Berlin Alexanderplatz

  Happy meadows, warm fuggy stall.

  •

  The well-lit butcher’s shop. Shop lighting and exterior lighting must be brought into harmony. Strong light is indicated. In general, direct illumination is appropriate, because the counter and chopping board must be well lit. Artificial daylight, produced by the use of blue filters, is inappropriate for butchers’ shops, because meat requires light that will not harm its natural colours.

  Filled pigs’ feet. After the hooves have been well cleaned out, they are split lengthwise, leaving the rind intact, then folded together and secured with thread.

  •

  Franz, it’s two weeks now you’ve been squatting in your wretched attic. Your landlady is about to evict you. You can’t pay your rent, and she’s not a landlady for the fun of it. Unless you get a grip on yourself, you’ll land up in the homeless shelter. And what then. Yes, what then. You don’t air your room, you don’t go to the barber, you’re growing a heavy brown beard, surely you can afford 15 pfennigs for a shave.

  Conversation with Job, it’s up to you, Job, you don’t want to

  After Job had lost everything, everything a man can possibly lose, not more and not less, he lay in the cabbage patch.

  ‘Job, you’re lying in the cabbage patch, just far enough away from the doghouse for the dog not to bite you. You hear him gnashing his teeth. The dog will bark if you take so much as a single step. If you turn round or make to get up, he will growl, rush at you, rattle his chain, jump out, drool and snap at you.

  ‘Job, there is your palace, and there are the gardens and fields that once were yours. This watchdog was not even known to you, and this cabbage patch where you have been thrown was not even known to you, any more than the goats they drove past you in the mornings that would take a mouthful of grass as they passed, and grind it between their teeth and fill their cheeks with it. They were yours.

  ‘Job, you have lost everything. You are allowed to shelter in the barn at night. Everyone is afraid of your contagion. You once rode in splendour over your estates, and people used to flock around you. Now you’ve got the wooden fence in front of you, and you can watch the snails creep up it. You can make a study of the earthworms. Those are the only creatures that aren’t afraid of you.

  ‘You hardly ever open your crusty eyes, you bundle of misery, you human swamp.

  ‘What is the worst torment, Job? The fact that you lost your sons and daughters, that you own nothing, that you’re cold at night, the boils on your throat, on your nose? Tell, Job.’

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘I’m just a voice.’

  A voice comes out of a throat.’

  ‘You mean I must be a human being.’

  ‘Yes, and therefore I don’t want to see you. Go away.’

  ‘I’m just a voice, Job, open your eyes as far as you can, and then you’ll see me.’

  ‘I’m raving. My head, my brains, now I’m being driven mad, now they’re taking my thoughts away from me.’

  ‘And if they were, would that matter?’

  ‘I don’t want them to.’

  ‘Even though you’re suffering so much, and suffering so much by your thoughts, you still don’t want to lose them?’

  ‘Don’t ask. Go away.’

  ‘But I’m not taking anything. I just want to know which torment is the worst.’

  ‘That’s nobody’s business.’

  ‘You mean, nobody but you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Certainly not yours!’

  The dog barks, growls, snaps at the air. The voice returns after a while:

  ‘Is it your sons you are lamenting over?’

  ‘No one need pray for me when I’m dead. I’m poison to the earth. When I am gone, just spit. Forget Job.’

  ‘And your daughters?’

  ‘My daughters. Ah. They’re dead too. They’re fine. They were pictures of women. They would have given me grandchildren, and they were dashed from me. One after the other was dashed to the ground, as though God had taken her by the hair, and lifted her up and thrown her to the ground, broken.’

  ‘Job, you can’t open your eyes, they are gummed shut. You are lamenting because you are in the cabbage patch, and the doghouse is the least thing that is yours, that and your disease.’

  ‘The voice, you voice, whosesoever voice you are, and wherever you are hiding.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re lamenting.’

  ‘Oh. Oh.’

  ‘You groan, and you don’t know either, Job.’

  ‘No, I have—’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘I have no strength. That’s it.’

  ‘So you’d like strength.’

  ‘No strength with which to hope or wish. I have no teeth. I am soft, I feel ashamed.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘Yes, you must know. That’s the worst.’

  ‘So it’s already written on my brow. That’s what a rag I am.’

  ‘That’s what is causing you the most suffering, Job. You would like not to be weak, you would like to resist, or to be wholly riddled, your brains gone, your thoughts gone, just an animal. Make a wish.’

  ‘You’ve asked me so many things, voice, I think you must be allowed to ask. Heal me. If you can. Whether your name is Satan or God or angel or man, heal me.’

  ‘Will you accept healing from anyone?’

  ‘Heal me.’

  ‘Job, think carefully. You can’t see me. If you open your eyes, perhaps you will be shocked to see me. Perhaps I will charge a great and terrible price.’

  ‘All will be seen. You speak like someone who is serious.’

  ‘What if I am Satan or the Evil One?’

  ‘Heal me.’

  ‘I am Satan.’

  ‘Heal me.’

  The voice withdrew, became weaker and ever weaker. The dog barked. Job listened fearfully: he is gone, I must be healed, or I must die. He squawked. A terrible night broke in. The voice came back once more:

  ‘And if I am Satan, how will you deal with me?’

  Job screamed: ‘You will not heal me. No one will help me, not God, not Satan, and no angel, and no human.’

  ‘And you yourself?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘What.’

  ‘Who can help you when you don’t want to help yourself?’

  ‘No, no,’ burbled Job.

  The voice in front of him: ‘God and Satan, angels and humans, all want to help you, but you will not help yourself – God out of love, Satan so as to control you later, the angels and men because they are helpers of God and Satan, but you don’t want to.’

  ‘No, no,’ burbled Job, and screamed, and flung himself to the ground.

  He screamed all night long. The voice called uninterruptedly: ‘God and Satan, angels and men, all will help you, but you will not help yourself.’ Job uninterruptedly: ‘No, no.’ He tried to stifle the voice, it grew louder and ever louder, it was always a degree ahead of him. All night long. Towards morning, Job fell on his face.

  Job lay there silent.

  That day the first of his boils healed.

  And they all have one breath, and man has no more than the beasts

  Today’s market: pigs 11,543, cattle 2,016, calves 1,920, sheep 4,450.

  Now what is this man doing with his cute little calf? He leads it in by itself on a rope, this is the enormous hall with the bellowing steers, now he leads the little beast to a bench. There are many benches stood together, beside each one is a wooden mallet. He picks up the delicate little vealer in both arms and lays it down on the bench, it calmly allows itself to be laid down. He pushes his left hand underneath the animal, and holds on to one hind leg, to prevent it from kicking. Then he takes the rope on which he led it, and fastens it to the wall. The animal is patient and still, it is lying here now, it doesn’t know what will happen to it, it’s a little uncomfortable on its slab, it butts its head against a rod
, it doesn’t know it, but it’s the handle of the mallet with which it is about to be hit. That will be its last negotiation with the world. And then the man, the old simple man who stands there all alone, a gentle man with a soft voice – he is talking to it now – the man takes the mallet, picks it up a little way, it doesn’t need much power for such a docile creature, and taps it on the back of the neck. Very gently, as he led the animal here, and told it to lie still, he lays the blow on its neck, without anger, without excitement, without grief either, no, this is how it is, you’re a good animal, you know it must end like this.

  And the little calf: brr, brr, very stiff, rigid, puts out its little legs. The black velvety irises are suddenly very big and still, and ringed with white, then they roll to the side. The man is familiar with this, yes, that’s the way animals look, but we have a lot to do still today, and he feels underneath the little calf for the knife, there it is, with his foot he moves the basin for the blood into position. Then skkrkk, right across the throat he pulls the knife, through the windpipe, all the cartilage, the air escapes, through the neck muscles, the head has no more support, it lolls against the bench. The blood spurts, a thick blackish-red effervescing liquid. But he goes on cutting, with the same tranquil expression, with the blade he feels between two bones, the tissue is very young and soft. Then he is finished with the animal, the knife clatters onto the bench. He washes his hands in a bucket and walks away.

  And now the animal is all alone, pitifully on its side, the way he made it fast. The hall is full of noise and commotion, people are working, lugging carcasses, exchanging shouts. Terribly the head hangs down, only on a piece of hide now, between the two table legs, full of blood and drool. The purplish tongue is jammed between the teeth. And horribly, horribly the animal on the bench continues to gurgle. The head trembles on the end of its flap of hide. The body twitches. The legs quiver and push, thin, knobbly legs. But the eyes are stiff and sightless. They are dead eyes. The animal is no more.

  The peaceable old man stands by a pillar with his little black notebook, looks across at the bench, and does sums. Times are hard, the sums are difficult, it’s difficult to keep up with the competition.

  Franz’s window is open, sometimes amusing things happen in the world

  The sun rises and sets, brighter days are coming, prams are out in force, let’s see, we are February 1928.

  In his distaste and repugnance, Franz Biberkopf has carried on drinking into February. He drinks away whatever he has, he doesn’t care what becomes of him. He wanted once to be respectable, but the world is full of bastards and parasitical villains, and so Franz Biberkopf wants nothing more to do with the world, even if he becomes a vagabond, even if he drinks up every penny he has.

  When Franz Biberkopf has rampaged on into February, he is awoken one night by a noise down in the yard. There are some wholesaler’s commercial premises at the back. He looks down in his stupor, throws open the window, shouts down: ‘Shut it, you brutes, you layabouts.’ Then he lies down and doesn’t think about them any more, as far as he’s concerned they’re gone.

  A week later, the same thing again. Franz is on the point of pulling the window open and hurling the wooden wedge at them when he thinks: it’s one o’clock, he might as well have a look at the lads who are making the noise. What are they up to in the wee small ones. What business do they have here, do they even live here, this is maybe worth looking into.

  And he’s right, there is something dodgy going on, they’re sliding along the walls, up at the top Franz cranes his neck as far as it will go, one fellow is standing by the gate, he’s keeping watch, they’re doing a job, they’re busy with the big cellar door. Two more of them are fooling around with it. Bold as brass. Then there’s a groan, they’ve did it, one of them stays out in the yard, in a patch of shadow, the other two are off down the cellar. It’s dark enough, that’s what they’re banking on.

  Quietly Franz shuts the window. The air has cooled his head. So this is the kind of thing people get up to, day and night, jiggery-pokery like that, he wishes he had a row of flowerpots, then he could let them have it. What are they doing in my building, the cheek of it.

  It’s quiet, he sits down on his bed in the dark, he has half a mind to go over to the window and take another look: what are those guys up to, in my building. And he lights a wax candle, looks for a bottle, and, once he’s found one, he doesn’t pour himself a drink. A bullet came flying, is she mine or is she thine.

  Then it’s midday, and Franz is down in the yard. A bunch of people are standing around, including Gerner the handyman, Franz knows him, and they get talking: ‘They’ve done another job, ain’t they.’ Franz gives him a nudge: ‘Guess what, I saw them, I’m not about to shop them, but if they come in my yard where I live once more and where I sleep and where they’ve got no business, then I’ll go downstairs, and sure as my name is Biberkopf, I swear they can pick their bones up off the ground when I’m through with them, I don’t care how many of them there are.’ The carpenter grabs hold of Franz: ‘Listen, mate, if you know something, go talk to the boys in blue, you can earn yourself some dough.’ ‘Ah, leave it aht. I never squealed on anyone yet. Let them do their own work, after all, it’s what they’re paid for, innit?’

  Franz pushes of. Gerner’s still standing around when a couple of detectives come up to him, asking to speak to a party by the name of Gerner. Well, blow me down. The man turns pale down to the corns on his toes. Then he says: ‘Let me see, Gerner, he’s the chippie, inne, I’ll take you there.’ And he doesn’t say anything, rings his own doorbell, his wife opens the door, the whole company troops in. Last of all, Gerner himself, he winks at his wife, mum’s the word, she has no idea what’s going on, he’s milling around with the others, hands in his pockets, the cops and two more fellows besides, they’re from the insurance company, all taking a good look at his flat. They want to know how thick the walls are and what the floor’s like, and they tap the walls and take measurements and write things down. It’s a bit much with these break-ins at the wholesaler’s, the fellows are so downright cheeky, they had a go at tunnelling in through the walls, because the door’s alarmed and the steps, and they seemed to know that. Yes, the walls are incredibly thin, the whole building wobbles, it’s not much better than an eggbox really.

  They step back out into the yard, Gerner still playing the innocent. Now they’re taking a look at the new iron doors to the cellar, Gerner hard by. And then, as luck would have it, he takes a step back out of the way, and, as luck would have it, he knocks against something, the thing falls over, and as he looks down to see what it is, it’s a bottle, and it’s fallen on some paper, which is why no one else heard nothink. So there’s a bottle in the yard, and they missed it, well, I’ll have that. And he bends over as if to tie his laces, and he snaffles the bottle and the paper. And that was how Eve gave Adam the apple, and if the apple hadn’t have fallen off the tree, then most probably Eve wouldn’t have picked it up, and Adam wouldn’t ever have come across it. Later on, Gerner has stashed the bottle in his jacket, and taken it across the yard to his old lady.

  ‘What d’you say now, sugar?’ And she beams: ‘Where’d’ye get that from, August?’ ‘I bought it when there was no one home.’ ‘Ya never!’ ‘Danziger Goldwasser, what do you know?’

  She beams, she beams away like a lighthouse. She draws the curtains: ‘Is there any more where that came from, did you get it over there?’ ‘It was standing by the wall, they’d have picked it up if they’d seen it.’ ‘Man, you have to hand that in.’ ‘Since when is Goldwasser treasure trove then? When was the last time we had a classy bottle like that, with times as bad as they are. You’re having a laff’

  Eventually she comes round to his way of seeing, she’s not really that pernickety anyway, the woman, what’s one stray bottle to a great big company like that, and anyway, if you think about it, it doesn’t even belong to the company any more, it belongs to the robbers, and we’re surely not supposed to give it back to
them. That’d be compounding a felony. And they have a little drink, and a little more, sure, keep your eyes peeled, it doesn’t have to be gold either, silver’s nothing to sneeze at.