H. Adler - Panorama

Early in the morning the pupils briefly visit the classroom, though they’re not supposed to be there at all, for soon the call for inspection sounds, which is held in the courtyard in good weather, and in the hall outside the classrooms in winter, the pupils having to stand in rows divided by class in front of their inspectors, while those who actually belong to Bemmchen are divided among the three remaining inspectors. The inspection of the two highest classes doesn’t take long, the inspector looking the pupils over just for a brief while before he has them turn around, after which he usually dismisses them, though with the other classes it takes longer and longer for each one, since the inspection is very thorough and arduous. You have to hold out your hands in order to show if they’ve been washed well or not, whether the fingernails are clean and not too long, turning your head so that the inspector can look at your ears, checking behind each one as well, shoes having to be presented in order to check if they are spick and span, while you also have to lift each foot, for the heels and soles are also checked, followed by your clothing in order to see if there’s a spot anywhere, each row turning around and bending, as well as having to lift your jacket so that the inspector can see if a trouser button is missing. It all goes according to command, and there’s always something to be reprimanded for, since each inspector is tough, though no one cries or complains at inspection as much as Faber, who also hands out blows to the head with each reprimand. Some students are sent back upstairs by their inspector, and sometimes an older pupil accompanies them, since there may be shoes that need cleaning again, or your coif needs to be smoothed out, the throat or the ears washed again, the worst being when an older pupil takes on this job, since he can do what he wants with the younger one, and so he takes a hard brush and scrubs until everything is red and hurts, teeth brushing also sometimes needing to be repeated or something with the fingernails, or clothes needing to be changed. Such sinners must return to the inspector in order that he can see that everything has been put back in order.

After the inspection the bells sound again, everyone reports for breakfast, the line of pupils presses into the dining hall like a slow-moving cylinder, the Sprites already setting out the white enamel pitchers full of donkey piss, the pitchers themselves somewhat chipped and battered, the swill containing skim milk or powdered milk, which is what gives the barley-malt coffee its dirty gray color. Each group of students gets a pitcher and a saucer on which there are four minuscule lumps of sugar, each pupil getting two or three small biscuits with a thin layer of margarine spread on each, which tastes terrible, as if it were made of soap, the bread tasting like straw, all of it so dry that you have to wash each bite down with a swig of donkey piss. Yet these are hard times, it’s not even four years since the war, and one has to continually tighten one’s belt, as supposedly before the war there was more to eat at The Box, the biscuits covered back then with real butter. Breakfast lasts until seven o’clock, and at seven the bell rings again, at which all the pupils must be in the classroom for study hall, which lasts until eight, no one allowed to leave his place at his desk without permission, everyone needing to stay quiet, though whoever wants something must quietly go to the room commandant and whisper to him what he wants, which the commandant can allow or forbid, depending on how he feels, or you can go to the inspector who walks back and forth through the classroom, though no one is allowed to gab with his neighbor, because it’s a disturbance, while turning around on or scraping your chair is also forbidden. You simply take your school things out of the desk and pretend, without playing around or fooling around or giving any sign, though no homework is done, as that should all have been done the previous day, and you need instead to get ready for what’s on tap for today.

Josef is still tired early in the morning, and so are other pupils but you can’t loll around and lay your head on the desk, for you can’t be a sleepyhead at The Box, because then you won’t grow up to be a proper man. Indeed, one must be brave in order to soon overcome the war that has been lost so that everything can be well in the world once again. Up till now Josef has always believed that everything will turn out okay once you’ve grown up, but now he always hears how terrible the world really is, every country run by scoundrels, and in Germany there’s nothing but traitors in charge, nowhere being as well run as The Box, which takes only good children from good families, it being a school that prepares you for life if you stay here the whole six years, for there are no bad influences, and anyone who doesn’t obey must be taken away by his parents, who will have to figure out for themselves what to do with such a misbehaving son, although none of this explains why so often most of the older pupils are so mean and priggish. It’s these who please the educators, who say that they are on the right path, and that one should follow in their footsteps in order to become as sharp as they are. Is it a crime that one is still young and not so dashing? And why pick on the younger ones so and give them such a thrashing, rather than help them and show them how to do things better, to become truly dashing and upstanding? Yet Josef tells no one what he thinks, for they would only make fun of him, and everyone thinks that he’s a sniveler, Inspector Faber having even said that Josef is a spoiled mama’s boy who still needs the proper upbringing to become a man.

One time a pupil, who was only one class higher than Josef, called him a “Czech pig,” because he was from Bohemia. This made Josef so angry that he said to the rascal that he was a German pig, at which the other boy went to The Bull and The Bull became incredibly angry, more upset than Josef had ever seen him become. Just before the long break, The Bull called Josef in, the rascal also standing there when he arrived, a number of pupils standing around, as well as a couple of adults, as The Bull asked loudly whether it was true that Josef had called the other boy a “German pig,” to which Josef answered yes, it was true, but before that the rascal had called him a “Czech pig,” which was why Josef had said it back. At that The Bull looked like a cooked lobster and quite strongly asked whether he was a German, since in fact he spoke German and had no trouble doing so, but Josef was so upset and sullen and intimidated that he said nothing. He no longer knew what he should say, it was all the same to him what he was, and so he kept silent and just hung his head, though The Bull asked him even more emphatically the same thing again, and Josef continued to cower and to remain silent, as The Bull said again that Josef had to answer, at which he whispered in a monotone that hardly anyone could hear, “I don’t know.” Then The Bull laughed angrily and said, “That’s something when someone doesn’t know what he is and to whom he belongs! That’s the way it is with the Gypsies, who wander from place to place without a land of their own, surviving on whatever slips into their fingers!” Then The Bull wanted to know whether other foreigners could answer the same question, at which a young boy stood up who was from Haida in Bohemia, The Bull asking him, “Tell me again, what are you?” The young boy had proudly called out, “I am a German!” At this The Bull said nothing more, but instead thrashed Josef and ended up slapping him a couple of times, saying as he finished, “Just so that you know what you are! You got what you deserved!”

Josef couldn’t see or hear anything. The Bull had disappeared, the pupils let him go, and so he slowly crept off and felt ashamed down to his very bones, and more miserable than ever, and yet he didn’t understand really why he had been punished, or why the rascal who had started it all had not. The other could take pride in the fact that his attack had been allowed, whereas what Josef had said was not. Many days passed without Josef speaking to anyone, nor did anyone speak to him, which made him feel as if he didn’t have a single friend in The Box, nor did he want one, rather he wanted only to get away from here because he was so unhappy, even writing home to ask if someone could come visit, though he is told that he is being selfish, there is no way they can pay to make a special visit to him, for it costs a lot to go to The Box, and one must make sacrifices if he is to remain there. Then they told his father a bit about what he had said, yet they said nothing about what had been said to him first, although Josef did not want them to say what had really happened, for he began to feel guilty, since everyone was mad at him and believed that he alone had done something bad.