It was a cloudy day. The sky threatened to rain. It was almost spring, but the weather was cold and damp, as though it were late autumn, right before the start of winter.
Karl ran out of the building wearing a light jacket, and the cold went right through him. Even though he had just turned nine, he already knew how to take care of himself very well. Since his mother went to work, he had learned to do everything that she told him. And because he did exactly as he was told, he eventually escaped the watchful eyes of the women in the neighborhood.
Of course, Karl knew full well that he could catch a cold; still, he didn’t want to go back upstairs to put on his heavy coat. Someone could be coming to get him, and he might arrive just at the same time. Perhaps it would be the same man, the one who had punched him in the stomach.
Anyway, Karl knew that he would only have to run for a few blocks, then go up to the fourth floor of a dark building, and he would be at Emil’s.
Karl hadn’t seen his friend for two weeks. Emil was in his class but had stopped coming to school. On the first two days that Emil was absent Karl visited him faithfully, but then Emil’s mother asked him not to come over any more.
“You mustn’t, Karl, do you understand, you’re not allowed to play with Emil. It will only make trouble for us. You’re a sensible boy, Karl, please, don’t come here any more, try to understand.”
That’s what Emil’s mother had said to him. But Karl didn’t want to be separated from his friend, and he talked about it with his own mother. She told him that he could do what he wanted. She explained that Vienna wasn’t the same city that it used to be, but that things wouldn’t be like this for long, because it couldn’t last. Emil was a Jew, and lately things were much worse for Jews than they were for other people. Jews were being beaten, they were robbed, and their children weren’t allowed to play with the others.
“But you, Karl, you can do what you want. I can’t order you not to play with Emil, just as I can’t force you to go ahead and play with him.”
Karl told his mother that the children in school teased him about Emil, they hit him, and they even threatened to kill him if he wouldn’t stop being friends with Emil.
“You see, that’s what it’s come to, Karl,” his mother said. “You get hit because of Emil.”
“Emil’s my friend, and I want to play with him,” Karl said, stamping his foot, as he always did when he decided to do something.
“Since you’ve already made up your mind, let me tell you that’s just what your father would have done.” His mother’s eyes became teary. “And I would do the same as well.”
Whenever Karl was reminded of his father, a strange feeling came over him. His father! He had barely known him. His father had died more than five years ago. Karl knew that his father had fallen while fighting for the workingman, in the bloodbath started by Hitler.
“Bloodbath…” “Hitler…” He didn’t remember exactly where he’d heard these words, but they were engraved in his memory. His father died a hero—he knew that, too. But what’s a hero? Karl knew the answer to that from his father’s photograph, which hung in the bedroom: a tall, thin man with unusually long hands, smiling eyes, and closely cropped hair. He looked very young, and as Karl grew up, his father looked more like the boy’s older brother than his father.
Whenever someone mentioned his father, Karl froze. But this soon passed, and then a warm feeling pulsed through him, the way he usually felt for someone alive.
It was enough for Karl to hear that his father would have acted the same way. That must have been what had brought him back to see Emil. But then Emil’s mother wouldn’t even let him in the door. Again she pleaded with him not to come back, because the neighbors were making their lives unbearable.
“It’s better not to, Karl. You’ll have to wait, maybe things will get better.”
Emil stood at the door and pleaded with him. “I get beat up because we play together,” he explained to Karl with a tremble in his voice, hoping his friend would not be insulted. “It’s even worse when I go out in the street.”
“Don’t be angry, Karl. Your mother will understand,” Emil’s mother had told him.
Karl started to walk slowly. He was already very close to the building where Emil lived—but what if Emil’s mother still wouldn’t let him in? He walked around the block a few times. The thought almost stopped his heart from beating.
But they’d have to let him in now. He didn’t have anyone else. Now he was a Jew, too. After all, he’d been punched in the stomach so hard that he could have died. They took his mother away from him. He was all alone in the world. How could Emil not let him in now?
But Karl still didn’t have the courage to go up the stairs. He was terrified by the idea that they might shut the door and leave him standing outside once more. Karl decided to wait until he felt less afraid. He walked past their building one more time.
Then Karl got very upset, because he realized that he hadn’t brought his father’s picture with him. He became even more upset when he realized he had been in such a hurry that he hadn’t even taken one last look at it. That was much worse than not bringing his coat. Soon one of the men who had taken his mother away would show up and go through their house. He would take away everything, even the picture of Karl’s father.
A boy was rolling a small barrel down the street. Where did he find that beat-up old barrel? Karl wondered. The postman, with his thick, gray whiskers, walked by slowly, so slowly, as if he were moving backward. It was the same postman who went past Karl’s house twice a day. Another boy, someone he knew, ran by, shouting “Hey, Karl!” Then he saw a man hammering a piece of iron—it wasn’t clear to Karl what it was—banging on it harder and harder in a wild rage, as though the metal made him angry for forcing him to work.
The first boy came running back, rolling his barrel, which had lost one of its hoops and was about to collapse.
“Vienna isn’t the same city that it used to be,” he remembered his mother saying. He looked around to see what had changed. The postman was still walking backwards.
Then Karl remembered his great secret. It was so special and so secret that he wasn’t even allowed to tell his mother. That’s what his teacher had made him promise when she told it to him—never to tell anyone, not a single soul.
It had been during those first days, when everything started to change for the worse. Their teacher suddenly changed the way she spoke and began saying all kinds of strange, wild things. She was an older woman, with a calm manner and a gentle, peaceful voice. She would never get upset; she’d smile even when the whole class misbehaved.
But best of all was the beautiful way that she spoke. Karl, who liked to make up his own stories, loved to listen to her melodious voice. Even when her students didn’t understand what the words meant, her voice went straight to their hearts. Karl loved to think up stories and imagine how they would sound in her musical voice.
Then, suddenly, their teacher changed. She became nervous and angry, she shouted, things fell from her hands—the same teacher who used to act so kindly and calmly. She also began singing new kinds of songs with her class in a shrill voice. She had become a completely different person.
The children picked on Emil. They would wait around for him when he came to school or at lunchtime. Before he could escape, Emil would find himself surrounded. They’d circle around him, taunting him with nasty songs. As they got rowdier, they’d spit in his face and even hit him. They’d pretend to open up the circle a little bit, but as soon as Emil tried to escape they’d close in on him again. So Emil would stand in the middle like a frightened little bird and cry.
Once, though, Emil didn’t cry. He just shouted, “Shame! Shame on you!” But the children weren’t ashamed at all; they only attacked him more fiercely. Still, Emil refused to cry. Instead, he responded stubbornly each time they hit him: “Shame on you! Shame!”
Karl usually sat off to one side. He would pretend that he had a gun and could get rid of them all. Then he could grab Emil by the hand and rescue him. But this time Karl’s imaginary gun wasn’t enough. His throat felt tight, as though something was stuck in there. Karl leaped up, broke through the crowd, and stood next to Emil:
“Stop hitting him, stop picking on him!”
He stood in front of Emil, protecting him with his broad back. Emil just kept shouting like a madman, in a hoarse, mechanical voice, “Shame on you! Shame!”
The circle closed again, and the children pranced around the two of them. They stopped trying to hit Emil but kept on singing their hateful songs.
Just then their teacher was passing through the schoolyard. She stopped and stood there, motionless.
“My God,” she said, raising her hand to her head. “What is this?”
“We were beating up Emil, he’s just a filthy Jew, and now Karl’s taking his side,” the children squealed.
The circle opened up, but Karl and Emil stayed where they were.
“And why are you hitting Emil?” The teacher asked them softly.
“Why are we hitting him?! Everyone beats up Jews nowadays. Emil’s a Jew, he’s not our equal.”
The boy who spoke was the tallest in the class. He always scowled and walked with a limp. Sometimes when the others fought with him they would kick his lame foot on purpose. But now he was their leader, and he showed the others that he was as good as they were.
“We’re just practicing on Emil, so we can take care of grown-up Jews when we’re bigger,” he said, as he hopped over to the teacher, limping on his bad foot. “And we’re going to tell that you’re on the side of a lousy Jew.”
Some of the children had backed off from the circle. Perhaps they felt a little sorry for what they had done. But when they saw how boldly the boy with the limp threatened their teacher, they stepped forward again and started shouting.
Everyone turned to look at Emil, who was hiding behind Karl.
“I’ll show you what to do. Then, when you’re grown up, you’ll already know,” the teacher said. She was trying to speak with her former gentleness, but her voice sounded different. “I’m not on Emil’s side. Emil is an inferior being.”
“Hurray!” the children roared, “That’s the right idea.”
“Emil is a common Jew. Aryan children shouldn’t dirty their hands with such filth,” the teacher continued.
“Hurray!” they all screamed, and each one of the children ran past Emil and spat on him, calling out, “Dirty Jew! Dirty Jew!”
All the while, Karl stood by Emil, and when the teacher saw that Karl hadn’t budged, she said to him, “And you, Karl, I want to see you. I want to show you what it means to interfere with pure Aryan children.”
A short while later, Karl was standing in the classroom. The teacher sat down and held her forehead with her bony hand, covering her eyes.
“Karl, are we alone?”
“Yes,” he stammered.
“Are you positive that no one else is in the room?”
“I’m sure,” Karl said, frightened, as he heard her speak with her former tenderness.
“Karl, swear to me by God that you won’t tell anyone what I am going to tell you.”
“No one,” he mumbled.
“Not even your mother?”
Karl lifted his large blue eyes and looked at her.
“Yes, not even your mother. This is a special secret, just between the two of us.”
Karl felt very honored that his teacher trusted him with such an important secret, and he promised not to tell anyone, not even his mother.
“Karl, I have to speak to you, because I can’t talk to anyone about this. Your father died a hero. His blood was shed for us.”
Karl stood erect, trying to show respect for his father’s memory.
“Someday, when you’re grown up, you’ll think about me. By then I’ll be long dead. I’m old, Karl.
“What will you think of me?” the teacher continued, taking her hand away from her eyes. She looked straight at Karl’s face, as if she wanted to know what he would think of her then.
“My God, I get a chill when I think about it. You protected poor Emil with your own body, and I insulted him horribly.”
Karl came a little closer to the teacher, because now she was speaking so softly that he could barely hear her.
“I’m already old and broken, I have no more strength. I don’t have the strength to stand up against everyone and fight, to spit in their faces—forgive me, Karl, but I can’t. Someday you will pass judgment on me. People such as you will judge me; please be merciful.”
She took his hand, and he felt how her cold hand trembled.
“I’ve been ordered to teach them how to hate, to make Jews the scapegoat, but what can I teach them, these youngsters, these vulgar children? They’re teaching me, they’re already completely corrupt. They think up the wildest things. I could learn from them how to be evil. Children need to be taught good, but evil? You saw it yourself, Karl.”
Now she spoke just like the teacher that she used to be. Her words had their familiar warmth, just like a song. You couldn’t forget words like that, even if you didn’t understand them.
“I’ve already seen to it that Emil no longer has to come to school; he needn’t suffer any more. Even this was difficult to do. I’ve had to lie, to pretend, because they, the Aryans, must have their scapegoat.”
She got up and began walking around the classroom. Then she came right up to Karl, almost whispering into his ear.
“And you, you must protect your precious heart. Our unfortunate country needs it. That little bit of decency is our only hope. Be good to Emil, protect him whenever you can. Perhaps someday we adults will be ashamed of what we’ve done.”
The teacher heard a knock at the door. Her whole body trembled. Suddenly she began to shout, “You swine, you swine, you must understand the difference between yourself and the Jews.”
A gang of children burst into the room.
The teacher shouted at the top of her voice, “You little swine!”
The change took Karl by surprise.
He was frightened and took a step back, but then he remembered the special promise he had made. A warm feeling went through him, and once again his throat felt tight. He couldn’t keep it in any longer—he began to cry.
The boy with the limp started to chant, and the other children joined in:
“Karl’s a swine! Karl’s a swine! Let’s hear it for our teacher!”
* * *
For the seventh time, Karl stood before the building where Emil lived. From the cloudy sky a few raindrops fell, so few that he could count them. It was getting dark. Karl shivered in his light jacket, and he felt hunger pangs deep in his stomach.
He looked around, then walked into the building and scrambled up the dark, steep staircase.
He gave three short knocks and then three long knocks on the door. That was the special signal he and Emil used.