DOT AND ANTON

by Erich Kästner

  And, once on the bridge, they stopped, leaning against the balustrade.

  It was still raining.

  ABOUT TELLING LIES

  Dot tells her parents lies, there’s no denying it. And, nice as she is otherwise, it’s not right for her to be a liar. Suppose we had her here now, and we asked, ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Why do you lie to your parents?’ what would she say? As it happens, she’s standing on the Weidendammer Bridge, so we can’t disturb her. But what would she say if she were here with us? ‘It’s Miss Andacht’s fault,’ that’s what she would say, and that would be a poor excuse.

  Because if you don’t want to tell a lie, no power on earth can make you do it. Perhaps Dot is afraid of the governess? Perhaps Miss Andacht has threatened the child?

  In that case, Dot would only have to go to her father and say, ‘Director, the governess is trying to make me tell you and Mama lies.’ Then Miss Andacht would be dismissed on the spot, and her threat would have been for nothing.

  There’s no denying it: Dot tells lies, which is not right. Let’s hope that she will learn from experience and never tell lies again in future.

  Chapter Twelve

  Klepperbein Earns Ten Marks and a Punch in the Face

  Mr Pogge was standing in the middle of the street outside the opera house, straining his eyes as he looked at the Weidendammer Bridge. He saw the child holding out her hands to passers-by and bobbing curtseys at the same time. Sometimes the passers-by stopped and gave her some money. Then the little girl curtseyed again and seemed to be saying thank you. He remembered yesterday’s scene at home. Dot had been standing in the living room, complaining to the wall of her sad fate and saying, ‘Matches, buy my matches, ladies and gentlemen!’ She had been rehearsing! There was no possible doubt about it: his child was standing over there begging! A cold shiver ran down his spine.

  He looked at the tall, thin woman with her. Miss Andacht, of course. She was wearing a headscarf and a pair of dark glasses. He hardly recognized her.

  There was his child on the bridge in an old, thin dress and no hat, her hair wet with the rain. He turned up his coat collar. As he did so, he realized that he was still holding the cold cigar between his fingers. It was shredded to bits, and he angrily threw it into a puddle, as if it were to blame for everything. Then a policeman came along and told him to walk on the pavement.

  ‘Officer,’ said Mr Pogge, ‘are small children allowed to stand here at night begging?’

  The police officer shrugged his shoulders. ‘You mean those two on the bridge? What can we do about it? Who else would lead the blind woman around?’

  ‘Blind, is she?’

  ‘Yes, of course. And still quite young, too. They stand over there almost every evening. Such people want to live as well.’ The policeman was surprised to find that the strange gentleman was gripping his arm quite painfully. Then he said, ‘Yes, it’s a real shame.’

  ‘How long do the two of them usually stay there?’

  ‘At least two hours, until about ten.’

  Mr Pogge got off the pavement again. His face looked as if he were going to fall over, but then he controlled himself and thanked the policeman, who saluted him and went away.

  Suddenly there was Gottfried Klepperbein, grinning all over his face and plucking at Mr Pogge’s coat, ‘Well, what did I tell you, sir?’ he whispered. ‘Wasn’t I right?’

  Mr Pogge said nothing, but stared across the street.

  ‘And your daughter’s boyfriend is over there on the other side of the bridge. He’s begging too, but he does it for real. Anton Gast is his name. He ought to have been in some kind of home long ago.’

  Mr Pogge still said nothing, and looked at Anton. So Dot was friends with a beggar boy, was she? And just why were his daughter and her governess selling matches? What was behind all this? Why did they secretly need money? He didn’t know what to think.

  ‘So now you owe me my ten marks,’ said Gottfried Klepperbein, pawing at Mr Pogge’s coat. The director took out his wallet and gave the boy a ten-mark note.

  ‘Don’t put your wallet away yet,’ said Klepperbein. ‘If you give me another ten marks I won’t tell anyone what you’ve seen. Otherwise I’ll go round telling everyone, and it’ll be in the newspaper tomorrow. I’m sure that would be embarrassing for you.’

  At this point Mr Pogge’s patience snapped. He gave the boy a resounding punch in the face. Some of the passers-by stopped and were going to intervene, but the lad ran away so fast that they thought the gentleman must have good reasons for hitting him. Gottfried Klepperbein ran as fast as his legs would carry him. The story was earning him rather too many punches. This one made three, and he decided to be content with his ten marks. Ten marks, three punches—he’d had enough for the time being.

  Mr Pogge couldn’t bear to watch his child standing on the bridge in the rain any longer. Should he go over to Dot and bring her home? But then he had what he thought was a better idea. He hailed a taxi. ‘Drive as fast as you can to the State Opera House on Unter den Linden,’ he told the driver as he got in, and away they went.

  What was his plan?

  Anton wasn’t doing good business tonight. For one thing, he was on the wrong side of the street again, and for another it was raining. In the rain people walked over the bridge even faster than usual, and they didn’t feel like stopping and taking out their wallets or purses. So business was bad, but he was in a good mood. He was so glad to be friends with his mother again.

  Suddenly he gave a little start. Surely that was Miss Andacht’s fiancé over there, Robert the Devil? Wearing a raincoat, with a cap pulled far down over his face, he walked past Anton without noticing him.

  The man went to the end of the bridge, where he crossed it and walked slowly back on the other side. Anton stared. Any moment now the man would reach Miss Andacht. Anton himself moved slowly along beside the balustrade. Now the man gave Dot’s governess a signal, and she twitched with fright. Dot didn’t notice anything. She was curtseying and wailing and doing her best to sell matches to all the passers-by.

  When he was only a little way from the three of them, Anton stood close to the balustrade and watched what happened next. The man dug Miss Andacht in the ribs. She shook her head, and then he grabbed her arm, put his hand in the bag hanging over it, rummaged around in the bag and brought out something shiny. Anton looked keenly at it—it was a bunch of keys.

  Keys? Why was the man getting keys from Miss Andacht?

  The man turned round, and Anton leant over the balustrade of the bridge to avoid being noticed and spat into the river. The man passed him, and now he suddenly seemed to be in a great hurry. He went down Schiffbauerdamm.

  Anton didn’t stop to think about it for long. He walked into the first restaurant he came to, asked to see the telephone book and looked under P. Then he took a coin out of his pocket and hurried into a telephone kiosk.

  ABOUT NASTY PIECES OF WORK

  Gottfried Klepperbein is a nasty piece of work. Representatives of this species of the human race aren’t always grown-ups, but may be children, and that’s particularly painful. There’s a whole series of signs that someone is a nasty piece of work. If a person is lazy and at the same time enjoys other people’s bad luck, is malicious and greedy, if he’s always after money and tells lies, then ten to one he’s a nasty piece of work. Making a nasty piece of work like that into a decent human being is about the most difficult job anyone can face. Carrying water in a sieve is child’s play by comparison. I wonder why? If you tell someone how nice it is to be a decent human being, and how good it would make him feel, surely he’d try hard to be like that, don’t you think?

  There are such things as extending telescopes. Have you seen one? They look nice and small, and can easily fit into your pocket. But they can also be fully extended, and then they’re over half a metre long. It seems to me that nasty pieces of work are like that. Or maybe people in general are like that. As children they’re already much the same as t
hey will be later. Like the extending telescopes. They only grow, they don’t change. If something isn’t in a human being from the first, then you can’t get it out of him, and if you turn that idea upside down, then …

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fat Berta Swings the Clubs

  Fat Berta was sitting in the kitchen, eating a liver sausage sandwich and drinking coffee. She had been for a walk with her friend, because it was her day off, but because the rain didn’t stop she was home again earlier than usual. Now she was enjoying some liver sausage to make up for the rainy day off, and reading the novel in her illustrated magazine. Suddenly the telephone rang. ‘Oh no!’ she muttered, and she shuffled off to answer it. ‘This is Director Pogge’s residence,’ she said.

  ‘Can I speak to the director, please?’ asked a child’s voice.

  ‘No,’ said Berta. ‘Mr and Mrs Pogge are at the opera.’

  ‘Oh dear, this is terrible,’ said the child.

  ‘What’s it about, if I may ask?’ said Berta.

  ‘Who’s speaking?’

  ‘I’m the Pogge family’s maid.’

  ‘Oh, fat Berta!’ cried the child.

  ‘Less of the fat, if you don’t mind,’ she said, offended, ‘but yes, I’m Berta.’

  ‘I’m a friend of Dot’s,’ said the child’s voice.

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Berta. ‘And I suppose you want me to go to her room in the middle of the night and ask if she’d like to play football with you?’

  ‘No, nonsense!’ said the boy. ‘Only the fact is that Miss Andacht’s fiancé will be at the Pogges’ apartment any time now.’

  ‘This gets better and better!’ said Berta. ‘The governess will have been asleep for ages.’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ said the child’s voice. ‘There’s no one there except you.’

  Fat Berta stared at the telephone receiver as if it would tell her whether this was true. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘What? You mean Miss Andacht and Dot aren’t in their beds?’

  ‘No, they aren’t,’ cried the child. ‘I’ll explain it to you some other time. You’re all alone at home. Do please believe me. And now the fiancé is on his way to break in. He already has the keys. And a plan of the apartment as well. He’ll arrive any moment.’

  ‘Oh, delightful,’ said Berta. ‘What am I supposed to do about it?’

  ‘Call the police, quick. And then find a coal shovel or something like that. And when the fiancé arrives, hit him over the head with it.’

  ‘It’s all very well for you to talk, sonny boy,’ said Berta.

  ‘Good luck!’ cried the child. ‘Do your best. Don’t forget to call the police. See you soon!’

  What with the way she was shaking her head and the way her teeth were chattering, Berta could hardly move from the spot. She was badly upset. She rattled the handle of Dot’s door, and then she tried Miss Andacht’s door. Not a soul at home. No one was stirring, except for Piefke, who barked a bit. He was in his basket outside Dot’s door, but he got out of it and followed Berta. She pulled herself together and called the police.

  ‘Okay,’ said the policeman who answered the phone. ‘I’ll send some men round right away.’

  Then Berta went looking for a weapon. ‘What makes the boy think of a coal shovel when we have central heating?’ she asked Piefke. At last she found two wooden clubs in the child’s room. Dot sometimes did exercises with them. She took one of the clubs, stationed herself beside the door into the corridor, and put out the corridor light.

  ‘We’ll leave the light in the kitchen on,’ she told Piefke. ‘Or I might miss when I hit him.’ Piefke lay down beside her and waited patiently. He wasn’t quite in the picture, and growled at his own tail as he lay there.

  ‘Shut up!’ whispered Berta. Piefke couldn’t stand that tone of voice, but he obeyed. Berta fetched a chair and sat down, because she wasn’t feeling very strong. Everything was topsy-turvy today. Where could Miss Andacht and Dot be? Oh, bother it, if only she’d said something sooner!

  Then someone came up the stairs outside the apartment. She got to her feet, picked up the club and held her breath. The Someone was outside the front door. Piefke stood up and arched his back like a cat. His coat was standing on end.

  The Someone put the key in the lock and turned it. Then he put the yale key in its lock and turned that too. Then he activated the mortice lock, and the door sprang open. The Someone stepped into the corridor and the dim light from the kitchen. Berta raised her club and hit the man over the head with it. He staggered and fell heavily to the floor.

  ‘Got him,’ Berta told Piefke, putting on the light. She had knocked out a man in a raincoat, with a cap pulled well down over his face. Piefke sniffed at Miss Andacht’s fiancé and suddenly, if too late in the day, he became very brave and bit the man’s calf. But the man went on lying on the coconut-matting runner in the corridor and didn’t move.

  ‘I wish the police would hurry up,’ said Berta. She sat on her chair again, picked up the club and kept her eye on the man. ‘We ought to tie him up,’ she told Piefke. ‘Go and find a washing line in the kitchen, will you?’ Piefke coughed as if he were saying something. They were both sitting beside the intruder, afraid that he might come back to his senses.

  There! The man opened his eyes, which were getting clearer, and struggled to sit up.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said fat Berta, with much feeling, and hit him over the head again. The man sighed slightly and collapsed once more.

  ‘Where on earth are the police?’ said Berta crossly.

  But then the forces of law and order arrived, three of them, and they couldn’t help laughing at the sight that met their eyes.

  ‘I wish I knew what’s so funny about it,’ snapped fat Berta. ‘Tie the man up, why don’t you? He’s going to come round any minute now.’ So the police officers put handcuffs on the intruder and searched him. They found the keys, the plan of the apartment, a set of skeleton keys and a revolver. The sergeant took charge of these items. Berta gave the three officers coffee in the kitchen and asked them to wait until the Pogges came home. Their daughter and the daughter’s governess had disappeared, she added, and who knew what else had been going on today?

  ‘Right, we’ll wait, but only for a few minutes,’ said the sergeant.

  Soon they were all in the middle of a lively conversation. Meanwhile Piefke guarded the handcuffed villain, and secretly found out what the soles of his shoes tasted like.

  ABOUT CHANCE

  If it hadn’t rained that evening, fat Berta would have come home later. If fat Berta had come home later, the thief could have burgled the apartment undisturbed. It was pure chance that she was at home and the burglary failed. If Galvani hadn’t happened to notice two dead frogs’ legs twitching, then animal electricity wouldn’t have been discovered, or not until much later.

  If Napoleon hadn’t been so tired on 18th October 1813, he might have won the Battle of Leipzig.

  Many events that have decided the course of human history came about by chance, and the opposite or something completely different could just as well have happened.

  Chance is the greatest of all the great powers in the world.

  Other people call it not chance, but fate or providence. They say it was a dispensation of providence that Napoleon felt so tired on 18th October 1813, and had such a bad stomach ache. Chance or fate—it’s a matter of taste. In such cases my mother says: some like to eat sausage, some like to eat green soap, take your pick.

  Chapter Fourteen

  An Evening Dress Gets Grubby

  Mr Pogge the director jumped out of his cab in front of the Unter den Linden opera house, paid the driver and hurried into the theatre. His wife was sitting in a box, listening to the music with her eyes half closed. The show tonight was La Bohème, a very beautiful opera. Its music sounds like a shower of delicious sweets. An extremely famous tenor was singing the part of Rodolfo, and seats in the boxes were shockingly expensive. Anton and his mother could have lived for t
wo weeks on the price of Mr and Mrs Pogge’s tickets for the opera.

  Mr Pogge went into the box. His wife opened her eyes in surprise, and looked angrily at him. He placed himself behind her seat, took her by the shoulders and said, ‘Come on out.’ She didn’t like the hard grip of his hands, and turned her indignant face to him. He was standing in dim light, wet through with rain, his coat collar turned up, and he was looking past her.

  She had never felt much respect for her husband because he was too good to her. But now she felt afraid of him. ‘What’s all this about?’ she asked.

  ‘Come out at once!’ he ordered. And when she still hesitated, he hauled her out of her seat and out of the box behind him. She could hardly believe what he was doing, but she didn’t dare to contradict him any more. She hurried down the stairs, followed by Mr Pogge, who asked where the ladies’ cloakroom was and put her cape round her shoulders. He stamped his foot impatiently as she looked at herself in the mirror and adjusted her little silvery hat. Then he dragged her out of the opera house. Mr Hollack the chauffeur wasn’t there, of course; he wasn’t expecting to meet them until the end of the performance. Mr Pogge didn’t let go of his wife’s hand. He stumbled through the puddles and across the street with her. She could have cried with vexation. There were some taxis at the corner of the street; he pushed his wife into the first, told the driver where to go, and got in after her. Then he sat on her silk cape, but she didn’t dare to say so.