Some teachers have stood their ground and say they won’t teach any classes. For some, it’s a way of protesting, while others simply find themselves incapable of carrying on. Lichtenstern tries to raise their morale, but he lacks the charisma and the self-confidence of Fredy Hirsch. And he can’t cover up the fact that he, too, is demoralized.
One of the teachers asks what happened to Hirsch. Others gather around crestfallen, as if they were at a funeral. Someone says he was told that Hirsch was loaded into one of the trucks on a stretcher, either dying or already dead.
“I think he killed himself out of pride. He was too proud to allow himself to be killed by the Nazis. He wasn’t going to give them that pleasure.”
“I think that when he saw his own German compatriots had tricked and betrayed him, he couldn’t bear it.”
“Children suffering is what he couldn’t bear.”
Dita listens, and something stirs inside her, as if she senses that there is something about Hirsch’s death that doesn’t lend itself to a conventional explanation. She feels not only devastated but confused. What will happen to the school if Hirsch isn’t here to fix everything? She’s found a spot on a stool as far away as possible from all the others, but she can see Lichtenstern, thin and clumsy, coming her way. He’s nervous, and he’d give ten years of his life for a cigarette.
“The children are frightened, Edita. Look at them, they’re not moving; they’re not talking.”
“We’re all angry, Seppl.”
“We have to do something.”
“Do? What can we do?”
“The only thing we can do is carry on. We have to make these children respond. Read something to them.”
Dita looks around and sees that the children have gradually sat down on the ground in silent groups, biting their nails and gazing up at the ceiling. They’ve never been so depressed or so quiet. Dita feels weak, and she has a bitter taste in her mouth. What she’d really like to do is stay on her stool without moving or speaking or having someone talk to her, and never get up again.
“And what am I going to read to them?”
Seppl Lichtenstern opens his mouth, but no words come out, so he closes it again and, somewhat embarrassed, looks down. He admits that he doesn’t know about books, and they can’t ask Miriam Edelstein because she’s too overcome. She’s sitting at the back with her head in her hands, refusing to speak to anyone.
“You’re the librarian of Block Thirty-One,” Lichtenstern reminds her sharply.
Dita nods in agreement. She must assume her responsibility. No one has to remind her of that.
As she makes her way to the Block?ltester’s cubicle, she wishes she could ask Mr. Utitz, the chief librarian at Terezín, which would be the most appropriate book for her to read to the children under these tragic circumstances. She has a serious novel, some math books, and some books about understanding the world. But before she has even lifted the pile of rags which hide the trapdoor to the hidey-hole, she’s already made up her mind.
She takes out the messiest of the books—little more than a bundle of unbound sheets. It may be the least suitable, the least pedagogic, and the most irreverent of them all. There are even teachers who disapprove of it, finding it indecent and in poor taste. But those who believe that flowers grow in vases don’t understand anything about literature. The library has now become her first-aid kit, and she’s going to give the children a little of the medicine that helped her recover her smile when she thought she’d lost it forever.
Lichtenstern gestures to one of the assistants to go and stand guard at the door, and Dita sits on a stool in the middle of the hut. The odd child looks at her with halfhearted curiosity, but most of them continue to examine the tips of their clogs. She opens the book, finds a page and starts to read. Maybe they can hear her, but no one is listening. The children are listless; many of them are lying on the floor. The teachers continue to whisper among themselves, chewing over what they know about the deaths of the September group. Even Lichtenstern is sitting on a stool, his eyes closed in an attempt to distance himself.
Dita is reading for nobody.
She begins with a scene in which the Czech soldiers, under orders from the Austrian high command, are traveling by train to the front, and ?vejk’s outrageous opinions manage to irritate an arrogant lieutenant called Dub, who inspects the troops when they reach their destination. He paces back and forth accompanied by his habitual refrain. “Do you know me?” he says. “Well, I’m telling you that you don’t really know me! But when you do know me I’ll reduce you to tears, you idiots!” The lieutenant asks them if they have any brothers, and when they say they do, he shouts that their brothers must be just as stupid as they are.
The sad-faced children are still sitting in their corners, although the odd one has stopped chewing his nails and a few others have even stopped staring at the ceiling and are watching Dita as she continues to toss words into the air. A few of the teachers have also turned their heads toward her, although they haven’t entirely abandoned their conversations. They can’t quite work out what Dita is doing on her stool. Dita goes on reading until the grim-faced lieutenant comes across ?vejk, who’s criticizing a propaganda poster in which an Austrian soldier is using his bayonet to skewer a Russian Cossack to a wall.
“What is it about the poster that you don’t like?” Lieutenant Dub asks him rudely.
“What I don’t like is the careless way in which the soldier is handling his regulation weapon, sir. The bayonet could snap when it hits the wall. Moreover, it’s a fairly useless action, because the Russian already has his hands in the air, so he’s surrendered. He’s now a prisoner, and you have to treat prisoners properly, because they’re people, too.”
“Are you insinuating that you feel sorry for that Russian enemy soldier?” the lieutenant asks maliciously.
“I feel sorry for both of them, sir. The Russian because he’s been bayoneted, and the soldier because they’ll lock him up for what he’s done. He must have broken his bayonet, sir, since the wall is stone and steel is not as strong. While I was finishing my military service, before the war, we had a sublieutenant who used more swear words than a veteran. On the parade ground, he used to shout at us: ‘When I say “attention,” you have to stare straight in front of you the way a cat does when it’s relieving itself.’ But other than that, he was a very sensible person. One time, at Christmas, he went crazy and bought a cartload of coconuts for the whole company. Ever since that day, I know how fragile bayonets are: Half the company snapped their bayonets, one after another, when they tried to open the coconuts, and the sublieutenant had us locked up for three days.”
Some of the children are now paying attention while others who were farther away have moved closer so they can hear better. Some of the teachers are still talking, but others are telling them to be quiet. Dita reads on with gentle determination. The sound of the words and ?vejk’s wisecracks have gradually silenced the muttering.