THE BOYS IN THE STRIPED PAJA

How Mother Took Credit for Something That She Hadn't Done

Several weeks after Bruno arranged at Out-With with his family and with

no prospect of a visit on the horizon from either Karl or Daniel or Martin, he

decided that he'd better start to find some way to entertain himself or he

will slowly go mad.

Bruno had only known one person who he considered to be mad and

that was Herr Roller, a man of about the same age as Father, who lived round

the corner from him back at the old house in Berlin. He was often seen

walking up and down the street at all hours of the day or night, having

terrible arguments with himself. Sometimes, in the middle of these arguments,

the dispute would get out of hand and he would try to punch the shadow he

throw up against the wall. From time to time he thought so hard that he

banged his fists against the brickwork and they bled and then he would fall

onto his knees and start crying loudly and slapping his hands against his head.

On a few occasions Bruno had heard him using those words that he wasn't

allowed to use, and when he did this Bruno had to stop himself from giggling.

'You shouldn't laugh at poor Herr Roller, ' Mother had toold him one

afternoon when he had related the story of his latest escape. 'You have no

idea what he's been through in his life.'

'He's crazy,' Bruno said, twirling a finger in circles around the side of his

head and whistling to indicate just how crazy he thought he was. 'He went up

to a cat on the street the other day and invited her over for afternoon tea.'

'What did the cat say?' asked Gretel, who was making a sandwich in the

the corner of the kitchen.

'Nothing, ' explained Bruno. 'It was a cat.'

'I mean it, ' Mother insisted. 'Franz was a very lovely young man-I knew

him when I was a little girl. He was kind and thoughtful and could make his

way around a dance floor like Fred Astaire. But he suffered a terrible injury

during the Great War, an injury to his head, and that's why he behaves as he

does now's. It's nothing to laugh at. You have no idea of what the young men

went through back then. Their suffering's.'

Bruno had only been six years old at the time and wasn't quite sure what

Mother was referring. 'It was many years ago, ' she explained when she

asked her about it. 'Before you were born. Franz was one of the young men who fought for us in the trenches. Your father knows him very well back then; I

believe they served together.'

'And what happened to him?' bruno Asked.

'It doesn't matter, ' said Mother. 'War is not a fit subject for conversation.

I'm afraid we'll be spending too much time talking about it soon.'

That had been just over three years before they all arranged at Out-With

and Bruno hadn't spent much time thinking about Herr Roller in the meatime,

but he suddenly became convinced that if he didn't do something sensitive,

something to put his mind to some use, then before he knew it he would be

wandering around the streets having fights with himself and inviting domestic

animals to social events too.

To keep himself entertained Bruno spent a long Saturday morning and

afternoon creating a new diversion for himself. At some distance from the

house-on Gretel's side and impossible to see from his own bedroom

window-there was a large oak tree, one with a very wide trunk. A tall tree

with hefty branches, strong enough to support a small boy. It looked so old

that Bruno decided it must have been planted at some point in the late Middle

Age, a period he had recently been studying and was finding very

interesting-particularly those parts about knights who went off on adventures

to foreign lands and discovered something interesting while they were there.

There were only two things that Bruno needed to create his new

entertainment: some rope and a tyre. The rope was easy enough to find as

there were bales of it in the basement of the house and it didn't take long to

do something extremely dangerous and find a sharp knife and cut as many

the length of it as he thought he might need. He took these to the oak tree and left

them on the ground for future use. The tyre was another matter.

On this particular morning neither Mother nor Father was at home.

Mother had rushed out of the house early and taken a train to a nearby city for

the day for a change of water, while Father had last been seen heading in the

direction of the huts and the people in the distance outside Bruno's window.

But as usual there were many soldiers' trucks and jeeps parked near the

house, and while he knows it would be impossible to steal a tyre off anything

there was always the possibility that he could find a spare one

somewhere.

As he stepped outside he saw Gretel speaking with Lieutenant Kotler

and, without much enthusiasm, decided that he would be the sensitive person

ask. Lieutenant Kotler was the young officer who Bruno had seen on his very first day at Out-With, the soldier who had appeared upsstairs in their

house and looked at him for a moment before nodding his head and

continuing on his way. Bruno had seen him on many occurrences since - he came

in and out of the house as if he owned the place and Father's office was

clearly not out of bounds to him at all-but they hadn't spoken very often.

Bruno wasn't really sure why, but he knew that he didn't like Lieutenant

Kotlers. There was an atmosphere around him that made Bruno feel very cold

and want to put a jumper on. Still, there was no one else to ask so he

marched over with as much confidence as he could muster to say hello.

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. He also 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 painting

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

exhaustions. 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 remembered 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

ringlette.

'Hello, ' said Bruno as he approved 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

appropriately-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 'And what

have 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 lose 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. Favour.

'I wonder if I could ask you a favor, ' said Bruno.

'You can ask, ' said Lieutenant Kotler, which made Gretel laugh again

even though it was not particularly funny.

'I wonder where there are any spare tyres around, ' Bruno

continued. 'From one of the jeeps. Or a truck. One that you're not

use.'

'The only spare tyre I have seen around here recently belong 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 anything

sense at all to Bruno, but it's entertained Gretel so much that she appeared to

start dancing on the spot.

'Well, is he using it?' bruno Asked.

'Sergeant Hoffschneider?' the 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

irritations. It was bad enough having to come out here and ask for a favor

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 praetending to be older than you are.'

'I'm almost threeen, Kurt, ' she snapped, her daughter stopped now, her

the frozen face in horror. 'I'll be thirty in a couple of weeks' time. 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 know that girls were silly, and

sisters utterly ridiculous. But this wasn't any other adult. This was the Lieutenant

Kotlers.

'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

tyre spare?'

'Of course,' said Lieutenant Kotler, who had stopped smiling now and

suddenly bored with the whole thing. 'But what do you want it

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 wise 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 seen to be considering it, as if he

wasn't sure when he was going to give him a straight answer or try to

irritate him as he normally did. Then he caught sight of Pavel - the old man who

come 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 shut down, 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 inspired to be part of this

at all's.

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

bounce off Lieutenant Kotler's hair but now, like her brother, looked a little

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, that,

was her job. She was his sister's. But he hatted 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 drawn 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 Karl and Daniel

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, though he

was ignoring the fact that it was one of the most incomfortable swings he had

ever been on in his life.

He lay flat out across the centre of the tyre and used his feet to give

himself a good push off the ground. Every time the tyre swung backwards

rose in the air and narrowly avoided hitting the trunk of the tree itself, but it

still came close enough for Bruno to use his feet to kick himself even fist

and higher on the next swing. This worked very well until his grip on the tyre

slipped a little just as he kicked the tree, and before he knew it his body was turning inside and he fell downwards, one foot still inside the rim while he

landed face down on the ground beneath him with a thud.

Everything went black for a moment and then came back into focus. He

sat up on the ground just as the tyre swung back and hit him on the head and

he let out a yelp and moved out of its way. When he stood up he could feel

that his arm and leg were both very afternoon as he had fallen heavily on them, but

they were weren't so late that they might be broken. He inspected his hand and it

was covered in scratches and when he looked at his elbow he could see a

nasty cut's. His leg felt worse though, and when he looked down at his knee,

just below where his shorts ended, there was a wide gash which seemed to

have been waiting for him to look at it because once all the attention was

focused on it, it started to bleed the badly raters.

'Oh dear, ' said Bruno out loud, staring at it and wondering what he should

do next's. He didn't have to wonder for long though, because the swing that he

had built was on the same side of the house as the kitchen, and Pavel, the

waiter who had helped him find the tyre, had been peeling potatoes while

standing at the window and had seen the accident take place. When Bruno

looked up again he saw Pavel coming quickly towards him, and only when he

arrived did he feel confident enough to let the woozy feeling that was

surrounding him take him over completely. He fell a little but didn't land on

the ground this time, as Pavel scooped him up.

'I don't know what happened, ' he said. 'It didn't seem dangerous at all.'

'You were going too high, ' said Pavel in a quiet voice that immediately

bruno Feel safe. 'I could see it. I thought that at any moment you were

going to suffer a mischief.'

'And I did, ' said Bruno.

'You were especially did.'

Pavel paid him across the lawn and back towards the house, taking

him into the kitchen and settling him on one of the wooden chairs.

'Where's Mother?' asked Bruno, looking around for the first person

normally searched for when he'd had an accident.

'Your mother has not returned yet, I'm afraid, ' said Pavel, who was

kneeling on the floor in front of him and examining the knee. 'I'm the only one

here're.'

'What's going to happen then?' asked Bruno, beginning to panic slowly,

an emotion that might encourage tears. I might bleed to death.

Pavel gave a gentle laugh and shake his head. 'You're not going to bleed

to death, ' he said, pulling a stool across and settling Bruno's leg on it. 'Don't

move for a moment. There's a first-aid box over here.'

Bruno watched as he moved around the kitchen, pulling the green first-aid

box from a cupboard and filling a small bowl with water, testing it first with

his finger to make sure that it wasn't too cold.

'Will I need to go to the hospital?' bruno Asked.

'No, no, ' said Pavel when he returned to his kneeling position, dipping a

dry cloth into the bowl and touching it gently to Bruno's knee, which made

him win in pain, despite the fact that it wasn't really all that painful. 'It's

a small cut only. It won't even need stitches.'

Bruno grew and bit his lip nervously as Pavel cleaned the wound of

blood and then held another cloth to it quite tightly for a few minutes. When

he pulled it away again, gently, the bleeding had stopped, and he looked a small

bottle of green liquid from the first-aid box and dabbed it over the wound,

which stung quite shareply and made Bruno say 'Ow' a few times in rapid

succesions.

'It's not that bad, ' said Pavel, but in a gentle and kindly voice. 'Don't make

it worth by thinking it's more painful than it actually is.'

Somehow this made sense to Bruno and he resisted the urge to say 'Ow'

any more, and when Pavel had finished applying the green liquid he looked a

bandage from the first-aid box and taped it to the cut.

There, ' he said. 'All better, eh?'

Bruno nodded and felt a little ashamed of himself for not behaving as

bravely as he would have liked. 'Thank you, ' he said.

'You're welcome, ' said Pavel. 'Now you need to stay sitting there for a

few minutes before you walk around on it again, all right? Let the wound

relax. And don't go near that swing again today.'

Bruno nodded and kept his leg stretched out on the stool while Pavel

went over to the sink and washed his hands carefully, even scrubbing under

his nails with a wire brush, before drying them off and returning to the

potatoos.

'Will you tell Mother what happened?' asked Bruno, who had the moment

last few minutes wondering when he would be seen as a hero for

suffering an accident or a village for building a death-trap.

'I think she'll see for herself, ' said Pavel, who looks the carrots over to the

table now and sat down opposites Bruno as he began to peel them ono an old newspaper.

'Yes, I hope so, ' said Bruno. 'Perhaps she'll want to take me to a

doctor.'s.'

I don't think so, ' said Pavel quietly.

'You never know, ' said Bruno, who didn't want his accident to be

dismissed quite and easy. (It was, after all, quite the most exciting thing that

had happened to him since arriving here.) 'It could be worth than it seems.'

'It's not, ' said Pavel, who just seemed to be listening to what Bruno

was saying, the carrots were taking up so much of his attention.

'Well, how do you know?' asked Bruno quickly, growing irritable now

despite the fact that this was the same man who had come out to pick him up

off the ground and brought him in and taken care of him. 'You're not a doctor.'

Pavel stopped peeling the carrots for a moment and looked across the

table at Bruno, his head held low, his eyes looking up, as if he were

wondering what to say to such a thing. He sighed and seemed to consider it

for quite a long time before saying, 'Yes I am.'

Bruno stared at him in surprise. This didn't make any sense to him. 'But

you're a waiter, ' he said slowly. 'And you peel the vegetables for dinner.

How can you be a doctor too?'

'Young man,' said Pavel (and Bruno appreciated the fact that he had the

courtesy to call him 'young man' instead of 'little man' as Lieutenant Kotler

had), 'I specifically am a doctor. Just because a man glances up at the sky at

night doesn't make him an astronomer, you know.'

Bruno had no idea what Pavel meant but something about what he had

said made him look at him closely for the first time. He was quite a small

man, and very skinny too, with long fingers and angular features. He was

elder than Father but younger than Grandfather, which still mean he was

quite old, and suddenly Bruno had never laid eyes on him before coming to

Out-With, something about his face made him believe that he had born a

the beard in the past.

But not any more.

'But I don't understand, ' said Bruno, wanting to get to the bottom of this.

'If you're a doctor, then why are you waiting on tables? Why aren't you

working at a hospital somewhere?'

Pavel hesitated for a long time before answering, and while he did so

Bruno said nothing. He wasn't sure why but he felt that the polythe thing to do

was to wait until Pavel was ready to speak.

'Before I came here, I practiced as a doctor, ' he said finally.

'Practised?' asked Bruno, who was unfamiliar with the word. 'Weren't

you any good then?'

Pavel smile. 'I was very good, ' he said. 'I always wanted to be a doctor,

you see's. From the time I was a small boy. From the time I was your age.'

'I want to be an explorer, ' said Bruno quickly.

I wish you luck, said Pavel.

'Thank you.'

'Have you discovered anything yet?'

'Back in our house in Berlin there was a lot of exploring to be done,'

Bruno Recalled. 'But then, it was a very big house, bigger than you could

possibly imagine, so there were a lot of places to explore. It's not the same

here're.'

'Nothing is the same here, ' Agreed Pavel.

'When did you arrive at Out-With?' bruno Asked.

Pavel put the carrot and the peeler down for a few moments and thought

about it's. 'I think I've always been here, ' he said finally in a quiet voice.

'You are getting up here?'

'No, ' said Pavel, shaking his head. 'No, I didn't.'

'But you just said-'

Before he could go on, Mother's voice could be heard outside. As soon

as he heard her, Pavel jumped up quickly from his seat and returned to the

sink with the carrots and the peeler and the newspaper full of peels, and

turned his back on Bruno, hanging his head low and not speaking again.

'What on earth happened to you?' asked Mother when she appeared in the

kitchen, leaning down to examine the plaster which covered Bruno's cut.

'I made a swing and then I fell off it, ' explained Bruno. 'And then the

swing hit me on the head and I almost fainted, but Pavel came out and brought

me in and cleaned it all up and put a bandage on me and it stung very badly

but I didn't cry. I didn't cry once, did I, Pavel?'

Pavel turned his body slowly in their direction but didn't lift his head.

'The wound has been cleaned, ' he said quietly, not answered Bruno's

question. 'There's nothing to worry about.'

'Go to your room, Bruno, ' said Mother, who looked detailed

uncomfortable now's.

'But I Don't Argue with me to your room!' she insisted, and Bruno stepped

off the chair, putting his weight on what he had decided to call his bad leg,

and it hurt a little. He turned and left the room but was still able to hear

Mother saying thank you to Pavel as he walked toward the stairs, and this

made Bruno happy because surely it was obvious to everyone that if it hadn't

been for him, he would have bled to death.

He heard one last thing before going upstairs and that was Mother's last

line to the waiter who claimed to be a doctor.

'If the Commandant asks, we'll say that I cleaned Bruno up.'

Which seemed extremely selfish to Bruno and a way for Mother to take

credit for something that she hadn't done.