Our Nights
- Twenty days later, Primo's kicked out of Ka-Be. His foot is almost healed.
- Not only does Primo have to leave the relative comfort of the medical clinic, but he's going to be thrown into a completely new housing unit and into a new work group. He'll be under new leaders whose habits, likes and dislikes he hasn't had a chance to figure out yet.
- Plus, he doesn't get to keep his spoon or knife, which could present a serious problem.
- Primo's now assigned to Block 45, and lucky for him, that's where his best friend Alberto is also assigned.
- Here's the nightly schedule of Block 45: they eat (scraping every drop of food they can from their soup bowls); Engineer Kardos comes around and takes care of people's sore and wounded feet (in exchange for some bread, of course); the story-teller shows up and sings a song in Yiddish about life in the camp; people with broken shoes are invited to exchange them (they don't get to try them on, but can only decide if shoes fit by looking at them); and finally the lights are turned off and people start to go to sleep.
- Primo dreams of being at home, and telling his family about what it's like at the camp, but no one seems to understand, and they babble among themselves like he's not even there.
- Others prisoners, he learns, have this very same dream.
- Everyone is the barracks have to go to the bathroom in a bucket in the room. Because of all the watery soup that the prisoners eat, they have to urinate every two or three hours during the night.
- Once filled, the bucket has to be carried out and emptied in the latrines outside. Did we mention it's cold and snowing outside?
- Often, the heavy (and full to the brim) bucket slops around and the disgusting contents slop all over the prisoner's pants and shoes.
- All too soon the reveille rings, and the prisoners have to get up, make their beds, get dressed, wash up in the washroom, go to the bathroom, and prepare for work.
- The sores on Primo's feet immediately open up again.