The Nazis are disgustingly methodical.
And she keeps turning over those thirty words. She overhears one of the women teachers say that she will mention in her card that she was reading a book by Knut Hamsun, to signal to her relatives Hunger, the title of his most famous novel. Dita finds that somewhat obscure. Others try subterfuges, too—some ingenious, others so metaphorical that no one will understand them—to hide their forbidden messages of genocide. Some want to ask for the maximum allowable amount of food; others want news of the outside world, but many simply want to say that they were alive. In the afternoon, the teachers organize a competition to see who was best able to disguise the secret messages.
Dita tells her mother they should write the truth.
“The truth…”
Her mother, somewhat scandalized, mutters the word truth as if it were blasphemy. Telling the truth implies talking about terrible sins and writing about aberrations. How could you consider telling even a small part of something so abominable?
Liesl Adler feels ashamed of her own fate, as if anyone who receives such luck has to be guilty of something. She regrets the fact that her daughter is so impulsive and so flighty, that she isn’t more discreet in weighing up the significance of things. In the end, she takes the card and decides that she herself will write a note in which she’ll say that the two of them are fine, thanks be to God; that her beloved Hans, may he be with God, didn’t overcome an infectious disease; and that they are really looking forward to seeing all of them again. Dita looks at her mother defiantly for a moment, and Liesl tells her that they know this postcard will reach its destination and keep them in touch with their family.
“This way, they’ll have some news about us.”
Despite her caution, Dita’s mother won’t achieve her objective: When her postcard reaches its destination, nobody is there to receive it.
The Allied aerial bombings are becoming more frequent and rumor has it that the Germans are losing ground at the front, that the war has changed direction, and the end of the Third Reich could be close. If they pass the six-month mark and are still alive, then maybe they will see the end of the war and be able to return home. But nobody is very optimistic: There’s been talk of the end for years.
The next morning, Dita displays her library on the wooden bench yet again, and while the groups are getting settled on their stools, Miriam Edelstein comes over and puts her mouth close to Dita’s ear.
“They’re not going to come,” she whispers.
Dita gestures that she doesn’t understand.
“Schmulewski has found out. It seems that the international observers were in Terezín and the Nazis organized everything to perfection. So they didn’t ask to see anything else. The International Red Cross observers won’t be coming to Auschwitz.”
“So … what about our moment?”
“I don’t know, Edita. I want to believe that there’s always a moment for truth. We’ll have to be attentive and patient. If the Red Cross isn’t going to come, the family camp probably stops being useful to Himmler.”
Dita feels cheated. And if their lives have been worth very little up to this point, now they are worth nothing.
“Bad, bad,” Dita mutters.
Events don’t take long to unfold. On a morning seemingly like all the others, Lichtenstern calls classes to an end five minutes early, although no one else realizes it—he’s the only one in the entire camp who has a watch. He climbs with some difficulty onto the horizontal ledge of the stove. The children, who think morning classes are over before soup time, race around laughing and happily playing jokes on each other. No one expects it when the block chief raises the whistle to his lips, calling for attention.
Just for an instant, the sound reminds the old hands of the much-missed Fredy Hirsch, and they fall silent; they know that something serious must have occurred if Lichtenstern is using Hirsch’s whistle.
Lichtenstern says that he has important news. He looks tired, but his voice is decisive.
“Teachers, students, assistants, I have to tell you that Birkenau–Auschwitz Command Headquarters has informed us that this block has to be vacated by tomorrow. That’s all I know.”
By the afternoon, Block 31 is empty, only a warehouse again. Dita knocks on the door several times, and when Lichtenstern doesn’t answer, she uses the key they gave her weeks ago.
She takes advantage of the fact that Lichtenstern is absent, and that there’s still a bit of time before curfew, to take out the library books one by one.
She hasn’t leafed through the atlas for days and feels immense pleasure as she retraces the sinuous outline of the coastlines, climbs up and down mountain ranges, whispers the names of cities like London, Montevideo, Ottawa, Lisbon, Peking.… And as she does this, she feels she can hear her father’s voice again as he turns the globe. She removes the yellowing cover of The Count of Monte Cristo, a book whose secrets she was able to discover even though they were in French, thanks to Markéta. She whispers aloud the name of Edmond Dantès and works on imitating a French accent until she feels satisfied. The moment to abandon the prison on If has arrived.
She also places H. G. Wells, her private professor of history, on top of the table. And the Russian grammar, Freud’s book, and the geometry treatise, as well as the Russian novel with no front or back cover that contains the mysterious Cyrillic script she failed to decipher. Very carefully, she takes the last book out of the hidey-hole—The Adventures of the Good Soldier ?vejk with its missing pages. She can’t resist the temptation to read a few lines to assure herself that the rogue ?vejk is still there, lurking among its pages. And there he is, in full flight, trying to soothe Lieutenant Luká? after his most recent blunder.
“Half the consommé soup in this bowl you’ve brought me from the kitchen is missing.”
“Yes, Lieutenant. It was so hot that it was evaporating as I came over here.”
“It’s evaporated into your belly, you shameless parasite.”
“Lieutenant, sir, I can assure you that it was all caused by evaporation; these things happen. There was a mule driver transporting some casks of hot wine to Karlovy Vary who…”
“Out of my sight, you animal!”
Dita hugs the pile of pages as if it were an old friend.