpected and extremely unpleasant. Lieutenant Kotler grew very angry with Pavel and no one-not Bruno, not Gretel, not Mother and not even Father-stepped in to stop him doing what he did next, even though none of them could watch. Even though it made Bruno cry and Gretel grow pale.

Later that night, when Bruno went to bed, he thought about all that had happened over dinner. He remembered how kind Pavel had been to him on the afternoon he had made the swing, and how he had stopped his knee from bleeding and been very gentle in the way he administered the green ointment. And while Bruno realized that Father was generally a very kind and thoughtful man, it hardly seemed fair or right that no one had stopped Lieutenant Kotler getting so angry at Pavel, and if that was the kind of thing that went on at Out-With then he’d better not disagree with anyone any more about anything; in fact he would do well to keep his mouth shut and cause no chaos at all. Some people might not like it.