Franz and the lanky geezer are sitting in a dimly lit entryway on Prenzlauer Strasse; two doors from the building where in another four hours a hatless fat man will accost Cilly; she walks on by, but she’ll go with the next man for sure, how can that rotter Franz be so mean to her.
Now Franz is sitting in the entryway, giving lazy Emil a shake: ‘Come on, man, let’s get up and have a drink. Don’t take on so, you can take more punishment than that. You need to wash the tarmac off you.’ They walk over the road. ‘Now I’m gonna drop you off at the next bar, right, Emil, I need to go home, I got my sweetheart waiting for me.’ Franz is shaking him by the hand, when the fellow up and says: ‘Say, Franz, could you do us a favour. I’m supposed to collect goods from Pums. Would you run by there for me, it’s only a few steps. Be a good lad.’ ‘What are you on about, I ain’t got time.’ ‘Just let him know I can’t make it today, he’s waiting. He’ll be stuck otherwise.’
Cursing, Franz trots of, the weather, and always do this do that, Christ, I wanna get home, I can’t keep Cilly waiting. Idiot, my time’s not my own. He runs off. By a lamp-post stands a small man, reading a book. Who’s that again, I know him, donni. Then he looks up and sees Franz right off: ‘Oh, it’s you, neighbour. You live in that house that had the mangle and the icebox, don’t you. Here, will you deliver this card, later, when you go home, it’ll save me the postage.’ And he presses the postcard into Franz’s hand, adverse circumstance compels me. Whereupon Franz Biberkopf wanders calmly on, he’ll show Cilly the postcard first, it’s not like it’s urgent. He’s happy about the loopy fellow, running around and making his purchases though he’s got no money, but he’s mad, and not just mad, he’s got a full-blown mental condition that can feed a family. Or not.
‘Evening to you, Herr Pums. Surprised to see me, are you, eh? Listen up and I’ll tell you. I was crossing the Alex. Saw a brawl on the corner of Landsberger. I’m thinking I’ll stop and take a look. So who is it who’s fighting? Well? Your man, Emil, the lanky geezer, and a little guy who’s called Franz, same as me. You’ll know.’ Whereupon Herr Pums replies: he had been thinking of Franz Biberkopf anyway, he had noticed at lunchtime that there was some bad blood between those other two. ‘So the lanky man’s not coming. What about stepping in for him, Biberkopf?’ ‘Me what?’ ‘It’s getting on for six o’clock. We need to collect the goods at nine. Come on, Biberkopf, it’s a Sunday, it’s not as though you’re doing anything else, I’ll pay your expenses, and give you some money on top of that – let’s say five marks an hour.’ Franz is uncertain: ‘Five marks, eh.’ ‘Well, you know, I’m up against it, those two have left me in a spot.’ ‘Oh, the little fellow’ll show up all right.’ ‘So five marks plus your expenses, call it five-fifty, I’m feeling generous.’
Franz is laughing inwardly as he follows Pums down the stairs. This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day, it really is his lucky Sunday, so there is something in it after all, all those bells ringing, I’m quids in, I stand to make 15 or 20 marks on a Sunday, and what are my expenses. And he’s happy, the postcard from that ex-mailman is rustling in his pocket, he will just take his leave of Pums at the door. Pums is astounded: ‘What’s all this, Biberkopf, I thought we had an agreement.’ ‘Oh, we do, and you can count on me. I just need to pop home, you know, I’ve got a sweetheart, er, Cilly, maybe you remember her from when she used to step out with Reinhold. I can’t leave her stuck at home for all of Sunday without word from me.’ ‘Oh no, Biberkopf, that’s out of the question, I can’t let you go now, you’ll change your mind, and then I’ll be back in a jam. No, leave the woman out of it, Biberkopf, that won’t wash, I’m not about to go bust for her sake. She’s not going anywhere.’ ‘I know, you’re right, I trust her. And that’s why. I don’t want to leave her stranded, and her hearing nothing and seeing nothing and knowing nothing. About what I’m up to.’ ‘Now come along, man, we’ll find some way.’
‘What will I do?’ thinks Franz. They walked on. Back on the corner of Prenzlauer Strasse. Here and there were ladies of the night standing about already, the ones Cilly will see in a few hours’ time, when she’s looking for Franz and looking and looking and wandering around. Time moves on, all sorts of things will happen to Franz; he will be in a car, people will lay hands on him. And what is preoccupying him now is how he’ll manage to deliver the postcard on behalf of that mad chap, and get word to Cilly, because the girl’s waiting for him.
He walks with Pums to a building on Alte Schönhauser Strasse, side entrance, that’s where his premises are, says Pums. And there is a light up there, and the room looks just like a proper office, with a telephone and typewriters. A sour-faced elderly woman keeps walking into the room where Franz and Pums are sitting together: ‘This is my wife, this is Herr Franz Biberkopf who is helping us out today.’ She leaves as if she hadn’t heard a dicky bird. In a newspaper that’s lying out, Franz reads, while Pums is turning his desk upside down looking for summat: 3,000 nautical miles in a nutshell by Günther Plüschow, holidays and shipping routes, Leo Lania’s Conjuncture at the Piscatorbühne in the Lessing Theatre. Piscator himself to direct. What is Piscator, what is Lania? What is envelope, and what is content, or drama? No more child brides in India, a cemetery for award-winning animals. Cultural news: Bruno Walter will take the rostrum for the season’s final concert on Sunday, 15 April, at the Städtische Oper. The programme to include Mozart’s Symphony in E flat major, the takings will go to the Gustav Mahler Memorial in Vienna. Truck driver, thirty-two, married, 2a and 3b licence, seeks work in privately owned business as deliveryman.
Herr Pums is looking all over his desk for matches for his cigar. Then the elderly woman opens a portière, and three men slowly walk in. Pums doesn’t look up. So these are all Pums’s chaps, Franz shakes hands with them. The woman is on her way out when Pums beckons Franz over: ‘Biberkopf, you wanted a letter delivered, isn’t that right. Now, Klara, will you look to it.’ ‘That’s nice of you, Herr Pums, do you really mean it? Well, it’s not a letter, just a postcard, and it’s to my sweetheart.’ – And then he tells her where exactly he lives, and he writes it down on one of Pums’s business envelopes, and he tells Cilly not to worry about him, he’ll be back around ten, and then there’s the postcard –
So everything’s sorted, and he’s one relieved man. The scrawny bitch reads the envelope in the kitchen, and chucks it in the fire; she crumples up the note, throws it in the rubbish. Then she cosies up to the stove, goes back to her coffee, doesn’t think about anything, sits, drinks coffee, feels warm. And Biberkopf feels a furious joy when who should come in in a cloth cap and his thick green army gear – well, who? Who else has such deep trenches in his face? Who walks as though he always had to pull one foot after another out of marshland? Well, Reinhold. Franz starts to feel properly at home. Isn’t that nice? We’ll be working together, Reinhold, you and me, I don’t care about anything else. ‘What, are you in then?’ Reinhold whines, pads around. ‘There’s a turn-up.’ And then Franz gets to talking about the shindig on the Alex, and how he helped lanky Emil. The other four are all ears, Pums is still writing at his desk, they nudge each other in the ribs, then two start whispering. One is always left to look after Franz, though.
•
At eight o’clock they head of. All of them are bundled up warm, Franz gets given a coat and all. He says with a beam he wouldn’t mind hanging on to it, and the fur cap too, gollygosh. ‘Why not,’ they say, ‘if you earn em.’
They’re on their way, outside it’s pitch-black and awful slush underfoot. ‘What’s the plan then?’ asks Franz once they’re standing around on the street.’ They say: ‘First we need a vehicle or two. And then we collect the goods, apples or whatever.’ A lot of vehicles are allowed to pass, finally there’s a couple parked on Metzer Strasse, and they bundle into them, and off they go.
The two cars drive in convoy for upward of half an hour, in the gloom you can’t really make out where you are, it might be Weissensee or Friedrichsfelde. The boys sa
y: the old man probably needs to set up the deal first. And then they stop in front of a house, there’s a wide tree-lined avenue, it might be Tempelhof, the others say they don’t know either, they’re smoking to beat the band.
Reinhold’s with Biberkopf in one car. How different Reinhold sounds now! No stammer, a loud confident voice, upright as a captain: he’s even laughing, and the others in the car, they’re all listening to him. Franz has thrown an arm round his shoulder: ‘Well, Reinhold, old son (he whispers into his neck, under the cap), well, what do you say? Didn’t I give you good advice about the women? Didn’t I just?’ ‘Oh, and how, it’s all good now, it’s all good.’ Reinhold gives him a bang on the knee, my God, he has some strength, there’s some fist there. Franz gurgles: ‘We’re not about to get our knickers in a twist about a girl. She’s not born yet, the one who could do that.’
Life in the desert is fraught with difficulty and danger.
The camels seek and seek and fail to find, until one day you find their bleached bones.
Pums has climbed back in with a suitcase, and the two cars are once again driving in convoy through the city. It’s just turned nine when they stop on Bülowplatz. Now they’re on foot, and in pairs. They walk through the arch under the S-Bahn. Franz says: ‘We’ll soon be at the market.’ ‘That’s right, but first we pick up the goods, then we deliver them.’
Suddenly the first two are no longer there, they’re on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse, hard by the S-Bahn, and then Franz and his companion turn into a dark open doorway. ‘We’re there,’ says the fellow, ‘now lose the cigar.’ ‘What for?’ He squeezes his arm, rips the cigar out of his mouth: ‘Cause I says so.’ He’s over the other side of the courtyard before Franz can do anything. What’s going on here, what are they doing, leaving me standing here in the dark? And as Franz is feeling his way across the courtyard, a torch lights up in front of him, he’s dazzled, and it’s Pums. ‘What are you doing here? You get out of here, Biberkopf, I want you out front, keeping watch. Get back there.’ ‘Oh, and I’m thinking I’m to collect goods.’ ‘Nonsense, go back there, didn’t any of them tell you.’
The light goes out, and Franz feels his way back. There’s a trembling in him, he gulps: ‘What is all this, what’s their game?’ He’s already back outside the gate when two men come out through the house – cripes, they’re stealing, breaking into people’s houses, let me out of here, far away, a chute, and off in a high arc back to the Alex – they grab hold of him, one of them is Reinhold, he has a steel grip: ‘Didn’t they tell you nothink? You’re to stand here and keep watch.’ ‘Who, who says so?’ ‘Christ, man, shut up, we’re under the cosh. Haven’t you got any brains; stop fannying about. Stay put and whistle if there’s trouble.’ ‘I . . .’ ‘Shut it’, and he thumped Franz’s right arm so hard that he bent double.
Franz is standing all alone in the dark entryway. He’s actually trembling. What am I doing here? They made a monkey of me. That bastard whacked me. They’re thieves, God only knows what they’re stealing, they’re not fruit and veg at all, they’re breaking and entering. The long avenue with black trees, the iron gates, after lights out all prisoners are required to go to their cells, in summertime it is permitted to stay up till dark. This is a gang of criminals, with Pums in command of it. Do I run, do I not run, what do I do. They lured me under false pretences, the rascals. I’m their lookout.
Franz stood there, trembling, feeling his bruised arm. Prisoners may not keep medical conditions secret, but neither are they to invent false maladies; both are offences. The building is dead silent; from Bülowplatz car horns. A creaking and whispering from the back yard, the occasional flash of a torch, swiftly someone went down into the basement with a dark lantern. They’ve locked me up here, I’d rather live on bread and taters than stand here for those crooks. Several torches flashed in the yard, Franz thought of the man with the postcard, strange fellow, strange fellow all right. And he didn’t leave the spot, he was rooted; ever since Reinhold had hit him, he felt he’d been nailed down. He tried, he thought he’d better, but he couldn’t, it didn’t let go of him. The world is iron, there’s nothing you can do, it rolls up to you like a steamroller, there’s nothing you can do, here it comes, there it goes, they’re sitting on the inside, it’s like a tank, a devil is driving it with horns and glowing eyes, they tear you limb from limb, they sit there with their chains and teeth and tear you into bits. And it runs on, and there’s no getting out of the way of it. It quivers in the dark; when it gets light, then you’ll be able to see the lie of the land, how it happened.
Let me go, let me go, the lowlifes, the bastards, I want no part of this. He tugged at his legs, wouldn’t it be funny if I couldn’t get away from here. He moved. As if someone threw me in a mixing bowl of dough and I couldn’t get out. But he did it, he did it. It was hard, but he did it. I’m making headway, let them steal to their hearts’ content, I’m out of here. He pulled the coat off, went back into the yard, slowly, timidly, but he wanted to throw the coat in their faces, and in the dark he threw the coat in the direction of the back house. Then more lights came, two men ran past him, with coats, great bundles of them, both cars stopped in front of the gateway; as he ran by one of the men struck Franz on the arm again, an iron blow: ‘Everything all right, then?’ That was Reinhold. Now two more men ran by with baskets and another two, back and forth, without lights, past Franz, who could do nothing but grit his teeth and clench his fists. They were crazy busy, in the yard and in the passageway, back and forth in the dark, otherwise they’d have got a shock from Franz. Because it was no longer Franz who was standing there. No coat, no cap, his eyes popping, his hands in his pockets, peering to see if he can recognize a face, and if so whose, who’s this now, who’s this, no knife, you wait, maybe in my jacket, boys, you don’t know Franz Biberkopf, you’re in for a shock if you try and mess with him. Then all four came running out laden, and a little round fellow grabs Franz by the arm: ‘All right, Biberkopf, we’re done here, let’s go.’
And Franz and some others stowed in a big motor, Reinhold next to him, pressing hard against Franz, that’s the other Reinhold. They’re driving without headlights. ‘What are you pressing me like that for,’ whispers Franz; no knife.
‘Put a sock in it, man; not a squeak out of anyone.’ The front car is speeding; the driver of the second is looking behind him, floors it, calls over his shoulder through the open window, ‘We’ve got company.’
Reinhold sticks his head out of the window: ‘Hurry, hurry, take the turn.’ The other car always coming on. Then by the light of a street lamp, Reinhold sees Franz’s face: he’s beaming, he’s happy as a sandboy. ‘What are you laughing at, you idiot, you must be out of your mind.’ ‘I can laugh if I want to, it’s nothing to do with you.’ ‘Cut it out.’ What a waste of time, a layabout. And suddenly it dawns on Reinhold, something he’s not thought about all evening: that this is Biberkopf who let him down, who keeps the women away, there’s proof, that cheeky fat pig, and I told him all about me once. Suddenly Reinhold is no longer thinking of the pursuit.
Water in the black woods, you are so quiet. Terribly quiet you lie there. Your surface is unmoved, when the wood storms and the pines bend their branches and the spiders’ webs between the boughs tear and the splintering begins. The storm doesn’t reach down as far as you.
This lad, Reinhold is thinking, is in the full flush of it, and he’s probably thinking the car behind us is gonna catch us, and I’m sitting here, and he’s been speechifying to me about women, the damn fool, about how I need to get a grip on myself.
Franz is still laughing silently to himself, he cranes round to see the road behind out of the little back window, yes, the car is following them, they are discovered; just you wait, it’s your punishment, even if it should cost me too, they’re not to think they can do that to me, the wretches, the criminal scum.
Cursed be the man, saith Jeremiah, that trusteth in man. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when
good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Reinhold tips the man opposite the wink, in the car light and darkness alternate, they are in a chase. Reinhold has got his hand on the door handle by Franz. They turn into a wide avenue. Franz is still craning round to see behind them. Suddenly he feels himself grabbed by the scruff and pulled forward. He tries to get up, he hits out at Reinhold’s face. But Reinhold is implacable. The wind whistles into the car, snowflakes fly in. Franz is shoved sideways over the bales of stuff towards the open door, with a scream he makes a grab for Reinhold’s throat. He catches a blow from a stick against his arm. The other fellow is shoving against his left hip. From on top of the bundle of material a prone Franz is pushed through the open door; he tries to brace himself with his feet. His arms grip the running board for all he is worth.
Then he catches another blow from the stick, this time on the back of the head. Standing stooped over him, Reinhold scoops the body onto the street. The door slams to. The pursuing vehicle runs over him. The chase continues through the blizzard.
Let’s be pleased when the sun goes up and kindly light returns. The gas and electrics can be turned off. People get up, alarm clocks purr, a new day begins. If it was 8 April before, it’s now the 9th, if it was a Sunday, now it’s a Monday. The year hasn’t changed, nor the month, but something is different. The world has gone on turning. The sun has risen. We don’t exactly know what this sun is. Astronomers busy their heads with it. It is, so they tell us, the central body of our solar system, because our earth is just a minor planet, and what are we really? If the sun rises, and we are pleased, we should really be depressed, because what does that make us, the sun is some 300,000 times as big as the earth, and there are lots and lots of other numbers and zeroes that go to tell us how null and void we are. We shouldn’t really be pleased at all.