The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

had company for dinner, the family were dressed formally – Father in his uniform, Mother in a green dress that set off her eyes, and Gretel and Bruno in the clothes they wore to church when they lived in Berlin. ‘I asked him if we could read them just one day a week but he said no, not while he was in charge of our education.’
    ‘I’m sure he has his reasons,’ said Father, attacking a leg of lamb.
    ‘All he wants us to do is study history and geography,’ said Bruno. ‘And I’m starting to hate history and geography.’
    ‘Don’t say hate, Bruno, please,’ said Mother.
    ‘Why do you hate history?’ asked Father, laying down his fork for a moment and looking across the table at his son, who shrugged his shoulders, a bad habit of his.
    ‘Because it’s boring,’ he said.
    ‘Boring?’ said Father. ‘A son of mine calling the study of history boring? Let me tell you this, Bruno,’ he went on, leaning forward and pointing his knife at the boy, ‘it’s history that’s got us here today. If it wasn’t for history, none of us would be sitting around this table now. We’d be safely back at our table in our house in Berlin. We are correcting history here.’
    ‘It’s still boring,’ repeated Bruno, who wasn’t really paying attention.
    ‘You’ll have to forgive my brother, Lieutenant Kotler,’ said Gretel, laying a hand on his arm for a moment, which made Mother stare at her and narrow her eyes. ‘He’s a very ignorant little boy.’
    ‘I am not ignorant,’ snapped Bruno, who had had enough of her insults. ‘You’ll have to forgive my sister, Lieutenant Kotler,’ he added politely, ‘but she’s a Hopeless Case. There’s very little we can do for her. The doctors say she’s gone past the point of help.’
    ‘Shut up,’ said Gretel, blushing scarlet.
    ‘You shut up,’ said Bruno with a broad smile.
    ‘Children, please,’ said Mother.
    Father tapped his knife on the table and everyone was silent. Bruno glanced in his direction. He didn’t look angry exactly, but he did look as if he wasn’t going to put up with much more arguing.
    ‘I enjoyed history very much when I was a boy,’ said Lieutenant Kotler after a few silent moments. ‘And although my father was a professor of literature at the university, I preferred the social sciences to the arts.’
    ‘I didn’t know that, Kurt,’ said Mother, turning to look at him for a moment. ‘Does he still teach then?’
    ‘I suppose so,’ said Lieutenant Kotler. ‘I don’t really know.’
    ‘Well, how could you not know?’ she asked, frowning at him. ‘Don’t you keep in touch with him?’
    The young lieutenant chewed on a mouthful of lamb and it gave him an opportunity to think of a reply. He looked to Bruno as if he regretted having brought the matter up in the first place.
    ‘Kurt,’ repeated Mother, ‘don’t you keep in touch with your father?’
    ‘Not really,’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders dismissively and not turning his head to look at her. ‘He left Germany some years ago. Nineteen thirty-eight, I think it was. I haven’t seen him since then.’
    Father stopped eating for a moment and stared across at Lieutenant Kotler, frowning slightly. ‘And where did he go?’ he asked.
    ‘I beg your pardon, Herr Commandant?’ asked Lieutenant Kotler, even though Father had spoken in a perfectly clear voice.
    ‘I asked you where he went,’ he repeated. ‘Your father. The professor of literature. Where did he go when he left Germany?’
    Lieutenant Kotler’s face grew a little red and he stuttered somewhat as he spoke. ‘I believe … I believe he is currently in Switzerland,’ he said finally. ‘The last I heard he was teaching at a university in Berne.’
    ‘Oh, but Switzerland’s a beautiful country,’ said Mother quickly. ‘I haven’t ever been there, I admit, but from what I hear—’
    ‘He can’t be very old, your father,’ said Father, his deep voice silencing them all. ‘I mean you’re only … what? Seventeen? Eighteen years old?’
    ‘I’ve just turned nineteen, Herr Commandant.’
    ‘So your father would be … in his forties, I expect?’
    Lieutenant Kotler said nothing but continued to eat although he didn’t appear to be enjoying his food at all.
    ‘Strange that he chose not to stay in the Fatherland,’ said Father.
    ‘We’re not close, my father and I,’ said Lieutenant Kotler quickly, looking around the table as if he owed everyone an explanation. ‘Really, we