Beatrice and Virgil. Written by: Yann Martel
The last chapter of this book was filled catch-22’s that made me freeze with anxiety from only the thought of each possibility. It had me questioning the importance of daily affairs with its short, concise words. A little context: a theme that runs throughout the book is the Holocaust. The catch 22’s were listed in a sequential format, under the title ‘Games.’ The chosen title is unsettling when you read the actual content. Something to keep in mind while reading and deliberating: muster up all the knowledge you know about the Holocaust. The constant hunger, fear, hatred that seeped through every aspect of every moment. The doubt and distrust in all surrounding persons. The frightening familiarity with death. The one decision put into every decision made: whether to put the cost of survival over the sacrifice of keeping morals. Don’t choose one path and think to yourself that anybody who chooses another is quite unaffected, indifferent, and heartless.
Game Number One
Your ten-year-old son is speaking to you.
He says he has found a way of obtaining
some potatoes to feed your starving family.
If he is caught, he will be killed.
Do you let him go?
Game Number Two
You are a barber.
You are working in a room full of people.
You shear them and then they are led away and killed.
You do this all day, every day. A new group is brought in.
You recognize the wife and sister of a good friend.
They recognize you too, with joy in their eyes.
You embrace.
They ask you what is going to happen to them.
What do you tell them?
Game Number Three
You are holding your granddaughter’s hand.
Neither of you is well after a long trip
with no food or water.
Together, you are taken to the “infirmary” by a soldier.
The place turns out to be a pit where people are
being “cured with a single pill,” as the soldier puts it,
that is, with a single shot to the back of the head.
The pit is full of bodies, some of them still moving.
There are six people ahead of you in the line.
Your granddaughter looks up at you
and asks you a question.
What is that question?
Game Number Four
An armed guard tells you to sing. You sing.
He tells you to dance. You dance.
He tells you to pretend you are a pig.
You pretend you are a pig.
He tells you to lick his boot. You lick his boot.
Then he tells you to “_____,”
and it’s a foreign word you don’t understand.
What action do you do?
Game Number Five
The order comes at gunpoint:
you and your family and all the people around you
must strip naked.
You are with your seventy-two-year-old father,
your sixty-eight-year-old mother,
your spouse, your sister, a cousin,
and your three children,
aged fifteen, twelve and eight.
After you have finished undressing,
where do you look?
Game Number Six
You are about to die.
Next to you is a stranger. He turns to you.
He says something in a language you don’t understand.
What do you do?
Game Number Seven
Your daughter is clearly dead.
If you step on her head, you can reach higher,
where the air is better.
Do you step on your daughter’s head?
Game Number Eight
Afterwards, when it’s all over, you are sad.
Your sadness is all-consuming and ever-present.
You want to escape it.
What do you do?
Game Number Nine
Afterwards, when it’s all over, you meet God.
What do you say to God?
Game Number Ten
Afterwards, when it’s all over, you overhear a joke.
At the punch line the listeners gasp,
bringing their hands to their mouths,
and then they roar with laughter.
The joke is about your suffering and your loss.
What is your reaction?
Game Number Eleven
Of your community of 1,650 souls, 122 have survived.
You hear that your entire extended family is dead,
that your house has been taken over by strangers,
that all your possessions have been stolen.
You also hear that the new government wants to
turn a new page and address the errors of the past.
Do you return home?
Game Number Twelve
A doctor is speaking to you:
“This pill will erase your memory.
You will forget all your suffering and all your loss.
But you will also forget your entire past.”
Do you swallow the pill?
Game Number Thirteen
