Berlin Alexanderplatz
Private security companies look after everything, they do their rounds, punch clocks, keep time, alarm premises, Guardians and Security for Greater Berlin and beyond, Watch and Protection Services Gross-Berlin, Germania Round the Clock, and the one-time security section of the Economic Association of the Society of Berlin Property Owners and Landlords, now reincorporated as Western Security, Watch and Protection Company, the Sherlock Group, Sherlock Holmes collected works of Arthur Conan-Doyle, Watching Company for Berlin and Environs, Wachsmann the educator, Flachsmann the educator, washeteria, Apollo custom wash, Adler Laundry, handles all household and personal linens, specializing in ladies’ and gentlemen’s delicates.
Above and behind the commercial premises are apartments, and behind them are more courtyards, side buildings, cross-buildings, back-buildings, garden-buildings. Linienstrasse, that’s where the building is where Franz Biberkopf took refuge after the schlimazel with Lüders.
At the front is a fine shoe shop, with four gleaming windows, and six girls to serve the customers when there are any customers to serve; they make 80 marks per month each, and if things go well and they grow old in the job, then they might make 100. The business belongs to an old lady who married her store manager, and since then she has been sleeping behind the shop, and regretting it. He’s a good-looking fellow, he’s made her business bloom, but he’s not yet forty, and that’s the bane of it, and when he gets in late, then the old lady is still awake, and too angry to sleep. – On the first floor is a solicitor. Is the wild hare to be included in the list of beasts for hunting in the Duchy of Saxony-Altenburg or not? The defence wrongly contests the District Court’s assumption that the wild hare in the Duchy of Saxony-Altenburg is included among huntable animals. Which animals are huntable and which are subject to hunting without licence has evolved differently in the different states of Germany. In the absence of legislation, the matter is usually left to local custom and practice. There is no reference to the wild hare in the Game Control Bill of 24 February 1854. – At six in the evening a cleaning lady comes into the office, swabs the linoleum in the waiting room. The solicitor has not yet run to a vacuum cleaner, miserly git, when the man’s not even married and Frau Zieske, who calls herself housekeeper, would know. The cleaning lady scrubs and scours away, she is incredibly thin but supple, she works to feed her two children. The role of fat in nutrition, fat covers jutting bones and protects the sensitive tissue below from pressure and impact, excessively thin persons may complain of pains in their footsoles when walking. That at least wasn’t the case with the cleaning lady.
At seven in the evening the solicitor Löwenhund is sitting at his desk with two lamps, working. For once, the telephone is quiet. In the case of Gross A 8 780-27, I enclose the power of attorney given me by the accused Frau Gross. I would like authorization to enter into direct communication with the accused. – To Frau Eugenie Gross, Berlin. Dear Frau Gross, a further visit on my part is overdue. I’m afraid pressure of work and ill health have precluded me from doing so. I hope to find time for you next Wednesday, and would ask you to remain patient till then. Respectfully, Löwenhund. Letters, moneys and parcels are to be addressed to the prisoner by name and number (name alone is not sufficient). The street address is Berlin NW 52, Moabit 12 a.
To Herr Tollmann. In the case relating to your daughter, I must request payment of a further 200 marks. Instalments are acceptable. Secondly, resubmit. – Dear Solicitor, I want to visit my poor daughter in Moabit, but have no idea how to go about it, can you find out for me when such a visit would be possible. At the same time, I want to lodge a petition with the authorities: I’d like to send her a fortnightly food parcel. Hoping for a prompt reply, ideally end of this week or early next. Frau Tollmann (mother of Eugenie Gross). – Solicitor Löwenhund gets up, cigar in mouth, peers through the chink in the curtains at the brightly lit Linienstrasse and thinks, do I call her or do I not call her. Sexually transmitted diseases as consequence of personal negligence. Superior District Court, Frankfurt i, C5. One may feel less strongly about the morality of sexual congress with unmarried men, while still admitting that in point of law there is blame involved, that extramarital congress, as Staub argues, is an extravagance associated with risks, and that the risks must be borne by the extravagant party. Also Planck, in the spirit of this decision, sees illness stemming from extramarital intercourse as a form of gross negligence. – He picks up the telephone, Neukölln exchange, please, ah, the number has been reassigned to Bärwald.
Second floor: the janitor and two fat couples, the brother and his wife, the sister and her husband, and there’s an invalid girl as well.
Third floor a furniture polisher, sixty-four, widower, bald. His daughter, divorced, keeps house for him. Every morning he clatters down the steps, he has a dickey heart, and will soon go on invalidity benefit (arteriosclerosis, myodegeneratio cordis). Back in the day he used to row, what can he do now? Read his paper in the evening, light his pipe, while his daughter gossips on the landing. His wife passed away at forty-five, she was energetic and splenetic, could never get enough, you know, and then whoops-a-daisy, never breathed a word, the next year she might have had her menopause, went to get it taken care of by one of those women, and then hospital, where she pops her clogs.
Next door is an engineer, thirty-odd, has a little boy, sitting room and kitchen, his wife has gone on too, phthisis, he’s coughing too, the boy is in a crèche by day, at night the man takes him home. Once he’s put him to bed, the man brews up his infusions, tinkers with radio sets till late, he’s a ham radio enthusiast, he can’t sleep without fiddling with his circuits.
Then there’s a waiter with a woman, parlour and kitchen, all piccobello, gas chandelier with glass pendants. He’s home till two in the afternoon, either asleep or playing his zither, at the same time as Master Löwenhund is in District Courts 1, 2, 3, running around the corridors in his black gown, out of the lawyers’ room, into the lawyers’ room, into the courtroom, out of the courtroom, the case is adjourned, I apply for a judgment by default against the accused. The waiter’s girlfriend is supervisor in a department store. Or so she says. When he was married, his wife cheated on him mercilessly. But she was always able to reassure him, until one day he finally walked out. He was nothing more than a bedfellow, kept running back to his wife, and when the thing came to court, because he had no evidence against her, he was found to be the one guilty of desertion. He met his present companion in Hoppegarten, where she was on the prowl. The same type as his first, naturally, only a little bit more cunning. He doesn’t smell a rat when she leaves every other day for her so-called business, since when does a supervisor have to go on the road, well, it is an unusually responsible position. But now he’s sitting on his sofa with a damp towel round his head, crying, and she has to look after him. He slipped on the pavement and couldn’t get up. Or so he says. Someone tipped him off. There is no so-called business. Wonder if he suspected something, that would be a pity, he’s such a good-natured idiot. It’ll sort itself out.
Right at the top of the house there’s a tripe butcher, which of course means stink and alcohol and lots of squalling children. Next door to that is a baker’s apprentice with his wife, who works in a print shop. She has an ovarian cyst. What does life have to offer the two of them? Well, first they have each other, then last Sunday there was music hall and cinema, then various club meetings and visits to the in-laws. Is that it? Now, sir, don’t be giving yourself airs. Throw in the weather, fair or foul, trips to the countryside, warming up by the stove, breakfast together, so on and so forth. What have you got that’s so special, Captain, General, Jockey? Don’t kid yourself.
Biberkopf anaesthetized, Franz curls up, Franz doesn’t want to see anything
Watch yourself, Franz Biberkopf, you boozehound! Lying around in your room, nothing but sleeping and drinking and more sleeping!
Who cares what I get up to. If I feel like it, I can sleep in all day and not get up. – He chews his nails, groans, to
sses his head from side to side on the sweaty pillow, blows his nose. – 1 can lie here till Doomsday if I like. If only the facking landlady would turn on the heat. Lazy cow, only thinks of herself.
His head turns away from the wall, on the floor by the bed is gruel, a puddle. – Spew. Must of been me. Stuff a man carries around in his stomach. Yuck. Spiders’ webs in the corners, you could catch mice in them. I want a drink of water. Who gives a shit. My back hurts. Come on in, Frau Schmidt. Between the spiders’ webs at the top of the picture (black dress, long in the tooth). She’s a witch (coming out of the ceiling like that). Yuck. Some idiot asked me why I’m hanging around in my room. In the first place, idiot, I say, who are you, secondly when I stay here from eight till noon. And then in this stinky room. He says he was joking. That wasn’t a joke. Kaufmann said I might apply to him. Maybe I will and all, in February, February or March, March feels about right.
•
Did you lose your heart in nature? No, I didn’t, not there. When I stood facing the Alpine massif or lay by the shore of the foaming ocean I had the feeling that the primal spirit wanted to tear me away. I felt swayed and buffeted in my bones. My heart was shaken, but I never lost it, neither where the eagle nests, nor where the miner tunnels for hidden veins of ore in the bowels of the earth.
Then where?
Did you lose your heart in sport? In the rushing stream of the youth movement? In the skirmishings of politics?
I didn’t lose it there.
Have you not lost it anywhere?
Are you one of those who lose their hearts nowhere, but keep it for themselves, nicely conserved and mummified?
The road to the world beyond the senses, public lectures, All Saints’ Day: Is Death Really the End? Monday, 21 November, 8 p.m.: Is Faith Still Possible? Tuesday, 22 November: Can Man Change? Wednesday, 23 November: Who Is Just Before God? We draw special attention to the sermon on ‘St Paul’.
On Sunday, the slightly earlier time of 7.45.
Evening, Your Reverence. I’m the labourer Franz Biberkopf. Casual labourer, truth to tell. I used to work as a removal man, presently unemployed. I wanted to ask you something. What can be done about stomach pains. I’m a martyr to acid reflux. Ooh, there it is again. Yuck. Bitter gall. It’s from the drink, I’m sure. Forgive me for accosting you on the public street. I know I’m keeping you from work. But what can I do about my gall bladder. Isn’t a Christian duty-bound to help his fellow-man. You’re a good man. I won’t get to Heaven. Why? You ask Frau Schmidt who keeps popping out of the ceiling. She’s in and out, and she’s forever telling me to get up. But no one tells me what to do. If there are criminals, though, then I know all about them. Honour bright. We swore to Karl Liebknecht, we hold out our hands to Rosa Luxemburg. I’ll go to paradise when I’m gone, and people will bow when I pass, and say, look, there goes faithful Franz Biberkopf, raise high the fag, the black and white and red, but he kept it to himself, he didn’t turn to crime, not like some other fellows who claim to be good Germans and cheat their fellow-citizens. If I’d had a knife, I’d a stabbed him in the belly with it. Yes I would. (Franz tosses and turns, thrashes around.) Now it’s your turn to run to the preacher man, son. Sonnymylad. If you’d like that, if you can still wheeze out a word, you. In honour true, I’ll quit, Your Reverend, it’s not worth it, crooks don’t even go to prison; I was in prison though, know it like the back of my, first-class establishment, outstanding wares, there’s no getting around it, no crooks go in there, least of all no one like him, not even ashamed in front of his wife, as he should be, and the whole world besides.
Two plus two makes four, no getting around that.
You see before you a man, sorry to bother you on your way to work, sir, I have such bad stomach pains. I’ll learn to control myself. A glass of water, Frau Schmidt. The bitch sticks her nose in everywhere.
Franz, on the retreat, plays a farewell march for the Jews
Franz Biberkopf, strong as a cobra but wobbly on his pins, has got up and gone to the Jews on Münzstrasse. He didn’t go the straight way there, he made an almighty detour. The man wants to sort a few things out. The man has issues. So here we go again, Frankie BBK. Dry weather, cold but fresh, who would want to be a street vendor now, standing out in an entryway, and still freezing your tootsies off. In honour true. Good to be out of the room and not have to listen to women squawking. Here comes Frankie Biberkopf down the street somewhere near you. Pubs all empty. How come? The clientele still asleep. The landlords can drink their piss by themselves. Industrial piss. We’re not in the mood. We’re drinking spirits.
Franz Biberkopf steered his body in grey-green soldier’s coat through the crowd, little women standing at stalls buying vegetables, cheese, herring. Someone was flogging onions.
People do their best. Kids at home, hungry mouths, little beaks, open, shut, open, shut, click clack, just like that.
Franz walked faster, stomped round the corner. There, fresh air. He slowed down as he passed the big shoe shops. How much for boots? Patent-leather shoes, dancing pumps, gotta look class; a little lass with dancing pumps on her feet. Dandy Lissarek, once of Bohemia, now of Tegel, the old fellow with the nostrils, he had his wife, or that’s what she claimed to be anyway, bring him nice silk stockings every fortnight, one pair new and one pair worn. What a gas. Even if she had to lift them, he had to have em. One time they caught him with them on, queer bugger, ogling his nasty legs and getting his kicks, and the fellow blushed beetroot, what a gas, furniture on the instalment plan, kitchenalia, twelve affordable payments.
Biberkopf wandered happily on. Only he had to inspect the pavement every so often. He checked his stride and the firm, well-laid paving stones. But then his regard slid up the front of the buildings, examined the façades, made sure they were standing still and not moving, a building like that must have a shedload of windows, which makes it easy for it to keel over. And that in turn affects the roofs, which can start to sway. They start to sway, and swing and shake. The roofs can slip off at an angle, like sand, like the hat off your head. I mean they’re all set up skew on their rooftrees anyway, right the way along a terrace. But they’re nailed down, strong beams under them, and then the roofing felt, and the tar. ‘Fest steht und treu die Wacht, die Wacht am Rhein’, good morning, Herr Biberkopf, we’re walking nice and upright today, chest out, back straight, old son, along Brunnenstrasse. God has compassion on all men, we are, as the prison director reminded us, German subjects.
Fellow in a leather cap, white sagging face, picking at a spot on his chin with his pinkie; his mouth hanging open while he does it. A man with a broad back and baggy trouser-seat standing skew next to him, blocking the way. Franz walked around the pair of them. The one with the leather cap now digging in his right ear.
He noted to his satisfaction that people were proceeding calmly along the public thoroughfare, deliverymen were loading and unloading goods, the authorities were looking after the buildings, ‘Es braust ein Ruf wie Donnerhall’, so it’s all right for us to walk here too. A poster pillar on the corner, on yellow paper in black italic script: ‘Hast du geliebt am schönen Rhein’,[6] ‘The Doyen of Centre Forwards’. Five men stood around in a little gaggle, swinging hammers, cracking the asphalt, we know the fellow in the green woollen jacket, deffo, he’s got a job, we can do that too, later, grip with your right hand, pull it back over your head, hold hard and down. That’s what we are, we the workers, the pro-ho-le-ta-ri-at. Up with the right, join left, smack. Caution, building site, Stralau Asphalting Company.
He wandered around, along the creaking tramline, do not dismount while tram is moving! Wait till vehicle has come to a complete standstill! A policeman is supervising the traffic, a mail guard is in a hurry to get across. Me, I need no excuse, I’m just going to see the Jews. They’ll be around later as well. The dirt you get on your boots, but then they’re not polished anyway, who’s going to clean them for me, not Frau Schmidt for sure (spiders’ webs on the ceiling, a sour belch, he sucked at his gums
, turned his head to look at the windows: Gargoyle Mobil Oil Vulcanizing, Bubi Unisex Hair Styling, Marcel Wave a speciality, on blue ground, Pixavon, refined tar product). Would Polish Lina agree to polish his boots maybe? He was stepping out a little now.
That cheat Lüders, the woman’s note, I’ll stick a knife in your guts, see if I don’t, o God, don’t for heaven’s sake, we’ll control ourselves, we don’t attack people, we’ve done time in Tegel. Now then: Gentlemen’s Suits, Made to Measure, that first, then next Automobile Parts, just as important for speedy driving, but not too speedy.
Right, left, right, left, easy does it, now there, don’t barge, miss. Uh-oh, here’s the filth. What did the queer policeman say? Cop-a-doodle-do, cop-a-doodle-do. Franz was chipper, the faces all looked friendlier.
He immersed himself happily in the street. A chill wind blew, mixed with the aromas of each respective building, cellar fug, domestic and imported fruit, petrol. Asphalt doesn’t smell in winter.
At the Jews’ Franz sat on the settee for fully an hour. They spoke, he spoke, he was surprised, they were surprised, for the length of a whole hour. What surprised him sitting on the sofa while they and he spoke? The fact that he was sitting there speaking and them speaking, and above all that he was surprised at himself. Why was he surprised at himself? He knew it and detected it himself, he sensed it as an accountant detects a faulty calculation. He detected something.