Jakob the Liar by Jurek Becker

false teeth fell out just as he was bending over Desdemona to strangle her. Rosa lays her fingers on Mischa’s hands, her mother goes on making the shirt smaller, Frankfurter is rubbing his knees, perhaps he’s not in the mood today, and here comes Mischa with such good news, still wondering how best to tell them, as if pondering a checkers move.
    “Have you heard the latest?” Rosa asks him suddenly.
    Startled, Mischa looks from one to the other; he gives up his search and is surprised that Mrs. Frankfurter doesn’t even look up from the shirt. They already know, yet he hasn’t noticed till now that they know. He is surprised to find that everything in the room looks just as it did on his last visit. He is amazed at the speed: it was only this morning that he heard it from Jacob, and now it’s already here at the Frankfurters, by way of who knows how many intermediaries. But strangest of all is that Rosa should wait till now to bring up the subject. She can’t have forgotten it and only just remembered it: impossible. Something’s wrong — maybe they have a reason not to believe it.
    “You already know?”
    “They were talking about it at work today,” says Rosa. “And you’re not glad?”
    “Glad?” says Mr. Frankfurter. “We’re supposed to be glad? What are we supposed to be glad about, my boy, eh? Before, they could have been glad about it, gathered all the relatives together, got drunk, but today there are a few little things that have changed. In my opinion, it’s all a big calamity, my lad, almost a disaster for those people, and you’re asking why I’m not glad?”
    Mischa instantly realizes that they are talking about something quite different, the only explanation for their mood. Otherwise Frankfurter has taken leave of his senses and doesn’t know what he’s saying.
    “It will be hard to bring up a child,” says Mrs. Frankfurter between two stitches.
    The first clue. Renewed astonishment in Mischa’s eyes: they are talking about some child, so news doesn’t travel all that quickly. Apparently two crazy people have brought a child into this world, without having heard the news — in normal ghetto times, certainly a subject for discussion. But as of yesterday the times are no longer normal, a different wind is blowing, we can tell you about things that will make you forget child and husband and wife and eating and drinking: as of yesterday, tomorrow will be another day.
    Now Rosa is surprised: first she is surprised, then she smiles at Mischa’s expression.
    “So you really don’t know about it yet,” she says. “But that’s what he’s like. He can’t stand it if other people know more than he does. He’s such a know-it-all, while the truth is he doesn’t know anything. A child has been born in Witebsker-Strasse. Actually there were twins, but one of them died almost at once. Last night. When all this is over they intend to have the boy registered under the name of Abraham.”
    “When all this is over,” says Frankfurter. He lays his pipe on the table, gets up, and starts to pace the room, head bowed, hands behind his back. His disapproving glances are directed at Mischa — surely the boy isn’t grinning? They take everything so lightly, including Rosa; perhaps they are too young to grasp it. They speak of the future as if it were a weekend that can’t fail to arrive — the whole family goes off to the country with a picnic basket, rain or shine. “When all this is over the child will have died and the parents will have died. All of us will have died, that’s when this will be over.”
    Frankfurter has finished his pacing and sits down again.
    “I think David sounds nicer,” says Mrs. Frankfurter gently.
    “Dovidl… Do you remember? That’s what Annette’s son was called. Abraham sounds so terribly old, not at all like a child. Yet it’s only for children that names are important. Later, by the time they’re grown up, names don’t matter so much