The Silent Man Throws the Switch, Derailing the Train

The Silent One’s derailment of a crowded market-day train turns a private experiment with a railway switch into an act of mass violence. For the unnamed boy narrator, the event also makes tangible the power to decide strangers’ fates—a power he has already imagined in terms that recall the machinery of wartime extermination. The wreck’s aftermath offers no simple release: the boy’s tormentor is alive, and The Silent One’s response breaks the silence that has defined him.

The abandoned switch and the discovery of power

The unnamed boy narrator and The Silent One often spend time on the railway tracks, watching trains and sometimes jumping onto the rear cars before getting off as they slow at a crossing a few miles from the city. Nearby, a spur begun before the war remains unfinished. Its rusty points, overgrown with moss, lead toward a cliff where a bridge had been planned. The boys inspect the switch repeatedly and try to move its lever, but the corroded mechanism will not budge.

Their breakthrough comes after they see a locksmith at the orphanage free a jammed lock by soaking it with oil. The next day, The Silent One steals a bottle of oil from the kitchen. That evening, the boys pour it over the switch’s bearings, wait for it to seep in, and hang their weight on the lever. The mechanism creaks; the lever jolts into motion, and the points screech over to the other track. Alarmed by their success, they immediately throw the lever back. The scene begins as a childish technical experiment, but their discovery has given them access to a mechanism that can redirect a train.

Afterward, the boys exchange knowing glances whenever they pass the fork. The secret changes how the unnamed boy narrator watches the railway: sitting in a tree’s shade, he sees an approaching train and imagines that its passengers’ lives are in his hands. He pictures sending the train over the cliff into the stream below with a single push. His reflection explicitly links this fantasy of control to the remembered trains that carried people to gas chambers and crematories. He compares the railway points that could direct passengers toward life or death with the decisions made by those who organized roundups and death camps. The comparison does not make the boys’ act equivalent to the systematic machinery of genocide; it shows how the narrator understands the intoxicating sensation of wielding power over people who cannot know who is deciding their fate.

The market-day wreck

Two weeks after the narrator has been beaten and pushed into a barrel, The Silent One wakes him before dawn. Dust covers him, his shirt clings with sweat, and the narrator guesses that he has been out all night. He signals for the boy to follow. They leave the orphanage without alerting anyone and climb onto the roof of a derelict hut near the crossing. The Silent One lights a cigarette and gestures for the boy to wait, while the dawn slowly brightens around them.

A train whistle announces the approach of the first morning train, which passes through nearby villages before dawn on market day. Its carriages are full: baskets protrude from the windows and passengers crowd the steps. As the train draws near, The Silent One’s body betrays the pressure of the moment. He sweats, moistens his lips, brushes back his hair, and stares at the oncoming carriages; to the boy, he suddenly seems much older. He squeezes the narrator’s arm so hard that the boy jumps. At that instant, the locomotive veers aside as the points send it onto the other track.

Only the first two cars follow the engine. The others buckle, climb over one another, and tumble down the embankment. The crash brings a tumult of crunching and screeching; steam rises and obscures the wreck, while screams come from below. The narrator is stunned, trembling at the scene. The Silent One sags and grips his knees spasmodically as dust settles. Then he pulls the boy away, and they hurry back to the orphanage, avoiding the crowd rushing toward the accident. Ambulance bells ring nearby. At the dormitory, with everyone still asleep, The Silent One’s face shows no trace of tension; he smiles softly at the narrator, whose bandaged face and mouth prevent him from returning the smile.

The dead, the survivor, and the broken silence

In the following days, the disaster dominates conversation at school. Newspapers bordered in black publish casualty names, while police search for political saboteurs suspected of earlier crimes. Cranes lift carriages twisted and entangled across the tracks. The aftermath makes the consequences of the boys’ secret action public, but the evidence does not identify their role: the authorities look for saboteurs without discovering who moved the switch.

On the next market day, The Silent One hurries the narrator through the crowd. Many stalls stand empty, marked by cards bearing black crosses to announce the deaths of their owners. The Silent One looks at the cards and signals his pleasure. The pair head toward the stall belonging to the man who had knocked out the narrator’s teeth and pushed him into the barrel. The stall remains recognizable, with milk and cream in jugs, butter wrapped in cloth, and fruit. Then the man’s head appears behind the goods. The earlier display of satisfaction collapses into disbelief: The Silent One stares at the survivor, catches the boy looking at him, and grabs his hand to leave.

Once they reach the road, The Silent One falls into the grass and cries as though in terrible pain, his words muffled against the ground. This is the only time the narrator hears him speak. The discovery does not undo the wreck or establish that The Silent One deliberately targeted the man; it reveals instead that the man’s survival matters profoundly to him. The railway disaster had seemed to give him a means of control, and the black crosses had briefly appeared to confirm its reach. At the surviving stall, that apparent satisfaction gives way to grief and speech. The event ends not with an explanation of The Silent One’s motive, but with the single rupture in his silence.