Panorama by H. G. Adler Read Free Book Online Page A

he picked up a cork gun from among his toys and pointed it toward himself as his mother went pale and yelled, “Bubi, you can’t die! My poor child, Bubi! Bubi!” But Bubi is stubborn and just looks away as his mother comforts him,which pleases Josef a great deal, and he thinks that he’d like to try the same rather than always just making someone angry. So when Josef once again doesn’t want to wash his hands and the mother scolds him as always, he says to her, “I’m tired of you always getting angry with me. I don’t want to live anymore, I’m going to poison myself!” At this the mother quietly walks away and returns with a spoon, then opens the little medicine cabinet full of many bottles, jars, tins, and little boxes, after which she grabs a bottle and slowly removes its cork and pours something from it into the spoon that looks like water and has no color, and then steps toward Josef, who at first is curious and looks on, but now is afraid as she calmly says, “Take the spoon, my child. This will poison you and then you’ll be dead.” And so she holds the spoon up to his mouth, which he doesn’t open, and he realizes that he doesn’t really want to die, but nonetheless he grows terribly afraid and thinks how lucky Bubi is that his mother was so afraid, while Josef’s mother will just let him die quietly because she doesn’t love him at all. “I’m not taking the spoon! I don’t want to!”—“You said you wanted to poison yourself. This is poison, my child. You won’t have to be bothered by your mother anymore.”—“I’m not taking that spoon!” And then he begins to weep horribly and cannot stop, and he never thinks about poisoning himself again.
    Josef wants to live and grow tall, and he’s astounded at how easy it would be to die from just a spoonful of medicine, which is terrible, not even the mother being sad once you are dead. But Frau Diamant is deeply sad and still wears black and always has tears in her eyes when she sees Josef and his schoolmates. She had a son named Georg, who was in Josef’s class, and Georg had always been such a quiet boy whom everyone liked. But one day he didn’t come to school again, and then Fräulein Reimann sadly said a couple of days later, “Children, stand up. I have some bad news. Georg Diamant has died from brain fever. We will observe a moment of silence in order to think about him and his poor parents.” And after a minute the teacher said, “Now sit. Tell your parents that you’d like to contribute a little something. Bring it in with you so that the class can lay a beautiful wreath on Georg’s grave.” Josef told his parents, and the mother was deeply upset and said right way, “The poor, poor parents! What a terrible blow!” But Aunt Betti said, “One can’t watch over children closely enough. They are such a worry. All it takes is a little bite from some bug and there’s nothingyou or I can do to prevent the child dying.” Then Josef asked, “Will I also die?”—“We all have to die someday, child. But before that we should all live to be old. When a child dies, it’s the worst thing that can happen to a parent, and terribly hard.” Josef wants to ask more questions, but he doesn’t really know what about, and then he can only think how sad it must be to be dead and no longer there. The next morning his father gives him a silver coin for the wreath, all the children in the class bringing in a contribution as the teacher writes down the exact amount she receives from each and, once satisfied, says, “It will be a beautiful wreath. Tomorrow is the burial, and I will attend for all of you and give my condolences to the inconsolable parents on behalf of the entire class. Today, though, you should all pray a great deal for the soul of poor Georg, so that he gets to heaven and becomes a little angel.”
    Josef often dreams, losing himself in his dreams during the day as well, not knowing if he’s asleep or if he’s dreaming.