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.