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

He holds on tight to his mother when he leaves the house with her, sensing how warm it is next to her, when suddenly he senses nothing and feels as if he didn’t exist. Perhaps that’s what it’s like, being dead, as if looking down at himself, entirely separate and other, and he feels sorry for this Josef, who is always walking around hanging on to someone, this Josef down there below him. A different Josef has to always do as he’s told, go to school, wash his hands, a Josef who is always afraid and isn’t brave like Bubi, who sits atop a real horse that slowly goes around in a circle as it pulls the carousel, Josef trusting the artificial horses of the carousel, those that are dead, while Bubi rides proudly on a living horse. The Josef above pities the Josef below, but the one above is not really there, he is nothing and thinks nothing, though he is alive and is much more magnificent than the real Josef and better than him and all the children in the class.
    In class there is a poor refugee from Galicia named Chaim Eiberheit, whom all the kids dislike, Eiberheit being completely poor, though there’s no reason for him to be so filthy, or so say all the mothers, as well as Fräulein Reimann, though he does live in the worst house in the neighborhood, a building where many poor people live whom no one wants anything to do with, Hugo Treml saying of the house, “It’s full with broken windows.” But the teacher says, “No, Treml, you mean ‘full of,’ not ‘full with,’ nor is ‘fullof’ even right in this instance.” Meanwhile Eiberheit sits on the last bench alone, because no child can stand to sit next to him, not because he’s a refugee but because his mother never cleaned him up and he has dirty ears, once having had a genuine case of lice in his hair, even though it never bothered Eiberheit. One time Frau Eiberheit came to school, waiting until recess, when Fräulein Reimann was still in the classroom, to whom Frau Eiberheit handed a large slice of bread covered with lard, which she just wanted to pass on to Chaim, though the teacher was anxious to speak with her. “It’s good that you’re here, Frau Eiberheit. But you must know this is not allowed.” Indeed, Frau Eiberheit begs her pardon, she doesn’t want to be a bother, but the boy had simply forgotten his lunch and he shouldn’t go hungry, and Frau Eiberheit makes a move to go, but the teacher yells, “Frau Eiberheit, listen to me! You must …” Frau Eiberheit doesn’t let her get out another word, even though all she wants to say is that Frau Eiberheit has to bathe Chaim and comb his hair, but Frau Eiberheit has already left the classroom, and the teacher can only shrug her shoulders. And yet Eiberheit remains as filthy as ever, nor does it matter to him, for he’s happy to sit alone on the last bench, making faces and laughing whenever anyone turns around to him, which the teacher has forbidden them to do. “No turning around. That’s rude. How many times must I tell you?” But Eiberheit says to her, “Pieposberger and Flamminger are also refugees, and yet they never get into trouble. Why don’t you make an example of them?”
    At home the mother says, “It’s this terrible war that does this to everyone. It would be good if it would just be over with. Then we could get a letter again from Aunt Valli in America.” The mother often talks about this aunt who many years ago left for America, where she lives quite happily, especially because the war zone is so far away, and war is simply horrible. Bubi’s father didn’t have to enlist, but Ludwig’s father had to, and also Hugo Treml’s and the fathers of many other children who are now in Russia or on the Isonzo and seldom come home when they have leave, several others also having been wounded, and some still held as prisoners of war. Meanwhile the children don’t know where their fathers are, and the mothers say nothing, which is awful for the poor women, as Aunt Gusti says