Karl’s eyes opened and shut perhaps a hundred times. He watched the dawn turn blue through the windows. He saw the day and then the dark of night. He even heard the train’s whistle, but he responded to none of it, as if nothing mattered to him.
Karl didn’t even know how many days had passed like this. He did remember that between opening and closing his eyes, Aunt Matilda stood by him with a spoon, which he had to take into his mouth. Only it wasn’t always Aunt Matilda. Sometimes it was even his mother who nursed him, and other times it was the old Jewish man who sang his little tune as he gave him the bitter spoonful. Very often the old man sang just like a train whistle, and from time to time he stood on his head and shouted that his name was Hans.
But one thing Karl was sure of—someone was missing. He struggled to recall exactly who that someone was, but he just couldn’t remember whom he had lost. He tried so hard to recall the face or at least the name of this missing person that drops of sweat broke out on his forehead.
It couldn’t be that this someone’s name was Karl. No, it certainly wasn’t Karl! But just the other day he was crouching down on the ground next to this person, and they scrubbed the pavement with bleeding hands. But he couldn’t recall how this person looked. At the very least, he wanted to remember his name, but he couldn’t even do that.
Many times he had wanted to ask Aunt Matilda who it was that had dropped out of his memory, but each time that he was about to open his lips, his eyes fell shut.
Then one time Karl woke up in the middle of the night, and he smiled, because he remembered the word “Emil.” He had no idea what this “Emil” was, but the word itself made him feel very happy, and he was glad that he remembered it.
A lamp was burning on the table, and Karl figured out that “Emil” was something else besides the lamp, something else besides the train whistle howling outside, just like someone who had puffed himself up with so much air that he turned red and then let out a wild scream.
Karl’s eyes roamed around the room, looking for something. He wanted to attach the word “Emil” to something, but it didn’t belong to anything—not the table, not the lamp, not the window.
Suddenly he saw a bed across the room, and in that bed there was a face that looked just like “Emil.” Just then, Karl felt that he was getting much better. He repeated the word “Emil” several times and looked at the bed, and even though he didn’t completely understand what the word meant yet, he felt that he was about to figure it out.
Then suddenly he saw that near the bed, on a broken-down chair covered with a blanket, Hans was sleeping. His tousled red head lay there peacefully, his beard wasn’t wild. He wasn’t shouting or waving his hands about, and he wasn’t laughing in that strange way he had.
In Hans’s lap Karl saw an open book. Asleep, Hans looked so pleasant that Karl almost didn’t recognize him.
Karl was sure he wasn’t dreaming any longer but was seeing things as they were, because he had already seen Emil lying in the bed across from him—Emil, the very same person he had been missing all this time. But now it was Hans who was hard to recognize. There was something about him that was familiar, but then there was something that wasn’t.
All at once Karl saw Hans stir and then wake up. He looked about the room, frightened. Karl shut his eyes halfway and noticed that Hans still looked very different. He saw Hans pick up the book and read it very attentively. Hans appeared to be deep in thought, and from time to time he ran his hand through his unkempt hair. Deep in thought, he took out a pencil and wrote something in the book.
When Hans got up from the chair and went over to the bed to take a look at Karl, the boy shut his eyes completely.
Hans walked about the room a few times, back and forth. He picked up another book and brought it over to the lamp. He stood and read; then once again he quickly took out a pencil and sat down at the table. He took a piece of paper from a drawer and began writing.
Karl started to get scared. He didn’t understand what had happened to Hans, why he was so different. Karl made up his mind that the next day he would have to get out of bed. He stretched his legs and felt that he had the strength to do it. Under the covers he made a fist and was happy to see that it was strong, too.
He knew he’d been sick, but now he felt better. In the morning he would definitely get out of bed, and right away he would have to tell Emil the secret of how Hans behaved at night, how he became a completely different person, that he never shouted, not even once, but that he looked so nice and calm.
From the next room Aunt Matilda tiptoed in. Once more, Hans’s whole body moved. Karl expected that Hans would shout “Heil!” or might even stand on his head.
“You should get some rest. Karl’s feeling better,” Matilda said.
But Karl wasn’t paying attention to what Matilda was saying. He listened closely to find out how Hans would answer her.
And he was glad he listened, because Hans spoke, softly but clearly. Karl didn’t recognize his voice at all.
“There’s so much work, Matilda. So much to be done.”
“Yes, but you must have the strength to work. You must have the strength to live.”
“Don’t worry, the devil won’t get me,” Hans answered, laughing.
He put out the lamp and started stretching his arms in all directions. It seemed as though he was doing exercises in the dark.
“It’s already morning,” Hans said.
“You can still get a few hours of sleep,” Matilda replied, going back into the other room.
Hans dozed off in the chair. Karl lay there, petrified. He was afraid to move. He felt like crying. He didn’t understand what had happened to Hans. He wished that it were already daytime, so that he could tell Emil about Hans’s strange behavior.