All at once, Hans froze. Emil threw the ball to him, but Hans didn’t catch it. The ball rolled away, but Hans still stood there, immobile.
“I hear footsteps,” he said, frightened. Karl also heard them, but he didn’t understand why Hans had become so alarmed.
“That must be Aunt Matilda,” said Emil.
“No,” Hans replied, very quietly. “Matilda won’t be back until very late.”
The steps came closer, and within a minute Hans’s face had completely changed. Now he looked just the way the boys had seen him that first time in the park, when the green and red leaflets went flying through the air. He broke out laughing in that peculiar way of his that Emil and Karl had forgotten.
“Heil!” he screamed with all of his might. “Heil!”
Emil and Karl couldn’t take their eyes off him. They stood there, frozen. Suddenly they heard a heavy voice answer Hans with a “Heil.”
A tall, middle-aged man stood near Hans. Hans did a somersault, then another one.
“This is good! This is good!” he shouted, and once more let out a laugh ending with a shriek that almost sounded like crying.
Suddenly, three more men appeared. One was fat, with a huge stomach. He went right up to Hans. Hans continued to shout “Heil” to each of the men. The fat man stood and looked at Hans, then shook his head and smiled.
“A very pretty comedy!” The fat man said to the other three, clapping his hands. “Excellent! Very amusing! But the game is over. Yes, the curtain has fallen. Bravo, bravo!” He clapped his hands, as though he were applauding a real play. “Viktor Schackeldorf, you can stop playing your comedy.”
Hans stood up straight. He looked at all four men, as if he noticed them for the first time.
All at once he started to move.
“Stay right where you are,” the fat man shouted with all his might, “or I’ll shoot.”
But it was too late. Hans punched one of the other men in the face. “Dirty traitor!” Hans said so quietly that he could barely be heard.
The man he struck moved slowly—almost as if he was expecting to be hit—and took out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood over his left eye.
“I couldn’t help it, Schackeldorf,” he said in a voice even lower than Hans’s. “It’s not my fault.”
“I’m ready,” Hans said. “Let me go into the house for just a moment.”
“Absolutely not,” said the fat man, drily.
“Not even if you go in with me?” asked Hans.
“No.”
“Let me at least say good-bye to the children.”
“No!” the fat man replied mechanically.
“In that case, then, I’m ready. Good-bye, Emil and Karl. Good-bye!”
The fat man ordered two of the others to go inside and inspect the house. They came out with some books and papers and lots of leaflets. The fat man took them and looked over each item separately. All the while he kept looking up at Hans, who stared back with sharp, piercing eyes.
A few minutes later, the five men seemed like five shadows. A train approached. When it left, they were no longer to be seen.
From the distance the signalman waved his little flag. He came straight over to the two boys.
“Who were those men that took Hans away?” he asked. Emil and Karl didn’t respond.
“Where is Matilda?”
The boys said nothing.
“Did they arrest him? It’s not true, is it?” he shouted, as if trying to awaken them from sleep.
Emil and Karl began to sob.
The signalman sat down on a rock. He smoked his pipe quietly.
“I’m an old man, I won’t live much longer,” he said, as though trying to comfort himself.
He inhaled and then let out a large cloud of smoke. “Did they really arrest Hans? Unbelievable!” he continued to argue with himself. “Funny! Ha!” He let out a sharp laugh. He puffed on his pipe and made a gesture with his hand.
“I’m an old man. It can’t last much longer.”
chapter twenty-one
Emil and Karl stopped crying. The old man sat there a while longer, but soon he got up and started to go.
“Today is Monday,” he said. “In about five minutes a special freight train is going to pass through, then I’ll be free for a few hours. I’ll come back soon.”
As soon as he left, Emil said, “We have to get away from here fast. There’s no longer any reason for us to stay here. Hans is gone and Matilda’s away. We’ve got to escape.”
“But where should we go?” Karl asked, not moving from his place. “Friedrich just said that today is Monday,” Karl thought to himself. It was the first time in a long, long while that he’d heard anyone say what day it was. Until now, many, many nameless days and nights had passed. But now it was Monday, the start of a new week. Everything was starting from the very beginning.
Emil and Karl went into the house. The main room was no longer recognizable. Everything had been turned upside down. Apparently the two men had searched every corner to find those books and papers. They had even pulled up some of the floorboards.
“Where should we go?” Karl asked, as though in a dream. His eyes were still brimming with tears, and so it seemed to him that everything in the house was quivering—the chairs, the table, the window.
“Where?” he asked. “We could just stay here—today, and tomorrow, too, and the day after—and not eat anything. We’d just stay in one place and starve ourselves. Today is Monday, tomorrow is Tuesday, the next day is Wednesday—by then we’d probably die from hunger. We could die together—at the same time, at the same minute.”
“No!” Emil shouted. “I don’t want to die! I’m afraid to. Don’t you remember, at the secret meeting, how they all shouted, ‘Live! Live! Live!’ When you’re dead, you can’t hear anymore or see anymore, but I want to see and hear everything.”
“But everybody’s dead,” said Karl, as if he were sleeping. “My parents, your parents; Hans is probably dead now, too, and Matilda isn’t here.”
“Let’s run away. Let’s get on an express train,” said Emil. “I’m afraid of the signalman. I’m afraid he’ll try to poison us.
“Let’s get away from here fast,” he continued. “There must be a lot of others like us. Don’t you remember? Aunt Matilda said that there were hundreds of kids like us, wandering around without any parents or friends. Let’s find them, and then we’ll all run away together.”
Karl started to like the idea of looking for all those other children and then running off together. “Yes,” he said, “We could all escape into the woods and live on fruits and nuts, and we’d get strong and hairy, like cavemen. And after we grow up we’ll come back to the city, and we’ll scare everyone, and we’ll shout: ‘Who killed our parents? Who killed Hans? Who arrested our friends?’”
Karl’s eyes flashed, and he shouted louder. “‘Who beat up the Jews?’ We’ll march together and shout, ‘Who did it? Who?’”
Just then the signalman walked in. Emil and Karl started, as though someone had awakened them from a dream.
“Boys, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’ll take care of you, until I can turn you over to a good orphanage,” the signalman said to Emil and Karl.
“No, we don’t want any orphanage. We’re scared of you, too. We’re afraid you’re going to poison us,” Emil stammered.
“It’s a sin to talk like that, Emil, it’s a sin,” the signalman replied, with a broken voice. “I’m an old man, and I haven’t done anyone any harm, except for the suit and the shoes that I took when I was dead drunk. I’ve lived my whole life all alone, with nothing but dry bread, a little milk, and a lot of whiskey—that’s all. Now I’m old and sick, like a weather-beaten tree. My arms and legs ache. I don’t remember my father, I don’t remember my mother, I don’t remember anyone, I have no one. So why should I do you any harm? Why? Two poor boys, all alone, just like me. Tell me, Emil, would I want to poison you?!”
Emil lowered his head. What the
old man said had moved him. The signalman wiped the tears from his eyes with a dirty red handkerchief.
“Just look at what they did to this house. In one minute they turned everything upside down and inside out. They have no fear of God,” the old man said. “We ought to clean up a little bit, before Matilda gets here.”
He started picking up some of the overturned chairs.
“What do you think, Karl?” Emil asked softly. “Maybe we shouldn’t run away just yet.”
“Today is Monday,” Karl thought. “There’s no rush. Let’s stay here until Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“And what about food?” Emil asked, embarrassed.
“Well, in the meantime we can eat other things, until we can get to the nuts and fruit.”
“Are you hungry?” the signalman asked. “I’ll go and bring you some bread and a little milk, and a piece of cheese. I have some apples, too.”
He left the house, and Emil and Karl watched as he ran breathlessly to his little hut by the train tracks.
“He’s not a bad man,” Karl said. “He’s all alone, just like us.”
“Yes,” Emil agreed. “We could get used to him. We could stay with him for a few days. But we won’t give up our plan to run off to the woods.”
“Of course, that’s our special plan,” Karl said eagerly. “I can’t wait until we escape to the woods.”
A few minutes later Emil and Karl were sitting at the table. The signalman had returned and poured them foaming glasses of milk.
“I have a lot of time now, a whole hour and a half. Soon it will be dark. I have time until the express train comes. You know that train, the one that makes the windows in our houses rattle? My, but that is a fast train. It runs by like a wild man.”
“We’re going to run away soon, just like that!” Karl suddenly shouted. “Hundreds of us, all covered with hair.”
“Run away? Where?” The old man asked, terrified.
“Should I tell him?” Karl asked Emil, unsure of himself.
“Of course, you can. There’s nothing to be scared of.”
Karl beamed with excitement as he started to explain about the hundreds—which he now made out to be thousands—that would come together and shout, “Who killed our parents, who beat up the Jews, who killed Hans? Who?”
“That’s an very fine plan,” the old man said enthusiastically. “But by then I won’t be in this world any longer. Someone else will be living in my little hut. It will still stand in the same place, the trains will still go on running, and you’ll shout, ‘March! March! March!’ But by then I’ll be gone.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” Emil comforted him. “We’ll grow up fast. We’re going to live on nuts and fruits. I had an uncle who only ate fruits and nuts and vegetables, and he was as strong as iron.”
This pleased the old man, and his spirits picked up. He began to march around the room, stamping his feet. Emil and Karl followed after him, stamping their feet in time with him. Karl yelled and all three of them turned toward the door, stretched out their hands, and shouted, “Who? Who? Who?”
The door slowly opened. With cautious, deliberate steps, Aunt Matilda entered.
chapter twenty-two
Emil and Karl were so surprised when they saw Matilda that they froze in place with their hands pointing at the door. They felt a little silly, but Friedrich, the signalman, was even more embarrassed. “We were just playing a little game,” he explained right away to Matilda, who still stood at the door.
“Why are you standing there like that, Emil—and you, Karl? Aren’t you at all glad to see your Aunt Matilda?” she asked in a hoarse voice.
The boys leaped over to her like two puppies, overcome with happiness. Only then did they notice that Aunt Matilda was dressed in old, torn clothes. She looked small and bent over, the way she did on that Sunday when they first saw her in the park, when they first saw Hans as well. Right away Emil realized that although she was trying to put on a happy face, Matilda’s eyes were red and her face was pale, as if she had been crying all day.
Matilda looked around the room. She saw the floorboards that had been pulled up. But before she stepped inside, she cast a sharp glance at the old man. Her eyes pierced through him, as if she was looking for an answer to a question that had been tormenting her—a question that she didn’t even want to bring to her lips.
Emil and Karl noticed that Matilda looked suspiciously at the old man, who stood there helplessly, still pointing at the door—just as he had been while they were pretending to escape to the woods.
The signalman sensed that he was no longer welcome, and he began to move toward the door. He mumbled something and looked at Matilda, who still stared at him with penetrating eyes.
“No!” Matilda cried out in her hoarse voice. Her eyes flashed, like those of an animal at night. She stood up straight and thrust out her hand. “You won’t leave here alive until you answer my question: Who turned Hans over to those bloodhounds?”
“Who?” she shouted, in the very same way that Emil and Karl and Friedrich himself had done earlier.
The old man hesitated. He gazed fearfully at a shiny pistol that Matilda aimed at him. He looked away from her, because he was much more afraid of her blazing eyes.
The old man seemed to sober up and he stepped backwards, falling into a chair. But as soon as he collapsed into the little chair he became so small that he could barely be seen. Then a groan erupted from his crumpled body, and the expression on Matilda’s face changed immediately. All her anger fell away, like a mask. She gripped the gun firmly in her hand.
“Why don’t you shoot me, Matilda?” the old man wept.
“Make an end of it, finish me off. My life has already been eaten up, anyway,” the old man said, sobbing.
But Matilda said nothing. She was satisfied to see that the old man wept. The more he cried, the more her face relaxed—not out of pleasure, but from a sense that she could trust him.
“Emil was afraid that I would poison him. You’re suspicious of me, too. It’s high time for me to die, it’s long overdue.”
Matilda believed him now, but still she said nothing. She wanted him to go on crying and talking, so that she could be sure of him.
Emil realized what was happening. Quickly, stumbling over his words as he often did, he explained everything to Matilda—how Hans was arrested, and how he’d punched someone in the face.
“What did the man look like?” Matilda wanted to know.
“He had gray hair, with a bald spot in the middle of his head,” Karl said. “Hans called him a dirty traitor, and the man said that he didn’t have any choice, he couldn’t help it. Then Hans punched him hard.”
“So that dog did it!” Matilda shouted. Her eyes blazed even brighter.
“Today, tomorrow, I’m going to throw myself under the wheels of an express train. No one needs me any more, no one believes me any more,” said the old man, still sobbing.
“No, you won’t throw yourself under a train. You have no idea how much you mean to me now, because you’re not what I suspected you were. I had no idea who betrayed Hans. It’s a terrible world, no one trusts anyone else. People are shooting each other in the back. When I came here I sneaked along the walls like a stray cat. I know that they’re looking for me now, too. We’ve lost everything. We have to start all over again.”
The signalman still sat there, hunched over. He didn’t look up at Matilda, but he stopped crying.
“Where is Hans?” Emil asked.
Matilda didn’t answer. She said nothing for a long time. Finally, the old man got up and also asked, “Hans—where is he?”
“We’ve lost him,” Matilda said, “We’ve lost him completely. They’ll torture him to death. He didn’t have a chance to take his own life before he fell into their evil hands.
“Did they arrest him in the house?” Matilda wanted to know.
“No, he wanted to go inside, but they didn’t let him,” Emil answered.
Mati
lda ran quickly over to the bookcase. She climbed up on a chair and pushed aside several books. Then she pushed against the wall, and one of the boards fell out. She reached her hand deep into the open space in the wall and took out a small revolver.
“You didn’t wait in vain, my friend,” Matilda said to the gun, as if it were a living thing. “You waited patiently for just such an opportunity, and it wasn’t in vain.”
Matilda got down from the chair and stood up straight.
“We mustn’t waste any time now. I’m sure they’re looking for me. I have to go away and hide for a few weeks, and I might have to leave Vienna altogether. Emil, Karl, it hurts me to say this to you, but we have to run away from here now, while it’s dark. We’ll leave by a different route.”
She quickly took a blanket and wrapped it around Karl so cleverly that it covered him like a coat. Then she helped Emil into his coat.
The signalman stood there, stunned. He blinked his eyes.
“You’re really leaving behind your house, Matilda? You’re never coming back?”
“No, never. Good-bye, and please forgive me. It’s not my fault. It’s these times that are at fault; people have gone out of their minds.”
Matilda gave him her hand.
“If they ask you, you don’t know anything. You saw nothing, heard nothing.”
“This house will stay empty,” the signalman said to himself. Suddenly he noticed Emil and Karl.
“Good-bye, boys. When you run off to the woods, don’t forget about our game. When you’ve grown up to be strong men, come by my little hut and knock on the door three times. If I’m still there, I’ll come out and I’ll go with you.”
Matilda quickly looked around the house. Once more she ran over to the open space in the wall and took out a few books and some papers. She went over to the table and put out the lamp.
She stood in the darkness for a few minutes, as though it was somehow wrong for her to abandon the house. Emil and Karl and the signalman also stood there.
All at once the old man turned to go.
“I hear the ten o’clock train coming. I have to leave now. Good-bye.”
Emil and Karl Page 10