The air constricted around Bruno’s lungs with the same amount of pressure with which he was holding Shmuel’s hand. The world started disappearing into a frenzied chaos of nothingness as he started to hyperventilate. He felt people passing out next to him gasping for air. He stopped breathing for a minute stopping his thought process without oxygen. Suddenly a door to the side bounded open with a man in striped pajamas holding it open in triumph and people to all sides of him rushed out breathing in the oxygen. Bruno would have rushed out too but Shmuel wouldn’t budge. Bruno pulled Shmuel and tried to get him to move. What was Shmuel thinking? Was he playing some kind of joke? Did he think this was a game?
“Shmuel!!!!!!!! Come on!!!!!” Bruno’s cry was dissolved into the sea of noises suddenly enveloping the room. Shmuel still didn’t move. Now Bruno saw that he had his eyes closed. Oh my god! Shmuel was sleeping at a time like this. Yah, that was it, he was sleeping. Bruno was really going to blow his top later when everything was sorted out. Bruno tugged at the nearest soldier who threw him across the room with a single kick as if he was simply a nuisance on the boot of his shoe.
“Lieutenant Kotler!” Bruno screamed to the man that had just entered the room, happy to see him for the first time in all the time he had known him. Lieutenant Kotler looked at him in disbelief as if he was hallucinating with just the opposite emotion, trying to get Bruno’s image with the other Jews out of his head. “Please help me carry Shmuel out to his house.”
Lieutenant Lotler laughed out loud in some more disbelief. He looked at Bruno with a crazed gaze still unable to believe his eyes.
Bruno was dragged home with a deranged Lieutenant Kotler on his neck; unaware of how close he had come to death unlike Lieutenant Kotler who realized just how close the soldiers has come to killing the Commandment’s son. That didn’t matter but what did matter was that Shmuel had been left behind. Yes, he was still sleeping. He didn’t know why but he had a bad feeling about all of this. Hmmm, why the bad feeling?
Bruno had seen the people in the striped pajamas (Jews as they were known) being shepherded back to their homes (if that could be called a home) all shaken to their wits by the soldiers wearing the same uniform papa wore. Bruno still had the feeling of being suffocated in his throbbing lungs. He wondered if the Jews had felt the same way.
Bruno was carted to Father immediately as they moved toward the Out-With. Lieutenant Kotler literally picked Bruno up and took him into Father’s office. Needless to say Father was furious.
Bruno was reprimanded severely, though he wondered what he had done wrong. He wondered if he would ever meet Shmuel again what with Gretel’s worried hawk eyes on him. Father and Mother had decided that the worst punishment would be to lock him in his room without his books. Bruno was frustrated.
“Can you please let me out Gretal? Please?” Bruno begged. “Do you still believe in Father and in The Fury?”
Gretel’s unconvinced eyes never left Bruno’s face. She shook her head ever so slightly.
“Then let me go meet Shmuel one last time,” Bruno continued his plea.
Gretel unhappily agreed but only if she was allowed to accompany him. They sneaked out of the house to his usual place from where he crawled inside again, Gretel followed suit after casting him a disapproving glance. Inside it was all chaos while the soldier tried to tame everything with the use of heavy sticks and whips. Bruno ran straight to Shmuel’s little place and he found him. He wasn’t asleep anymore but he was lying down crying.
“Shmuel!!! What happened?” Bruno cried as Gretel looked around with her uptight stare. Bruno already knew what had happened. Everything suddenly clicked and he was so glad his friend hadn’t died. He sat there with Shmuel and held his bony hand in both of his. He finally hugged him the way he wanted to the first time he had went under the fence.
