Summary
The narrator again digresses from the narrative to address the reader directly. This time, he is explaining how he came to know the details of the story he is telling. Some of it, he says, comes from Jacob, and other parts of the story come from Mischa. Yet, he says, there are other pieces of the story that have no witnesses. For these details, the narrator is giving us what he feels probably happened.
Chapter 8 introduces us to Rosa, Mischa's girlfriend. We learn how the two got together: after Mischa and Rosa received their ration cards, Mischa asked Rosa if he could walk her home. As they parted after the awkward walk, Mischa told Rosa where to meet him the next day. Rosa found Mischa that following day, and Mischa gifted Rosa a book of poems and songs. When, afterwards, they introduced themselves for the first time, Mischa learned that Rosa is the daughter of Felix Frankfurter, an actor whom Mischa had heard about before. From that night on the two were a couple.
Chapter 9 returns to the main narrative: Mischa arrives at Rosa's house to find her playing checkers with Felix. He has come to tell them the news he learned at the freight yard, but he is surprised when Rosa seems to bring it up first. However, he quickly realizes that Rosa's news is different from his own. She tells him about a baby—originally twins—born in Witebsker-Strasse. The baby's name, Rosa says, will be Abraham. Mischa now wishes he had not waited so long to tell Rosa and her family the news about the Russian army, as he feels it is awkward to have waited so long. His solution is to formally ask Felix for Rosa's hand in marriage so as to spark a conversation about the future. It works—Felix tells him he is mad to be thinking about marriage while they are still trapped under Nazi rule, and Mischa responds that the Russians are close to Bezanika.
Rosa's family is shocked at this information, and Felix asks where Mischa learned it. Mischa says that Jacob told him, and Felix then asks where Jacob heard it. Mischa is slow to respond, causing Felix to slap him. He then admits that Jacob has a radio. The family goes silent, and Mischa and Rosa leave to go back to Mischa's place.
The narrator describes how he imagines the scene at the Frankfurter's home after the departure of Mischa and Rosa. In the narrator's imagination, Felix's wife tries to cheer her husband up by referencing the good news that Mischa delivered. Felix, not acknowledging his wife's words, retrieves a key and leads her into the basement. In the basement, Felix opens the door of a cubicle containing sentimental items from before the ghetto went into effect. From that pile of items, Felix retrieves a radio. He says he never listened to it and never told his wife because he did not want to scare her. Felix then destroys the radio.
Mischa and Rosa go back to Mischa's place. We learn that Mischa shares his room with a man named Isaak Fayngold, who is pretending to be deaf and mute so that Mischa can have Rosa over without her being uncomfortable. Mischa and Rosa lie in bed and discuss the idea of Rosa's parents living with them after they are married. Mischa is opposed to this idea. They soon begin to discuss the future more generally and the lives they might have after they are freed from the ghetto. Rosa describes the home and kitchen she wants and states that she will not want to host too many gatherings at first. Mischa falls asleep while Rosa is talking about the spices they will have in their home.
Back at the freight yard, the narrator is moving crates with Herschel Schtamm. Herschel would usually be working with his twin brother, Roman, but he sprained his foot earlier that day and was unable to work with Roman after that. Herschel, we learn, is a devout Jew who keeps his earlocks hidden under a fur hat, which he wears even during the summer. Herschel asks the narrator what he thinks of the news. The narrator says he is excited for everything to be how it was before the ghetto was instituted. Everything he lost will be returned to him except for Hannah, his wife.
Analysis
The narrator's explanation of his storytelling style, which uses information from multiple sources in addition to some material that he is forced to invent, is important on multiple thematic levels. First, it complicates the theme of dishonesty. The main conflict and moral ambiguity in Jacob the Liar has to do with Jacob's lying about his radio. Yet, we see in this section that the narrator himself also engages in dishonesty as a means of telling Jacob's story. Is this inherently wrong, or can lying be benign and serve a useful, even positive, purpose?
Additionally, the narrative style of Jacob the Liar draws from the tradition of Jewish storytelling, by which Jurek Becker was influenced while young. This section, and especially the narrator's admission that "I tell it and pretend that’s how it was," makes the storytelling quality of the narration explicit. The novel itself is a story being told after the fact, and, like any story, parts of it may stray from the truth. Admitting this, however, does not make the narrator less trustworthy—it instead shows that he can be trusted, as he readily acknowledges when he is surmising or inventing.
We experience another comic moment when Mischa plans to tell the Frankfurter family about the radio report. Realizing that they may already have heard, he stops and waits, only to realize that they are talking about something else entirely. This causes Mischa to grow anxious that he has waited too long to tell the family, so he decides to spark a conversation about the future by proposing to Rosa. Situational irony abounds in this scene, with the revelation that the Frankfurters are talking about different news and Mischa deciding to propose all being entirely unexpected events.
That Isaak Fayngold is only pretending to be deaf and mute helps to characterize Mischa as someone who is willing to lie to get what he wants. Yet, this lie also intends to make Rosa comfortable, so it may not be entirely self-serving. Again, Isaak and Mischa's lie contributes to the comic tone of the novel and the unsettled question of the morality of lying.
If it is not yet clear, countless characters—not just Jacob—lie in Jacob the Liar. Another example of this theme appears in chapter 12, where we learn about Herschel Schtamm, who is concealing earlocks under a hat. The reader is encouraged to ask how the morality of this lie compares to the others in the text. Herschel's lie is one that is entirely victimless, except, of course, for himself. Does that make Herschel and his lie "better" than all the other lies and liars in the novel? At the very least, it seems to serve as an important example of private resistance against oppressive power structures, which may necessarily rely on deception.
