John Boyne - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

‘I don’t want to accept it!’ shouted Bruno, blinking in surprise because he hadn’t known he was going to shout out loud. (In fact it came as a complete surprise to him.) He tensed slightly and got ready to make a run for it if necessary. But nothing seemed to be making Father angry today-and if Bruno was honest with himself he would have admitted that Father rarely became angry; he became quiet and distant and always had his way in the end anyway-and rather than shouting at him or chasing him around the house, he simply shook his head and indicated that their debate was at an end.

‘Go to your room, Bruno,’ he said in such a quiet voice that Bruno knew that he meant business now, so he stood up, tears of frustration forming in his eyes. He walked towards the door, but before opening it he turned round and asked one final question. ‘Father?’ he began.

‘Bruno, I’m not going to-’ began Father irritably.

‘It’s not about that,’ said Bruno quickly. ‘I just have one other question.’

Father sighed but indicated that he should ask it and then that would be an end to the matter and no arguments.

Bruno thought about his question, wanting to phrase it exactly right this time, just in case it came out as being rude or unco-operative. ‘Who are all those people outside?’ he said finally.

Father tilted his head to the left, looking a little confused by the question. ‘Soldiers, Bruno,’ he said. ‘And secretaries. Staff workers. You’ve seen them all before, of course.’

‘No, not them,’ said Bruno. ‘The people I see from my window. In the huts, in the distance. They’re all dressed the same.’

‘Ah, those people,’ said Father, nodding his head and smiling slightly. ‘Those people… well, they’re not people at all, Bruno.’

Bruno frowned. ‘They’re not?’ he asked, unsure what Father meant by that.

‘Well, at least not as we understand the term,’ Father continued. ‘But you shouldn’t be worrying about them right now. They’re nothing to do with you. You have nothing whatsoever in common with them. Just settle into your new home and be good, that’s all I ask. Accept the situation in which you find yourself and everything will be so much easier.’

‘Yes, Father,’ said Bruno, unsatisfied by the response.

He opened the door and Father called him back for a moment, standing up and raising an eyebrow as if he’d forgotten something. Bruno remembered the moment his father made the signal, and said the phrase and imitated him exactly.

He pushed his two feet together and shot his right arm into the air before clicking his two heels together and saying in as deep and clear a voice as possible-as much like Father’s as he could manage-the words he said every time he left a soldier’s presence.

‘Heil Hitler,’ he said, which, he presumed, was another way of saying, ‘Well, goodbye for now, have a pleasant afternoon.’

Some days later Bruno was lying on the bed in his room, staring at the ceiling above his head. The white paint was cracked and peeling away from itself in a most unpleasant manner, unlike the paintwork in the house in Berlin, which was never chipped and received an annual top-up every summer when Mother brought the decorators in. On this particular afternoon he lay there and stared at the spidery cracks, narrowing his eyes to consider what might lie behind them. He imagined that there were insects living in the spaces between the paint and the ceiling itself which were pushing it out, cracking it wide, opening it up, trying to create a gap so that they could squeeze through and look for a window where they might make their escape. Nothing, thought Bruno, not even the insects, would ever choose to stay at Out-With.

‘Everything here is horrible,’ he said out loud, even though there was no one present to hear him, but somehow it made him feel better to hear the words stated anyway. ‘I hate this house, I hate my room and I even hate the paintwork. I hate it all. Absolutely everything.’

Just as he finished speaking Maria came through the door carrying an armful of his washed, dried and ironed clothes. She hesitated for a moment when she saw him lying there but then bowed her head a little and walked silently over towards the wardrobe.

‘Hello,’ said Bruno, for although talking to a maid wasn’t quite the same thing as having some friends to talk to, there was no one else around to have a conversation with and it made much more sense than talking to himself. Gretel was nowhere to be found and he had begun to worry that he would go mad with boredom.

‘Master Bruno,’ said Maria quietly, separating his vests from his trousers and his underwear and putting them in different drawers and on different shelves.

‘I expect you’re as unhappy about this new arrangement as I am,’ said Bruno, and she turned to look at him with an expression that suggested she didn’t understand what he meant. ‘This,’ he explained, sitting up and looking around. ‘Everything here. It’s awful, isn’t it? Don’t you hate it too?’

Maria opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again just as quickly. She seemed to be considering her response carefully, selecting the right words, preparing to say them, and then thinking better of it and discarding them altogether. Bruno had known her for almost all his life-she had come to work for them when he was only three years old-and they had always got along quite well for the most part, but she had never showed any particular signs of life before. She just got on with her job, polishing the furniture, washing the clothes, helping with the shopping and the cooking, sometimes taking him to school and collecting him again, although that had been more common when Bruno was eight; when he turned nine he decided he was old enough to make his way there and home alone.

‘Don’t you like it here then?’ she said finally.

‘Like it?’ replied Bruno with a slight laugh. ‘Like it?’ he repeated, but louder this time. ‘Of course I don’t like it! It’s awful. There’s nothing to do, there’s no one to talk to, nobody to play with. You can’t tell me that you’re happy we’ve moved here, surely?’

I always enjoyed the garden at the house in Berlin,’ said Maria, answering an entirely different question. ‘Sometimes, when it was a warm afternoon, I liked to sit out there in the sunshine and eat my lunch underneath the ivy tree by the pond. The flowers were very beautiful there. The scents.

The way the bees hovered around them and never bothered you if you just left them alone.’

‘So you don’t like it here then?’ asked Bruno. ‘You think it’s as bad as I do?’

Maria frowned. ‘It’s not important,’ she said.

‘What isn’t?’

‘What I think.’

‘Well, of course it’s important,’ said Bruno irritably, as if she was just being deliberately difficult. ‘You’re part of the family, aren’t you?’

‘I’m not sure whether your father would agree with that,’ said Maria, allowing herself a smile because she was touched by what he had just said.

‘Well, you’ve been brought here against your will, just like I have. If you ask me, we’re all in the same boat. And it’s leaking.’

For a moment it seemed to Bruno as if Maria really was going to tell him what she was thinking. She laid the rest of his clothes down on the bed and her hands clenched into fists, as if she was terribly angry about something. Her mouth opened but froze there for a moment, as if she was scared of all the things she might say if she allowed herself to begin.

‘Please tell me, Maria,’ said Bruno. ‘Because maybe if we all feel the same way we can persuade Father to take us home again.’