Summary
Having decided that his radio is functioning again, Jacob goes to work happy. He plans to lie and say that the Russians have won an important battle even closer to the ghetto than Bezanika. Jacob’s plan is to begin to lie without acknowledging his conscience. He thinks that when they are free, it will not matter that he lied, and he will simply say he “misheard.” Jacob imagines a scenario where the Germans have blown up the only bridge that can be used to cross the Rudna river. He continues to plan the Russian advance in his mind.
On Jacob’s way to work he encounters Kowalski standing with an unknown young man. Kowalski introduces the man as Josef Neidorf, who claims to work at the tool factory. Neidorf tells Kowalski he is scared, but Kowalski quiets him. Neidorf then tells Jacob that he is a radio repairman, and Kowalski says Neidorf is going to fix Jacob’s radio. But Jacob tells Kowalski the radio is already working again. When Neidorf asks how the radio became fixed, Jacob lies and says he shortened one of the wires. Neidorf leaves the two men.
After Neidorf departs, Kowalski tells Jacob he is thinking of going into a different line of business after they are freed. He asks Jacob if the radio can provide any insight into how he can use the extra money he has saved. They discuss possible uses of Kowalski’s extra money, including investing in alcohol, tobacco, and clothing, or updating his barber shop.
After Lina spends days searching for the radio and pleading with Jacob, Jacob agrees to show her the radio. He takes her to a locker in the basement. Jacob tells Lina she will be able to listen to the radio but will not be able to see it. From behind a partition, Jacob begins to “play” his radio by imitating the sound of a radio with his voice. He “plays” an interview with Winston Churchill in which Churchill says he is confident the war will end soon. Lina is thrilled and asks to hear more. Jacob relents and imitates an entire brass band. He does not see when Lina peeks around the partition, and the narrator tells us that she will only tell him much later. When the radio finishes playing this performance, Lina asks Jacob for more. He begins to “play” a reading of a fairy tale.
In the fairy tale, a princess becomes sick with an unknown disease. She says that only a cloud will make her condition improve. The king, her father, gathers men from across the kingdom. He tells them that he will make rich anyone who can bring the princess a cloud. Nobody can do so. One day, the garden boy, with whom the princess used to play, asks the princess why she no longer comes to the garden. She explains her illness and its cure. He asks her what a cloud is made of, and she says that it is a piece of cotton as big as a pillow (as this is how clouds appear to her). The garden boy brings her a piece of cotton that is as large as her pillow, and the princess is cured. The two marry after the garden boy refuses the promised reward.
On another evening, Rosa and Mischa are lying together while Mischa tells her about the battle of the Rudna. They are no longer being cautious while in Mischa’s room because Isaak Fayngold, Mischa’s roommate, has been missing for a week. It is believed that he was arrested off the street, though nobody knows why. While Mischa and Rosa no longer have to whisper, Rosa is uncomfortable being in Mischa’s room because she had grown accustomed to Isaak’s presence. In fact, Rosa refused to go over to Mischa’s for a few days after Isaak first disappeared. Then, yesterday, she came over, but she was uncomfortable and refused to have sex with Mischa. She woke Mischa up and requested to have the room restored to how it was when Isaak still lived there, as Mischa had claimed the full space after the disappearance. They argued about it, then made up the next day outside her factory. Next, they went to the Frankfurter home to tell Rosa’s parents that the couple would be spending the night at Mischa’s.
That takes us to tonight, with Mischa describing the battle of the Rudna. The two have sex but feel themselves conscious of Isaak’s absence. It is a poor experience. As the chapter closes, Mischa jokingly asks Rosa if she would still like the room restored. She says yes.
Jacob has been let out of work early and is going to the attic to see Lina. As he is about to enter, he hears Rafael ask Lina about the fairy tale from the radio. Lina says Jacob told her the story, which makes Jacob become suspicious about how much Lina really knows. Lina attempts to tell Rafael the story while adding some details. Lina’s retelling of the story does not go well, however, and Rafael stops her and makes fun of her, then leaves.
Jacob, who is feeling worn out, decides not to enter after all and goes for a walk instead. He finds himself in front of the building where Aaron Ehrlicher, the old potato merchant, used to live. He thinks about Aaron before continuing on to Libauer-Gasse Number 38. This, the narrator tells us, is where a woman whom Jacob met on the train and with whom he became infatuated lived.
The narrator describes how Jacob had helped her bring her suitcase from the train to her home. They next saw each other a few weeks later, when she entered his store with a man. She returned alone the next day and said she was the widow of a watchmaker. Jacob and the woman, Josefa, soon formed a relationship. They were together for four years without being technically married or moving in together. One day, Josefa told Jacob that the man with whom she had first entered his shop, Avrom Minsch, asked her to marry him. She told Jacob to make up his mind about marrying her, at which point he left, saying he’ll think about it. He never made up his mind and lost Josefa.
Jacob returns home and greets Lina before beginning to think about Josefa and how his life could have been different if he’d married her. Then, though it is after curfew, Kirschbaum knocks on Jacob’s door. Kirschbaum tells Jacob he disapproves of his actions regarding his radio. Upset, Jacob responds that people need hope, and, right when Jacob wishes for a cigarette, Kirschbaum offers him one. They smoke. Jacob points out there have been no suicides since he began to spread information. Kirschbaum agrees, seeming to have at least partially changed his mind.
A black car drives through the town the next day. Two men in civilian clothes sit in the back, and a uniformed man sits in front. The men in back, the narrator tells us, are named Preuss and Meyer. The car stops outside Jacob’s building, but the men only go up one floor, not two. They knock on Kirschbaum’s door. Elisa Kirschbaum, the doctor’s sister, opens the door. The two men enter the apartment and wait for Kirschbaum’s return home. They inspect the apartment and conclude that the Jews are “living in the lap of luxury.” The men sit and refuse to answer Elisa’s questions. All three people in the apartment find ways to occupy themselves while waiting. Kirschbaum arrives after thirty minutes.
When Kirschbaum arrives, Preuss and Meyer say that Hardtloff requests his presence, as Hardtloff has had a heart attack. In French, Elisa tells Kirschbaum to tell the men that he is rusty. Kirschbaum tells Preuss and Meyer that he cannot take responsibility for the patient because he has not treated a patient for four years. They force him to come with them. Before leaving, Kirschbaum grabs his doctor’s bag, and Elisa gives him a scarf.
They drive through the ghetto and the free part of town, where Kirschbaum takes some pills for heartburn. They continue driving through the country. Kirschbaum’s actions in the car, such as putting his bag on the floor only near the end of the ride and asking for a cigarette after declining one earlier, confound Preuss and Meyer. Preuss talks about the stakes involved with Hardtloff’s survival. They arrive at the villa, where Hardtloff’s personal doctor rushes out.
Preuss and Meyer leave the car, but Kirschbaum remains seated even after the door is opened and he is asked to come. Preuss pulls Kirschbaum from the car, but the doctor falls to the ground and is declared dead. The doctor inspects the “heartburn medication,” which is actually poison, and calls Preuss an idiot.
The narrator explains how he knows what happened to Kirschbaum when neither he nor anyone else from the ghetto was there. He describes how he returned to the ghetto on a holiday after the end of the war. There, he went to the Russian office, where the duty officer told him to return in two hours. Upon his return, the officer told the narrator that Meyer was killed in a night raid a few days before the arrival of the Red Army. She gave him Preuss’s address, which is in Berlin, where the narrator also lives. He says he does not know why he did not leave Germany after the war.
Analysis
Jacob's encounter with Josef Neidorf is an illustrative example of dramatic irony. Kowalski and Neidorf think they are going to fix Jacob's radio, but the reader knows the radio does not exist. This gives the audience more insight into Jacob's reaction to Neidorf's offer than is possessed by both Kowalski and Neidorf. When Jacob says, for example, "'I'm glad to know that'" about the fact that Neidorf will help fix his radio, the reader understands that the truth is the opposite. A feeling of tension is created as a result of this difference between levels of understanding. While the tension is resolved after Jacob successfully navigates his way out of the interaction, a sense still lingers that Jacob's lie is in danger of being detected.
This section develops Kowalski's characterization by portraying him as an enterprising and entrepreneurial individual. He takes initiative by searching for Neidorf, convincing Neidorf of his plan, and bringing him to Jacob. Further, he talks about how to best use the money he has been saving after they are liberated. These character traits add a degree of depth to Kowalski's character and reflect another result of the hope being spread through the ghetto, a primary theme in the text. Further, they make Kowalski's eventual death all the more tragic, as we know that he had been looking forward to the future and planning for a time when he would be free.
Chapter 26 introduces the allegory of the princess and the cloud, a fairy tale that Jacob tells Lina through his "radio." As an allegory, the fairy tale carries a hidden meaning. The story of the princess and the cloud is best taken as a lesson about the power of hope and belief. The princess hopes that she will get a cloud, and then she believes that she is receiving a cloud, and she is consequently cured of her illness. Applied to life in the ghetto, this moral may suggest that it is wise to believe that things are going to get better. It makes sense that Jacob would want Lina to hear this lesson—he wants her to have hope, and he wants her to believe that things are going to improve. At the same time, the allegory justifies Jacob's own lying. After all, if his deception gives people hope, even if that hope is not based in reality, it may lead to positive results. Thus, the fairy tale is simultaneously self-serving and intended to reinforce Lina's sense of hope.
We learn of Jacob's old flame, Josefa Litwin, in this section. The realization that Jacob lost his chance to marry Josefa aids in Jacob's characterization. His failed relationship may be a clue as to why Lina is so important to him. The theme of "family" is especially relevant here, as Jacob creates a new family with Lina (and arguably other characters in the text). Jacob's indecisiveness with regard to Josefa seems to have carried on to his treatment of his radio. Throughout the text, he is unable to decide whether to kill the radio or let it continue. The result of this indecisiveness, as we see with Josefa, is disaster.
Kirschbaum is thrust into an impossible situation when he is asked to examine Hardtloff. Either he will be killed by the Nazis, or he will be ostracized by the Jews. In response to being put in this position, Kirschbaum engages in an act of personal resistance against the oppression of the Nazi Party by committing suicide. This example of resistance, in addition to the others that have already been previously discussed, creates a portrait of a ghetto that is altogether different from one with "no resistance," as the narrator claims. While no armed uprising ever occurs, characters consistently resist using the means available to them.
