The Wall

Here I am, at a time when we Jews are quietly minding our own business and our neighbor is called Olmo who spends half the day quarreling with his wife, and if you have nothing better to do you can stand behind the door and hear every word. And the street still has its houses, in each of which something has happened to me. I’m not allowed to leave it, the street—Father has strictly forbidden me. Often I don’t believe his reason for this, but sometimes I do: that there is a boundary, an invisible one, beyond which children are snatched away. No one knows where it runs, that’s the sneaky part. It seems to be constantly changing, and before you know it you’ve crossed it. Only in our own street, it seems, are children relatively safe, safest of all outside their own house. My friends, with whom I discuss this enormous problem, are of two opinions. The know-it-alls laugh, but there are others who have already heard about it too.

I ask: “What’ll happen to me if they catch me?”

Father replies: “It’s better for you not to know.”

I say: “No, tell me—what will happen to me?” He merely makes a vague gesture and refuses to talk to me anymore. Once I say: “Who is it anyway who snatches away the children?”

He asks: “Why do you have to know that too?”

I say: “It’s the German soldiers.”

He asks: “The Germans, our own police—what’s the difference if they catch you?”

I say: “But there’s a boy who plays with us every day who lives many streets away.”

He asks me: “Is your father a liar?”

I’m five years old and can’t keep still. The words tumble out of my mouth. I can’t keep it shut, I’ve tried. The words push against my cheeks from the inside, multiplying at a fantastic rate and hurting my mouth until I have to open it. “What a child!” says my Mother, who no longer has a face, only a voice. “Just listen to that child, that crazy child.”

What happened must have been strange, unheard of, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth telling. For all I know I may have killed Mr. Tenzer, the shopkeeper. I’ll never find out. He lives in our street and wears a little black cap and has a little white beard. He is a tiny little man. When the weather is cold or wet you can go to his place. He tells stories. The toughest kids sit silently in front of him, not saying a word, never opening their mouths, perfectly quiet, even though later they make their jokes. But he never lets more than four come in at one time. I am his favorite: it makes me feel good believing that. Once when he picked me up and put me on top of the cupboard—he proved to be very strong. We were all surprised.

Father says: “What kind of person would put a child on top of a cupboard? And anyway, why are you always hanging around old Tenzer? He must have a screw loose.”

I say: “You have a screw loose.” He swings his arm back, but I run away, and when I return later he’s forgotten all about it. Father often swings his arm back, but he never hits me.

One day I’ve quarreled with everyone and go over to Tenzer’s place. I’ve never been alone with him before. When he opens the door and sees only me outside he’s surprised and says: “Such a small gathering today?” He is busy doing his laundry, but he doesn’t send me away. I am allowed to watch. He washes differently from my mother, who always splashes water all over the room. He handles the underpants and shirts gently, trying not to make even more holes, and sometimes he sighs over an especially big hole. He holds a shirt high above the bowl, and while it drips he tells me: “It’s thirty years old. Do you know what thirty years means for a shirt?”

I look around the room; there’s not much to look at. There is only one thing that I’ve never noticed before. Behind the high headboard of the bed, on the floor beside the window, stands a pot. A large cloth hangs in front to hide it. I would never have made the discovery if I hadn’t been lying on the floor and looking in that very direction out of boredom. I make a little detour over to the thing. I push aside the cloth, which would hide it from someone twice my size. In the pot there is a green plant, a strange one that pricks sharply as soon as you touch it. “What are you doing back there?” shouts Mr. Tenzer after hearing me cry out. There is a drop of blood on my forefinger—I show him my thick blood. I stick my finger in my mouth and suck it; then I see tears in his eyes and am more scared than ever.

I ask: “What did I do?”

“Nothing,” he says, “nothing at all, it’s my fault.” He explains how the plant functions and how many animals would have eaten it if it weren’t for the prickles. He says: “You’re not to tell anybody about it.”

I say: “Of course I won’t.”

He says: “You know that no one’s allowed to have a plant?”

I say: “Of course I know that.”

He says: “You know what happens to anyone who ignores a rule?”

I say: “Of course.”

He asks me: “Well, what do they do to him?” I don’t answer. I just look at him because he’s about to tell me. We look at each other for a while, then Tenzer picks a piece of washing out of the bowl and wrings it out violently. He says: “That’s what they do to him.” Of course I tell the story to millions of people, not to my parents but all my friends.

I pay another visit to Mr. Tenzer because ever since that day he has allowed me to play with his plant as if we were brother and sister. The door is opened by an old woman, so fearfully ugly that anyone in my place would have been terrified. She asks in a nasty voice: “What do you want here?” I know that Tenzer has always been alone and wouldn’t have dreamed of letting such a person into the house, so the fact that she is in his home alarms me even more than her appearance. I run away from the witch and pay no attention to the curse she calls out after me. The street hardly sees me—I just fly along it. I ask my Mother where Mr. Tenzer is. She starts to cry. Only a moment ago she had been embroidering the cloth to which she belongs. I ask: “Where is he? Tell me!”

But I have to wait for Father to tell me when he comes home that evening: “They’ve taken him away.”

By this time I’m no longer surprised, hours have passed since my question, and many times they have taken someone away who was suddenly no longer there. I ask: “Whatever did he do?”

Father says: “He was meshugge.”

I ask: “What did he really do?”

Father rolls up his eyes and says to Mother: “You tell him, if he really wants to know.” And at last she says, though very softly: “He had a flowering plant. Just imagine, they found a flowering plant in his room.” It is rather quiet. I am suffering because I mustn’t say that the plant and I are friends. Tears drip from my Mother’s eyes onto her cloth. Never before has she had a good word to say for Tenzer.

Father cuts his chunk off the loaf as he does every evening after work. I am the real sufferer but no one takes any notice of me. Father says: “I’ve said it all along, he has a screw loose. To be taken away for the sake of a flower—of all the ridiculous reasons!”

My Mother has stopped crying but says: “Perhaps he loved that flower very much. Perhaps it reminded him of someone, how do we know?”

Father with his bread says loudly: “That’s no reason to put a pot of flowers in one’s room. If someone insists on living dangerously he can plant tomatoes in a pot. You can remember a person a thousand times better with tomatoes.”

I can’t contain myself any longer. I don’t like my father very much at this moment. I shout: “It wasn’t a flower, it was a cactus!” Then I run outside and remember nothing more.

Father wakes me in the middle of the night; the curtain in front of my bed has been pulled aside. He says: “Come along, my son.” He bends over me and strokes me. My mother is also fully dressed. There is movement in the house, footsteps and clattering sounds through the walls. He lifts me out of the bed and sets me on my feet. To keep me from falling over with sleepiness, he supports my back with his hand. It’s a good thing he’s not hurrying the least bit. My Mother brings me my shirt, but I sit down on the bucket that is our toilet. The moon rests on the crossbar of the window; suddenly there are two bulging carryalls in the room. If you look long enough at the moon its face doesn’t stay still: it winks at you. Then my Mother pulls my shirt down over my head. “Come along, my son,” says Father. They both try to think of what they might have forgotten; Father finds a pack of cards and stuffs it in my bag. I also have something to take along: I place the cloth ball my Mother made for me beside the bags, but I am told there’s no more room. Then we walk down the pitch-dark stairs, across the whispering courtyard, out onto the street.

Many people are there already, but none of my friends. “Where are the others?” I ask Father.

He lets go of my Mother’s arm and says: “It’s only our side of the street. Don’t ask what it all means, those are the orders.” This is a disaster, since my friends all live on the other side.

I ask: “When are we coming back?” They stroke my head again but explain nothing. Then we tramp off in response to a command given by someone I can’t see. The way becomes more boring with every step; we must be crossing the invisible boundary ten times over, but when you’re given orders of course the ban is lifted.

A small section of the ghetto—and this has nothing to do with memory, it’s the truth—a small section of the ghetto is like a camp. A few long barrack-like brick huts standing at random are surrounded by a wall. It’s not so terribly high; from day to day its height seems to me to vary. Certainly, if one man stood on the shoulders of another he could look over it. And if you stand back far enough you can see broken glass glinting on the top. But why have a camp in the middle of the ghetto, which is camp enough, you wonder? To which I can reply, though no one explained it to me at the time: people are assembled in this camp before being taken to a different one, or to a place where there is more need for them than in the ghetto. In other words: the idea is to be in readiness in the camp. Is it a good sign to be here, is it a bad one? This is debated day and night in the long brick huts. I’m sick of hearing it.

The three of us are allotted one bed, a hard affair made of wood. Though it is a bit wider than my former one, we are miserably cramped. There are also some empty beds in the hut. Right after the first night I lie down on one of them and announce that from now on this is where I’m going to sleep. Father shakes his head. I shake my head in reply and ask for his reasons, at which he swings his arm back again. I have to yield—it is a victory of unreason. We experiment with various positions: myself on the left, then on the right, then with my head between my parents’ feet. “That gives us the most room,” says Father, but my Mother is afraid that one of the four feet might hurt me. “Sometimes a person kicks out violently while dreaming. You don’t realize it, but you do.”

Father can’t deny this. “All the same, it’s a pity,” he says. I end up lying in the middle, not consulted, and must promise to move as little as possible.

Every morning there is “inspection”—that’s the first word I learn in the foreign language. We line up in a long row outside the hut. It all has to be done very quickly because a German is already standing there waiting. The tips of our toes mustn’t be too far forward or too far back. Father straightens me out a bit. The first person in the row has to call out “One,” then we number off to the end of the row. The numbers roll along and pass over my head. My Mother calls out her number, then Father calls first his and then mine, and already it’s the next person’s turn. This annoys me—I ask: “Why can’t I call out my number myself?”

Father answers: “Because you don’t know how to count.”

“Then you can just whisper my number to me,” I say, “and I’ll call it out.”

He says: “First of all there’s no time for that, and second—we’re not allowed to whisper.”

I say: “Why don’t we stand at the same spot every morning? That way we would always have the same number and I could learn it.”

He says: “Listen, my son, this is not a game.”

There are two in my row who aren’t much older than I am, one of them calls out his own number, the other one’s number is called by his father. I ask one of them: “How old are you?” He spits past my head and walks away. He must come from the upper end of our street—I rarely got that far. After the numbering the German shouts: “Dismissed!” That’s an inspection.

By the second day I’m already bored to death. There are a few smaller kids around, but when I approach them their leader tells me: “Beat it, but pronto.” They all look at me angrily, those idiots, just because their leader wants to show off with that word. I ask my Mother what pronto means, she doesn’t know. I say: “It must mean something like quickly.”

Father says: “Who cares?”

The camp is dead, and I can’t bring it to life. I start to cry, but it doesn’t help. In one corner of the camp I find a little grass. I mustn’t go too far away, my Mother says; Father says; “Where can he possibly go to here?” I discover the gate, the only place where there is movement—sometimes a German comes in, sometimes one goes out. A soldier who is a sentry walks up and down until he sees me standing there. He raises his chin quickly. I can’t say why I have so little fear of him. I take a few steps back, but when he starts walking up and down again I retrace my steps. Once more he moves his head like that—once more I do him the favor—then he ignores me.

That afternoon a different soldier is standing at the gate. He calls out something that sounds dangerous. I go into a hut that is not ours. Though I’m afraid, there’s nothing else for me to do. The same beds are there, and there’s a stench that isn’t like anything I’ve ever smelled. I see a rat running by—it gets away from me—I crawl on my hands and knees and can’t find its hiding place. Someone grabs me by the scruff of the neck. He asks me: “What are you doing here?” He has one blind eye.

I say: “I’m not doing anything.”

He stands with me in such a way that the others can see us. Then he says: “Tell me the truth.”

I repeat: “I am not doing anything. I’m just looking.”

But he says in a loud voice: “He wanted to steal, the little bastard, but I caught him.”

I shout: “That’s not true!”

He says: “It’s true all right! I’ve been watching him all morning. He’s been waiting for hours for a chance.”

One of them asks: “What are you going to do with him?”

The liar says: “Shall I beat him up?”

One man says: “It would be better to boil him.”

I scream: “I wasn’t going to steal, really I wasn’t!”

I can’t get free of his grip, and the liar squeezes harder and harder. Luckily, someone calls out: “Let him go, he’s the kid of someone I know.” But he holds onto me a bit longer and tells me not to let him catch me again. I don’t tell Father anything about it; most likely he would punish the disgusting fellow—but then I’d have to stay in our own hut. It’s not worth it.

Next day all is well again: early in the morning the other side of the street moves into the camp. I’ve hardly taken five steps outside when someone sounding like Julian calls me and hides. I needn’t look very far. He’s around the next corner, pressing himself against the wall and waiting for me to find him. Julian is my good friend. We haven’t seen each other for a long time, maybe a week. His father was a doctor, that’s why he’s always well dressed, even now.

He says: “Well, I’ll be damned!”

I say: “Julian.” I show him around the camp—there’s not much to show—his hut is the farthest away from ours. We look for a spot that from now on is to be our special place: in the end he picks it, even though he has been here only a few minutes and I have probably been here for as long as a week.

He asks: “D’you know Itzek is here too?”

He takes me over to Itzek’s hut—Itzek is my good friend too. He is sitting on the bed and has to stay with his parents, so he can’t be glad about me. We ask his father: “May he at least go outside with us for a bit?”

His father says: “No chance.” But when Itzek begins to cry he gets permission from his mother, who is normally very strict. We show Itzek our special place; we sit down on the stones. The wonderful thing about Itzek is his turnip watch—I look at his trouser pocket where it is always ticking away. Twice so far I’ve been allowed to hold it to my ear, and once he let me wind it, after I had won a bet. His grandfather gave it to him because he loved him, and told him to keep it well hidden or else it would get pinched by the first thief to come along. Julian also has something wonderful, a wonderfully beautiful girlfriend. No one has ever seen her except him. She has fair hair and green eyes and loves him madly. Once he told us that they sometimes kiss. We didn’t believe him so he showed us how she purses her lips. Only I own nothing wonderful. Father has a flashlight with a dynamo that has a handle you have to squeeze to make it light up. But if one day he can’t find it we all know who’ll be suspected first.

I say to Itzek: “Show me your watch.” But his rotten parents found it and swapped it for potatoes. Julian still has his girlfriend. Itzek is crying over the loss of his watch. I don’t make fun of him. I would try to comfort him if I weren’t too shy. Julian says: “Stop crying, kid.” So Itzek runs away, and Julian says: “Never mind him.” And the splendid turnip watch has been swapped for potatoes—it defies comprehension. I tell Julian what a day in this camp is like so he won’t expect too much. Until Itzek comes back Julian tells me about his girlfriend—her name is Marianka.

Since I left our street, nothing much has happened there. Only Muntek the cobbler has committed suicide. Whenever we sat on his steps he used to come out of his dirty shop and kick us. Now he’s dead. It’s a funny feeling because only the other day he was still alive.

I ask: “How did he do it?”

Julian says he slashed his wrists with glass and bled to death. Itzek, on the other hand, who lived three houses nearer to the cobbler than Julian, knows that Muntek plunged his cobbler’s knife into his heart and twisted it three times.

Julian says: “I never heard such nonsense!”

They argue for a while until I say: “What’s the difference?” But the story also has a sad ending because Itzek’s mother had left a pair of shoes with Muntek for repair. When she heard of his death she hurried over there, but the shoes were gone—the shop had already been stripped.

Still sitting down, Julian pees between me and Itzek in a beautiful arc. He can do that better than anybody. Then he has a plan and makes a solemn face. He wants us to put our heads together. He whispers: “We have to go back to our street—at night would be best.” Julian has never made such a crazy suggestion before.

Itzek asks him: “Why?”

Julian turns his eyes toward me, indicating that I should explain to this idiot, but I’m at a loss myself.

Julian says: “The whole street is empty now, right?”

We answer: “Yes.”

He asks: “And what about the houses?”

We answer: “They’re empty too now.”

“The houses aren’t empty at all,” he says, and all of a sudden he knows something we don’t know.

We ask: “Why aren’t the houses empty?”

He says: “Because they’re full, stupid.” He despises us for a little while, then he has to explain, otherwise we would leave. So: the street was emptied, house by house, but as we know better than anybody, the people weren’t allowed to take much with them, at most half their possessions. The other half is still inside the houses—by Julian’s estimate there must be great piles of stuff still lying there. He tells us, for example, that he hadn’t been able to take along his big toy motorcar because his fool of a mother had trampled on it and instead had given him a bag full of underwear to carry. I remember my gray cloth ball. Only Itzek didn’t have to leave anything behind—he had nothing.

“You’ll never get over the wall,” I say. Julian throws a stone at the wall—the stone passes so close to my head I can feel the wind.

He asks me: “Over that one?”

I say: “Yes, over that one.”

He asks: “Why not?”

I say: “The Germans are watching night and day.”

Julian looks around with wide eyes, then says: “Where do you see any Germans here? Besides, they sleep at night. Didn’t you hear what I said? That we have to try during the night?”

Itzek says: “He’s got wax in his ears.”

I say: “Anyway, the wall’s much too high.”

Itzek says to his friend Julian: “You can tell how scared he is.”

All Julian says is: “We’ll have to look for a good place.” Julian says to me: “Coward.”

We look for a place and of course Julian is right, there is one, where metal struts have been put in like steps. “What did I tell you?” says Julian. My heart beats fast because now I have to go with them or be a coward. There is another advantage to the place: it is far away from the camp entrance and so it is also far from the sentry. Though there is another sentry who walks around and eventually passes every spot, most of the time he is in his little German guardhouse, sitting and smoking or lying down asleep.

Julian says: “I will tell you again, the Germans all sleep at night.”

I ask: “How do you know?”

He answers: “Everybody knows that.”

And Itzek points at me and says: “Only he doesn’t.”

“Shall we go tonight?” Julian asks, looking at me.

I think how easy it would be to agree to everything now, and later simply not show up. I look at the struts and test the bottom one with my hand.

I say: “The Germans must be crazy.”

“So what do you say?” Julian asks me again.

I say: “Why don’t you ask him too?”

Julian asks Itzek: “Shall we go tonight?”

Itzek is silent for a moment, then says: “Tomorrow night would be better.”

“Why wait until tomorrow night?”

Itzek says: “One shouldn’t rush matters.” This view is familiar from his father, a lawyer by profession (whatever that means).

My preparations begin that evening. If ever I am to succeed in getting out of bed at night unnoticed, I mustn’t sleep between my parents—I must sleep at the edge. I start coughing until my Father wants to know what’s the matter. My Mother places her hand on my forehead. The coughing goes on and on. I can see them whispering together. As I lie down I say: “I can’t get any air in the middle. Don’t worry, I won’t fall out.” And I cough so violently that I really do have to gasp for air so that they have to give me a place at the side.

Every night someone shouts: “Lights out!” then the light goes out; for a short while whispering continues. The elves fly in the dark—they are a secret that must never be spoken about. Once when I wanted to talk about elves with my Mother she merely put her fingers to her lips, shook her head, and said nothing. The roof of the hut opens up to the elves, the walls bend down to the ground, but you don’t see anything—you just feel the waft of air. They float in and out, just as they please. Sometimes one of them brushes you with her veil or with the wind. Sometimes she even says something to you, but always in elfin language, which no human can understand; besides, elves speak incredibly softly. Everything about them is more delicate, more gentle, than with humans. They don’t come every night, but not that seldom either—then there is a hidden, joyful movement in the air until you fall asleep, and probably even longer. At the first hint of light they vanish.

Tonight I intend to practice getting up, I’ve told myself: if I manage once to get out of bed without waking them, I’ll also manage when it really matters. Only I must be sure they’ve fallen asleep.

Normally, Father falls asleep so quickly that he is already snoring before the elves arrive. Sometimes I poke him deliberately in the ribs, and it doesn’t disturb him. But tonight of all nights they whisper together and lie with their arms around each other like children and kiss, as if they hadn’t had all day to do that. I’m stuck—they’ve never kissed like that before in the hut.

I hear Father whisper: “Why are you crying?” Then I feel sleepy—I believe the first elves are already there. I roll my eyes to drive off my tiredness.

I hear my mother whisper: “He’s stopped coughing, do you hear?” Then Father wakes me and says: “Come along now, inspection won’t wait for you.”

My Mother says to Father: “Let him be, he hasn’t had enough sleep.” Such a disaster won’t happen to me again, I swear, even if I have to prop open my eyelids with matchsticks. So tonight I’ll have to leave the bed and the hut with no rehearsal; but the good thing is that I now know how easy it is to fall asleep against one’s will.

Father nudges me in the row. I look up and hear him say under his breath: “Twenty-five!” Though my mind is already on the coming night, my heart beats faster, now that I have a chance to show what I can do. The numbers come rushing along—the eyes of the German facing us always stay with the number. I’m scared; Father cannot know what kind of a moment he has chosen. I have to press my lips together not to call out too early, then I shout “Twenty-five!” It must have been exactly the right moment, after the woman ahead of me and before Father—the numbers roll away from me without a hitch. It’s a good feeling.

After inspection Father says: “You did that splendidly. Only next time don’t shout so loud.” I promise. He picks me up in his arms—that’s not nice in front of all those people.

We meet—Julian, myself, and Itzek—and wait for the coming night. Julian has noticed that at our chosen place there is no glass on the wall, which is very lucky. Itzek says he noticed that too.

Julian says: “I needn’t bother to go to our old room. I’m going somewhere else right away. Are you going to your rooms?” I consider whether our room is worthwhile: the cloth ball is still there, maybe the flashlight too—it hasn’t shown up yet in the camp.

Itzek says: “Honestly now, who’s scared?”

“Not me,” says Julian.

“Not me either,” says Itzek.

“Not me either,” I say. I ask Julian whether he wouldn’t like to visit his girlfriend when we’re outside.

He answers: “Not at night, silly.”

A cold wind drives us away; only Julian knows where to go. He knows of an empty hut; we run there. Though I don’t like to admit it, Julian is the leader among us. There is no door. We step into the dark room, which contains nothing; only some two-tiered bunks pushed against the walls such as I’ve never seen before. Itzek climbs around on them and jumps from one to the other, like a cat, and Julian looks at me as if everything here belonged to him. Then someone says: “Clear out, and I mean now!” Itzek is so terrified that he falls off a bunk, picks himself up, and runs outside. Julian has already disappeared. I am left standing alone in the middle of the room. The voice, which sounds both tired yet as if coming from a strong person, says: “What’s the matter with you?” I stand there out of sheer curiosity; besides, Julian will see which of us is a coward.

I say: “With me?” Then something white emerges slowly from a bunk, far back in the mountain of bunks. I’ve seen enough. I rush out into the open where Julian and Itzek stand at a safe distance, waiting and perhaps glad, perhaps disappointed, that I have emerged unscathed from the danger. I say: “Phew, you should’ve seen what I saw!” But they don’t want to hear my story. It’s barely raining now.

We decide to meet at our special place and then go over to the wall together. Julian asks, why not meet at the wall right away, and I have a reason: if one of us is late, it wouldn’t be such a good idea to wait for him at the wall.

After we have agreed, Julian says: “We’d better meet at the wall.”

Without giving it much thought I ask: “When are we going to meet anyway?”

We think about this for a bit, then Julian looks at me angrily as if with my question I had actually created the problem. He always needs to blame someone and says to Itzek: “If you weren’t so stupid and still had your watch, there’d be no problem.”

Not one of us can think of a sign in the night to tell the time by. Until Itzek says: “Lights Out is the same time everywhere, isn’t it?” That’s the best idea yet, even Julian can’t deny that, “Lights Out” could be the kind of sign we need. “Right after Lights Out,” says Itzek, “then one more hour, then everybody will be asleep, then we can meet.”

“And how long is an hour?” asks Julian, but he has no better suggestion. We agree on the length of an hour: it is the time that even the last person in the hut needs to fall asleep, and a bit longer. We place our hands one on top of the other and are sworn conspirators and separate until nighttime.

Then I am back with my parents sitting on the bed. My Mother gets up from her sewing and says that I am wet through. She takes off my shirt and dries my head. Many people are walking around in the hut, their hands clasped behind them: one of them is Father. Someone sings a song about the cherries a pretty lass is always eating, about the bright dresses she is always wearing, and about the little tune she is always singing.

For the first time in my life I can hardly wait for night. The fear has gone. That’s to say, it’s really still there but it is not as great as the anticipation I feel. If only I don’t oversleep, I think, if only I don’t oversleep again, I mustn’t oversleep.

I tell my Mother: “I’m tired.” It is still afternoon. She lays her hand on my forehead, then she calls Father. “Strange—he’s tired and wants to sleep.”

Father says: “Are you surprised if someone runs around all day and gets tired?” My Mother gives him an exasperated look. He says: “Let him lie down and sleep, if he wants to and can,” then he starts walking around again.

I lie down. My Mother covers me up. She asks whether anything hurts—she presses a few places. I say impatiently: “Nothing hurts.”

She says: “Don’t be cheeky.” She leaves her hand on my body under the coverlet. I don’t mind—it feels quite pleasant. As time goes by I really do feel sleepy, what with the rain beating on the roof, the people walking around in slow circles, and her hand on my stomach. I think about what I would like to find in the empty houses in the night—it mustn’t be too heavy as I will have to carry it, nor too big; I keep an open mind—just that the word “marvelous” keeps going through my head. I’m sure I shall find something to make people stare and ask: Where in the world did you get that? Then I shall smile and keep my secret to myself, and they will all rack their brains and be envious. I feel I’ll soon be asleep—there’s always a humming in one’s ears just before sleep. There’s no chance of my oversleeping, I think, no matter how tired I may be: every night someone shouts “Lights out!” loud enough to wake a bear. I am quite clever.

I sleep, then I’m awake again. It’s almost time to go to bed. I am given my piece of bread and half an onion. I am a bit surprised that no one seems to notice what remarkable things are going on. Only my Mother insists that something’s wrong with me; her hands keep fluttering over my forehead, and she reminds Father about my coughing. I am about to jump up and show her how well I am, but I remember just in time what a mistake that would be. I mustn’t be well yet—I must go on coughing—otherwise they’ll put me back between them for the night.

“There you see?” says my Mother.

She wants to fetch Professor Engländer, the famous doctor from the next hut, but Father says: “Go ahead, fetch him. He’ll come and examine him, and if next time it’s something really serious he won’t come again.”

A voice calls: “Lights out!” One more hour, I think in alarm. Itzek is lying there now, Julian’s lying there now. I think, for each of them, one more hour. I’m afraid my parents may be able to feel how I’m trembling inside, but they are already at their kissing and whispering again. I never felt so wide awake in my life. Over and beyond the disturbance beside me I am aware of every single thing happening in the hut: the whispering in the next bed, the first snore, a groan issuing not from sleep but from misery, the second snore, the concert of snores, through a gap in the wall a light from the sky. I notice the rain has stopped—somewhere drops are still falling onto the ground, but no longer onto the roof. Two beds further along there’s a very old woman who talks in her sleep. Sometimes it has woken me up. I am waiting for her to start again. Father says one can be a different person in one’s sleep. She is silent. Instead someone is crying—that’s not so bad—crying makes a person tired and soon drop off to sleep. Then I hear a snore that delights me because it is my Mother’s. The sound is very soft and irregular, with little hesitations as if there were an obstacle in its path. None of the elves has put in an appearance yet. Perhaps the rain is keeping them away tonight. A good part of the hour has passed. I don’t want to be the first at our meeting place. The hour will be over, I decide, when Father is asleep too. I sit up and dangle my legs over the side of the bed. If he asks me what’s the matter it means he’s not asleep. But he doesn’t. Itzek is also sitting on his bed, that’s a help. Julian’s heart is also beating fast now. The crying has stopped, and for a long time there have been no more whisperings. So my hour must be up.

I stand beside the bed and nothing happens. Twice that morning I found my way to the door with my eyes shut—to make up for the lack of rehearsal during the night—and I didn’t bump into anything. All I did was step on the toes of an old man who was in my way, and he gave me a piece of his mind. I pick up my shoes. The hour is over. I take one step, then another. The floor creaks a little. During the day you don’t hear that. The darkness is so black that it makes no difference whether your eyes are open or shut. My steps quicken, but suddenly everything stops. I almost fall over with shock because someone screams. It’s that awful old woman. I don’t budge till she is quiet again; what will happen if she wakes my parents, and then: “Where’s our child?” But they go on sleeping because the woman’s screams are part of the night. My legs find the corner by themselves, then I see a gray shimmer from the door—light from the night. The last steps are recklessly fast because it suddenly occurs to me: what if the doors are locked at night! But the door opens with wonderful ease and closes quickly—at last, I’m outside in the camp! I sit down, put on my shoes, and could kick myself: I’ve forgotten my trousers. When I go to bed I always keep my shirt on, taking off only my trousers—that’s my Mother’s system here: the trousers are folded up as a pillow on the bed so no one will steal them. Now I have to climb over the wall in my shirt and underpants. Itzek and Julian will make fun of me.

I can’t find the moon. Yesterday I asked Julian: “What’ll they do to us if they catch us?”

He replied: “They won’t catch us.” I found that very reassuring.

On the ground are puddles. In one of them I find the moon. Of course I stop at every corner and take no risks. I think: even if Father wakes up now, it won’t do him any good.

Beyond the last corner I find Julian crouching by the wall. Of course he laughs and points at me. I sit down beside him on the ground. He is still enjoying the joke.

I ask: “Isn’t Itzek here yet?”

He says: “Look around for yourself, stupid.”

The bottom strut is so low that I can hold it as I sit there; it wobbles a bit. “Maybe he fell asleep,” I say. Julian says nothing—he seems very serious now that he’s stopped laughing. Never before have I been so aware of his superiority. I ask: “How long are we going to wait?”

He says: “Shut up.” I imagine Itzek’s horror when he wakes up in the morning and it’s all over. But now there’s no time for pity. I’m waiting for Julian’s orders and begin to be afraid of the wall. It is much higher than during the day. It grows with every passing moment. When a crow caws overhead, Julian stands up; perhaps the bird’s call was the signal he was waiting for.

He says: “Your Itzek is a coward.”

Later, after we have returned with our booty, I shall be just as great a hero as Julian. It’ll make no difference then who gives the orders now and who obeys. But Julian is silent for so long that I am afraid something may have gone wrong.

I ask: “D’you want to postpone it?”

He says: “Rubbish.” I admit there was also a bit of hope in my question, but now I know we’re going to leave the camp tonight.

“What are we waiting for?”

He says: “Nothing.” He pushes me aside because I am in his way. He tests the first strut, the second, and the third. He can’t reach the fourth from the ground. He steps onto the first strut and is now high enough to touch the fourth. Then jumps down again on the ground. He says: “You go first.”

I ask: “Why me?”

He says: “Because I say so,” and I feel how right he is.

Even so I ask: “Can’t we draw lots?”

“No,” he says impatiently, “get on with it, or I’ll go alone.”

That’s the highest proof that Julian isn’t scared like me; he gives me a little shove, to help me pull myself together. True, I can still think of a few questions I’d like to ask him; but if Julian means it and goes without me I’ll look like a fool. I step up to the wall. He says: “You must grab the third one and step onto the first.”

He pushes from below to make it look as if I couldn’t have managed without his help. I stand on the bottom strut and no longer feel scared of the wall, only of the height. It is a consoling thought that I shall have conquered the wall when Julian still has to face it. It’s like a ladder for giants. First take a big step, then grab hold of a higher strut—not much effort needed for that. On my right is the cool wall, on my left down below Julian stays farther and farther behind. He has turned his face up to the sky and is watching me.

He asks: “How’s it going?”

For the first time in my life I despise him, and from my height I say: “Don’t make so much noise.” I won’t let him know how easy it is; it was only fear that made him send me first. Suddenly, the top of the wall is level with my eyes.

I see a street. I see dark houses, the damp cobblestones on the square. Nothing moves. The Germans really are asleep.

Softly, he calls: “What can you see?”

I call back excitedly: “Way down there is a cart drawn by horses. I think they’re white.”

He calls out in surprise: “You’re lying!”

I say: “Now it’s turned a corner.” I lean my arms on top of the wall. There is a bit of broken glass lying there. They are small pieces—you can’t see each one. I grope along the wall with my hands. The largest piece can be broken off, and I use it to scrape away the other splinters.

“What are you doing?” Julian asks from below.

I carefully brush off the glass with my sleeve and blow. Then I roll over onto the wall. The fear starts up again—most of all I’m afraid of the fear. I have to get my knees under my stomach, that’s the hardest part. For a moment I put my knee on glass. Of course I mustn’t scream. I find a better place for my knee. It must be bleeding now; and Julian, the idiot, calls out: “What’s keeping you?”

I have to turn myself around. I’m desperately afraid of losing my balance. If Julian says one more thing I’ll spit on his head. Then, after turning around, I see him standing down there and for the first time realize how high up I am. Once again I lie down on my stomach. My legs are already outside. I can’t worry about little pains. I let myself down as far as my arms will stretch. My feet find no support because there are no struts here. I hang there and can’t pull myself up again.

I hear Julian calling: “What’s going on? Say something!”

I close my eyes and picture the wall from below, how small it seems when you walk around in the camp. So what can happen? I’ll fall down and hurt myself a bit. I’ve fallen down thousands of times. I’ll get up again and wipe my hands, while Julian will still have to face the climb. What happens if he doesn’t come? I get cold shivers at the thought—I’m hanging here and Julian disappears and goes to bed. I can’t very well go alone into the houses; after all it was Julian’s idea from the beginning. I call: “Julian, are you there?” Then I fly through the air: though nothing has been decided yet, the edge of the wall has detached itself from my hands. The ground is a long time coming. I fall slowly—the wall scraping along my stomach the whole steep way down—finally landing on my head too. I lie there comfortably on my back, keeping my eyes shut for a bit before calmly looking at the sky, which is exactly above me. Then I see Julian’s face on the top of the wall. He’s a good fellow, and he’s got guts too.

He calls: “Where are you?”

Now I must move. I have two pains to cope with, one on my right hip, the other in my head. I say: “Here, Julian.” I feel giddy too. I must move to one side so he doesn’t make matters worse by landing on my head. I think: But I’ve made it.

Julian has a different method. He sits on the wall. He slides forward; he seems to be hurrying; he supports himself left and right; his arms soon look like wings on him. No, he’s not a coward. He flies to the ground, landing beside me on his back. He gets up much faster than I did. Since I am behind him I walk around him, but he turns so that I can’t see his face and he moves off a few steps. I want to see him and grasp his shoulder, but he pushes me away because he’s crying. Even so he’s got guts.

My headache is sometimes a little one, sometimes a big one. My hip hurts at every step. I ask: “Are your hands bleeding too?” As if this possibility had occurred to him for the first time, Julian looks at his hands, turns them toward the moon. They aren’t bleeding. To comfort him I show him mine.

He says: “What on earth did you do, you donkey?”

I say: “The glass.”

He says: “The whole idea is not to touch that.”

I am shivering—how many jackets does a thief need at night? We are now people in a story, Julian walking ahead; he asks: “Are you still there?” That means he can’t hear me—I slink along as stealthily as any expert. With each step I get more used to my hip, whereas my headache gets worse. Everything is fine as long as I don’t turn my head. Somewhere a dog barks; it is a long way away and has nothing to do with us.

I say: “Why don’t we go into this house?”

We go up to the next house, but the front door is locked. We try every door, but it’s the same with all of them. I cry a little, from my headache and the cold too; Julian doesn’t laugh. He tugs at my sleeve and says: “Come.” That makes me feel better. He says: “D’you know what I think?” And when I shake my head and so cause myself new pain, he says: “I think there are people still living here. That’s why the houses are locked up. Only our street is empty.” I stop outside a window and want to find out whether Julian is right. I stand on tiptoe to see if there are people sleeping in the room. A devil’s face looks out at me—only the pane of glass is between us. I run away, hip and all, so that Julian doesn’t catch up with me until the next street corner.

I say: “There was a devil behind the window.”

Julian says: “There are people living there, stupid.”

He finds our street. I hardly recognize it in the dark. We walk past a fence where two loose boards seem familiar to me. I push one of them with my finger and am right. I could show many a trick in our street. I ask Julian why he doesn’t simply take the next house; yet I know he is afraid it might be locked up too. He says: “I know what I’m doing.”

Then I feel fine because my head feels better. We would have been inside a house long ago if Julian felt as cold as I do. I think: I hope he won’t feel warm for too long. Some day or other I’ll be the leader, then I’ll wear warm clothes. He asks: “Are you still there?” We go past my house—he can think only of his own; without him I could walk in if I wanted to. I think of Father’s flashlight. I must be tired. We waste no words over the workshop of dead Muntek, the cobbler; in my day, anyway, he was alive and used to chase us. I have never felt so cold in my street—the wind blows around my bare legs—but Julian is the first to sneeze. He stands outside his house and can’t get through the door. He rattles it a bit and kicks it a bit, but the door stays shut.

I say: “Don’t make such a racket!”

He answers: “Shut up.”

Since it is a long way to my house, I go to the next one, and that’s open. I call Julian; we’re very close to our fortune. The house has three floors. We start at the top because Julian wants it that way. On the landing it’s black, a door opens, a dark-gray hole. My heart pounds because I don’t know whether Julian has opened the door or a stranger, until Julian says: “What are you waiting for?” In the room there is a confusion of things: overturned chairs, a table, an open cupboard in which our hands find nothing.

I ask: “What’s that stink here?”

Julian says: “You stink.”

I sit down on a broken bed. Julian goes to the window and opens it. It gets lighter. He leans far out and asks: “D’you know where our camp is?”

I go over to him and say: “No.”

He shuts the window again and says: “I do.” That’s Julian for you. On the way back to the door we stumble against a bucket, where the stink comes from.

All the rooms in the house are empty in the same way. In one there is an object that is much too heavy to take along. Julian says: “That’s a sewing machine.” In one we find a box half full of coal—what use is coal in the camp? In one the handle falls off the door. I pick it up and decide to take it along—it’ll do for a start. Julian takes the handle away from me and replaces it. In the next house, in the very first room, Julian finds something. He examines it and soon calls out: “Wow, they’re binoculars!” I have never heard this word. He says: “Come here and look through them.” I go over to him at the window, he holds his discovery up to my face, and sure enough you can see things in it that no one can see with ordinary eyes, although it’s night. Julian shows how I have to turn the little wheel to make the pictures fuzzy or clear, but I can’t see anything anyway because suddenly there are tears in my eyes. I give him back his binoculars. What rotten luck that he should be the one to find them.

In the next room Julian comes to me and says: “We must go back.”

I say: “I’m not going before I find something too.” He repeats that I must hurry, as if it were a question of skill whether I find something or not. He stays with me in each room, as long as I like. He opens every window and looks at everything with his damn binoculars.

I feel I would be content with less and less, but there is nothing there. Julian says: “We must go. Or d’you want them to find out everything?” I say there is just one more room I want to go into, that’s where the cloth ball is lying under the bed, then we’ll run back to the camp. “All right,” says Julian; since the binoculars he’s a generous friend. While we walk along the street I have no answer to the question of what will happen if my house, of all the houses, should happen to be locked. Julian sees it long before I do, through his contraption, and says: “The door’s open.” There is no ball under the bed. I crawl into every corner. When we left the room it was here, no doubt about that, so someone came later and stole the ball. Now the whole thing hasn’t been worth it.

Julian asks: “What’s wrong?” because I am sitting on the bed crying. He puts his hand on my shoulder, though he could easily be grinning. He’s a pretty good friend. Now he should ask whether I want his binoculars; of course I wouldn’t accept them, but it would help a lot. Then I remember Father’s flashlight. It hasn’t shown up in the camp so far; maybe it’ll show up here, if the cloth-ball thief hasn’t found it. I don’t know where Father kept it hidden. I don’t think it had any fixed place; sometimes it lay on the table, sometimes somewhere else.

I get up and ask Julian: “If you had a flashlight as big as your fist, where would you hide it?”

He looks around three times, then asks: “Are you sure it’s here?”

I say: “It must be here.”

Julian puts down his binoculars on our table and begins to search; I like that but then again I don’t like it. I hurriedly start searching; I must find the flashlight before he does. There are a few places I know that he doesn’t—a hole in the floor, a little hollow under the windowsill, a loose board in the top of the wardrobe. My knowledge yields me nothing. I crawl on my stomach across the room, I climb on the chair: no flashlight. If Julian says once more that we have to leave, we’ll have to leave. For the last time I crawl under the bed, and I hear him say: “D’you mean this one?” He is quite calm. He has placed the flashlight on the table without waiting for any thanks.

I ask: “Where did you find it?”

He says: “In the drawer.” He says it like someone who can’t understand that I almost went out of my mind over such a ridiculous object. He takes his important binoculars and goes to the door. Perhaps I would never have thought of the drawer: you don’t need to crawl on your stomach to reach it; you don’t have to climb on a chair; not even the ball thief had that much sense.

Back in the camp I’ll make the light shine; just now Julian is impatient. I hurry after him to the stairs, yet I’m the one who knows every step of the way here. “Thanks, Julian,” I say or think. Suddenly, I feel sorry for Itzek. Julian forbids me to try out my flashlight in the street. I do as he says. I pay no attention to where we’re going. I just follow him. I don’t feel cold yet. I have to hold the flashlight in my hand because of course, having forgotten my trousers, I don’t have pockets.

I ask: “D’you remember the way?”

“You can go by yourself if you like,” says Julian, which means he knows the way. I’ve no idea why he is angry. I want to be nice to him.

I say: “If you need the flashlight, you can borrow it any time.”

He says: “I don’t need your flashlight.” I believe he’s just as eager as I am to be home again—that puts him in a bad mood; he dreads facing the wall again just as much as I do and having to climb it and jump down into the depths.

I say: “If the Germans are all asleep, we don’t need to climb. Why don’t we simply walk through the gate?”

“Because it’s locked, stupid,” says Julian.

It gets colder as we walk along. Of course, Julian finds the camp and since I’ve never doubted it I feel no relief. He even finds our spot. He whispers: “Oh no, d’you know what’s wrong?”

I whisper: “What?”

“The iron struts,” he whispers back, “there aren’t any on this side.”

I’d like to have had a bright idea too and whisper: “We have to go around the camp, somewhere there must be these things.”

“But there’s glass all along the top of the wall, except at this place,” whispers Julian.

I look at my hands, which I had forgotten, and my knee. I whisper: “If we find another place, we’ll take a stone and first break up the glass.” I realize how good my idea is, for now Julian says nothing and looks for a stone. He puts the stone in his trouser pocket and sets off as leader; if we should find struts on this side of the wall, it’ll be me who has saved us.

While walking ahead Julian says: “Stop playing with your stupid flashlight or I’ll take it away from you.” He’s always bossiest when he’s right; I would be a better leader if I were the leader. We have to make a detour, a big detour away from the wall and past the camp entrance, where there’s not a soul to be seen. That’s how Julian wants it. He takes away my flashlight, though I’ve done nothing with it. For safety’s sake, I don’t resist; a leader must think of everything and needn’t explain everything. We sneak across the street, which leads straight back to the camp gate. There’s still no one there to see us. We get back to the wall. Julian returns my flashlight, which is what I expected. We walk and walk and find no struts.

I say: “Julian, there won’t be any.”

“I know that perfectly well,” he says, but keeps walking.

Then I ask: “How much longer are we going to walk?” His answer is to stop, sit down, and lean his back against the wall. I sit down too and don’t ask. I look at Julian and see something terrible: he is crying. Now for the first time we’re stuck. He is crying because he’s at his wits’ end. His crying before, when he jumped down from the wall and fell, was nothing in comparison. We huddle together, most likely he feels just as cold as I do. He’s probably a few months older.

I ask: “Shall we go into an empty house and lie down?”

He answers: “Are you crazy?” A few times my eyelids close. I think what a pity it is that it wasn’t Julian who had the idea about the empty house. By now it’s so light that my flashlight makes hardly more than a bright circle on the ground. I think of Father, wanting him to come and fetch us, first me, then Julian, or both together, one under each arm. I want him to lay me down on the bed and cover me up warmly: oh my, that would be good. He’d have to hold my Mother’s hand. Both would have to stand beside the bed, looking down on me and smiling until I woke up.

Then something hurt. Before us stands a huge German. He has prodded me with his foot. He does it again, but not like someone meaning to kick. Out of his terrible eyes he utters a few words that are unintelligible; I’m too scared to try even to get up. Disaster won’t really strike until I’m standing; I stay sitting down. But beside me Julian is on his feet, held up by his collar. The giant says in funny Polish: “What are you doing here?” I look at my friend; the giant shakes me a little.

Julian points at the wall and says: “We’re from the camp.” That makes me admire him for a long time—the calm way he says it. The giant asks: “And how did you get out?” Julian tells him the truth; meanwhile I look at the helmet and the rifle sticking up over the giant shoulder, the giant shoe on my stomach, pinning me down. I’m convinced we’re soon going to be shot—we realized that from the beginning. The giant asks why the hell we didn’t go back into our camp. Julian explains that too. He has never been as great a hero as now. The giant looks up to the top of the wall and seems to understand. He takes his foot away from my stomach—that’s like an order to get up—and hardly am I on my feet when he grabs me by the collar. The flashlight is still lying on the ground. I have to get hold of it somehow before we leave.

The giant lets go of both of us and says: “Come with me to the guardhouse.” But he just stands there without moving. So do we, of course—it’s up to him to take the lead. “Come along, get a move on now,” he says, giving us a shove. I turn toward the wall and pick up my flashlight—it’s my last chance. The giant asks: “What’ve you got there?” and grabs my hands, which are behind my back. He sees the flashlight, takes it, tries it out, and puts it away in his pocket as if everything here belonged to him. Every bad thing I have ever heard about the Germans is suddenly true. I hate him like poison. If it had been anyone else I would have tried to persuade him to give me back the flashlight, even if it had meant an argument, even with Father. With this huge German it was hopeless. I see Julian stuff his shirt well down into his trousers. Only the two of us know what he is hiding under his shirt. I hope for his sake that he can hang onto his binoculars—I don’t want the giant to have them. The giant says: “Get a move on now.” He gives us another shove. We walk along in front of him. I notice Julian moving his booty from his back to his stomach. If we’re going to be shot, I think, his binoculars won’t be much use to him anyway. The giant tells us to stop.

With his giant hands he turns us around to face him. He looks at us for a long time, like a person with something on his mind—I wish him the worst worries in the world.

He says: “Do you know what’ll happen to me if I don’t take you to the guardhouse?” As if that concerned us: he’s not only a thief, he’s also an idiot. I think: Whatever happens to you, it can’t be nearly bad enough.

Julian says: “No, I don’t.” I feel like answering that I don’t care—it would be a good answer—but I see his great fists dangling. Oh how I’d love to be a giant! Suddenly, he grabs us both by the neck and flings himself on the ground, bringing us down with him. He is still holding me by the neck as if it were made of wood. He says: “Not a word.” I see a light at the far end of the wall, a motorbike. Soon I can hear the sound of it; I seem to hear the giant’s heart beating too; by now the pounding of his heart is louder than the sound of the motorbike. He says: “Not a word,” though he’s the only one talking. He’s a thief, a fool, a coward—I’m not scared of someone like that. I can’t see Julian because the huge body is lying between us. A long way off the motorbike turns a corner, but we have to stay where we are for a little while.

“Get up,” the giant then says. He lets go of us and brushes off his soldier’s clothes. I look at my underpants and know I’ll be in plenty of trouble with my mother, if I ever get out of this alive. The giant takes off his helmet and wipes his forehead; like all Germans he has fair hair. He takes his time, as if the cold existed only for me and not for him. His helmet is back on his head; now he takes hold of his rifle. This must be it: take you away and shoot you. They can do that.

Julian asks: “Are you going to shoot us now?”

The giant says nothing, probably doesn’t consider Julian’s question worth answering. He looks up and down the street; no doubt he doesn’t want anyone to see what he is about to do to us. He says to Julian: “Don’t you dare try and run away,” and wags his finger at him. Why has he taken hold of his rifle if not to shoot us? But he leans it against the wall. I suppose he doesn’t know himself what he wants. The flashlight is a little bulge under his jacket. I should have simply left it lying beside the wall, then one day some lucky person would have found it. He points at me and says only: “You there,” and I have to go up to him. He says: “I’ll lift you kids up onto the wall. But jump down quickly and run as fast as you can to your huts. Don’t waste a second. Understand?” So that’s what it’s all about. I don’t know whether I feel relieved—in a moment I’ll have to jump again.

“We have a place,” says Julian, “where there’s no glass on top. It’s not far from here.”

The giant says: “There’s no glass all along here,” and lifts me up with no effort at all. I have no time to think about it; it hurts me because he’s holding me by my hips. He says: “Stand on my shoulders.” I lean against the wall and do as he tells me; I still can’t reach the top. He says: “Now stand on my head.” He holds me by my ankles; I pay him back a bit for the flashlight: I make myself heavy and don’t try to spare his head. The helmet is his salvation, without a helmet he’d have a surprise coming to him. He says: “Hurry up.” I stand on one leg—there’s not room on the helmet—now I can grab the top of the wall. He asks: “Can you hold on?” I cautiously lift my foot from his head and he moves away from under me. I hang there, and will never get onto the wall; it’s exactly how I hung there before, except that then I wanted to get down to the ground and not get to the top. I look down over my shoulder and see him pick up his rifle.

That’s the ultimate shock. No one can imagine: to be hanging up there in the air just for him to shoot me, after all those nice speeches. There’s nothing to hold me to the wall now; I let go. As the years pass, the fall gets longer and longer—no wall can be that high—then I am caught by the giant. It is as if I had never fallen. The giant puts his hand over my mouth before I can scream. He says: “What d’you think you’re doing?” He sets me on my feet, picks up his rifle from the ground, and props it against the wall again. Then he says: “Once more, quick now.” Again he lifts me up, already I feel a bit more at home on his shoulders. This time I leave his head in peace. The sight of Julian standing down below makes me feel envious: I’m fighting a life-and-death struggle. I fall and I’ll be shot or not shot, and he stands there looking on, calm as you please. And he’s even allowed to keep his binoculars. I’ll have to have a word with him about that later.

Once again I grab the top of the wall. The giant lets go of one ankle, the other remains in his hand. He says to Julian: “Give me the rifle.” He presses the rifle butt against my behind and pushes me up. I can almost sit on it. With no effort I manage to get onto the wall. I lie on my stomach and can see how right he was—there’s not even the tiniest scrap of glass in sight; the glass is a mystery. I can look into our camp where it is still as silent and empty as at night, though it’s as light as day now. The giant calls from below: “Get down there!”

I turn around on the wall, hang down on the other side, and fall until I can fall no further. I lie there crying. I am back again and have brought nothing with me but sore places. Julian is no longer of interest to me; in the future he’ll have to find others for his ideas. I stand up. My parents feel closer. Father will be glad I’m still alive, my Mother will cry when she sees me, then she’ll wash out my many wounds; I won’t be able to tell them the truth. My hands are bleeding again, my knees are bleeding, my elbow looks as if it has been dipped in dirt and blood. One consolation is that they’ll probably feel so sorry for me they’ll stroke me. I start walking. Tomorrow I’ll say to Julian: “So all Germans sleep at night, do they?”

As I turn around, he jumps down from the wall by his own method. Though it’s not a bad fall, he doesn’t get up. Seeing him lying there on his stomach, I go back to him because he’s my friend. He’s crying, crying, and crying—I have never seen anyone cry like that before. I had already finished crying, now I start up again myself. I ask: “Did he take away the binoculars?” It is a while before he pushes my hand away and gets up. I can see the binoculars under his shirt. He limps away, crying all the time. I run after him and at last feel superior. I ask: “Are we going to meet tomorrow?” I see nothing wrong with this question, but what does Julian do? He hits me over the head. He looks at me as if he had more blows for me in his fists, then he limps on again. I stay where I am and can still hear him crying; I needn’t be that sorry for him that I have to run after him again. I’m looking forward to the hut, where I won’t have to feel cold any more.

Beyond the door it is dark. I close it so softly that I hear nothing; anyone who wasn’t awake before will still be asleep. My parents are sitting on the bed, staring at me wide-eyed.

Someone whispers: “Good God, what have they done to you?”

Right now nothing hurts any more, yet I feel as if the worst is still to come. My Mother holds both hands over her mouth. Father doesn’t move. I stand between his knees. He puts one hand on my head and turns me around. Then he holds me by both shoulders and asks: “Where have you been?”

I say: “I was outside and fell down.”

Father says: “No one falls down like that.” My Mother has risen and is searching in our brown carryall. Father shakes me so violently that my head, which for a long time had given me no trouble, begins hurting again.

I say: “We met outside and had a fight and beat each other up. That’s the truth.”

He asks: “Who’s ‘we’?”

I say: “You don’t know him.” Suddenly I can lie as never before. My Mother is holding a dripping towel. She takes me away from Father and leads me to the light by the window. Father follows us and looks on.

“Go and ask Professor Engländer whether he can come and look at him,” says my Mother.

Father asks: “Can’t we wait till after inspection?”

“No,” she retorts, “or daren’t you go outside?” Off he goes on tiptoe, and at last my Mother strokes me. She says: “You must realize that he’s upset.”

She lays me down on the bed and nurses my head on her lap. I think that later perhaps I’ll tell her the truth, only her. She says: “How tired you are, my little one.” It is bliss to lie in her lap, though her finger won’t let me fall asleep. She speaks to someone, a few times I hear the word “probably.” I open my eyes and she is smiling down at me as if I were something funny.

Father is holding a little dark bottle in his hand. “Engländer gave me some iodine,” he says.

I ask: “Will it hurt?”

My Mother says: “Yes, but it can’t be helped.” So I get up and back away because in my opinion enough things have hurt this past night.

Father says: “Don’t listen to her, it won’t hurt. It just cleans out the wound.” That sounds a bit better. He says: “I can prove it.” I watch very carefully—after all it’s my pain—I look at his outstretched arm. He dribbles a few drops from the bottle onto his arm; they form a little black lake and slowly spread. Then he says: “That’s supposed to hurt? Do you think I would put the stuff on my own arm if it hurt?” I look into his eyes from very close up and can’t see even the tiniest trace of pain. A further proof is that my Mother goes away; she was wrong and doesn’t want to admit it, so she simply goes away. Father says: “Come here now.” I hold out my elbow to him, he twists my arm a little so that the drops fall straight into the wound.

Translated by Leila Vennewitz