The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

quietly.
    ‘I’m going to be a soldier,’ said Bruno in a determined voice. ‘Like Father.’
    ‘I wouldn’t like to be a soldier,’ said Shmuel.
    ‘I don’t mean one like Lieutenant Kotler,’ said Bruno quickly. ‘Not one who strides around as if he owns the place and laughs with your sister and whispers with your mother. I don’t think he’s a good soldier at all. I mean one like Father. One of the good soldiers.’
    ‘There aren’t any good soldiers,’ said Shmuel.
    ‘Of course there are,’ said Bruno.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Well, Father, for one,’ said Bruno. ‘That’s why he has such an impressive uniform and why everyone calls him Commandant and does whatever he says. The Fury has big things in mind for him because he’s such a good soldier.’
    ‘There aren’t any good soldiers,’ repeated Shmuel.
    ‘Except Father,’ repeated Bruno, who was hoping that Shmuel wouldn’t say that again because he didn’t want to have to argue with him. After all, he was the only friend he had here at Out-With. But Father was Father, and Bruno didn’t think it was right for someone to say something bad about him.
    Both boys stayed very quiet for a few minutes, neither one wanting to say anything he might regret.
    ‘You don’t know what it’s like here,’ said Shmuel eventually in a low voice, his words barely carrying across to Bruno.
    ‘You don’t have any sisters, do you?’ asked Bruno quickly, pretending he hadn’t heard that because then he wouldn’t have to answer.
    ‘No,’ said Shmuel, shaking his head.
    ‘You’re lucky,’ said Bruno. ‘Gretel’s only twelve and she thinks she knows everything but she’s a Hopeless Case really. She sits looking out of her window and when she sees Lieutenant Kotler coming she runs downstairs into the hallway and pretends that she was there all along. The other day I caught her doing it and when he came in she jumped and said, Why, Lieutenant Kotler, I didn’t know you were here , and I know for a fact that she was waiting for him.’
    Bruno hadn’t been looking at Shmuel as he said all that, but when he looked again he noticed that his friend had grown even more pale than usual.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘You look as if you’re about to be sick.’
    ‘I don’t like talking about him,’ said Shmuel.
    ‘About who?’ asked Bruno.
    ‘Lieutenant Kotler. He scares me.’
    ‘He scares me too a little,’ admitted Bruno. ‘He’s a bully. And he smells funny. It’s all that cologne he puts on.’ And then Shmuel started to shiver slightly and Bruno looked around, as if he could see rather than feel whether it was cold or not. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘It’s not that cold, is it? You should have brought a jumper, you know. The evenings are getting chillier.’
    * * *
    Later that evening Bruno was disappointed to find that Lieutenant Kotler was joining him, Mother, Father and Gretel for dinner. Pavel was wearing his white jacket as usual and served them as they ate.
    Bruno watched Pavel as he went around the table and found that he felt sad whenever he looked at him. He wondered whether the white jacket he wore as a waiter was the same as the white jacket he had worn before as a doctor. As he brought the plates in and set them down in front of each of them, and while they ate their food and talked, he stepped back towards the wall and held himself perfectly still, neither looking ahead nor not. It was as if his body had gone to sleep standing up and with his eyes open.
    Whenever anyone needed anything, Pavel would bring it immediately, but the more Bruno watched him the more he was sure that catastrophe was going to strike. He seemed to grow smaller and smaller each week, if such a thing were possible, and the colour that should have been in his cheeks had drained almost entirely away. His eyes appeared heavy with tears and Bruno thought that one good blink might bring on a torrent.
    When Pavel came in with the plates, Bruno couldn’t help but notice that his hands were shaking slightly under the weight of them. And when he stepped back to his usual position he seemed to sway on his feet and had to press a hand against the wall to steady himself. Mother had to ask twice for her extra helping of soup before he heard her, and he let the bottle of wine empty without having opened another one in time to fill Father’s glass.
    ‘Herr Liszt won’t let us read poetry or plays,’ complained Bruno during the main course. As they