‘Don’t worry,’ Father reassured him. ‘It’ll grow back. It’ll only take a few weeks.’
‘It’s the filth around here that did it,’ said Mother. ‘If some people could only see the effect this place is having on us all.’
When he saw himself in the mirror Bruno couldn’t help but think how much like Shmuel he looked now, and he wondered whether all the people on that side of the fence had lice as well and that was why all their heads were shaved too.
When he saw his friend the next day Shmuel started to laugh at Bruno’s appearance, which didn’t do a lot for his dwindling self-confidence.
‘I look just like you now,’ said Bruno sadly, as if this was a terrible thing to admit.
‘Only fatter,’ admitted Shmuel.
Chapter Seventeen
Mother Gets Her Own Way
Over the course of the next few weeks Mother seemed increasingly unhappy with life at Out-With and Bruno understood perfectly well why that might be. After all, when they’d first arrived he had hated it, due to the fact that it was nothing like home and lacked such things as three best friends for life. But that had changed for him over time, mostly due to Shmuel, who had become more important to him than Karl or Daniel or Martin had ever been. But Mother didn’t have a Shmuel of her own. There was no one for her to talk to, and the only person who she had been remotely friendly with – the young Lieutenant Kotler – had been transferred somewhere else.
Although he tried not to be one of those boys who spends his time listening at keyholes and down chimneys, Bruno was passing by Father’s office one afternoon while Mother and Father were inside having one of their conversations. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but they were talking quite loudly and he couldn’t help but overhear.
‘It’s horrible,’ Mother was saying. ‘Just horrible. I can’t stand it any more.’
‘We don’t have any choice,’ said Father. ‘This is our assignment and—’
‘No, this is your assignment,’ said Mother. ‘Your assignment, not ours. You stay if you want to.’
‘And what will people think,’ asked Father, ‘if I permit you and the children to return to Berlin without me? They will ask questions about my commitment to the work here.’
‘Work?’ shouted Mother. ‘You call this work?’
Bruno didn’t hear much more because the voices were getting closer to the door and there was always a chance that Mother would come storming out in search of a medicinal sherry, so he ran back upstairs instead. Still, he had heard enough to know that there was a chance they might be returning to Berlin, and to his surprise he didn’t know how to feel about that.
There was one part of him that remembered that he had loved his own life back there, but so many things would have changed by now. Karl and the other two best friends whose names he couldn’t remember would probably have forgotten about him by now. Grandmother was dead and they almost never heard from Grandfather, who Father said had gone senile.
But on the other hand he’d grown used to life at Out-With: he didn’t mind Herr Liszt, he’d become much friendlier with Maria than he ever had been back in Berlin, Gretel was still going through a phase and keeping out of his way (and she didn’t seem to be quite so much of a Hopeless Case any more) and his afternoon conversations with Shmuel filled him with happiness.
Bruno didn’t know how to feel and decided that whatever happened, he would accept the decision without complaint.
Nothing at all changed for a few weeks; life went on as normal. Father spent most of his time either in his office or on the other side of the fence. Mother kept very quiet during the day and was having an awful lot more of her afternoon naps, some of them not even in the afternoon but before lunch, and Bruno was worried for her health because he’d never known anyone need quite so many medicinal sherries. Gretel stayed in her room concentrating on the various maps she had pasted on the walls and consulting the newspapers for hours at a time before moving the pins around a little. (Herr Liszt was particularly pleased with her for doing this.)
And Bruno did exactly what was asked of him and caused no chaos at all and enjoyed the fact that he had one secret friend whom no one knew about.
Then one day Father summoned Bruno and Gretel into his office and informed them of the changes that were to come.
‘Sit down, children,’ he said, indicating the two large leather armchairs that they were usually told not to sit in when they had occasion to visit Father’s office because of their grubby mitts. Father sat down behind his desk. ‘We’ve decided to make a few changes,’ he continued, looking a little sad as he spoke. ‘Tell me this: are you happy here?’
‘Yes, Father, of course,’ said Gretel.
‘Certainly, Father,’ said Bruno.
‘And you don’t miss Berlin at all?’
The children paused for a moment and glanced at each other, wondering which one of them was going to commit to an answer. ‘Well, I miss it terribly,’ said Gretel eventually. ‘I wouldn’t mind having some friends again.’
Bruno smiled, thinking about his secret.