‘That’s funny,’ said Dot. ‘You might almost think someone had stolen it.’ Then she sighed, and said, ‘What terrible times these are.’
Miss Andacht said nothing, drained her glass and went to get another cognac. ‘First we stand about on the bridge for hours on end,’ said Dot crossly, while Miss Andacht was buying her cognac, ‘and then she drinks all the takings!’
‘You’d better stay at home,’ Anton told her. ‘If your parents find out about this there’ll be trouble.’
‘Who cares?’ said Dot. ‘I didn’t choose my governess, did I?’
Anton picked up a paper napkin lying on the next table, folded it to make a little bag and put six orange segments in it. Then he stowed the little bag away in his case. And when Dot looked at him inquiringly he said, sounding embarrassed, ‘They’re for my mother, that’s all.’
‘That reminds me of something,’ she said, searching her little bag. ‘Here!’ She had something in her hand.
He bent over it. ‘A tooth,’ he remarked. ‘Did your tooth come out, then?’
‘What a silly question,’ she said, sounding injured. ‘Do you want it?’
The boy didn’t really understand about teeth, so she put it back in her bag. Then Miss Andacht joined them again, obviously more than a little bit tipsy, and said it was time to leave. They walked to the Weidendammer Bridge together and said goodnight there.
‘Is Mr Bremser your class teacher?’ asked Dot.
Anton nodded.
‘I’ll come and see you again tomorrow afternoon,’ she promised. Pleased, Anton shook hands with her, made Miss Andacht a bow, and hurried away.
Dot and Miss Andacht got home to the Pogges’ apartment without any incidents. Dot’s parents were still at Consul General Ohlerich’s party. She went to bed and fell asleep at once. Piefke growled quietly because he’d been woken up. The governess went to her room, put her beggar woman’s clothes away in her chest of drawers, and then she went to bed as well.
Anton couldn’t go to bed yet. He stole quietly along the corridor, past his mother’s room, put on a light in the kitchen, hid his little case, sat down at the kitchen table, propped his head in his hands and yawned so widely that he almost dislocated his jaw. Then he took a blue notebook and a pencil out of his pocket and opened the notebook. One page said ‘Expenditure’. The opposite page was headed ‘Earnings’. He reached into his trouser pocket, put a pile of small coins on the table and counted them with close attention. They came to two marks fifteen. If it hadn’t been for Dot and the kind gentleman I’d only have forty-five pfennigs now, he thought, entering the evening’s takings in his notebook under ‘Earnings’.
With the money that he was secretly keeping in his paintbox, he had five marks sixty pfennigs, and the landlord wanted five marks just for the rent. They would be left with sixty pfennigs for food. He looked in the little larder. There were still some potatoes, and a piece of bacon rind lying on the chopping board. If he rubbed a pan well with the bacon rind tomorrow, perhaps they could have fried potatoes. But yet again his hopes of a quarter-pound of liver sausage would come to nothing, and he did like liver sausage so much. He took off his shoes, put the orange segments on a plate, switched off the light and stole out of the kitchen. He stopped at the bedroom door and laid his ear against the wood of it. His mother was asleep. He could hear her peaceful breathing, and sometimes she even snored slightly. Anton caressed the door, and smiled because just then she did give a little snore. Then he crept into the living room. He undressed in the dark, hung his suit over a chair, put the money in his paintbox, got on the sofa and covered himself up.
Had he closed the door to the corridor? Was the gas turned off? Anton tossed and turned restlessly, then he got up again and went to see whether everything was all right.
Yes, everything really was all right. He lay down once more. He had done his arithmetic homework. He had prepared for tomorrow’s dictation in class. He hoped Mr Bremser wouldn’t write his mother a letter, because then it would come out that he spent his evenings standing on the Weidendammer Bridge selling shoelaces. Did he still have enough shoelaces? The brown ones wouldn’t last much longer. People seemed to wear brown shoes more often than black shoes. Or did brown shoelaces wear out more quickly?
Anton turned on the side where he slept best. He hoped his mother would get really better again. And then, at last, he fell asleep.
ABOUT THE FACT THAT LIFE IS SERIOUS
Not so long ago I was at the Christmas fair in Rostock in the north of Germany. The streets there go downhill to the River Warnow, they were lined with stalls, and down on the bank there were merry-go-rounds in full swing. Everything was so nice and noisy that I felt cheerful too, so I went over to a stall selling confectionery and asked for ten pfennigs’ worth of Turkish honey in a little cardboard dish. It tasted delicious.
Then along came a boy with his mother. He was tugging at her sleeve and demanding, ‘I want another packet of honey and ginger biscuits!’ But I saw that he was already carrying five packets of those special Christmas cookies under his arm. His mother ignored him. So he stopped, stamped his foot and yelled, ‘I want another packet of honey and ginger biscuits!’
‘But you already have five packets,’ his mother told him. ‘Just think, poor children don’t get any honey and ginger biscuits at all!’
What do you think the boy said then?
He lost his temper and shouted, ‘Why should I bother about the poor children?’ It startled me so much that I almost swallowed my Turkish honey and its little cardboard dish both at once. Good heavens, children, would you think it possible?
I mean, a boy like that hasn’t earned the luck to have parents who are well off, and then he stands there shouting, ‘Why should I bother about the poor children?’ instead of giving two of his five packets of honey and ginger biscuits to poor children, and feeling glad that he can do something nice for them!
Life is serious, and life is difficult. And if the people who are well off don’t, of their own free will, want to help those who aren’t, then everything will come to a bad end.
Chapter Eight
Light Dawns on Mr Bremser
On Friday Dot left school an hour earlier than usual. Mr Pogge the director knew about that, and sent the chauffeur and the car to bring his daughter home. He didn’t need the car himself at that time of day, and Dot loved going for a drive.
The chauffeur put his hand to the peak of his cap when she came out of the school gate and opened the car door for her. ‘Hello, Mr Hollack,’ she said. The other little girls were already looking forward to seeing him too, because when Dot Pogge was fetched from school by car, as many of them as would fit into it always came with her. But today Dot turned as she was getting in, looked at them all regretfully and said, ‘I’m sorry, but if you don’t mind I’m going on my own today.’ Her friends’ faces fell. ‘There’s something important that I have to do,’ Dot explained, ‘and you’d only be in my way.’
Then she sat down in the big car on her own, told the chauffeur an address, he got into the car himself and off they went, leaving twenty little girls sadly watching the beautiful car drive away.
A little later the car stopped outside a large building—and guess what, it was another school!
‘Dear Mr Hollack,’ said Dot, ‘could you wait here for a moment, please?’ Mr Hollack nodded, and Dot ran quickly up the steps. It was still break. She climbed to the first floor and asked a boy the way to the staffroom. He took her there, she knocked on the door, and since no one opened it she knocked again, quite hard this time.
The door opened, and she saw a tall young gentleman standing in front of her, eating a sandwich. ‘Is that a nice sandwich?’ Dot asked.
He laughed. ‘And what else would you like to know?’
‘I’ve come to speak to Mr Bremser,’ she explained. ‘My name is Pogge.’
The teacher finished his mouthful and then said, ‘Right, come along in.’ She followed him into a large room full of chairs. Ther
e was a teacher sitting on each of those many chairs, and that gruesome sight made Dot’s heart beat faster. Her companion took her over to the window and a fat, bald-headed old teacher who was leaning against it. ‘Bremser,’ said Dot’s escort, ‘may I introduce Miss Pogge? She wants to speak to you.’
Then he left them alone.
‘You want to speak to me?’ asked Mr Bremser.
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘You know Anton Gast, don’t you?’
‘He’s in my class,’ said Mr Bremser, looking out of the window.
‘Exactly,’ said Dot, satisfied. ‘I see we understand each other.’
Mr Bremser was beginning to feel curious. ‘What about Anton, then?’
‘He went to sleep in the arithmetic lesson,’ Dot told him. ‘And I’m afraid you’re not happy about his homework these days.’
Mr Bremser nodded, and said, ‘That’s correct.’ By now some of the other teachers who wanted to hear what was going on had joined them.
‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ Dot said, ‘but please would you go back to where you were before? I have to speak to Mr Bremser privately.’ The teachers laughed, and sat down on their chairs again. But they said hardly anything to each other, and kept their ears pricked.
‘I’m Anton’s friend,’ Dot told Mr Bremser. ‘He told me that if things went on like that you were going to write his mother a letter.’
‘Yes, indeed. He even took out a notebook in the geography lesson just now and did sums in it. That letter will be going off to his mother today.’
Dot would have liked to find out whether she could see her reflection in Mr Bremser’s shiny bald head, but there wasn’t time for that now. ‘Please listen hard,’ she said. ‘Anton’s mother is very ill. She was in hospital, where they cut a plant out of her—no, it was a growth—and now she’s been in bed at home for weeks and can’t go to work.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Mr Bremser.
‘So she stays in bed and can’t cook. But someone has to do the cooking! Do you know who does it? Anton does the cooking. I can tell you he cooks delicious things, boiled potatoes with scrambled egg and so on, it’s great!’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Mr Bremser repeated.
‘His mother hasn’t been able to earn any money for weeks, either. But someone has to earn money. And do you know who earns it? Anton earns money for them. Of course you didn’t know that either.’ Dot was losing her temper. ‘Actually, what do you know?’
The other teachers laughed. Mr Bremser went red in the face and right over his bald head as well. ‘So how does Anton earn money?’ he asked.
‘I’m not giving that away,’ Dot told him. ‘All I can tell you is that the poor boy is working day and night. He loves his mother, so he works and cooks and earns money to pay for the food and the rent, and when he gets his hair cut he pays for it in instalments. In fact I’m surprised he doesn’t sleep right through all your lessons.’ Mr Bremser was standing still while the other teachers listened. Dot was in full flow. ‘And then you sit down and write his mother a letter saying her son is lazy! That beats everything. The shock will make the poor woman ill again at once if you send that letter. Maybe she’ll get some more growths and have to go back to hospital because of you. And then, I can assure you, Anton will fall ill himself. He can’t go on living like that much longer.’
Mr Bremser said, ‘Don’t be so cross. Why didn’t he tell me about it?’
‘You have a good point,’ Dot agreed. ‘That’s what I asked him myself, and do you know what he said?’
‘Well?’ asked the teacher. And his colleagues had left their chairs again and were standing in a semicircle round the little girl.
‘“I’d sooner bite my tongue off”, that’s what he said,’ Dot told Mr Bremser. ‘He’s probably very proud.’
Mr Bremser moved away from the window sill. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I won’t write the letter.’
‘Good,’ said Dot. ‘You’re a nice man. I thought so at once. Thank you very much.’
The teacher went to the door with her, ‘It’s for me to thank you too, my child.’
‘And one more thing, before I forget,’ said Dot. ‘Please don’t tell Anton that I came to see you.’
‘I won’t say a word,’ Mr Bremser told her, patting her hand. Then the bell rang for lessons to begin again. Dot raced downstairs, got in the car with Mr Hollack, and he drove her home. She was rocking back and forth on the well-upholstered seat all the way and singing to herself.
ABOUT FRIENDSHIP
Let me tell you, whether you believe me or not, I envy Dot. People don’t often get such a good chance to be useful to a friend as she did. And it’s very unusual for them to be able to do someone a favour like that in secret! Mr Bremser won’t be writing a letter to Anton’s mother now. He won’t be so hard on the boy any more. At first Anton will be astonished, then he’ll be glad, and Dot will be secretly rubbing her hands with glee. She knows how it all happened. But for her, it wouldn’t have worked.
But Anton won’t know that. Dot doesn’t need thanks, what she did is its own reward. Anything else would make her pleasure less rather than greater.
I hope every one of you will have a good friend. And I hope you all have the chance to do something nice for your friends without letting them know. Stick to finding out how happy it makes us to make other people happy!
Chapter Nine
Mrs Gast Has a Disappointment
While Anton was looking in his satchel for the key to the apartment, the door opened of itself, and there stood his mother. ‘A good day for a nice meal, my boy!’ she said, smiling.
‘Yes, a good day for it,’ he echoed her, puzzled. Then he risked jumping for joy, hugged her and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re better now.’ They went into the living room. Anton sat on the sofa and was glad of every step his mother took. ‘It’s still rather a strain,’ she admitted, sitting wearily down beside him. ‘How was school today?’
‘Richard Naumann said in geography that the Red Indians live in India. My goodness, he’s stupid! And Schmitz pinched Pramann, and Pramann jumped up from the bench, and Mr Bremser asked what the matter was, and Pramann said he thought he must have a flea, maybe even two, and then Schmitz got up and objected to sitting next to boys who had fleas on them because his parents wouldn’t like it. We laughed like anything.’ And Anton himself laughed again, savouring the joke like an animal chewing the cud. Then he asked, ‘Don’t you like jokes today?’
‘Oh, yes, do go on,’ she said.
He put his head on the back of the sofa and stretched out his legs. ‘Well, in the last lesson Mr Bremser was very nice to me, and he said I must go and see him when I had time.’ Suddenly he gave a start. ‘I’m an idiot!’ he exclaimed. ‘I must start cooking.’ But his mother stopped him, and pointed to the table. There were plates on it already, and a large, steaming bowl of something.
‘Lentils with sausages?’ he asked. She nodded, and then they sat down and ate the lentils. Anton had a large helping, and when he had cleared his plate his mother gave him more. He nodded to her appreciatively. But then he noticed that her own helping was still untouched, and that made him lose his appetite. He pushed the lentils about his plate sadly, and fished out little sausages. Silence settled on the room like a menacing mist.
Finally he couldn’t stand it any longer. ‘Mama, did I do something wrong? Sometimes I don’t know myself what to… Or is it because of the money? The sausages weren’t really necessary.’ He put his hand lovingly on hers.
But his mother quickly carried the dishes into the kitchen. Then she came back and said, ‘You’d better begin your homework. I’ll be back soon.’ He sat on his chair, shaking his head and wondering what the matter was. Outside, the door to the corridor closed. He opened the window, sat on the window sill and leant far out. It was some time before his mother came out into the street down below. She took small steps while she walked, because it tired her. She went down Artilleriestrasse and then turned
the corner.
Feeling melancholy, he sat down at the table, opened his satchel, took the top off the bottle of ink, and began chewing the end of his pen-holder.
At last his mother came back. She had bought a little bunch of flowers, she fetched water, put the flowers in the vase with blue spots on it, arranged the leaves nicely, closed the window, turned her back to Anton and said nothing.
‘Pretty flowers,’ he said, clasping his hands. He could hardly breathe. ‘They’re cowslips, aren’t they?’
His mother was standing in the room like a stranger. She looked out of the window and shrugged her shoulders. He felt like running to her, but he just got part of the way off his chair and begged her, ‘Say something!’ His voice was hoarse, and she probably didn’t hear him.
Then she asked, without turning round, ‘What date is it today?’
That surprised him, but so as not to annoy her even more he went over to the calendar on the wall and read out loud, ‘April the ninth.’
‘April the ninth,’ she repeated, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth.
And suddenly he knew what had happened! It was his mother’s birthday today, and he had forgotten.
He dropped back on his chair, trembling. He closed his eyes and wished he could die there and then… so that was why she had got up today. And that was why she had made lentils and sausages. She’d had to buy herself a bunch of flowers. And now she was standing by the window feeling all alone in the world. And he couldn’t go over to her and have a cuddle, because she would never be able to forgive him for forgetting. If only at least he’d known how to fall ill very quickly. Then of course she’d have come to his bedside and been kind to him again. He stood up and went to the door, where he turned round once more and asked hopefully, ‘Did you say something, Mama?’
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