Emil and Karl

by Yankev Glatshteyn

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Thank you for buying this

  Square Fish ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  Dedicated to my children:

  Saul

  Naomi

  Gabriel

  Y.G.

  To the Reader

  Imagine that it is 1940. You are a Jewish boy or girl living in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or some other large American city. Your parents, or perhaps your grandparents, weren’t born in the United States, but are immigrants from Eastern Europe. They came to America from such countries as Russia, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, or Hungary. Your parents and grandparents didn’t grow up speaking English. Instead, their native tongue was Yiddish, a Jewish language then used by millions of Jews across Europe. There, your family spoke Yiddish at home and with other Jews in the towns where they grew up. They might also have gone to schools where they were taught the same subjects you study in school—history, mathematics, literature—in Yiddish.

  Here in the United States, you go to a public school where you speak English during the day. But on afternoons and weekends you go to another school, where you learn to speak Yiddish. At this school you learn to sing folksongs in Yiddish and read stories in Yiddish about Jewish history and customs. At home you sometimes speak Yiddish with your parents, grandparents, and other relatives, and you might look at Yiddish newspapers or listen to Yiddish broadcasts on the radio with them.

  These days your family is very troubled by news about what has been happening in Europe, especially to their families and friends living there. For years, Jews living in Germany have suffered from the persecutions of the Nazi regime, led by a dictator named Adolf Hitler. More recently, Nazi Germany occupied other countries—Austria and part of Czechoslovakia—where they have also made life especially hard for Jews. Then, in September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and a terrible war broke out across Europe. The situation is very grim for Jews and other people persecuted by the Nazis; their future is unclear.

  One day, your teacher at the Yiddish school presents you and your classmates with a new book. It is different from the other Yiddish books you have been reading there. The new book tells a story about events that took place very recently, just months before the war in Europe began. The story isn’t about dictators or armies. It’s about two boys who are about the same age as you. The book describes what it is like to live in a place that is about to go to war, a place where ordinary people’s lives are already being disrupted. Families are broken up, and many of them are losing their homes. People are being beaten and arrested. They aren’t free to live as they wish or even to speak their minds, especially if they disagree with the government. Sometimes it is dangerous simply being who you are—or who other people think you are.

  This is a translation of that book. In 1940, it asked Jewish children living in America to imagine what it would be like to face the challenges of life under Nazi occupation, on the eve of a war that had just begun and whose terrible course was then unforeseeable. The book called on its young readers to consider the physical, social, and moral challenges that Europe’s Jews and other people in danger there faced. The book also asked its readers to think how, even though they were still children, they might understand what was happening far away from America and how they might realize its importance to their own lives—as Jews, as Americans, and as human beings.

  Now, this book asks you to do the same.

  J.S.

  chapter one

  Karl sat on a low stool, petrified. The apartment was as still as death. He looked at the pieces of the broken vase scattered on the floor. Several times he reached out with one hand to pick up an overturned chair lying beside him. The chair looked like a man who had fallen on his face and couldn’t get up. But each time Karl tried, he could only lift the chair up a little bit, and then it fell down again.

  It was even quieter in the kitchen and the bedroom—so quiet that he was afraid to go in there.

  It wasn’t that Karl minded being in the apartment by himself. He’d been left alone there more than once before; he could even go to bed by himself without being afraid. He wasn’t scared of spooks or devils. Instead, he loved to stare, wide-eyed, into the darkness and make up stories.

  When he went to sleep he knew that eventually he would see his mother emerge from the darkness, together with the morning. Karl didn’t know where the night came from. Lying in the dark with his eyes wide open, he’d make up a story—and then suddenly he’d see his very own eyes, wide open in the light. That’s how it seemed to him sometimes—that he was looking through the darkness and could see his own eyes.

  But the eyes belonged to his mother, who came in with the light.

  “Karl, you lazy bones, how long are you going to sleep? Get up. It’s already morning. You’ll be late for school.”

  “Mama,” he whined, “Just a little more, just a little bit.”

  “No,” his mother answered in a firm voice, but her laughing eyes made it clear that she wasn’t really angry. She went straight for the blanket and uncovered his feet. The cold air felt both good and bad on his warm feet.

  “Mama,” he whined again, as his feet searched for the warmth of the blanket, “give me a kiss. I won’t get up without one.”

  “It’s about time a big boy like you stopped begging for kisses,” his mother scolded, still pretending to be angry, and she tickled the soles of his feet.

  “A kiss! A kiss!” he insisted, until he felt his mother’s embrace.

  No, Karl wasn’t afraid to be alone, but now he was afraid to move. He felt a chill at the thought of the narrow kitchen and the little bedroom. It was so quiet in there, much quieter than it was here by the overturned chair.

  That was because just moments ago the chair had been knocked over, and the vase broken into smithereens.

  It had all begun with a struggle in this room. Three big, hulking men dragged his mother away from him. Her screams could be heard outside, but no one came to help. One of the men searched their apartment, taking a few books and pamphlets, while the other two held his mother tightly.

  She struggled, she spat in their faces and kept screaming, “Murderers!” Her blond hair came undone and fell in her face, covering one eye. But now her other eye seemed more powerful than both of those strong men put together. Karl could see all her strength in that one eye, blazing with rage.

  The man holding the books didn’t move a muscle. But then Karl bit one of the other men on the hand, making him scream with pain. Then the man with the books punched Karl in the stomach so hard that he fell down, taking the chair with him. He saw stars before his eyes. Everything went spinning around and around, and he was in so much pain that all he wanted to do was shut his eyes. But then he heard his mother screaming even louder, and that made him feel braver,

  “Murderer! You hit him, too? Let me see my son! Aren’t you going to let me say good-bye to my son?”

  With her last ounce of strength she freed her left hand, which was clenched into a red fist. Quickly, like a cat, she scratched at the face
of the man who was trying to restrain her, tearing his skin.

  A thin trickle of blood ran down his face—then more and more, until his face was completely covered with blood. The man wiped his face with a handkerchief; Karl’s mother was already on the floor where the boy lay, doubled over in pain. She kissed him quickly, trying to give him as many kisses as she could before they took her away.

  “This is for tomorrow! This is for the day after tomorrow! And the day after—Karl! Karl! They’re taking me away—who knows when we’ll see each other again!”

  Karl could taste the tears that streamed down her face.

  The two men grabbed her even more roughly than before and shoved her toward the door. As they dragged her away, the vase fell from the cupboard, and pieces of it flew all over the house. One piece hit Karl in the face.

  The two men held their hands over his mother’s mouth, but he could still hear her screaming in a muffled voice, “Karl! Karl!”

  The third man, the one who had the books and pamphlets, kicked Karl’s leg and said, “Just wait, you little bastard, until we come for you.”

  * * *

  Suddenly it seemed to Karl that the stillness in the kitchen and the bedroom was more frightening than anything else. Even if he were to stay where he was for the rest of day, and the next day, and the day after that, everything in the house would still be quiet—because his mother, his beautiful mother, would no longer be there.

  That’s why he lifted up the overturned chair and let it fall back down again—because it had been a part of his mother’s struggle, and the pieces of the broken vase reminded him that she had only just been there, showering him with her tears.

  “Karl!”

  He heard someone call him, and he shivered with fear. Someone was right there in the apartment, but he was afraid to lift his head.

  “Karl! Are you hungry?”

  He realized it was the voice of one of their neighbors. He looked up and saw old Frau Gutenglass. Her eyes were red; she looked terrified. As she waited for him to answer, she kept glancing back at the door, which she had left open.

  “No.” He answered very quietly, because her fearfulness made him feel scared.

  “Come into our home!”

  “No,” he whispered again and touched the overturned chair.

  “Is my mother ever going to come back?” he asked Frau Gutenglass suddenly, in a loud voice. That’s what he wanted to ask her—not when she was coming back. He wanted her to give him an answer. But Frau Gutenglass began to weep quietly, and she ran out of the house, shutting the door behind her.

  And then Karl remembered what the man who took the books had said to him—“Just wait, you little bastard, until we come for you.”

  He jumped up from the stool.

  It was time to run away.

  “But where?” he wondered.

  Run away! He stamped his foot, which is what he always did whenever he was angry or wanted to get his way with his mother.

  “Karl! No more stamping your feet. It’s terrible!”

  Run away! He stamped his foot again—this time deliberately—and ran into the kitchen.

  It was eerily quiet in the kitchen, just as he had imagined, and in the little bedroom the silence was truly terrifying. He opened the closet and smelled the familiar fragrance of his mother’s clothes. There was her coat with its fur collar, which tickled his face when she came home from work and bent over to see if he had gotten dirty while playing with his friends outside. There was her yellow hat, which looked like a huge flower in full bloom. She wore it tilted to one side, so that it showed off her hair. And there was his mother’s robe, with the beautiful scent of her lilac perfume—just like lilacs in bloom, only warmer.

  A pair of red slippers lay beside the bed, along with a pair of black shoes with high heels, standing up on their own. It’s so nice in here, Karl thought, as he lifted up one of the slippers. Then he put it back, even with the other one, so that they would be ready. He often saw how his mother stuck her feet out of bed and slid them right into her slippers.

  Suddenly he remembered that earlier he had been eating an apple. Where was it? In the kitchen. He’d taken it as he walked through the kitchen, but he couldn’t remember exactly when. All he remembered was that he’d been munching away on it and got little pieces of apple peel all over the room.

  “Karl, how many times have I told you not to do that? Your mother works hard all day long, and now she has to follow after you and pick up all the little bits of apple peel that you’ve spat out.”

  He felt a pang of sadness, realizing that now he could go around and spit out as much apple peel as his heart desired, and no one would be there to scold him.

  Karl bent over, and, for the first time, he began to cry. He wept quietly as he picked up the pieces of apple peel from the floor. He picked up one piece that had fallen right on the toe of his shoe. He spat lightly on the shoe and polished it with his sleeve. Then he carefully disposed of the bits of peel in a paper bag that stood near the kitchen.

  It’s time to run away from here.

  But where? To Emil’s. Yes. Go see Emil, that’s the best thing to do.

  Even though he opened the door without making a sound, Frau Gutenglass heard it right away. She cracked open her door, timidly poking her head out and whispering, “Karl! Where are you going? Are you hungry?”

  Her kind old face pleaded with him, and he was sorry that he felt he couldn’t tell her his secret—that he was running off to Emil’s. No one must know.

  “No, Frau Gutenglass, I’m not hungry,” he answered cautiously, so as not to let her know where he was going.

  They heard steps coming from the ground floor. Frau Gutenglass slammed her door shut.

  Karl ran all the way down the stairs in one breath.

  chapter two

  It was a cloudy day. The sky threatened to rain. It was almost spring, but the weather was cold and damp, as though it were late autumn, right before the start of winter.

  Karl ran out of the building wearing a light jacket, and the cold went right through him. Even though he had just turned nine, he already knew how to take care of himself very well. Since his mother went to work, he had learned to do everything that she told him. And because he did exactly as he was told, he eventually escaped the watchful eyes of the women in the neighborhood.

  Of course, Karl knew full well that he could catch a cold; still, he didn’t want to go back upstairs to put on his heavy coat. Someone could be coming to get him, and he might arrive just at the same time. Perhaps it would be the same man, the one who had punched him in the stomach.

  Anyway, Karl knew that he would only have to run for a few blocks, then go up to the fourth floor of a dark building, and he would be at Emil’s.

  Karl hadn’t seen his friend for two weeks. Emil was in his class but had stopped coming to school. On the first two days that Emil was absent Karl visited him faithfully, but then Emil’s mother asked him not to come over any more.

  “You mustn’t, Karl, do you understand, you’re not allowed to play with Emil. It will only make trouble for us. You’re a sensible boy, Karl, please, don’t come here any more, try to understand.”

  That’s what Emil’s mother had said to him. But Karl didn’t want to be separated from his friend, and he talked about it with his own mother. She told him that he could do what he wanted. She explained that Vienna wasn’t the same city that it used to be, but that things wouldn’t be like this for long, because it couldn’t last. Emil was a Jew, and lately things were much worse for Jews than they were for other people. Jews were being beaten, they were robbed, and their children weren’t allowed to play with the others.

  “But you, Karl, you can do what you want. I can’t order you not to play with Emil, just as I can’t force you to go ahead and play with him.”

  Karl told his mother that the children in school teased him about Emil, they hit him, and they even threatened to kill him if he wouldn’t stop being friends with E
mil.

  “You see, that’s what it’s come to, Karl,” his mother said. “You get hit because of Emil.”

  “Emil’s my friend, and I want to play with him,” Karl said, stamping his foot, as he always did when he decided to do something.

  “Since you’ve already made up your mind, let me tell you that’s just what your father would have done.” His mother’s eyes became teary. “And I would do the same as well.”

  Whenever Karl was reminded of his father, a strange feeling came over him. His father! He had barely known him. His father had died more than five years ago. Karl knew that his father had fallen while fighting for the workingman, in the bloodbath started by Hitler.

  “Bloodbath…” “Hitler…” He didn’t remember exactly where he’d heard these words, but they were engraved in his memory. His father died a hero—he knew that, too. But what’s a hero? Karl knew the answer to that from his father’s photograph, which hung in the bedroom: a tall, thin man with unusually long hands, smiling eyes, and closely cropped hair. He looked very young, and as Karl grew up, his father looked more like the boy’s older brother than his father.

  Whenever someone mentioned his father, Karl froze. But this soon passed, and then a warm feeling pulsed through him, the way he usually felt for someone alive.

  It was enough for Karl to hear that his father would have acted the same way. That must have been what had brought him back to see Emil. But then Emil’s mother wouldn’t even let him in the door. Again she pleaded with him not to come back, because the neighbors were making their lives unbearable.

  “It’s better not to, Karl. You’ll have to wait, maybe things will get better.”

  Emil stood at the door and pleaded with him. “I get beat up because we play together,” he explained to Karl with a tremble in his voice, hoping his friend would not be insulted. “It’s even worse when I go out in the street.”