“Emil, Karl, do you want to go with this woman? I have to go away. If I stay in the city I’ll have no way of getting food, I have to go to my mother.”
The two boys went over to the woman and looked her in the eye.
Karl was the first to answer that he was ready to go with her. Emil nodded his head in agreement.
Emil took hold of Berta and kissed her hand.
“No farewells,” the stranger insisted. Turning to the janitor’s wife, she said, “Go, and don’t look back.”
Berta remained seated.
“I feel like a criminal for leaving the children, but I have no choice.”
“You don’t have to worry about them at all. Just pick yourself up and go.”
They heard a group of laughing men and women approach. A storm trooper walked along with them, his laughter ringing out above the rest.
“Go!” the stranger shouted.
Berta rose and walked out the main gate.
“We can go now, too.”
The stranger and the boys got up as well, and they set out through a different entrance to the park.
chapter thirteen
Emil and Karl walked in silence. The stranger kept them moving at a quick pace.
“You’ll see, boys, you’ll be quite fine with me. You won’t have to worry about a thing.”
Karl looked up at her and smiled, but Emil looked at her with eyes full of tears.
“My name is Matilda. You can call me Aunt Matilda. I’m a good cook, and I’ll make you the nicest meals. In fact, we can already start thinking about lunch. What should we have as soon as we get home? You must be very hungry.”
“No,” the boys answered, “We aren’t hungry at all.”
“Not even a bit? Let’s close our eyes and think about a warm bowl of soup, some roast veal, a piece of fruit, and a nice slice of cake.”
Karl started to laugh, and Emil smiled weakly.
“That’s what Aunt Matilda likes. She loves happy children. In your new home you’ll be able to play as much as your heart desires.”
Suddenly Karl asked in a serious voice, “Will we go to school, too?”
“No-o,” Aunt Matilda answered slowly. “No going to school. But I’ll study with you every day, and you’ll learn much better than you would in school.”
Karl felt a little happier. He even began to swing Matilda’s hand back and forth as they walked along, faster than before.
“Emil, don’t slow down,” Karl called out. “Let’s keep the same pace.”
Emil, who also held Aunt Matilda by the hand, started imitating his friend. Now the two boys were leading Matilda, and she skipped along between them.
But all at once Emil became distracted. He slowed down, and Aunt Matilda noticed it right away.
“Emil,” she said, rousing him, “if you’re going to daydream instead of keeping up with us, then we’ll all fall down. We’re all linked together.”
Emil got back in step with them. Aunt Matilda laughed, and the boys began to sing a song that they’d learned in school.
Then Karl noticed that they were no longer on paved streets. They were now walking on sand that was black with coal dust. The path was dusty. Karl walked more slowly, because with each step he kicked up a lot of dust that tickled his nose and throat.
In the distance they heard chugging and whistling. A train with many cars rode by through the tall, dry grass, leaving a thick cloud of black smoke. Karl started counting. But the train moved too fast for him, and he wasn’t sure if it had sixteen or eighteen cars. By this time Emil had let go of Aunt Matilda’s hand as well. He stood, staring at the train, full of curiosity and fear.
Karl wanted to say something to Emil. A story had started to take shape inside his head. This Aunt Matilda was leading them astray, taking them into the woods somewhere. There they’d be sold to bandits, who would force them to be criminals, too. Later, when they were grown up, they would steal enough money to buy their freedom.
But even Karl didn’t find this story frightening. Aunt Matilda looked at both boys with a smile. She pointed at the tall grass. “The tracks run through the grass, and the train moves on its very own steel path. Now we’re outside the city. Do you see that hut? That’s where the signalman lives. A lot of trains stop there, and he waves them on with a little flag. See, not far from his hut”—she pointed to a small, dark house that stood a few dozen steps from the hut—“that’s where we live. We’ll be home very soon.”
The sand became deeper. Small, sharp pebbles got into their shoes, and the walk grew harder and harder. The smoke from the train began to disperse, leaving behind a heavy smell.
Aunt Matilda led them onto a smooth path. From there they could see the train tracks, which lay like long, sharp swords that sparkled in the sun.
“Before you cross the tracks you have to look carefully in both directions. Do you know why?” Matilda asked them.
“Because a train might be coming,” they both answered together.
“Yes, you have to be very careful, because a train can come by without warning.”
And just as they were standing there, they again heard a loud chugging. This time a train with an endless number of cars crawled slowly past. Hundreds of chickens and ducks looked out from some of the cars. The chickens blinked at them without making a sound, but the ducks made so much noise that they could be heard for miles. Emil and Karl laughed out loud. Even the sorry-looking chickens made them laugh. In the last few cars there were some horses. They held their heads stiffly, their eyes showing no sign of curiosity—they didn’t even look around to see where they were. Only one young pony neighed, as if it were sneezing because something got into its nostrils.
“It’s a freight train. That’s why it’s moving so slowly,” Matilda said. “Only passenger trains go fast; chickens and ducks and horses travel slowly.”
In front of the signal hut stood an old man with a cap pulled down over his eyes. He waved a flag up and down. People stuck their heads out from a few of the cars. They looked just as bored as the horses. They exchanged a few idle words with the signalman as the train moved slowly by. One of them laughed, but his laughter was dry and smoky, like the thick, heavy smoke from the locomotive.
Emil and Karl followed Aunt Matilda with tired footsteps and looked longingly at the freight train and its dingy cars.
The path to the second house went uphill a bit. From there the freight train looked like a contorted giant, doubled over with a stomachache.
Aunt Matilda knocked on the door several times. When it opened, Karl froze in place, unable to move. Emil gasped, his throat tightening with fear and surprise.
There in the doorway stood the very same man, the one with the scruffy red hair and the curly beard, who’d been in the crowd at the park laughing and shouting Heil. He no longer had on his jacket, but he was still wearing the same tight, short pants that came to the top of his knees.
When he saw Emil and Karl, he blinked his watery blue eyes. But straight away he puffed up his cheeks and yelled, “Heil! Heil!”
Emil was so terrified that he almost raised his hand in salute, but it wouldn’t budge. Karl held on to Aunt Matilda.
The red-haired man burst into his coarse laugh that ended in a shriek, but this time it lasted longer and sounded pleasant, like the laughter of a child.
“He’s harmless. He doesn’t bother anyone. He won’t do you any harm. He loves children very much. He’s a child himself, a grown-up child.”
The red-haired man puffed up his cheeks and popped them with his fists, as if they were balloons. He danced and sang and shouted, “This is good! This is good!”
The children began to get used to him, but each time that he puffed up his cheeks, squinted his eyes, and shouted “Heil,” they became sad. The Heil reminded Karl of the brown uniforms of the storm troopers. Emil became completely confused and didn’t know what to do. Meanwhile, Matilda began to set the table in the main room of the house. On the right was a narrow lit
tle room, and off to the left was another small room that had no windows and was completely dark.
The red-haired man lifted Karl all the way up to the ceiling, and as he held him up, he asked, “Name?”
“Karl,” Karl answered.
He took hold of Emil and lifted him up as well.
Emil didn’t wait for the question and said his name right away.
The red-haired man sat down and started repeating their names over and over again. When he said “Karl” he pointed his finger at Karl, and pointed at Emil when he said his name. Somewhere along the way he got mixed up and called Karl “Emil.” This made the boys laugh, and they taught him their names again. The red-haired man’s face grew serious, and he followed their instructions.
When at last he had repeated their names four or five times without making a mistake, he was so excited that he started dancing again and shouted, “This is good, this is good!” Then, in a blink of an eye the tall, heavy man stood on his head and began to kick with his feet, as if he were about to fall over, but he made a quick somersault and stood up.
Karl laughed loudly and tried to imitate him. Emil stood nearby, watching happily.
Aunt Matilda laughed along with them.
“Didn’t I tell you that you’d have a good time?”
At the table the red-haired man started to get their names mixed up again. He pronounced Karl’s name “Sharl,” and he kept calling Emil “Shlemil.” Suddenly, as he was eating, his mouth full of food, he banged on the table so hard that the plates rattled.
“My name! My name,” he shouted, “is Hans! Hans!”
“Uncle Hans!” Emil and Karl sang out.
“Uncle! Uncle!” The red-haired man danced with glee. “Uncle!”
It made him so happy to hear the boys call him Uncle that he flipped over and stood on his head again. Standing on his head, he let out a whistle like a locomotive. Emil and Karl really thought that a train had just passed by the house.
chapter fourteen
In the evening a man smoking a pipe dropped by. He filled the room with great clouds of smoke even before he took the pipe out of his mouth and said “good evening.” He sat in a rocking chair and puffed away.
Matilda was cleaning the house and barely looked at the visitor. Quietly she explained to the children that he was their neighbor, the signalman, who lived in the little hut by the train tracks and who waved to the passing trains with his little flag.
Emil and Karl were curious about the signalman. They moved closer, but when they got near him they smelled a very sharp, unpleasant odor. The signalman’s large cap fell down over his eyes. He clenched the stem of his pipe between his teeth and dozed for a bit. Then he awoke with a start and began puffing away on his pipe, trying to get its fire going again.
Hans opened the door, sat down on the threshold, and looked out. A few flies buzzed around the kerosene lamp that stood on the table where they had just finished eating. From time to time Hans let out one of his laughs. Emil sat down next to him and looked out into the dark. He thought about how much he would like to ride on a train.
The signalman woke up once more and puffed on his pipe, but this time he couldn’t bring its fire back to life. Slowly he felt each of his pockets, poking and rummaging about, until he pulled out a match. He struck it against the rocking chair. The match lit and immediately went out. Disappointed, the signalman started to suck on the stem of his pipe.
Suddenly he opened his eyes wide and asked, “Who are these boys?”
“Just boys,” Matilda answered. “They’re good boys.”
“Ah!” the signalman responded, as if that was enough information for him.
“Their names are Emil and Karl. This is Emil, and the other boy is Karl,” Matilda said, pointing.
“Really?” the signalman said, surprised. “That’s very nice.”
“And you’ve been guzzling a bit too much,” Matilda said. “Someday you won’t even be able to hold that flag in your hand.”
“No, today I’ve barely even wet my lips.”
“Is that so!” Matilda said. “You can smell it a mile away.”
“Well, what’s true is true. Yesterday I did go drinking. My friends took me out and said, ‘Have a drink.’ The fact is, I have a strong character, but when they put a bottle on the table and say, ‘Have a drink’—”
Karl’s whole body shivered, and he went to sit in a chair.
“Hans, close the door,” Matilda said. “Karl is cold.”
“No, I’m not cold,” he said, but as he spoke, another shiver ran through him.
“The nights are a little chilly,” the signalman said. “Here it’s much cooler than in the city. People come here to cool off.”
Hans shut the door and started shouting “Heil.” The signalman raised his hand lazily with each Heil. Emil sat at the table and counted the flies buzzing around the lamp.
The signalman found a match and quickly relit his pipe.
“If I were the same age as these two,” he said, pointing to the boys, “I would be grateful to be alive. Which is not to say that things are all that bad nowadays.
“Now, you take Saturday,” he continued. “That wasn’t so bad. You could even say it was good. After we finished drinking, they said to me, ‘Come, Friedrich.’ We walked and we walked, until we came to a clothing store. ‘Let’s go in,’ they said, ‘and take something without paying for it.’ So I said, ‘They’ll arrest us, just like dogs.’ But they laughed, and they said, ‘You’re an old fool. Don’t you know that you can take whatever you want from the Jews, and that they can’t say a thing about it? You can even pay them with a slap instead of with money, and they can’t say anything.’”
The red-haired man burst out laughing and ended with a Heil. The signalman lazily raised his hand in salute.
“And that’s just the way it was. Can you believe it? I couldn’t believe it, either. But just go take a look in my closet: a brand-new suit, hanging there just like a dead man, and two pairs of shoes—and I took a watch, too. All on Saturday. At one place we also took some money. The people there were so scared, they just gave us everything. Then we went drinking some more.”
He took a few puffs on his pipe and rocked back and forth in the chair.
“Now, you can’t say that this is all on the level. You could even say it’s against the law. And that suit’s hanging there, like a dead man. I have strong character, but when someone says to you, ‘Take it,’ and they give it to you—they give it to you, I swear to God, you go in and they give it to you.”
He dozed off for a few minutes, and Hans let out a few of his laughs.
Then the signalman took a watch out of his pocket.
“There’s still a good hour until the nine o’clock comes through. Here, take a look at this piece of goods. There are watches, and then there are watches. This one is like a sundial. The watchmaker just gave it to me. I swear to God. On the other hand, the Jews are rich. You take a suit from them, they still have three more.”
The signalman held out the watch to let all of them take a look at it, but no one took it from him.
“Or course, it is against the law. But somebody says, ‘Have a drink’—also, now the laws are all different. I swear to God, I didn’t hit anyone. One of us—what’s true is true—he beat up this Jewish tailor, and another fellow helped him. Now that’s too much, isn’t that right, Matilda? There’s no need to do any hitting. They’ll only bring it all back against you.
“Now I’m a rich man. I have a new suit hanging like a dead man in my closet. Two pairs of shoes—one pair yellow, one pair black—a watch, and a little bit of pocket money. Still, if I were as young as those two”—he pointed at the boys again—“it would be better, though things aren’t bad nowadays. Only you just can’t let things get out of hand.”
Emil sat with his head lowered. Aunt Matilda sat down next to him and caressed him. She whispered into his ear, “He’s an old drunk. Don’t let any of his babbling bother you!”
“I hate it when people hit,” the signalman said, as he continued to smoke. “My friends don’t have any God or any conscience in their hearts any more. They get more pleasure from hitting than from taking things. I don’t go for taking things. But if they give it to you, that’s different—it’s hard to resist. One of our group beat up the watchmaker, he even hit his wife and children. And the watchmaker begged him not to hurt his wife and children.”
Hans broke into his hearty laugh, ending with a whining shriek. Then suddenly he began to choke. He coughed and coughed as if trying to force something out of his throat. He twisted around in all directions, as though he were trying to hide his head. Then all at once they all heard that Hans had stopped laughing. He was crying.
The house broke into an uproar. Matilda and Emil leaped up from the floor. Karl got up from his chair and stood, terrified.
“Calm down, Hans,” Matilda said sternly. “Calm down.”
Hans began to weep out loud. He buried his head in his hands and sobbed loudly.
“Idiot, why are you crying?” said Friedrich. “You don’t have to take it so seriously. If you take a suit from a Jew, he’s got three, maybe four more. Of course, hitting goes against your conscience, but I can tell you even worse stories.”
Gradually Hans came back to his senses. He saluted several times, shouting “Heil!”
“Now you’re talking sense,” Friedrich said, raising his hand. “What made you start bawling like that? Once an idiot, always an idiot. I tell him about Jews and he cries. But what’s true is true—they gave everything away. You walk in the door and they say, ‘Take it.’ Usually I’m a man of character. But if they say, ‘Have a drink,’ I drink. If they say, ‘Take it,’ I take.”
He glanced at his watch, took a few quick puffs on his pipe, and then jumped up.
“I’ve been babbling the time away! The nine-o’clock train is almost here. Good night, good night.”
And he quickly ran out.
Soon the windowpanes began to rattle, and the entire house groaned. They heard a few blasts from a whistle and saw thousands of sparks through the window. A train with small, dimly lit windows stopped for a while, then it began slowly chugging away. When the train was no longer in sight, they heard the whistle blasts again, as if the train were bidding farewell to the silent darkness.
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