“Don’t be angry, Karl. Your mother will understand,” Emil’s mother had told him.
Karl started to walk slowly. He was already very close to the building where Emil lived—but what if Emil’s mother still wouldn’t let him in? He walked around the block a few times. The thought almost stopped his heart from beating.
But they’d have to let him in now. He didn’t have anyone else. Now he was a Jew, too. After all, he’d been punched in the stomach so hard that he could have died. They took his mother away from him. He was all alone in the world. How could Emil not let him in now?
But Karl still didn’t have the courage to go up the stairs. He was terrified by the idea that they might shut the door and leave him standing outside once more. Karl decided to wait until he felt less afraid. He walked past their building one more time.
Then Karl got very upset, because he realized that he hadn’t brought his father’s picture with him. He became even more upset when he realized he had been in such a hurry that he hadn’t even taken one last look at it. That was much worse than not bringing his coat. Soon one of the men who had taken his mother away would show up and go through their house. He would take away everything, even the picture of Karl’s father.
A boy was rolling a small barrel down the street. Where did he find that beat-up old barrel? Karl wondered. The postman, with his thick, gray whiskers, walked by slowly, so slowly, as if he were moving backward. It was the same postman who went past Karl’s house twice a day. Another boy, someone he knew, ran by, shouting “Hey, Karl!” Then he saw a man hammering a piece of iron—it wasn’t clear to Karl what it was—banging on it harder and harder in a wild rage, as though the metal made him angry for forcing him to work.
The first boy came running back, rolling his barrel, which had lost one of its hoops and was about to collapse.
“Vienna isn’t the same city that it used to be,” he remembered his mother saying. He looked around to see what had changed. The postman was still walking backwards.
Then Karl remembered his great secret. It was so special and so secret that he wasn’t even allowed to tell his mother. That’s what his teacher had made him promise when she told it to him—never to tell anyone, not a single soul.
It had been during those first days, when everything started to change for the worse. Their teacher suddenly changed the way she spoke and began saying all kinds of strange, wild things. She was an older woman, with a calm manner and a gentle, peaceful voice. She would never get upset; she’d smile even when the whole class misbehaved.
But best of all was the beautiful way that she spoke. Karl, who liked to make up his own stories, loved to listen to her melodious voice. Even when her students didn’t understand what the words meant, her voice went straight to their hearts. Karl loved to think up stories and imagine how they would sound in her musical voice.
Then, suddenly, their teacher changed. She became nervous and angry, she shouted, things fell from her hands—the same teacher who used to act so kindly and calmly. She also began singing new kinds of songs with her class in a shrill voice. She had become a completely different person.
The children picked on Emil. They would wait around for him when he came to school or at lunchtime. Before he could escape, Emil would find himself surrounded. They’d circle around him, taunting him with nasty songs. As they got rowdier, they’d spit in his face and even hit him. They’d pretend to open up the circle a little bit, but as soon as Emil tried to escape they’d close in on him again. So Emil would stand in the middle like a frightened little bird and cry.
Once, though, Emil didn’t cry. He just shouted, “Shame! Shame on you!” But the children weren’t ashamed at all; they only attacked him more fiercely. Still, Emil refused to cry. Instead, he responded stubbornly each time they hit him: “Shame on you! Shame!”
Karl usually sat off to one side. He would pretend that he had a gun and could get rid of them all. Then he could grab Emil by the hand and rescue him. But this time Karl’s imaginary gun wasn’t enough. His throat felt tight, as though something was stuck in there. Karl leaped up, broke through the crowd, and stood next to Emil:
“Stop hitting him, stop picking on him!”
He stood in front of Emil, protecting him with his broad back. Emil just kept shouting like a madman, in a hoarse, mechanical voice, “Shame on you! Shame!”
The circle closed again, and the children pranced around the two of them. They stopped trying to hit Emil but kept on singing their hateful songs.
Just then their teacher was passing through the schoolyard. She stopped and stood there, motionless.
“My God,” she said, raising her hand to her head. “What is this?”
“We were beating up Emil, he’s just a filthy Jew, and now Karl’s taking his side,” the children squealed.
The circle opened up, but Karl and Emil stayed where they were.
“And why are you hitting Emil?” The teacher asked them softly.
“Why are we hitting him?! Everyone beats up Jews nowadays. Emil’s a Jew, he’s not our equal.”
The boy who spoke was the tallest in the class. He always scowled and walked with a limp. Sometimes when the others fought with him they would kick his lame foot on purpose. But now he was their leader, and he showed the others that he was as good as they were.
“We’re just practicing on Emil, so we can take care of grown-up Jews when we’re bigger,” he said, as he hopped over to the teacher, limping on his bad foot. “And we’re going to tell that you’re on the side of a lousy Jew.”
Some of the children had backed off from the circle. Perhaps they felt a little sorry for what they had done. But when they saw how boldly the boy with the limp threatened their teacher, they stepped forward again and started shouting.
Everyone turned to look at Emil, who was hiding behind Karl.
“I’ll show you what to do. Then, when you’re grown up, you’ll already know,” the teacher said. She was trying to speak with her former gentleness, but her voice sounded different. “I’m not on Emil’s side. Emil is an inferior being.”
“Hurray!” the children roared, “That’s the right idea.”
“Emil is a common Jew. Aryan children shouldn’t dirty their hands with such filth,” the teacher continued.
“Hurray!” they all screamed, and each one of the children ran past Emil and spat on him, calling out, “Dirty Jew! Dirty Jew!”
All the while, Karl stood by Emil, and when the teacher saw that Karl hadn’t budged, she said to him, “And you, Karl, I want to see you. I want to show you what it means to interfere with pure Aryan children.”
A short while later, Karl was standing in the classroom. The teacher sat down and held her forehead with her bony hand, covering her eyes.
“Karl, are we alone?”
“Yes,” he stammered.
“Are you positive that no one else is in the room?”
“I’m sure,” Karl said, frightened, as he heard her speak with her former tenderness.
“Karl, swear to me by God that you won’t tell anyone what I am going to tell you.”
“No one,” he mumbled.
“Not even your mother?”
Karl lifted his large blue eyes and looked at her.
“Yes, not even your mother. This is a special secret, just between the two of us.”
Karl felt very honored that his teacher trusted him with such an important secret, and he promised not to tell anyone, not even his mother.
“Karl, I have to speak to you, because I can’t talk to anyone about this. Your father died a hero. His blood was shed for us.”
Karl stood erect, trying to show respect for his father’s memory.
“Someday, when you’re grown up, you’ll think about me. By then I’ll be long dead. I’m old, Karl.
“What will you think of me?” the teacher continued, taking her hand away from her eyes. She looked straight at Karl’s face, as if she wanted to know what he would think of her then.
“My God, I get a chill when I think about it. You protected poor Emil with your own body, and I insulted him horribly.”
Karl came a little closer to the teacher, because now she was speaking so softly that he could barely hear her.
“I’m already old and broken, I have no more strength. I don’t have the strength to stand up against everyone and fight, to spit in their faces—forgive me, Karl, but I can’t. Someday you will pass judgment on me. People such as you will judge me; please be merciful.”
She took his hand, and he felt how her cold hand trembled.
“I’ve been ordered to teach them how to hate, to make Jews the scapegoat, but what can I teach them, these youngsters, these vulgar children? They’re teaching me, they’re already completely corrupt. They think up the wildest things. I could learn from them how to be evil. Children need to be taught good, but evil? You saw it yourself, Karl.”
Now she spoke just like the teacher that she used to be. Her words had their familiar warmth, just like a song. You couldn’t forget words like that, even if you didn’t understand them.
“I’ve already seen to it that Emil no longer has to come to school; he needn’t suffer any more. Even this was difficult to do. I’ve had to lie, to pretend, because they, the Aryans, must have their scapegoat.”
She got up and began walking around the classroom. Then she came right up to Karl, almost whispering into his ear.
“And you, you must protect your precious heart. Our unfortunate country needs it. That little bit of decency is our only hope. Be good to Emil, protect him whenever you can. Perhaps someday we adults will be ashamed of what we’ve done.”
The teacher heard a knock at the door. Her whole body trembled. Suddenly she began to shout, “You swine, you swine, you must understand the difference between yourself and the Jews.”
A gang of children burst into the room.
The teacher shouted at the top of her voice, “You little swine!”
The change took Karl by surprise.
He was frightened and took a step back, but then he remembered the special promise he had made. A warm feeling went through him, and once again his throat felt tight. He couldn’t keep it in any longer—he began to cry.
The boy with the limp started to chant, and the other children joined in:
“Karl’s a swine! Karl’s a swine! Let’s hear it for our teacher!”
* * *
For the seventh time, Karl stood before the building where Emil lived. From the cloudy sky a few raindrops fell, so few that he could count them. It was getting dark. Karl shivered in his light jacket, and he felt hunger pangs deep in his stomach.
He looked around, then walked into the building and scrambled up the dark, steep staircase.
He gave three short knocks and then three long knocks on the door. That was the special signal he and Emil used.
chapter three
The door opened, and Emil stood there, looking dazed. He didn’t say a word. He just stood in the open doorway, not knowing what to do. Karl could tell that his friend felt ill at ease, and so he didn’t dare go inside. They both stood there and stared at each other.
Emil was usually much more fidgety than Karl, but now he was as still as a statue. He usually spoke quickly, talking about everything at once so fast that he tripped over his words, and as he spoke he couldn’t stay in one place. His whole body talked—his eyes, his head, his hands, his feet. But now he stood as still as stone.
“The rabbi is here,” Emil said, as he began to come alive. “We’ve had a terrible disaster.” His long face seemed quite drawn as he lowered his eyes.
As Emil held the door open, Karl thought it made sense that Emil had said the word “disaster.” All day long he had been looking for the right word, and “disaster” described what he had been through as well.
“I’ve had a terrible disaster, too,” Karl said.
Then Emil started talking quickly. He let go of the door, and it swung shut, but Karl caught hold of it and held it open.
“They came,” Emil explained, “in the middle of the night and woke up everybody in the house. They beat my father and took him away. Then they killed him, and they cremated him, and they sent the ashes back to us in a box. And yesterday was the funeral. I was there, and my mother and the rabbi and Uncle Robert. Nobody else.”
Karl shivered and said softly, “They took my mother away from me. Three men came today and dragged her off. And she scratched one of them but good,” he said proudly.
Hearing this, Emil took hold of the door and motioned Karl inside.
Emil’s mother sat in the middle of the room on a small footstool. She looked older than Karl’s mother. Her hair was half black, half white. She didn’t even notice that Karl had come in. Every so often she broke into tears, but right away she put her hand over her mouth, as if to stifle her crying. She managed to stop, but only for a while. Soon she broke into sobs once more.
The rabbi stood by the window, drumming his fingers lightly on the glass. He was a middle-aged man with a short blond beard trimmed to a point. In one hand he held his eyeglasses, which he had just removed. His eyes were wet with tears. Each time that Emil’s mother started to cry, the rabbi went over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. He started to speak in a broken voice, but right away he recovered and spoke clearly.
“You mustn’t, you mustn’t let so much sadness into your heart. The living must continue to live, in spite of their enemies.” When he thought that his words had comforted her somewhat, the rabbi returned to the dark window.
Now Karl wished that he hadn’t come to Emil’s. He couldn’t find a place for himself there. He wished that Emil’s mother would get up from her footstool and tell him to leave. But she didn’t even see him.
The rabbi put his glasses back on. He went over to Emil and said, “Be a good boy.” And he added in a softer voice, “Take care of your mother. I’ll come back tomorrow.” Then the rabbi noticed Karl for the first time. He asked Emil, “Who is this boy—a friend of yours?”
“They took his mother away,” Emil quickly stammered. He wanted to defend Karl, to explain why he was there. “And his father died a long time ago.”
“May God have mercy on us,” the rabbi said and quickly left.
As soon as the rabbi had gone, Emil’s mother got up from her footstool. Emil wanted her to see that Karl was there.
“They took away his—” Emil started to explain.
“I know. I heard, my son, I heard,” his mother interrupted. “Children, are you hungry?”
“Yes,” Karl cried out. Then he noticed that she was walking about in stocking feet. He felt bad that he had shouted “Yes” so loudly, but he felt such sharp, stabbing pains in his stomach.
“I’m hungry, very hungry,” he cried again, and looked about for something to eat.
Emil’s mother cut some slices of bread, spread them with butter, and put some cheese on top. Karl grabbed his sandwich and devoured it at once.
After a while the two boys lay in bed. The room they slept in was pitch black, as was the other room of the apartment. But in there was a glass sitting on a bureau, a glass with a burning wick inside. The flame flickered in a mirror on the opposite wall. The dancing wick sputtered and crackled, as if it were about to go out, but then the flame came back right away and trembled as it continued to burn. From the bed Karl could see Emil’s mother, still sitting on the low stool.
“Karl, are you asleep?”
“No.”
“Do you know why they killed my father?”
“No,” Karl answered quietly.
“Don’t you know? It’s because we’re Jews … Karl?” Emil asked. “Are you scared?”
“No! Are you?”
“Yes. I’m scared of the candle in the other room. It’s for my father’s soul.”
“Emil, are you sleeping?”
“No. Karl, are you afraid now, too?”
“No. I was thinking…”
�
�What about?”
“About our teacher…”
“What about her?”
“Nothing…”
Karl remembered that he had sworn not to tell.
“Karl, are your eyes open?”
“Yes, Emil.”
“I’m keeping mine shut tight—so tight that it hurts…”
“Emil, why did they take my mother away?” Karl suddenly asked, very quietly.
Emil didn’t respond. Karl liked that his friend didn’t have an answer for him immediately. Usually Emil had an answer for everything, but this time Karl had asked him something hard.
“Well, why did they kill my father?” Karl asked. He was teasing Emil for not knowing the answer, but this gave Emil a clue.
“Your father was a Socialist. Everybody knows that. My father always said that your father was on the side of the poor workingman. And your mother is also a Socialist.”
“Are they going to cremate my mother, too?” Karl asked.
Emil didn’t answer.
“Emil, are you asleep?”
“No! I’m too scared. Come over here…” Karl moved nearer, but he kept one eye on the other room, where the little flame cast everything in shadow. He saw Emil’s mother was still sitting there. He couldn’t see the little stool any longer, so it seemed as though she was sitting on the floor.
Suddenly, they heard her sobbing. The sound rose up from the floor. It was more muffled than before, but it lasted longer.
“Emil, are you asleep?” Karl asked softly.
He lay in bed with his eyes open and stared into the darkness, until he saw Emil sit up in bed, holding his head with both hands. By then it was morning, and they could see through the window that it was raining heavily outside.
chapter four
Even though he was still under the covers, Karl began to shiver from the cold. He also noticed that Emil’s mother was still sitting on the little footstool.
“Had she been sitting like that all night long?” he asked himself, frightened.
He wanted to ask Emil—but with his head buried in his hands, Emil suddenly looked like an old man. Karl was afraid to look at him.
Emil and Karl Page 2