DOT AND ANTON

by Erich Kästner

  ‘My goodness, that was strenuous,’ said Anton. ‘I’m totally laughed out.’ He wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes. And then they had reached the barber’s shop. It was a very small one, and you had to climb a few steps up to it.

  ‘Hello, Mr Habekuss,’ said Anton. ‘I’m supposed to get my hair cut.’

  ‘That’s fine. Sit down, sonny,’ said Mr Habekuss. ‘And how’s your mother?’

  ‘Thanks for asking. She’s getting better. But things aren’t any better about paying.’

  ‘Same as usual, then,’ said Mr Habekuss. ‘Twenty pfennigs deposit, the rest in instalments, short at the back, a little longer in front, I know. And how about the little lady?’

  ‘I’m only the audience,’ said Dot. ‘Don’t let me put you off.’

  Mr Habekuss tied a large white cloth round Anton and snipped away with his scissors.

  ‘Does it tickle yet?’ asked Dot. She couldn’t wait to find out. And since Anton didn’t answer, but sat perfectly still, she thought of something else to do. She put Piefke on the other chair, tied her handkerchief round his neck and rubbed shaving foam on his nose. At first Piefke thought the shaving foam was whipped cream, but the white stuff didn’t taste nice, so he put his tongue back in his mouth and shook his head.

  Dot pretended to be shaving Piefke. She gradually shaved the foam off him with her forefinger, danced round him and talked to him just as she’d heard barbers talking.

  ‘Oh yes, sir,’ she told the dachshund, ‘what terrible times these are! Is my forefinger sharp enough for you? Terrible times. Enough to make anyone… well, you know what I mean. Just imagine—turn your head the other way, please—just imagine, I get home yesterday to find that my wife has had triplets, three celluloid dolls, every last one of them a girl. With red grass growing on their heads. Enough to send anyone crazy, don’t you think? And when I come to open up the shop first thing this morning, here’s the bailiff saying he has to take my mirrors away. Why, I ask him, do you want to ruin me? Sorry, he says, but the Finance Minister has sent me. You don’t eat rhubarb, you see. Shave you against the way the hair grows, sir? By the way, what makes you so nice and brown? Oh, I see, you use a sunlamp. Well, half an hour later along came the minister himself. We agreed that I’d shave him for a week for free, ten times a day. Yes, he does have a very strong growth of beard. Would you like any eau de Cologne? I’m going away soon. The Zeppelin wants to take a seasick hairdresser on its flight to the North Pole to cut the polar bears’ hair. I’ll bring you back a polar bear’s skin if you like. Powder, sir?’

  Dot put some white powder on the dachshund’s nose, and Piefke stared at himself in the mirror, horrified. Mr Habekuss forgot about cutting Anton’s hair, and Anton shook with amusement. Dot, in deadly earnest, now began reading out what the posters in the shop said, for a change. Sometimes she got their words mixed up. ‘Use Dralle’s new hairstyling lotion, you get the best prices for original articles in my shop, if you’re satisfied tell other people, ears also pierced here, if you’re not satisfied tell me, no more bald patches, the latest fashion, open from eight to ten on Sunday, gentlemen are asked to get their hair cut on weekdays, corns disinfected before treatment, razor blades an unnecessary nuisance, mind you don’t develop tartar on your teeth.’ She read all this in a boring, sing-song tone of voice, as if she were reciting a poem. Piefke got tired of it, rolled himself up on the chair and had a nap.

  ‘Isn’t she priceless?’ Anton asked Mr Habekuss.

  ‘Thanks for nothing,’ said the barber. ‘Two days of this and I’d be seeing white mice.’ Then he pulled himself together and snipped with his scissors. He wanted to finish cutting Anton’s hair and get this girl out of his shop. He had weak nerves.

  Then another customer came in, a fat man in a white butcher’s apron.

  ‘Just coming, Mr Bullrich,’ said the barber. Anton looked intently in the mirror, so as not to miss anything. The master butcher nodded off as soon as he was sitting down. Dot placed herself in front of him.

  ‘Dear Mr Bullrich,’ she asked the fat man, ‘can you sing?’ The butcher woke up, twisted his fat, red sausage fingers awkwardly and shook his head.

  ‘Oh, what a pity,’ said Dot. ‘Then the two of us could have sung four-part duets. Can you at least recite a poem? Is there anybody there, said the traveller? Or, I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally?’

  Mr Bullrich shook his head again and squinted at the newspaper hanging on a hook, but he didn’t dare reach for it.

  ‘Now for the last question,’ said Dot. ‘Can you do a handstand?’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Bullrich firmly.

  ‘No?’ asked Dot, regretfully. ‘Forgive me for saying so, but I’ve never met anyone with so little talent in all my life.’ Then she turned her back on him and went over to Anton, who was chuckling to himself. ‘That’s grown-ups for you,’ she told her friend. ‘They expect us to be able to do everything, arithmetic and singing, going to bed in good time and turning somersaults, and they don’t have the faintest idea how to do it themselves. By the way, I have a wobbly tooth, want to look?’ She opened her mouth and pushed the little white tooth around with her tongue. It wobbled like mad.

  ‘You ought to get it pulled out,’ said Anton. ‘Take a length of thread, tie it round the tooth in a loop, fix the other end to the door handle, run away from the door, and it’ll come out. Boom, just like that!’

  ‘You’re so practical, Anton,’ said Dot, clapping him appreciatively on the back. ‘Black or white?’

  ‘Black or white what?’ he asked.

  ‘Thread,’ she said.

  ‘White,’ said Anton.

  ‘Right, I’ll sleep on it,’ said Dot. ‘Have you nearly finished, Mr Habekuss?’

  ‘You bet I have,’ said the barber. Then he turned and said to Mr Bullrich, ‘What a handful she must be to bring up, don’t you agree?’

  Out in the street, Dot took Anton’s hand and asked, ‘Was it very bad?’

  ‘Well, it was quite something,’ he said. ‘I’m not taking you with me another time.’

  ‘Don’t, then,’ she said, letting go of his hand.

  They had already reached the Weidendammer Bridge. Dot was talking to the dog, but she couldn’t stand Anton’s silence for long. ‘What’s actually the matter with your mother?’ she asked.

  ‘She had a growth inside her. Then they took her to hospital and cut it out. I went to see her every day. My goodness, she looked so bad then, terribly thin and yellow as a quince. And now she’s been at home for two weeks, and she’s much better. The nurses were very nice to me. I think they thought my mother was going to die.’

  ‘What sort of a growth was it?’ asked Dot. ‘Like a plant in a pot with leaves and flowers and so on? Did she swallow it accidentally?’

  ‘No, I’m sure she didn’t,’ he said. ‘I’d be certain to know if she had. No, it just grew inside her.’

  ‘A geranium or a holly tree or something?’ asked Dot, curiously.

  ‘No, no, anything growing inside you must be skin and flesh. And if they don’t get it out of you, then you die.’

  After a while Dot stopped walking, clasped her hands over her stomach and wailed, ‘Anton, dear Anton, there’s something pushing against me in here. Watch out, I have a growth inside me too. I’m sure it’s a little fir tree growing in my tummy. I like fir trees so much.’

  ‘No,’ said Anton. ‘You don’t have anything growing in your tummy. Bats in the belfry, that’s what you’ve got.’

  ABOUT IMAGINATION

  I’m sure you’ll have noticed by now that Dot is a rather imaginative girl. She curtseys to the wall and sells it matches, she puts on fancy dress and pulls her dachshund along after her in a frying pan, she puts him to bed and imagines he’s the big bad wolf and is going to eat her up. She asks Mr Bullrich the master butcher to sing four-part duets with her. Finally, she even imagines having a growth inside her. She imagines things that don’t exist at all, or are entirely diff
erent in reality from the way she pictures them.

  I once read about a man who had a vivid imagination, and so he had very lifelike dreams. For instance, he once dreamt of jumping out of the window. Then he woke up, and he really was lying in the street! Now, fortunately, he’s moved to a ground-floor apartment. But imagine if the poor man had lived five floors up! Then his imagination could have been deadly dangerous. Imagination is a wonderful thing, but you have to keep it under control.

  Chapter Four

  Some Differences of Opinion

  Meanwhile, Miss Andacht and her fiancé were sitting in the Café Sommerlatte, and sometimes they danced together. Little apple trees made of cardboard and paper stood between the tables, all of them in blossom and looking like the real thing. But as well as the paper blossom, brightly coloured balloons and paper streamers hung from the cardboard branches. The café looked nice, and the band was playing catchy dance tunes. Because she was so tall and thin, Miss Andacht hadn’t really thought she’d ever have a fiancé, but she’d had one for the last two weeks, all the same. If only he hadn’t been so strict with her! He was always ordering her about, and if she didn’t do as he said at once he gave her such a nasty look that her ears stood out with fright.

  ‘Did you understand?’ he asked, leaning well forward as his eyes flashed angrily.

  ‘Do you really want to do that, Robert?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I have two hundred marks in the savings bank, and you’re welcome to have them.’

  ‘What, your pathetic little savings, you silly cow?’ he said. Which shows you that he wasn’t exactly a gallant gentleman. ‘I must have that plan of the place by tomorrow.’

  Miss Andacht nodded humbly. Then she whispered, ‘Hush, here come the children.’

  Dot and Anton came over to the table. ‘This is Robert the Devil,’ Dot told Anton, pointing to the fiancé.

  ‘Oh, Dot!’ cried Miss Andacht, horrified.

  ‘Never mind!’ said her fiancé, with a fake smile. ‘Your little princess is just having fun. Oh, what a cute little dog!’ he added, and tried to pat the dachshund. But Piefke opened his mouth, growled and looked as if he was going to bite Robert. Then the children had to sit down. Miss Andacht’s fiancé was going to order them hot chocolate, but Anton said, ‘No thank you, sir, don’t go to any unnecessary expense on our account.’

  The band was beginning to play again, so Miss Andacht danced with her Robert. The children stayed at the table.

  ‘Shall we dance too?’ asked Dot.

  Anton turned the idea down flat. ‘After all, I’m a boy,’ he said. ‘By the way, I don’t like that Robert a bit.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Dot. ‘He has a look in his eyes like sharpened pencils. Piefke doesn’t like him either. Apart from that it’s splentastic here.’

  ‘Splentastic?’ asked Anton. ‘Oh, I see, it’s another of your invented words.’

  Dot nodded. ‘Anton, there’s someone else I don’t like. He’s our caretaker’s son. He said if I don’t give him ten marks he’ll tell my father about us. His name is Gottfried Klepper bein.’

  ‘Oh, I know him,’ said Anton. ‘He goes to the same school as me, one class higher up. You just wait, I’ll sort him out.’

  ‘Great!’ cried Dot. ‘Only he’s bigger than you.’

  ‘Who cares?’ said the boy. ‘I’ll take him apart.’

  All this time Miss Andacht and her fiancé were dancing. So were a lot of other people. Robert squinted angrily at the children and whispered, ‘Get those kids out of my sight. We’ll meet here again tomorrow afternoon. And what are you going to bring with you?’

  ‘The plan,’ said Miss Andacht. It sounded as if her voice had sprained its ankle.

  Out in the street Miss Andacht said, ‘You dreadful child! Fancy annoying my fiancé like that!’

  Dot didn’t reply. She just rolled her eyes to make Anton laugh.

  Miss Andacht’s feelings were injured. She walked ahead with Piefke, striding along as if she were being paid for it. Almost before they knew it, they had reached the building where the Pogges lived.

  ‘So we meet again this evening,’ said Dot. And Anton nodded. As they were standing there, Gottfried Klepperbein happened to come out of the front door and was going to walk past them.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ said Anton. ‘There’s something important I want to tell you.’ Gottfried Klepperbein stopped.

  ‘Go indoors,’ Anton told Dot.

  ‘Are you going to take him apart now?’ asked Dot.

  ‘This isn’t women’s business,’ he said. Miss Andacht and Dot went into the building. In fact Dot stopped on the other side of the door and peeked through the glass pane in it, but Anton didn’t know that.

  ‘You listen to me,’ he told Gottfried Klepperbein. ‘If you pester that girl again you’ll answer to me for it. She’s under my protection, understand?’

  ‘You and your posh girlfriend!’ laughed Klepperbein. ‘You’re plain daft!’ At that moment he got his face punched so hard on one side that he sat down on the pavement. ‘Hey, hang on!’ he shouted, jumping to his feet. But then he got his face punched again, this time on the other side, and he sat straight down again. ‘Just you wait,’ he said, but for safety’s sake he stayed put.

  Anton took a step closer. ‘I told you so without any bad feeling today,’ he said, ‘but if I ever hear any more about it I’ll get rough with you.’ And, so saying, he walked past Gottfried Klepperbein and didn’t give him another glance.

  ‘Gadzooks!’ said Dot, watching from inside the door. ‘The things that boy can do!’

  Miss Andacht was already in the apartment. As she passed the kitchen fat Berta, who was sitting on a kitchen chair peeling potatoes, called out, ‘Come a little closer, will you?’

  Miss Andacht didn’t want to go closer one bit, but she did as she was told. She was afraid of Berta.

  ‘Listen,’ said Berta, ‘my room is three flights of stairs higher up, in the attic storey. But all the same I can tell that something’s not right here. Will you kindly tell me why that child has been looking so pale recently, and has such dark rings under her eyes? And why she won’t get out of bed early in the morning?’

  ‘Dot is growing,’ said Miss Andacht. ‘She needs cod-liver oil or an iron tonic.’

  ‘You’ve been a pain in the neck for a long time,’ said Berta. ‘If I ever find out that you have secrets, you’ll be the one drinking cod-liver oil, bottle and all!’

  ‘You’re much too common for me,’ said the governess, with her nose in the air. ‘Don’t think you can insult me.’

  ‘So I can’t insult you?’ asked fat Berta, getting to her feet. ‘We’ll see about that. You silly dope, you sneaky great beanpole, you stupid spook, you can go and drink coffee out of the gutter, you—’

  Miss Andacht put her hands over her ears, narrowed her eyes in fury and stalked along the corridor like a giraffe.

  ABOUT COURAGE

  At this point I’d like to say a few things about courage. Anton has just punched a bigger boy’s face twice, and you might think Anton was showing courage. However, it wasn’t courage at all, it was rage. And there’s a little difference, not just in their first few letters.

  You can show courage only when you’re doing something in cold blood. If a doctor injects himself with dangerous bacteria and then with an antidote that he’s invented, because he wants to find out if he’s right about it, he’s showing courage. If a polar explorer drives a few dog sleighs to the North Pole to make discoveries, that’s courage. If Professor Piccard goes up into the stratosphere in a balloon, although no one has ever gone as high as that before, then it’s courage too.

  Did you follow the news story about Professor Piccard? It was interesting. He tried taking the balloon up again and again, but then he kept putting it off because the weather wasn’t suitable. The newspapers made fun of him. People laughed when they saw his photographs. But he was waiting for the right moment. He was so courageous that he’d rather have people laughing at
him than do something stupid. He wasn’t a daredevil, he wasn’t crazy, he was simply courageous. He wanted to find something out, he didn’t want to be famous.

  You don’t prove your courage just with your fists, your head has to come into it.

  Chapter Five

  Do-it-yourself Dentistry

  Mr Pogge the director was still at his walking-stick factory. His lady wife was still lying in the bedroom, passing the time by having a migraine. Miss Andacht was sitting in her room.

  Dot and Piefke were eating supper on their own. Dot went to get a reel of white thread from Berta, and told the dachshund, who was sitting in his basket feeling rather tired, ‘Now, watch this, little one!’

  Dot tore a length of thread off the reel, looped one end round the wobbly tooth and fastened it with a knot, then tied the other end to the door handle. ‘Here goes,’ said Dot. ‘Brrr!’ she added, shivering. Then she slowly walked away from the door until the thread was stretched tight. She moved a little way farther, groaned pitifully and made a desperate face. She walked back to the door, and the thread went loose again. ‘Oh, Piefke, Piefke,’ she said, ‘I’ll never make a dentist.’ Then she walked away from the door once more, but she was already wailing before the thread was taut.

  ‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘Maybe if Anton was here I might risk it.’ She leant against the door and thought hard.