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.
“Do you think that the signalman got there in time?” Emil asked, concerned.
Once more, Karl shivered all over. He felt cold in every part of his body. He began to tremble. He sneezed once or twice, and then he was seized by a fit of sneezing.
“Are you cold?” asked Matilda.
“No, not all the time. Sometimes I feel cold and sometimes I feel warm.”
All at once Karl remembered how once he’d left home in the pouring rain without his jacket. It seemed that he could hear his mother calling after him, “Karl, you’ll catch cold! Karl! You naughty boy!”
He began to feel dizzy, and he grabbed onto a chair so that he wouldn’t fall down.
Matilda felt his forehead.
“The boy is sick,” she cried out, alarmed. “He’s got a fever.”
Hans stood up, blinking his eyes. He helped Matilda undress Karl.
Karl closed his eyes, and he said in a singsong, as if deep in sleep, “Aunt Matilda! I feel sick, Aunt Matilda! I love you. Emil! Emil! Hans! I feel sick.”
Hans stood, his long arms at his sides, next to the bed where Karl now lay, his eyes shut.