The landlord comes over: ‘What’s that Lüders in such a hurry for, he’s not collected his goods yet.’ Franz sits and sits. How can something like this be. I’ve been sawn off. It’s not possible. Has anyone ever heard the like. I can’t get up. Lüders can run, he’s got legs, he’d better run. I ain’t got words for im.
‘Do you want a cognac, Biberkopf? Is it someone in the family?’ ‘Nah, nah.’ What’s he saying to me, I can’t hear too good, feel like I got cotton wool stuffed in my ears. The publican persists: ‘What come over Lüders to make him run off like that? No one’s got it in for im. As if he ad someone chasin after im.’ ‘Lüders? Expect he’s busy. Yeah, let’s have a cognac.’ He knocks it back, his thoughts seem to keep disintegrating. Jesus Christ, this business with the facking note. ‘Here, you seem to’ve dropped the envelope. Do you want paper?’ ‘Thanks.’ He goes on pondering: I wonder what thing she’s talking about, in her letter. Lüders is a respectable man, he’s got kids and all. Franz wonders what happened, and he can feel his head hanging, feels it getting heavy like when he’s dropping of to sleep sometimes, the landlord thinks he’s tired, but it’s pallor, emptiness and distance, it’s making his legs slither away from under him, and then he slumps completely, turns his head to the left, and he’s gone.
Franz is lying slumped across the table, under his arm he’s peering at the deal boards, blowing across the grain, keeping his head still: ‘Is my old lady bin in yet, you know, Lina?’ ‘Nah, she’ll not be by before noon.’ See, it’s just nine in the morning, ain’t done nuffink yet, Lüders is of.
What to do? And then it pours through him, and he bites his lip: this is the punishment, they let me out, the others are digging potatoes in the big pile of manure at the back, and I have to catch the tram, goddamnit, I was all right there. He stands up, maybe go out on the pavement a minute, push it away, not get scared again, I’m on my feet, no one can touch me, no one: ‘If my old lady comes in, tell her I suffered a bereavement, an uncle or something. I won’t be in at lunchtime, so she needn’t wait for me. What do I owe?’ ‘Just a beer, as usual.’ ‘There.’ And you’re leaving the package here?’ ‘What package?’ ‘You are in a bad way, Biberkopf. No sweat, keep your chin up, lad. I’ll look after your package for you.’ ‘What package?’ ‘Go out and get some fresh air.’
Biberkopf is outside. The landlord watches him through the window: ‘I wonder if they won’t bring him in right away. He’s in a mess. Strong man like that and all. His old lady will be in for a surprise.’
•
A pale little man is standing outside the building, his right arm is in a sling, his hand in a black leather glove. He’s been standing in the sun for an hour or so already, without going inside. He has just come from the hospital. He has two grown-up daughters and a little boy, just four years old, and yesterday in hospital the boy died. First, he had a sore throat. The GP said he’d be over right away, but it was evening before he showed, and then he says right of: hospital, suspected diphtheria. The boy lay there for four weeks, he was on the mend, but then he caught scarlet fever. And yesterday, after two days, he passed, the hospital doctor said it was heart failure.
The man is standing in front of the house, up inside his wife will be shouting and carrying on like she was yesterday and all night, and blaming him for not taking the boy out of hospital three days ago when he was better. But the nurses said he’s still infectious, and it’s a risk to allow children home in that condition. His wife didn’t agree right of the bat, but there was a chance that something might have happened to him, like with the other children. He stands there. They are yelling next door. Suddenly he remembers them asking him in hospital when he brought the boy in, if he had had an injection with the serum. No, he hadn’t. He waited around all day for the GP, then it was evening, and he said: hurry, no time to lose.
And straight away the man gets going with his war limp, crosses the main road, walks up to the corner, to the doctor, who apparently isn’t in. But he starts yelling, it’s morning, the doctor’s got to be in. The surgery door opens. The bald, portly doctor looks at him, pulls him inside. The man stands there, tells him about the hospital, the boy is dead, the doctor clasps him by the hand.
‘You kept us waiting the whole of Wednesday, from early till six at night. We sent for you twice. You didn’t come.’ ‘Of course I came.’ The man starts yelling again: ‘I’m a war cripple, we gave our blood in the trenches, and now we’re at the back of the queue, you think you can do what you like with us.’ ‘Sit down, sir, calm yourself. Your child didn’t die of diphtheria. Cross-infections in hospital are a fact of life.’ ‘Fact of life, sure,’ he goes on yelling. ‘But we’re left waiting, we’re last in line. It’s fine for our children to die, same as it was fine for us to die.’
After half an hour he walks slowly down the steps, takes a turn in the sun outside, and goes home. His wife is busy in the kitchen. ‘Well, Paul?’ ‘Well, ma’am.’ They clasp hands, and their heads sink. ‘You’ve not had anything to eat yet, Paul. I’ll get you something right away.’ ‘I was at the doctor’s, told him he didn’t come on Wednesday. I told him.’ ‘But our little Pauly didn’t die from the diphtheria.’ ‘Never mind that. I told him and all. If he’d had the injection right away, then he wouldn’t have had to have gone to hospital even. Not at all. But he never showed. I told him. He needs to think about other people in that position in the future. It can happen any day, who knows.’ ‘Well, better eat your dinner now. What did the doctor say?’ ‘Oh, he’s all right. He’s not as young as he was, and he’s got a lot on his plate. I know. But if something goes wrong, it goes wrong. He give me a glass of cognac and told me to calm myself. And his wife came in and all.’ ‘Were you shouting, Paul?’ ‘No, not a bit of it, just to begin with, then it all passed off very quietly. He admitted it himself: he needs to be told. He’s not a bad man, but he needs to be told.’
He’s trembling violently while he eats. His wife is crying next door, then they both drink their coffee together by the stove. ‘Proper coffee, Paul.’ He sniffs at the cup: ‘Yup, I can smell it.’
Tomorrow in the chill tomb, no, we’ll keep our composure
Franz Biberkopf has disappeared. The afternoon of the day he gets the note, Lina goes up to see him in his room. She wants to leave him a brown sleeveless jumper she’s knitted him. And then the man’s home, when usually he’s out selling, specially now with Christmas coming up, he’s sitting on his bed, with the alarm clock in pieces on the table in front of him, fooling around with the pieces. It’s a shock to find him home at all, and he might have spotted the jumper, but he hardly seems to notice her, just keeps staring at the table and his clock. She’s not unhappy about that, because it means she can leave the jumper by the door. But he’s hardly speaking, what’s up with him, has he got a hangover, and what’s that expression on his face, I’d hardly know it was him, fooling around with that ruddy clock, he must be stewed. ‘What are you doing, Franz, it was a good clock.’ ‘Nah, it wasn’t, it don’t go off properly, it just makes this rattle stead of ringing, I’ll sort it out, don’t worry.’ And he goes back to his fooling around, and then he leaves it alone, and just picks his teeth and doesn’t even look at her. At that she leaves, she feels a bit scared, maybe he needs a proper rest or something. Then when she comes back in the evening, he’s gone. He’s paid the rent, packed his stuff and gone. All the landlady knows is that he’s paid up, and she’s to write on his registration form: gone, whereabouts unknown. Probably needed to do one, I suppose?
Then there were twenty-four grim hours before Lina finally caught up with Gottlieb Mack, who can help. He wasn’t easy to find either, she spent all afternoon running from one pub to the next, finally she runs him to ground. He doesn’t know about anything, what will have happened to Franz, he’s a strong boy, and he’s savvy, it’s normal for him to disappear once in a while. Is he in some kind of pickle? No chance of that, not with Franz. Did they have a tiff, then, him and Lina. Not a bit of it, how could you think tha
t, I was just taking him his new jumper. Mack agrees to go along to Franz’s landlady the next day at noon, Lina keeps nagging at him. Yes, Biberkopf moved out in a hurry, there was something amiss, the man was always so chirpy, as recently as that morning, something must have got to him, she’s quite adamant about that; he moved out, taking every last scrap of his, you can see for yourselves. Then Mack tells Lina to keep calm, he will look into this. He thinks about it, and straight away as an old trader he has a hunch, and he goes and he looks up Lüders. Lüders is at home with his kids: hey, where’s Franz got to? Well, he says sullenly, he’s gone and stood him up, he even owes him this and that, coz Franz forgot to settle with him. This Mack absolutely does not believe, but the conversation goes on for over an hour, and there’s nothing more to be got out of the man. And then in the evening they catch up with him, Mack and Lina do, in the pub opposite. And that’s when things come to a head.
Lina is crying and carrying on. Oh, doesn’t he know where Franz has got to, surely he must know, they were together only that morning, Franz will have said something to him, just a word. ‘No, that’s just it, he didn’t say nothink.’ ‘But then something must have happened to him?’ ‘To him? He will have slung his hook, that’s what.’ No, he’s not in trouble, Lina won’t be persuaded otherwise, he’s not done anything, she’d swear blind, they should maybe go and ask at the police station. ‘You’re saying you think he might have got lost, and they’re to do a missing person number on him.’ Lüders laughs. The wretchedness of the fat little lady. ‘What shall we do, what are we going to do?’ Till Mack, who sits there keeping himself to himself, has had enough, and he winks at Lüders. He wants a tête-à-tête with him, all this is doing no good. Lüders steps out with him. In seemingly innocent conversation, they walk up Ramlerstrasse as far as Grenzstrasse.
And there, where it’s pitch-black, Mack suddenly lays into little Lüders. He give him a terrible beating. As Lüders was lying on the ground howling, Mack pulled the handkerchief out of his pocket and stuffed it in his mouth. Then he stood him up again, and showed the little man his shiv. They were both of them out of breath. Then Mack, who wasn’t back to normal yet, advised him to get on his bike and start looking for Franz. ‘I don’t know how you find him. But if you don’t find him, there’ll be three of us looking for you. And we’ll find you, sunshine, never you worry. Even if you’re with your old lady.’
The next evening, pale and quiet little Lüders followed a nod from Mack to step into the parlour next door. It took a while before the landlord got the gas lit for them. Then they stood there. Mack said: ‘Well, you bin there?’ Lüders nodded. ‘See. Well?’ ‘There’s no well.’ ‘What did he say, then, how can you prove you even saw him.’ ‘You’re imagining he would have beaten me up, Mack, like what you did. No, I was ready and waiting.’ ‘So what happened?’
Lüders came even closer: ‘Listen to me, Mack. I want to tell you that if Franz is your friend, it’s not right the way you talked to me yesterday. That was aggravated assault. When there’s no bad blood between us or nuffink. Not over that.’
Mack was staring at him expressionlessly, he was cruising for another one, and then there’s no knowing what will happen. ‘He’s crazy! Haven’t you ever noticed that, Mack? No lights on upstairs.’ ‘Now that’s enough of that. He’s my friend, all right, and I’ve got itchy fingers.’ Then Lüders tells him, and Mack listens.
He had seen Franz between five and six; he was living very near his old digs, only two or three houses further on, the neighbours had seen him go up carrying a pair of boots and his box of gear, and he was in a room in the back building. When Lüders knocked on the door and walked in, there’s Franz lying on the bed with his feet hanging off the end in their boots. He recognizes Lüders all right, there’s a little flicker of something, that’s Lüders, there’s the rascal, but what’s up with him, Lüders has a blade in his left pocket, where his hand is too. In his right he’s got some money, a few marks, and he puts them on the table, starts talking, turns this way and that, his voice is hoarse, he shows Franz the lumps he got from Mack, his cauliflower ears, he’s practically weeping with rage.
Biberkopf sits up in bed, sometimes his face looks all hard, sometimes there are little bunches of movement in it. He points to the door and softly says: ‘Get out!’ Lüders has put down a few marks, thought about Mack and how he would be waiting for him, and begs Franz for a note to confirm he’d been there, or else permission for Mack or Lina to come up. At that Biberkopf gets up out of bed, straight away Lüders has oiled over to the door, and is all ready, gripping the doorknob. But then Biberkopf walks to the washstand at the back of the room, takes the basin and – what about this then – slings the water across the room at Lüders’s feet. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Lüders stares at him, moves aside, turns the doorknob. Biberkopf picks up the ewer, which has water in it as well, plenty more where that came from, we’re going to clean up this mess, for dust thou art. He hurls it against the door, and Lüders can feel it splatter against his mouth and throat, icy water. Lüders slips out and is gone, the door is shut behind him.
In the bar room he hisses: ‘He’s insane, can’t you see that, that’s all there is to it.’ Mack asked him: ‘OK, what’s the number? What name?’
Subsequently Biberkopf continued throwing water around his room. He flung it through the air: everything must be cleansed, everything must be purified; now open the window and blow; all this is nothing to do with us. (No collapsing buildings, no roofs sliding off, that’s in the past, once and for all in the past.) When it started to get cold by the window, he stared at the floor. Should mop it up really, it’ll drip on the people below, stain the ceiling. Shut the window, lay down flat on the bed. (Dead. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.)
Clap clap clap with his hands, trap trap trap with his feet.
That evening found Biberkopf no longer up in his eyrie. Mack was not able to establish where he had moved to. He took little Lüders, who was sullen and obstinate, with him to his pub with the drovers. Let them ask Lüders what had happened and what the story was about the note the publican had kept for him. Lüders remained obstinate, he looked so twisted that finally they let him go. Mack himself said: ‘He’s had enough punishment.’
Mack speculated: either Lina had cheated on Franz, or he was angry with Lüders, or it was something else. The drovers said: ‘That Lüders is a louse, there’s not a word of truth in what he says. Maybe Biberkopf is short of a few. He did behave strangely, come to think of it, like his tradesman’s licence when he didn’t even have any goods for sale. When there’s trouble, such traits might be apt to come to the fore.’ Mack was unshaken: ‘Well, I can see it might affect a man’s gall bladder, but not his brain. Brain is out of the question. He’s an athlete, a labourer, he was a first-rate furniture-removal man, pianers and what not, his brain wouldn’t be affected.’ ‘He’s exactly the type whose brain would be affected. It’s sensitive. The brain gets too little to do, and if there’s a call, it’s overtaxed.’ ‘Well, and what about you and your court cases? You’re all healthy, I suppose.’ ‘A drover has a hard shell. See. If they wanted to get het up about something, they could all get checked into Herzberge. We don’t get excited. Order goods and then not come through or try and stiff you, we get that every day. We know people are short of money.’ ‘Or they don’t have cash to hand.’ ‘Sure.’
One drover looked down at his soiled jumper: ‘You know, when I’m home I like to drink my coffee out of a saucer, it tastes better that way, but it do make a mess.’ ‘You need to wear a napkin.’ ‘Yeah, and make my old lady laugh. No, it’s my hands getting shaky, see this.’
Mack and Lina don’t find Franz Biberkopf. They go looking for him through half the city, without success.
Chapter Four
Franz Biberkopf was not really struck by misfortune. The ordinary reader will be surprised, and ask: so what was it? But Franz Biberkopf is no ordinary reader. He thinks his
orientation, in all its simplicity, must be mistaken in some way. He doesn’t know how, but the mere fact of it digs him into a deep pit.
You will see the man turn to drink and almost lose himself. But that’s not enough, Franz Biberkopf is reserved for a still harder fate.
A handful of people round the Alex
On Alexanderplatz they’re tearing up the road for the underground railway. People are made to walk on duckboards. The trams cross the square and head up Alexander-and Münzstrasse to get to Rosenthaler Tor. There are streets on either side. In the streets, there’s one house after another. They are full of people, from cellar to attic. On the ground floor are usually shops and businesses.
Bars and restaurants, greengrocers and grocers, delicatessens and haulage businesses, painters and decorators, ladies’ outfitters, flour and grain products, garages, insurance: the advantages of the fuel injection engine are simple design, ease of use, light weight, no clutter. – My fellow-Germans, never has a people been more shamefully deceived, more shamefully, wickedly cheated than the German people. Do you remember Scheidemann on the Reichstag balcony on 9 November 1918 promising us peace, freedom and bread? What happened to those promises! – Plumbing goods, window cleaners, sleep is medicine, Steiner’s paradisal bed. – Bookshop, the contemporary library, our collected editions of the works of leading writers and thinkers together make up the contemporary library. Here are the great representatives of the European mind. – The tenancy protection law isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Rents are going up all the time. The middle class are finding themselves out on the street, bailiffs and debt collectors are making hay. We demand state-guaranteed credits up to 15,000 marks, with immediate cessation to all closures of small businesses. – To approach the critical hour well prepared is the duty and desire of all women. All the thoughts and feelings of the mother-to-be are concentrated on her unborn. Hence her choice of beverage is of particular importance. Engelhardt’s authentic caramel malt beer combines like no other the attributes of flavour, nutrition, wholesomeness and refreshment. – Provide for your future and family by taking out a life insurance policy with a leading Swiss insurance firm, the Zurich Rentenanstalt. – Your heart laughs! Your heart laughs for joy when you own a home furnished with celebrated Höffner furniture. Everything you dreamt of in terms of amenity will be outdone by the blissful reality. Years can go by, but the sight will continually cheer your eyes, and its durability and practical design will continue to delight you.