The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

I made the swing on the oak tree and fell and cut my knee?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Maria. ‘It’s not hurting you again, is it?’
    ‘No, it’s not that,’ said Bruno. ‘But when I hurt it, Pavel was the only grown-up around and he brought me in here and cleaned it and washed it and put the green ointment on it, which stung but I suppose it made it better, and then he put a bandage on it.’
    ‘That’s what anyone would do if someone’s hurt,’ said Maria.
    ‘I know,’ he continued. ‘Only he told me then that he wasn’t really a waiter at all.’
    Maria’s face froze a little and she didn’t say anything for a moment. Instead she looked away and licked her lips a little before nodding her head. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘And what did he say he was really?’
    ‘He said he was a doctor,’ said Bruno. ‘Which didn’t seem right at all. He’s not a doctor, is he?’
    ‘No,’ said Maria, shaking her head. ‘No, he’s not a doctor. He’s a waiter.’
    ‘I knew it,’ said Bruno, feeling very pleased with himself. ‘Why did he lie to me then? It doesn’t make any sense.’
    ‘Pavel is not a doctor any more, Bruno,’ said Maria quietly. ‘But he was. In another life. Before he came here.’
    Bruno frowned and thought about it. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
    ‘Few of us do,’ said Maria.
    ‘But if he was a doctor, why isn’t he one still?’
    Maria sighed and looked out of the window to make sure that no one was coming, then nodded towards the chairs and both she and Bruno sat down.
    ‘If I tell you what Pavel told me about his life,’ she said, ‘you mustn’t tell anyone – do you understand? We would all get in terrible trouble.’
    ‘I won’t tell anyone,’ said Bruno, who loved to hear secrets and almost never spread them around, except when it was totally necessary of course, and there was nothing he could do about it.
    ‘All right,’ said Maria. ‘This is as much as I know.’
    Bruno was late arriving at the place in the fence where he met Shmuel every day, but as usual his new friend was sitting cross-legged on the ground waiting for him.
    ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ he said, handing some of the bread and cheese through the wire – the bits that he hadn’t already eaten on the way when he had grown a little peckish after all. ‘I was talking to Maria.’
    ‘Who’s Maria?’ asked Shmuel, not looking up as he gobbled down the food hungrily.
    ‘She’s our maid,’ explained Bruno. ‘She’s very nice although Father says she’s overpaid. But she was telling me about this man Pavel who chops our vegetables for us and waits on table. I think he lives on your side of the fence.’
    Shmuel looked up for a moment and stopped eating. ‘On my side?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes. Do you know him? He’s very old and has a white jacket that he wears when he’s serving dinner. You’ve probably seen him.’
    ‘No,’ said Shmuel, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know him.’
    ‘But you must,’ said Bruno irritably, as if Shmuel were being deliberately difficult. ‘He’s not as tall as some adults and he has grey hair and stoops over a little.’
    ‘I don’t think you realize just how many people live on this side of the fence,’ said Shmuel. ‘There are thousands of us.’
    ‘But this one’s name is Pavel,’ insisted Bruno. ‘When I fell off my swing he cleaned out the cut so it didn’t get infected and put a bandage on my leg. Anyway, the reason I wanted to tell you about him is because he’s from Poland too. Like you.’
    ‘Most of us here are from Poland,’ said Shmuel. ‘Although there are some from other places too, like Czechoslovakia and—’
    ‘Yes, but that’s why I thought you might know him. Anyway, he was a doctor in his home town before he came here but he’s not allowed to be a doctor any more and if Father had known that he had cleaned my knee when I hurt myself then there would have been trouble.’
    ‘The soldiers don’t normally like people getting better,’ said Shmuel, swallowing the last piece of bread. ‘It usually works the other way round.’
    Bruno nodded, even though he didn’t quite know what Shmuel meant, and gazed up into the sky. After a few moments he looked through the wire and asked another question that had been preying on his mind.
    ‘Do you know what you want to be when you grow up?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes,’ said Shmuel. ‘I want to work in a zoo.’
    ‘A zoo?’ asked Bruno.
    ‘I like animals,’ said Shmuel