DOT AND ANTON

by Erich Kästner

  The car drove very fast. Mr Pogge sat hunched beside his wife with an absent-minded expression on his face, shifting his feet nervously.

  ‘My silver shoes are ruined,’ she murmured. ‘We left my over-shoes in the cloakroom.’

  He didn’t reply, but stared straight ahead. How did Miss Andacht, dressed in rags and apparently blind, come to be begging by night with his child? Was the woman out of her mind? ‘Stupid creature!’ he said.

  ‘Who’s a stupid creature?’ asked his wife.

  She got no answer.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ she asked. ‘There am I just sitting in the theatre, and you drag me out into the rain. It was an excellent performance, too. And think what the tickets cost!’

  ‘Be quiet!’ he replied, looking through the car window. The taxi stopped outside the Comic Opera House, and they got out. Mrs Pogge looked at her soaked shoes in despair. To think she’d left her over-shoes behind in the theatre cloakroom! Miss Andacht would have to go and pick them up in the morning.

  ‘There!’ whispered her husband, pointing to the Weidendammer Bridge.

  She saw cars, cyclists, a traffic policeman, a beggar woman with a child, a newspaper boy with an umbrella, and one of the buses where a ticket cost five pfennigs came past. She shrugged her shoulders.

  Mr Pogge took her arm and carefully led her towards the bridge. ‘Watch that beggar woman and the child,’ he whispered commandingly.

  She saw the little girl bobbing curtseys, offering boxes of matches to the passers-by and taking money from them. Suddenly she gave a start of alarm, looked at her husband and said, ‘Dot?’

  They went closer. ‘Dot!’ whispered Mrs Pogge, unable to believe what her own eyes were seeing.

  ‘My mother is totally blind, and still so young. Three boxes for twenty-five pfennigs. God bless you, kind lady,’ the child was saying.

  Yes, it was Dot! Mrs Pogge ran towards her child, who was freezing and bobbing curtseys in the rain. In spite of the wet, dirty street she knelt down in front of the little girl and flung her arms round her. ‘My child!’ she cried, beside herself.

  Dot was scared to death. What terrible luck! And her mother’s dress was a shocking sight. The people on the bridge stopped and stared, thinking that someone was making a film.

  Mr Pogge the director snatched the dark glasses off the blind woman’s face.

  ‘Miss Andacht!’ cried the horrified Mrs Pogge.

  Miss Andacht was as white as a sheet. She put her hands protectively in front of her face, completely at a loss. A policeman appeared.

  ‘Sergeant!’ cried Mr Pogge. ‘Arrest this woman! She is our daughter’s governess, and when we’re not at home she takes the child begging with her!’

  The policeman produced his notebook. The newspaper boy with the umbrella laughed.

  ‘Don’t lock me up!’ cried Miss Andacht. ‘Don’t lock me up!’ With a great leap, she broke through the circle of people watching and ran for all she was worth.

  Mr Pogge was going to follow her, but the bystanders held him back.

  ‘Let the girl go!’ one old man said.

  Mrs Pogge had got to her feet and was scrubbing away with a small lace-edged handkerchief at her silk dress, which was terribly grubby.

  Then Anton came over from the other side of the street and put his hand on Dot’s shoulder. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘My parents have caught me,’ Dot told him quietly, ‘and Miss Andacht has just run away. I’m in real trouble.’

  ‘Will they do anything nasty to you?’ he asked, worried.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ Dot said, shrugging her shoulders.

  ‘Shall I help you?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Stay here. That makes me feel better.’

  Mr Pogge was talking to the policeman. His wife was still trying to clean her expensive dress. The people who had been standing around went their own ways again.

  Then Mrs Pogge looked up, saw her daughter talking to a strange boy and grabbed hold of the child. ‘You come with me this minute!’ she cried. ‘Why are you talking to this beggar boy?’

  ‘That takes the biscuit!’ said Anton. ‘I’m as good as you any day. Just so as you know. And if you didn’t happen to be my friend’s mother I wouldn’t even speak to you, understand?’

  Mr Pogge the director noticed what was going on and went over to them.

  ‘This is my best friend,’ said Dot, taking his hand. ‘His name is Anton, and he’s splendid!’

  ‘Really?’ asked her father, amused.

  ‘Splendid is going too far,’ said Anton modestly. ‘But I don’t like people calling me names.’

  ‘My wife didn’t mean it like that,’ Mr Pogge explained.

  ‘I should just about hope not,’ said Dot proudly, smiling at her friend. ‘Now, let’s go home. What do you say? Anton, are you coming with us?’

  Anton said no, because he had to get back to his mother.

  ‘Then will you come to see me after school tomorrow?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Anton, shaking her hand. ‘If your parents are happy about that.’

  ‘By all means,’ said Dot’s father, nodding.

  Anton made a little bow and hurried away.

  ‘Anton is wonderful,’ said Dot, watching him go. Then they took a taxi home. Dot sat between her parents, playing with coins and matchboxes.

  ‘How did all this come to happen?’ her father asked sternly.

  ‘Miss Andacht has a fiancé,’ Dot told him. ‘And he always needed money, so she kept coming here with me. We earned pretty well, too. I can say so without exaggerating.’

  ‘But this is terrible, sweetheart,’ cried her mother.

  ‘What do you mean, terrible?’ asked Dot. ‘It was tremendously exciting.’

  Mrs Pogge looked at her husband, shook her head and said, ‘I ask you! Servants!’

  ABOUT RESPECT

  There’s a sentence in the last chapter that deserves another look. It says that ‘Mrs Pogge had never felt much respect for her husband because he was too good to her.’

  Can you ever be too good to people? Yes, I think so. Where I was born, we had a saying that someone was stupidly good. It meant that sheer kindness and friendliness can make you stupid, and that’s wrong. Children are the first to know when someone is too good to them. If they’ve done something that they think deserved punishment, and they aren’t punished, they wonder why not. And if the same thing happens again, they gradually lose respect for the person who doesn’t punish them.

  Respect is very important. Some children almost always do the right thing of their own accord, but most of them have to learn it first. And to learn it they need a barometer. They have to be able to feel: oh dear, what I just did was wrong, I deserve to be punished for it.

  But if they don’t get punished or told off, if they still get chocolate even though they were cheeky, they may think: I might as well always be cheeky because I’ll get chocolate all the same.

  Respect is necessary, and so are people who can be respected, as long as children, and we human beings in general, aren’t perfect.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A Policeman Dances the Tango

  When they were going up the stairs of the apartment building, they heard gramophone music playing on the first floor. ‘Hello?’ said Mr Pogge, and he unlocked the door. Then he immediately turned into a pillar of salt, and his wife turned into another. Only Dot was not particularly surprised, but she was talking to Piefke the dog, who ran towards her.

  Fat Berta was dancing the tango with a policeman in the corridor. Another policeman stood beside the big gramophone, turning its handle.

  ‘Good heavens, Berta,’ cried the horrified Mrs Pogge.

  Dot went over to the policeman standing by the gramophone, bobbed him a curtsey and said, ‘Ladies’ request dance, Sergeant.’

  The policeman put his arm round her waist, and they did a round of honour.

  ‘Right, that’s enough!’
cried the director. ‘Berta, what does all this mean? Are you engaged to a whole troop of police officers?’

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ said fat Berta. Then a third policeman came out of the kitchen, and Mrs Pogge murmured, ‘I must be losing my wits.’

  Dot stood in front of her and said, ‘Oh, come on, Mama, join in!’

  ‘We don’t need her now,’ said Berta, which wasn’t really very polite of her, but Mrs Pogge didn’t catch what she said, and her husband was busy shaking hands with everyone.

  At last Berta led her employers into the kitchen, where they saw a man in a raincoat with handcuffs on his wrists.

  ‘This man was going to break in,’ said Berta, ‘so I hit him on the head and called the police. And because you weren’t here we thought we’d have a little dance.’

  The man in handcuffs was just opening his glazed eyes.

  ‘Why, that’s Robert the Devil!’ cried Dot.

  Her parents looked at her in surprise. ‘Who?’

  ‘Miss Andacht’s fiancé! So that’s why she asked me when Berta had her day off!’

  Mr Pogge said, ‘And that’s why the pair of you had to go out begging then.’

  ‘And that’s why she drew a plan of the apartment,’ said Dot.

  ‘We found it on him,’ said one of the policemen, handing a piece of paper to the astonished master of the house.

  ‘But how did you overpower him?’ asked Mrs Pogge.

  Fat Berta picked up the wooden club and went over to the door. ‘I stood here, and when he unlocked the door and peered round it I bopped him on the head. Then he looked like coming back to his senses, so I bopped him on the head again. And then these three gallant gentlemen turned up.’

  She pointed to the three police officers, who felt greatly flattered.

  Dot’s father was shaking his head again. ‘I don’t understand the first thing about all this,’ he said. ‘How did you know someone wanted to break into the apartment? Suppose it had been me coming home?’

  ‘Then you’d have been bopped on the head yourself!’ cried Dot, relishing the idea.

  Berta explained, although in a rather confusing way. ‘When I got back, it had been such a terribly rainy day, so I thought why walk round in the rain, and when I was sitting in the kitchen the telephone rings. Someone on the other end of the line says there’s a burglar coming to break in, and tells me to hit him over the head with the coal shovel and call the police. Only we don’t have a coal shovel. That’s how it was.’

  ‘But who knew that the man was going to break in here? Who telephoned to tell you?’

  ‘Easy-peasy,’ said Dot. ‘That was my friend Anton, of course.’

  ‘Right,’ said Berta. ‘He didn’t introduce himself by name, but he said he was Dot’s friend.’

  ‘So there you are,’ Dot pointed out, crossing her arms behind her back and stalking up and down the corridor. ‘I told you just now, that boy is wonderful.’

  ‘It certainly strikes me that you’re right,’ said Dot’s father, lighting himself a cigar. ‘But how did he know the man was on his way?’

  ‘Maybe he saw Miss Andacht giving the keys to the thief,’ said Dot.

  Robert the Devil was shifting back and forth on his chair. ‘So that was it,’ he said. ‘Just let that boy wait till I get my hands on him.’

  ‘You can put that off until later,’ said the police sergeant, ‘because you’ll be serving time behind bars first.’

  Dot went over to the man. ‘Let me advise you not to do it anyway,’ she said, ‘because Anton will make mincemeat of you. He punched Gottfried Klepperbein in the face twice and landed him on the floor.’

  ‘Did he indeed?’ asked her father, pleased. ‘Yes, your friend Anton really is a splendid fellow.’

  Piefke was sitting in front of the thief, pulling at his shoelaces. Mrs Pogge got a migraine. She made a face to show how she was suffering. ‘All this excitement has been too much for me,’ she complained. ‘Gentlemen, won’t you take this burglar away? He’s getting on my nerves.’

  ‘And she’s getting on mine,’ muttered Robert the Devil. But then the police officers left, taking him with them.

  ‘Dear Berta,’ said Mrs Pogge, ‘put the child to bed, please. I’m going to get some sleep. Will you be coming to bed soon, Fritz? Goodnight, sweetheart. And don’t you ever play such tricks on us again.’ She gave Dot a big kiss and went to her own room.

  Suddenly Mr Pogge seemed very downcast. ‘I’ll put the child to bed myself, Berta,’ he said. ‘You go and get some sleep. You have been very brave.’ Then he gave her first his hand, and second a twenty-mark note.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said fat Berta. ‘You know something? So long as we get advance notice, I don’t mind burglars at all.’ Then she too went to her own room.

  Mr Pogge helped Dot to get undressed and washed. Then she lay down, and Piefke got into bed with her. Her father sat on the side of the bed. ‘Luise,’ he said seriously, ‘listen to me, my child.’ She took his large hand in her small hands and looked into his eyes.

  ‘You know that I love you very much, don’t you?’ he asked quietly. ‘But I can’t spend a lot of time looking after you, because I have to earn money. Why do you do such things? Why do you lie to us? I’ll never be easy in my mind if I know that I can’t trust you.’

  Dot stroked his hand. ‘Yes, I know you don’t have much time because you have to earn money,’ she said. ‘But Mama doesn’t have to earn money, and all the same she doesn’t have time for me. You don’t either of you have time for me. Now I’ll be having another governess, and we can’t tell in advance what will come of that.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You’re quite right. But will you promise always to tell the truth in future? That would reassure me a great deal.’

  Dot smiled at him. ‘All right, if it reassures you a great deal.’

  He kissed her goodnight. When he turned at the door to switch off the light she said, ‘But all the same, Director, it was very interesting.’

  In spite of all the tablets he swallowed, Mr Pogge had a sleepless night.

  ABOUT GRATITUDE

  Fat Berta was brave, don’t you think? Hitting burglars over the head wasn’t supposed to be part of her job, but she did it all the same. That kind of thing deserves gratitude. But what does Mrs Pogge do? She goes to bed and falls asleep!

  However, Mr Pogge gives Berta first his hand and second a twenty-mark note. Many such gentlemen might only give her his hand, although he has plenty of money. Others might only give her the twenty marks, although he has a hand to shake hers. Mr Pogge has both and gives her both. First he shakes fat Berta’s hand, then he gives her money. I think he did it in the right order. After all, he could have given her the banknote first, and then he could have shaken her hand, saying, ‘And by the way, thank you too.’

  No, he does it all just as he should. He acts exactly right.

  The more I get to know Mr Pogge, the better I like him. In fact he seems to me nicer from chapter to chapter. And the same can be said of the last chapter, which comes next.

  Chapter Sixteen

  All’s Well that Ends Well

  When Dot came out of school the next day, for a change her father’s car was standing outside the school gate. And this time her father was actually in it, as well as Mr Hollack. He waved to her. The other little girls were furious. Once again, there wasn’t any prospect of a drive in the car!

  Dot said hello to the chauffeur, and got in. ‘Is anything wrong?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘No,’ said her father. ‘I just happen to have some time today.’

  ‘You have some what?’ she asked, looking at him as if he had suddenly sprouted a bushy beard. ‘Time?’

  Mr Pogge felt really embarrassed in front of his small daughter. ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask such silly questions. I suppose a man can have time to spare now and then.’

  ‘That’s great,’ she cried. ‘Shall we go to Charlottenhof Palace and eat cream puffs?’ C
harlottenhof Palace is in a lovely park near Berlin.

  ‘I thought it would be a better idea to pick up your friend Anton from school.’

  Then she hugged her father and gave him a kiss that sounded like cannon fire. They drove off to Anton’s school and arrived just in time. Anton almost fell over backwards when he saw the beautiful car waiting for him, with Dot and her father in it. Dot waved to him to go over to them, and her father shook hands with him and told him he was a splendid fellow. He had fixed things brilliantly to outwit Robert the Devil, said Mr Pogge.

  ‘It was the obvious thing to do, sir,’ said Anton. Then he was invited to sit beside Mr Hollack, who sometimes let him step on the accelerator and work the indicators. It was wonderful.

  Dot pulled at her father’s ear and whispered, ‘Director, Anton can even cook.’

  ‘Is there anything he can’t do?’ asked Mr Pogge.

  ‘Anton? Anton can do anything,’ she said proudly. And since Anton could do anything, they drove to Charlottenhof Palace after all and ate cream puffs. Even Mr Pogge ate one, although the doctor had strictly forbidden him to eat cream puffs. Then they all three played hide and seek so that Dot’s father would lose weight, because he was getting a paunch. After that Anton wanted to go home, but the director said he would tell Anton’s mother all about it.

  ‘Has Mr Bremser been cross with you again?’ asked Dot.

  ‘No,’ said Anton. ‘He’s been really nice to me recently, and he’s invited me to have coffee with him.’

  ‘There you are, then,’ said Dot calmly. But she was so pleased that she pinched her calves under the table.

  They got back very late for lunch. Mrs Pogge felt deeply injured, but the other three were so happy that they didn’t even notice. So Mrs Pogge felt even more injured, and she couldn’t eat anything at all or she would have burst.

  ‘I wonder where Miss Andacht is?’ asked Anton, because he had a good heart. Mrs Pogge didn’t understand such feelings. She only murmured, ‘Where in the world are we going to find a reliable governess now?’