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Summary: Chapter 6

Thomas explains that as a rule he and Grandma never talk about the past. Their marriage is full of unspoken rules. 

After he started going to the airport every day to get newspapers for Grandma, he discovered that he loves being there. He likes seeing people reunited and lives vicariously through their joy. He thinks he and Grandma expected they could reunite like that even though they barely knew each other in Dresden.

Soon after they marry, Thomas and Grandma mark areas of their apartment as “Nothing Places,” where either of them could go when they wanted to be nothing. As they label more things as “nothing,” the divide becomes more complicated. Sometimes a vase labeled nothing casts a something shadow. Soon their apartment becomes more nothing than something. One day, Thomas starts undressing in front of Grandma in what he thinks is a nothing place, and she’s incensed. They look at a blueprint of the apartment and delineate something from nothing. The night before Thomas leaves, he tries to tell Grandma she’s something by covering her face with his hands and lifting them like a bridal veil. 

Thomas remembers the day he met Anna. When their fathers, who are old friends, meet up, Thomas and Anna start talking. He tells her he wants to be a sculptor. She says he’ll be a great artist. He declares he’s already great, but she meant famous. He claims he doesn’t care about fame. She says Thomas doesn’t understand himself, but there’s nothing wrong with that. When she departs, Thomas feels she’s taken the core of him with her, leaving him a shell.

The next day he walks to Anna’s house, but Anna isn’t there. This continues for six days, until one day, Thomas bumps into someone, only to discover it’s Anna. They have missed each other the past six days because they had gone to each other’s house. Thomas asks if she likes him.

Thomas encourages Grandma to write her life story on a typewriter he set up in the guest room, which is a nothing place. She protests that her eyes are bad, and she doesn’t know how to write. He tells her there’s nothing to know, and she promises to try. She works on it for months before giving it to Thomas. The pages are blank. Thomas remembers he’d taken the ink ribbon out of the typewriter. Grandma’s eyes must be worse than he’d imagined. He tells her that her writing is wonderful, but he needs to take his time to read it. He believes he’s failed her.

One day, Anna’s father introduces Thomas to his friend Simon Goldberg. Thomas tells Mr. Goldberg that he’s trying to be a sculptor. Mr. Goldberg proclaims that “trying is being.” Anna and Thomas go behind the shed and kiss. As they have sex for the first time, Thomas hears Anna’s father working out the details of hiding Mr. Goldberg in the shed. Anna lets out a cry, and Thomas asks if she’s upset. She says it hurt. 

Every morning, Thomas and Grandma go into the guest room to read through Grandma’s memoir. Grandma has nothing more to write in her life story because nothing happens any more. Thomas suggests writing about her feelings, and she explains that her feelings are her life story. 

Before Thomas leaves the house on the day he writes this letter, Grandma shows him the dedication to her life story and asks if it’s too much. He touches her with his right hand to say, “No.” He promises he’ll be home before she falls asleep. He wishes he could live two lives and, in one of them, stay with her and the living. Grandma tells him she loves him. He tries to tell her he doesn’t love her by taking her index fingers and moving them toward each other, but never allowing them to touch. 

He’s leaving because Grandma has chosen to live, and he can’t. He plans to mail these pages to Grandma before he gets on the plane and then never write again. 

He writes in his notebook that he wants to buy a ticket to Dresden. The next few pages have one sentence each on them, revealing half of a conversation. Presumably, Grandma has arrived. He tells her to go home. 

Analysis: Chapter 6

Thomas, like Oskar, tries and fails to use rules and the elimination of ambiguity to cope with his grief. As in Chapter 2, Thomas’s communication relies on short, concrete expressions, and here he expands that tendency with the delineation of space into “something” and “nothing.” The way he notices that something and nothing aren’t so easily separated brings to mind Oskar’s desire to rank the people he loves. Both actions attempt to make emotions quantifiable but do not succeed in doing so. Accordingly, Thomas notices that these two opposite concepts, something and nothing, don’t separate as easily as he would like, demonstrating that ambiguity is an inevitable fact of life. In particular, he notes that a “nothing” vase sometimes casts a “something” shadow, highlighting the way the intangible—like sadness or memories—still has very real consequences. This image also harkens back to the way Oskar finds physical excuses, like bruises and diabetes, for his pain. Both Thomas and Oskar struggle with emotional pain.

Throughout this chapter, Thomas tells lies to protect Grandma from the fact that he doesn’t love her, but these falsehoods cannot protect Grandma or Thomas from the truth. By lying to Grandma about her memoir, Thomas claims he’s trying to spare her feelings, but even he recognizes that there’s a good chance she sees through his deception. By lying to Grandma, Thomas denies himself the opportunity to read her memoir and grow close to her, and also causes himself anxiety that he’ll be caught. Thomas’s ambiguous hand gestures to express his feelings also show the probability that the truth that he doesn’t love Grandma will become clear. He claims that touching her face with both hands tells her that she’s “something.” However, because of his tattoos, she actually exists sandwiched between “yes” and “no,” ambiguous and . In this sense, Thomas’s gesture identifies her as something not neatly categorized and therefore not comfortable. Because of Thomas’s grief for Anna, Grandma is not a “yes” because she’s not Anna, but she’s not a “no” because she is deeply connected to Anna, as her sister. Thomas still leaves Grandma, so his attempts to cover up the ugliness of his true feelings don’t protect her in the end. 

The way Thomas and Grandma’s apartment eventually becomes more “nothing” than “something” indicates Thomas’s unwillingness to build a life in the present with Grandma. Thomas ties existence with taking present action when he mentions Simon’s comment that “trying is being.” This comment echoes when Grandma promises Thomas that she will “try” to write her life story. If trying is being, then by writing out her past and showing it to Thomas, even if it’s in blank spaces, Grandma attempts to become a person to Thomas and tries to live in the present. When Thomas says he can’t live, he indicates his unwillingness to meet Grandma halfway and try. He comments early on in the chapter that he and Grandma couldn’t reunite happily because they didn’t know each other well in Dresden, ignoring the possibility that they could get to know each other better now. Because of this comment, it is clear that Thomas views his ability to connect with others as something of the past. Unable to take present action, Thomas therefore just stops being, becoming nothing.

The juxtaposition of Thomas and Anna having sex and Anna’s dad’s agreeing to hide Simon Goldberg demonstrates the way intimacy and vulnerability are intertwined. Sexual intercourse is a deeply personal act that involves vulnerability and trust. Anna’s comment that the sex hurts makes clear that even joyful intimacy can bring pain. Meanwhile, Simon, who is presumably Jewish, must allow himself to admit his own vulnerability in asking Anna’s dad to hide him. Anna’s dad, in protecting a Jewish man from the Nazis, puts himself in danger, making himself vulnerable. This scene therefore portrays the exchange of trust between Anna’s dad and Simon as an intimate act, on par with having sex with someone. They are each putting their physical safety in the hands of the other. This juxtaposition also shows that the darkness and ugliness of the world continues even in the face of joy and love. Thomas and Anna are oblivious to the horrors going on around them, even the ones right next door. Conversely, despite the dangers of the world, Thomas and Anna fall in love, and Anna’s dad lovingly agrees to protect his friend, even at great risk to himself.


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