Franz Biberkopf and the stunted fellow blow into their hands. Mid-morning, trade is dragging. A scrawny old guy, shabby and run-down, goes up to Franz. Has on a green felt hat and asks Franz what business is like. Something Franz once asked hisself too. ‘Who knows if you’re cut out for it, mate.’ ‘Yeah, I’m fifty-two.’ ‘Well, quite, that’s why, at fifty arthritis sets in. In our regiment we had an old reserve captain who was just forty, from Saar-Brücken, lottery ticket seller – tobacconist to you, he says – he had arthritis at forty, in the lumbar region. He pretended it was his martial posture. He went around like a broomstick on wheels. He always had himself rubbed down with butter. And when there weren’t no more butter, 1917 time, just Palmin, first-class vegetable oil, and rancid it were too, then he got himself shot.’
‘What’s the use, they won’t take you in the factory any more either. And last year I had an operation in Lichtenberg, the Hubertus hospital. I lost a testicle, testicular tuberculosis they said it was, I tell you, it still hurts.’ ‘You watch yourself, they’ll be coming for the other one too. Then you’ll be ready for a sedentary occupation. Ever think of being a cabbie?’ Middle-German stand-off continues, negotiations fail, Tenant protection law under attack, watch out, tenants, or they’ll whip the roof off over your heads. ‘Yes, mate, you can flog papers, but you need to be able to run around, and you need a strong voice, red-tops need a vox. See, that’s what it’s about in my sector, you gotta be able to run around and sing. We need loudmouths. Loudspeakers do most business. It’s a cut-throat society, I tell you. Have a look, how many coins have I got in my hand?’ ‘Looks like four to me.’ ‘Correct. Four to you. That’s what it’s about. But if a fellow’s in a hurry, and he reaches into his pocket, and he finds a five-pfennig piece, and a mark, or maybe ten marks, ask my mates, they’re all dab at giving change. They’re that shifty, they’re the real bankers, they wrote the book on giving change, they take their cut, and you won’t even notice, that’s how quick they are about it.’
The old fellow sighs. ‘Yeah, fifty and arthritis. Mate, if you’re married, then you’re not on your own, then you take on a couple of lads, gotta pay them of course, maybe half what you make, but meanwhile you look after the business, and spare your voice and your shoe leather. You need connections and a good pitch. When it rains, it gets wet. Sporting events and government reshuffles are what you need. You wouldn’t believe the way the newspapers were flying out of my hands when Ebert died. Don’t look like that, it may never happen. Look at the ram over there, imagine that thing hitting you on the head, why waste your time thinking?’ Tenant protection law under attack. Comeuppance for Zörgiebel. British censor Amanullah, Indians kept in the dark.
Opposite at Web’s radio store – introductory special, we load your battery for free – stands a pale-looking girl with her cap pulled down over her face, apparently lost in thought. The taxi driver next to her wonders: is she thinking about getting a ride somewhere, and isn’t sure if she can afford the fare, or is she waiting for her boyfriend. She is hunched over in her velvet coat, as if she was twisted inside, then she walks on, she’s just poorly, and every time it feels like hot coals. She is studying for her teaching exams, tonight she will stay home and apply hot compresses, it’s never so bad in the evening.
Nothing for a while, pause for rest and recuperation
On the evening of 9 February 1928, the day the Labour government fell in Oslo, the last night of the Stuttgart six-day bicycle races – Van Kempen and Frankenstein were the winners with 726 points, 2,440 kilometers – the situation in the Saarland deteriorated, on the evening of 9 February 1928, a Tuesday (excuse me a moment, you see the enigmatic countenance of an unknown woman, the question posed by this dusky beauty addresses itself to all mankind, yourself included: have you tried Garbaty Kalif cigarettes?), that evening found Franz Biberkopf standing in front of an advertising pillar on Alexanderplatz, contemplating an invitation from the allotment gardeners of Treptow-Neukölln and Britz to a protest meeting in Irmer’s Festival Halls, subject: wanton dismissals. Below was a poster: the torment of asthma and costume rental, large selection for both sexes. Then all of a sudden little Mack was standing next to him. Mack, you remember Mack. See him coming right along, on his lips a merry song.
‘Hey, Franz, Franz’, was Mack ever glad to see him, no, glad is what he was, ‘Franz, Christ, I don’t believe it, it’s you, I thought you’d disappeared for good. I could have sworn—’ ‘Sworn what? I can imagine, that I got in trouble again. No, not me.’ They shake hands, shake arms up to their shoulders, shake shoulders down to their ribs, pat each other on the back, both men staggered and swayed.
‘It just happens from time to time, Gottlieb, that people don’t see each other. I’m in business around here.’ ‘Here on the Alex, Franz, well I never, I’m surprised I never run into you before now. Must of walked right past you.’ ‘Sure you did, Gottlieb.’
Arm in arm, drifting down Prenzlauer Strasse. ‘Do you remember, Franz, you wanted to trade in plaster casts.’ ‘I don’t have the nous for plaster casts. For plaster casts a man’s got to have learning, and I’ve not got that. I’m back in newspapers, newspapers keep a man fed. How’s about you, Gottlieb?’ ‘I’m over on Schönhauser in men’s apparel, anoraks and trousers.’ ‘Where do you get the product from?’ ‘Same old Franz, always asking about where a thing’s from. Like a girl when she’s wondering who the father is.’ Franz stomped along silently beside Mack, grim-expressioned: ‘You do your crooked thing until one day you land up in the soup.’ ‘What are you talking about, crooked and soup, Franz, a man needs to be an entrepreneur these days, he needs to understand about buying and selling.’
Franz was no longer in the mood, he was stubborn. But Mack had his hooks in him, chattering away and not letting go: ‘Come down the pub, Franz, maybe take a look at the drovers, you remember, the ones with the court case pending that were sitting at our table at that meeting, where you got your membership. They came quite a cropper with their case. They’re at the deposition stage now, and they’re scratching around for witnesses. I tell you, they’re cruising for a fall, and head first.’ ‘Nah, Gottlieb, I’m not really in the mood.’
But Mack didn’t give up, it was his good old friend, the best friend he had in the world, except for Herbert Wischow, but he was a ponce, and he was through with that, never again. Arm in arm, down Prenzlauer Strasse, drinks factory, textile works, jams and marmalades, silk, a contemporary fabric for the stylish woman of today!
By eight o’clock, Franz was sitting at a corner table with Mack and someone else who didn’t speak, only gestured. Things were going with a swing. Mack and the mute were astounded at the way Franz seemed to thaw out, and eat and drink with glee two servings of pigs’ trotters, then some baked beans, and the halves of Engelhardt kept coming, and he treated them. The three of them stuck out their elbows to make sure no one joined them at their little table and put a crimp on things; only the scrawny landlady was permitted to clear the table every so often and refresh the drinks. At the next table sat three old fellows, who occasionally stroked each other’s bald pates. Franz had his mouth full, beamed, his half-shut eyes slid across to them. ‘What are they up to over there?’ The landlady brought him mustard, a second pot already: ‘Fond of each other is what they are.’ ‘Oh, I believes yer, I believes yer.’ And the three of them whinnied, chomped and guzzled on. Franz kept announcing: ‘A man needs to fill hisself up. A strong man has gotta eat. If you don’t fill up yer belly you’re no good for nothing.’
The beasts are brought in from the provinces, from East Prussia, Pomerania, West Prussia, Brandenburg. They come mooing and bleating down the ramps. The pigs grunt and snuffle. You’re walking in fog. A pale young man picks up the axe, thwack, the blink of an eye, and lights out.
At nine they freed up their elbows, stuffed cigarettes in their fat mouths and started belching out fatty restaurant smoke.
Then something happened.
First a youth came in, hu
ng up his coat and hat and began to play the piano.
The pub filled up. There were some standing at the bar debating. Some sat down next to Franz at the other table, elderly fellows in caps, and a young one with a stiff hat, Mack knew him, and the talk went back and forth between them all. The young guy, with flashing black eyes, a smart boy from Hoppegarten, said:
‘D’you know what they first saw when they got to Straylier? Sand and scrub and desert and no trees and no grass and nothing. Just barren waste. And then millions upon millions of yellow sheep. They were living there in the wild. They were what the first settlers lived on. Then later they exported them. To America.’ ‘Where they need Australian sheep.’ ‘South America, it’s a fact.’ ‘Where they have all the cattle, you mean. They got more cows there than they know what to do with.’ ‘But sheep, you know, for wool. The country’s full of Negroes, and they feel the cold. As if the English din’t know what to do with their sheep. You get to worrying about the English. But what happened to the sheep afterwards? You try going to Australia now, someone said to me, and you won’t see a sheep anywhere, for love nor money. All gone. And why? What happened to them?’ ‘Wild animals gottem, I spose.’ Mack gestured irritably: ‘Wild animals! Plagues, I say. Them’s always the biggest affliction for a country. They die of, and leave you not knowing what hittem.’ The boy with the stiff hat was not inclined to think that plagues had been a material factor here. ‘Sure, plagues, some. Wherever you got such a lot of animals, you’ll get some on em dying, and then they rot away, and you get your scourges. But that’s not what I’m thinking. No, they all stampeded into the water once the British got there. There was an outbreak of panic among the sheep all through the country when the British got there, and was rounding em up and putting them in wagons, so thousands of the animals ran of and into the sea.’ Mack: ‘Well, what if. Let them. It’s for the best. It’ll save the British on rail freight.’ ‘Oh, rail freight, yes, I would just think so. It took the British for ever to realize what was even happening. There they were, in the interior and catching em and rounding em up, and putting them on wagons, and such a normous country, and no infrastructure, you know, the way it always is at the beginning. And afterwards, well, it’s too late, innit? The sheep are all out to sea, full of salt water.’ ‘Well, so?’ ‘Well so what? You try being thirsty and nothing to eat and drinking salt water.’ ‘Drownded, I shouldn’t wonder.’ ‘You betcha. Thousands upon thousands of them were laying there stinking, and away with the lot of them.’ Franz affirmed: ‘Animals is sensitive. It’s one of them things wi’ animals. You need to have a way with them. If you don’t know how to deal with them, best keep yer hands off.’
They all drank glumly, exchanging remarks about the waste of capital and the things that went on in America, where they let the wheat rot on the stalk, whole harvests, it had been known to happen. ‘Nah,’ put in the fellow from Hoppegarten with the dark eyes, ‘there’s much more of that in Straylier. Nothing’s known about it, and there’s nothing in the papers, and they don’t write about it, don’t know why, could be because of immigration, cos otherwise no one would even go there any more. There’s sposed to be a kind of lizard that’s ancient, prehistoric-like, yards and yards of it, and they don’t even ave em in zoos, because the British won’t allow it. There was one example that they took off a ship, and they put it on show in Hamburg. But then straight away they slapped a ban on it. Nothing to be done about it. They live in pools of mud and water, no one knows what they lives on. Once a whole column of cars just sank; they didn’t even dare try and dig them up to see what happened to them. Nothing. No one would dare. Fact.’ ‘Blimey,’ said Mack, ‘did they try poison gas?’ The boy considered this: ‘Might be worth a try. Couldn’t hurt.’ Which made sense to the company.
An old man took a seat behind Mack, with his elbow across Mack’s chairback, a short stout geezer, flushed red face and bulging eyes swivelling this way and that. The others made room for him. Before long he and Mack got to whispering. The geezer wore polished knee boots, had a calico coat over his arm, and seemed to be a drover. Franz was talking across the table to the entertaining youth from Hoppegarten, who he had taken a bit of a shine to. Then Mack tapped him on the shoulder, inclined his head to the side, and they stood up, the sawn-off drover as well. They went off a little ways to be by the iron stove. Franz expected it would be about the drovers and their court case. He was about to signal his lack of interest in the matter. But then it was just more pointless standing around. The little guy wanted to shake hands with him, and hear what line of business he was in. Franz patted his newspaper bag. Well, if he ever fancied selling some fruit and veg on the side; his name was Pums, and he was a fruiterer, every so often he could use an extra stallholder. To which Franz responded with a shrug of the shoulder: ‘That depends on the kind of margins.’ Thereupon they sat back down. Franz thought about the little fellow’s energetic spiel; exercise caution, shake well after use.
The conversation had moved on, and Hoppegarten had the bit between his teeth; they were talking about America now. The Hoppegarten youth had his hat on his knees: ‘So he’s getting married to an American bird, so what. Turns out she’s a Negress. “What’s this,” he says, “is it true you’re a Negress?” Bang, she’s out on her ear. The woman had to strip in open court. To her bathing drawers. First, she tries to refuse, then she’s told not to take on so. Skin was perfectly white. Coz she was mixed race. The fellow maintains she’s a Negress. And on what basis? Because the roots of her nails is brown, not white. Makes her a mosquito.’ ‘Well, and so what’s she want? Divorce?’ ‘Nah, damages. He married her after all, and maybe she quit her job for him. Who wants a divorcee. Gorgeous woman, petal-white, descended from Negroes, maybe dating back to the seventeenth century. Damages.’
There was some commotion at the bar. The landlady was squawking at an excited driver. He stood up for himself: ‘I’m not having any malarkey with my food.’ The fruit seller yelled: ‘Quiet!’ The driver turned round angrily, saw the fat fellow, who flashed a grin at him, and there was a tense silence in the bar.
Mack whispered to Franz: ‘The drovers won’t be coming today. They’ve got everything sorted. They’ve got the next hearing in the bag. Take a look at the yaller geezer, he’s the ringleader.’
Franz had been staring at the yaller geezer, as Mack dubbed him, all evening. He felt powerfully drawn to him. He was slender, wore a battered army coat – could he be a Commie? – had a long, bony, yellowish face and striking horizontal creases on his brow. He was in his early thirties, no more, but there were deep pleats from the nose down either side of the mouth. The nose, Franz was looking at him precisely and often, was short, blunt, matter-of-fact. He inclined his head towards his left hand, which was holding a lit pipe. His hair was black and spiky. When he went across to the bar later – he seemed to be dragging both feet, it was as though they were forever getting stuck in something – then Franz could see that he wore wretched yellow boots, with thick grey socks falling over the tops of them. Was it TB? They should stick him in a sanatorium, Beelitz or somewhere, stead of letting him wander around. Wonder what his thing is. The man came drifting up, pipe in his mouth, cup of coffee in one hand, lemonade in the other with a big tin spoon. Then he sat down in his old place, taking alternate sips of coffee and lemonade. Franz couldn’t take his eyes off him. What a sad expression. He’ll have been inside, I guess; he’ll come over, see if he don’t, thinking I’ll have done time as well. That’s right, sunshine, Tegel, four years, so now you know, what next?
There was nothing else that night. But Franz got in the habit of going to Prenzlauer Strasse regularly now, and hurled himself at the man in the old army coat. He was a hell of a fellow, only he had a big stammer, it took him forever to say what he had on his mind, that’s why he had such big round imploring eyes. It turned out he hadn’t been inside after all, but one time he’d been involved in politics, almost blown up a gasworks, they were snitched on, but he was never nabbed. ‘We
ll, and what are you doing now?’ ‘Oh, fruit and veg mostly, helping out. If things are bad, down the dole office.’ Franz Biberkopf was in shady company, most of the types here were dealing in ‘fruit and veg’, and doing pretty well by it too, the little fellow with the red face was the supplier, the wholesaler. Franz gave them a wide berth, but they him too. Somehow it didn’t quite stack up. So he told himself: stick to newspapers.
Booming trade in girls
One night the fellow in the greatcoat, Reinhold’s his name, got talking – or rather, got stammering – but he was surprisingly fluent, and the subject was women. Franz couldn’t stop laughing because of the way the fellow was going off the deep end. He’d never have suspected it: so that was his craziness, everyone here seemed to have some defect or other, one here, another there, no one was actually sound all the way through. He had this drayman’s missus, and she had already left her husband on his account, and that was the trouble, Reinhold had gone of her. Franz gurgled with glee, the fellow was hilarious: ‘Then let her go.’ He stammered and glowered terribly: ‘That’s too hard. Women don’t get it, even if you put it in writing, they still don’t get it.’ ‘Well, and did you give it to her in writing, Reinhold?’ He stammered, spat and contorted himself: ‘Told her a hundred times. She says she doesn’t get it. Drives me mad. She doesn’t understand. Which means I gotta keep her till the day I die.’ ‘Could be.’ ‘Well, that’s what she says.’ Franz laughed volcanically. Reinhold was angry: ‘Christ, don’t be such an arse.’ No, it wasn’t really any of Franz’s business, a cheeky fellow, fearless, carries dynamite into a gasworks, and now he’s sitting there all blue. ‘Take her of me,’ stammered Reinhold. Franz slammed the table with delight: ‘And what do I do with her?’ ‘Well, you can send her packing.’ Franz was beside himself with joy: ‘I’ll do you the favour, you can depend on me, Reinhold, but – but first they’ll put you in nappies.’ ‘Take a look at her before you makes any promises.’ Both of them were happy with that.