“Yes, he thinks it’s very clever.”
“Well, it makes things easier if there’s a sudden inspection, even if they don’t happen too often. What I’m proposing is that you use my secret pockets as a model and have two more made up for another assistant volunteer. That way we could have all the books out here during the day at the disposal of the teachers. Then it really would be like a genuine library.”
Lichtenstern stares at her.
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re proposing…”
“I’d have the books out on top of the chimney during morning classes, and that way, each time there’s a class changeover, the teachers could come and ask for a book. Teachers could even request more than one book in the course of a morning, if they wanted to. If there were an inspection, we’d hide the books in the secret pockets under our clothes.”
“You want to have the books out on top of the chimney? That’s reckless. I don’t approve of that.”
“Do you think Fredy would agree?”
The na?veté with which Dita asks the question is so exaggerated that the deputy director loses control. Could it be that this child is trying to undermine his authority?
“I’ll discuss it with the director, but you might as well forget the idea. I know Fredy.”
But Lichtenstern is wrong. Here, no one knows anyone.
6.
Lichtenstern owns the only watch in the camp, and at the end of the morning he bangs a gong made from a particularly thin metal bowl, which sounds loudly to signal that classes are over. It’s time for soup. First, though, the children must form a straight line and walk to the washroom to rinse their hands.
Dita walks over to Professor Morgenstern’s corner and picks up the H. G. Wells book he has been using to explain the fall of the Roman Empire to his students. The professor looks like a shabby Father Christmas with his close-cropped white hair, unshaven white stubble, and eyebrows that look like pieces of white wire. His very worn jacket is coming apart at the shoulder seams and has no buttons. Despite that, he stands very tall in it. He walks with a regal dignity that matches the old-fashioned, if somewhat excessive, politeness of his manners, such as his habit of addressing even the youngest child as “young man” or “young lady.”
Dita takes hold of the book with both hands just in case the clumsy old man drops it. She has felt especially curious about him ever since that incident during the inspection, which served her so well in allowing her to elude the Priest. So, some afternoons, she goes to his corner to visit him. Professor Morgenstern always hastens to stand as soon as he sees her coming, and gives her a very deep bow. It amuses her that he starts to talk without preamble.
“Are you aware of the significance of the distance between your eyes and your eyebrows?” he asks, intrigued. “It’s hard to find people with the ideal distance—neither too close nor too far away.”
His words tumble out as he speaks enthusiastically about the most absurd topics, but he can also suddenly stop talking and gaze up at the ceiling or into space. If anyone tries to interrupt him, he gestures with his hand for them to wait a moment.
“I’m listening to the wheels in my brain turning,” he declares very seriously.
He doesn’t take part in the conversations the rest of the teachers have at the end of the day. Nor would he be particularly welcome. Most of them think he’s crazy. On those afternoons when his students are playing with the other groups at the back of the hut, he’s usually sitting by himself. Professor Morgenstern makes origami birds out of the few scraps of paper that have been discarded because there’s no more space to write on them.
On this particular afternoon, when Dita approaches him, he leaves a small piece of paper half folded and hastily stands up to greet her with a small dip of his head. He looks at her through his cracked glasses.
“Miss Librarian … it’s an honor.”
His greeting, which flatters her and makes her feel grown up, strikes her as somewhat peculiar. Just for a moment, she wonders if he’s making fun of her, but she quickly rejects that possibility. His eyes are kind. The professor talks to her about buildings; he was an architect before the war. When she tells him that he still is one and he’ll continue to put up buildings, he smiles.
“I don’t have the strength to raise anything anymore, not even my own body from this very low bench.”
For several years before he arrived in Auschwitz, he had been unable to pursue his career because he was a Jew, and his memory is starting to fail, he tells her.
Morgenstern confesses to Dita that he sometimes asks her to bring him a book, but then gets distracted and talks about other topics and doesn’t even get around to opening it.
“So why do you request it?” Dita asks him reproachfully. “Aren’t you aware that we have a limited number of books and you can’t ask for them on a whim?”
“You’re right, Miss Adler. You’re absolutely right. I beg your forgiveness. I’m an egotistical and capricious old man.”
And then he stops talking, and Dita doesn’t know what to say, because he seems genuinely distressed. And then, for no obvious reason, he suddenly smiles. In a low voice, as if he were telling her a secret, he explains that having a book in his lap while he talks to the children about the history of Europe or the exodus of the Jews makes him feel like a real teacher.
“That way, the children pay attention to me. The words of a crazy old man are of no interest to them, but if the words come from a book … that’s another matter. Within their pages, books contain the wisdom of the people who wrote them. Books never lose their memory.”
And he brings his head up close to Dita as if to entrust something very mysterious to her. She can see his untidy white beard and those tiny eyes.
“Miss Adler … books know everything.”
Dita leaves Morgenstern absorbed in his origami, attempting to make what looks like a seal. She feels the old professor has a few screws loose, but even so, he makes sense.
Lichtenstern waves Dita over. He looks irritated—the same way he looks when he’s out of cigarettes.
“The director says he likes your suggestion.”
The deputy director watches her closely for any display of triumph, but her expression is serious and focused. Secretly, she is overjoyed.
“He’s given his approval; so be it. But at the first sign of an inspection, the books have to be hidden quickly. That is your responsibility.”
Dita nods her agreement.
“There is one point on which I have absolutely not compromised,” Lichtenstern states more cheerfully, as if this might restore his wounded pride. “Hirsch kept insisting that he would wear the hidden pockets in case there was an inspection. I’ve made him see the stupidity of this plan. He has to receive the guards—he’ll be right next to them, so he can’t be found carrying any package. A different assistant will be with you in the library each day.”