‘Come on, little man,’ said Lieutenant Kotler, coming towards Bruno now and putting an unfriendly arm around his shoulder. ‘You go to the living room and read your book and leave this little — to finish his work.’ He used the same word he had used to Pavel when he had sent him to find the tyre.
Bruno nodded and turned round and left the kitchen without looking back. His stomach churned inside him and he thought for a moment that he was going to be sick. He had never felt so ashamed in his life; he had never imagined that he could behave so cruelly. He wondered how a boy who thought he was a good person really could act in such a cowardly way towards a friend. He sat in the living room for several hours but couldn’t concentrate on his book and didn’t dare to go back to the kitchen until later that evening, when Lieutenant Kotler had already come back and collected Shmuel and taken him away again.
Every afternoon that followed, Bruno returned to the place in the fence where they met, but Shmuel was never there. After almost a week he was convinced that what he had done was so terrible that he would never be forgiven, but on the seventh day he was delighted to see that Shmuel was waiting for him, sitting cross-legged on the ground as usual and staring at the dust beneath him.
‘Shmuel,’ he said, running towards him and sitting down, almost crying with relief and regret. ‘I’m so sorry, Shmuel. I don’t know why I did it. Say you’ll forgive me.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Shmuel, looking up at him now. There was a lot of bruising on his face and Bruno grimaced, and for a moment he forgot about his apology.
‘What happened to you?’ he asked and then didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Was it your bicycle? Because that happened to me back in Berlin a couple of years ago. I fell off when I was going too fast and was black and blue for weeks. Does it hurt?’
‘I don’t feel it any more,’ said Shmuel.
‘It looks like it hurts.’
‘I don’t feel anything any more,’ said Shmuel.
‘Well, I am sorry about last week,’ said Bruno. ‘I hate that Lieutenant Kotler. He thinks he’s in charge but he isn’t.’ He hesitated for a moment, not wanting to get sidetracked. He felt that he should say it one last time and really mean it. ‘I’m very sorry, Shmuel,’ he said in a clear voice. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t tell him the truth. I’ve never let a friend down like that before. Shmuel, I’m ashamed of myself.’
And when he said that, Shmuel smiled and nodded and Bruno knew that he was forgiven, and then Shmuel did something that he had never done before. He lifted the bottom of the fence up like he did whenever Bruno brought him food, but this time he reached his hand out and held it there, waiting until Bruno did the same, and then the two boys shook hands and smiled at each other.
It was the first time they had ever touched.
Chapter Sixteen
The Haircut
It had been almost a year since Bruno had come home to find Maria packing his things, and his memories of life in Berlin had almost all faded away. When he thought back he could remember that Karl and Martin were two of his three best friends for life, but try as he might he couldn’t remember who the other one was. And then something happened that meant that for two days he could leave Out-With and return to his old house: Grandmother had died and the family had to go home for the funeral.
While he was there, Bruno realized he wasn’t quite as small as he had been when he left because he could see over things that he couldn’t see over before, and when they stayed in their old house he could look through the window on the top floor and see across Berlin without having to stand on tiptoes.
Bruno hadn’t seen his grandmother since leaving Berlin but he had thought about her every day. The things he remembered most about her were the productions that she and he and Gretel performed at Christmas and birthdays and how she always had the perfect costume to suit whatever role he played. When he thought that they would never be able to do that again it made him very sad indeed.
The two days they spent in Berlin were also very sad ones. There was the funeral, and Bruno and Gretel and Father and Mother and Grandfather sat in the front row, Father wearing his most impressive uniform, the starched and pressed one with the decorations. Father was particularly sad, Mother told Bruno, because he had fought with Grandmother and they hadn’t made it up before she died.