Suddenly something terrible happens. Eva sees Schreiber reach into his pocket. He wants to take out the banknotes, and tempt Franz by the colour of the money. But Eva has misunderstood the gesture. She thinks he’s pulling out a revolver to off” him with so he doesn’t squeal. And she’s up and out of her chair, white as paint, her face contorted, screaming the whole time, spaghetti legs, getting up again. Franz jumps up, Schreiber jumps up, what’s the matter, what’s got into her, what’s the matter with her, Jesus Christ. She runs round the table to Franz’s side, hurry, oh, what am I doing, he’ll shoot, death, the end of everything, you murderer, the world’s over, I don’t want to die, don’t want to lose my head, finished with everything.
She stands, runs, falls, stands in front of Franz, white, yelling, trembling all over. ‘Get behind the cabinet, murder, help, help!’ She yells, her eyes as big as saucers: ‘Help!’ The two men are chilled to the bone. Franz has no idea what’s going on, he just sees the gesture – then he gets it, Schreiber’s right hand is in his trouser pocket. Then Franz starts to wobble. He feels the way he did looking out in the dingy yard, all that’s about to start again. But he doesn’t want it, I tell you, he won’t have it, he won’t let himself be thrown under the car. He groans. He manages to shake off Eva. On the ground is the Grüne Post, with the Bulgar marrying the Princess. Let me see, first I need to grab hold of the chair. He groans aloud. Since he has his eyes on Schreiber and not the chair, he knocks over the chair. We need to pick up the chair and turn and fight him off. We need – in the car to Magdeburg, banging on the door of the clinic, Eva keeps yelling, come on, we’ll manage, we’re getting somewhere, trouble ahead, but we’ll push on through. He stoops for the chair. The terrified Schreiber dashes out of the room, everyone here is stark staring mad. Doors fly open along the corridor.
In the bar downstairs they’ve heard the shouting and crashing. Two men are up in a jiffy, they pass Schreiber on the stairs. He has his head up and is calling and gesturing: a doctor, quick, someone’s had a seizure. And he’s gone, the bold sonofabitch.
Upstairs Franz is lying next to the chair. Eva is cowering between the window and the cabinet, cowering and gibbering, as if she’d seen a ghost. They lay Franz cautiously on the bed. The landlady is already familiar with Eva’s states. She pours some water over her head. Then Eva says quietly: ‘A bread roll.’ The men laugh. ‘She says she wants a bread roll.’ The landlady shrugs, they sit her down in a chair: ‘She always says that when she gets one of these fits. But it’s not a stroke. It’s just her nerves, and looking after the invalid. He must have collapsed in front of her. Don’t see what he’s doing up and about.’ ‘So what was the man shouting “Seizure!” for?’ ‘Who was?’ ‘The man who passed us on the stairs.’ ‘Well, because he’s an eejit. I know my Eva, I’ve known her for years. Her mother’s the same. When she gets to screeching, there’s only water that will help.’
When Herbert gets home at night, he gives Eva a pistol just in case, and tells her not to let the others shoot first, because then it’ll be too late. He gets going right away, makes inquiries after Schreiber, of course he’s nowhere to be found. All of Pums’s people are on holiday, and no one wants to get involved. He’s pocketed Franz’s money and gone off” to Oranienburg and the farm. He even managed to put one over on Reinhold, saying Biberkopf wouldn’t take any money, but Eva listened to reason, and he give it to her, and she’ll come through. So, there.
•
In spite of everything June comes round. The Berlin weather continues warm and rainy. Lots of things are happening in the world. The blimp Italia crashed with General Nobile on board, and wired its inaccessible position somewhere north-east of Spitzbergen. Another aeroplane was more fortunate, in seventy-seven hours it flew non-stop from San Francisco to Australia and landed safely. Then the King of Spain has fallen out with his dictator Primo, well, let’s hope they can sort out their differences. Royal romance, something to tug at your heartstrings, there’s an engagement between Baden and Sweden: a princess from the home of the safety match has taken fire from a prince of Baden. If you think how far apart Sweden and Baden are, you’ll be astounded how swiftly these things are worked out, sometimes. Yes, women are my weakness, they are the place where I am mortal, I kiss one, think of a second and eye up a third. Oh, women are my weakness, what can I do, I can’t help it, and if one day I go broke on account of women, then I’ll write Out of Stock on the door of my heart.
And Charlie Amberg adds: I’ll pull out an eyelash and stab you dead with it. Then I’ll take a lipstick and colour you red with it. And if you’re still naughty, then I’ve only one more trick: I’ll order a fried egg, and spatter you with spinach. Oh oh oh, I’ll order eggs Florentine, and spatter you with spinach.
So: it continues warm and rainy, maximum temperature 72°F. It is in such an atmosphere that the murderer Rutowski appears before a jury to make a clean breast of things. Connected with this is the question: is the dead Else Arndt the runaway wife of a seminarian professor? Because he thinks it possible, perhaps even desirable, that the murdered Else Arndt is his wife. Should that be the case, he has an important statement to make to the court. There’s objectivity in the air, there’s objectivity in the air, oh, it’s in the air, in the air, in the air. There’s idiocy in the air, there’s hypnotism in the air, it’s in the air, it’s in the air, and-it’s-stay-ing-there.
The following Monday the electric S-Bahn is opened. The Railway Board uses the occasion to warn of the dangers, careful, do not board, stay back, you are committing an offence.
Get up, you feeble spirit, and stand on your own two feet
There is an exhaustion that is like living death. In his weakness Franz Biberkopf is put to bed, he lies there into the warm weather and realizes: I am close to dying, I can feel death near me. If you don’t do something now, Franz, something real, final, dramatic, if you don’t pick up a stick, a sword and lay about you, if you don’t sally forth wielding something, whatever it might be, Franz, Franzeken, little BBK, old thing, then it’s all up with you, for good. Then you can order Grieneisen to measure you up for your one-piece wood suit.
He moans: I don’t want to die, and I’m not going to die. He looks round the room, the grandfather clock tocks, I’m still here, I’m still here, they were moving in on me, Schreiber almost shot me, but it won’t happen. Franz raises his remaining arm: it won’t happen.
And fear gets to work on him. He can’t go on lying there. He’d rather die on the street, so he’s got to get out of bed, he’s got to. Herbert Wischow has taken the lovely Eva to Sopot. She has an elderly gentleman who’s interested in her, a stockbroker whom she’s milking. Herbert Wischow has gone along for the ride, the girl is doing well, they see each other every day, step out together, sleep apart. In the fine summer season Franz Biberkopf may be seen out again on the street, all alone once more, the solitary Franz Biberkopf, wobbly, but on his pins. The cobra sees, it creeps, it runs, it is wounded. It is still the same old cobra, with black rings around the eyes, but the once-fat beast is lean and scrawny.
Some things are clearer now than they used to be to the old fellow who is now dragging his carcass through the streets so as not to die in his room, the old fellow who is on the run from death. Life has taught him something after all. He’s sniffing the air, sniffing the streets, to see if they still belong to him, if they will still accept him. He stares at the advertising columns, as though they were an event. Yes, lad, now you’re not walking as if you owned the place, you’re clinging on, you’re hanging in there with all your fingers and toes and teeth, holding on for dear life.
Life’s hellish, isn’t it? You knew that once before, in Henschke’s pub, when they wanted to throw you out, you and your sash, and the guy laid into you, when you hadn’t done a thing to hurt him. And I thought, the world is in order, and here, the way they’re standing there so menacingly, is disorder. Wasn’t that prophetic of me?
•
Come, you, I want to show you so
mething. The harlot Babylon, the great harlot, that sitteth upon many waters. I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints.
Franz Biberkopf drifts through the streets, trots his trot and doesn’t stop, he’s getting his strength back. It is warm summer weather, Franz schlepps himself from bar to bar.
He steers clear of the heat. In the bar they are just drawing the first beers.
The first beer says: I come from the cellar, from hops and malt. I am cool, how do I taste?
Franz says: Bitter, good, cool.
Yes, I’ll cool you down. I cool the men, then I make them warm, and then I take away their superfluous thoughts.
Superfluous thoughts?
Yes, most thoughts are superfluous. Am I right or am I right? – Right.
A small schnapps stands bright yellow before Franz. Where did you spring from? – They burnt me, man. – You have a bite to you, fellow, you’ve got claws. – Well, that’s what makes me a schnapps. Expect you haven’t seen one in a while. – No, I was almost dead, little schnapps, I was almost dead and done for. Gone without a return ticket. – You look like it too. – Look like it, cut the cackle. Let’s try you again, come here. Ah, you’re good, good and fiery. – The schnapps trickles down the back of his throat: fire.
The smoke from the fire rises in Franz, it scorches his throat, he needs another beer: you’re my second beer, I’ve already had one, what have you got to say to me? – Taste me first, fatso, then we can talk. – All right.
Then the beer says: now listen, you, if you drink another couple of beers, and another kummel, and another grog, then you’ll swell up like dried peas. – So? – Yes, then you’ll be fat again, and then what will that look like? Can you be seen among people like that? Have another swallow.
And Franz grabs his third: I’m swallowing. One after the other. All in nice order.
He asks the fourth: what do you know, darling? – She just growls back blissfully. Franz knocks her back: I believe yer. Whatever you say, my darling, I believe yer. You’re my little sheep, and you and me are going up to the meadow together.
Third conquest of Berlin
And so it came to pass that Franz Biberkopf entered Berlin for the third time. The first time the roofs were sloping off, then the Jews took him in and he was saved. The second time Lüders cheated him, and he drank it off. Now, the third time, he’s lost an arm, but he’s happy to take his chances. The man’s got guts, double and triple guts.
Herbert and Eva left him a nice nest egg of money, the barman downstairs is looking after it. But Franz just takes a few pennies and decides: I’m not going to take that money, I need to be independent. He goes to the welfare office and asks for support. ‘We’ll have to make some inquiries first.’ ‘And what do I do in the meantime?’ ‘Come back in a few days.’ ‘A man can starve in a few days.’ ‘That’s what they all say; no one starves that fast in Berlin. Anyway there’s no money, just tokens, and we pay your rent, you’re happy with your accommodation aren’t you?’
And with that Franz leaves the welfare office, and once he’s gone, he loses his illusions: inquiries, ha, inquiries, they might inquire about what happened to my arm, how that came about. He stands in front of a tobacconist’s, pondering: they’ll ask what happened to my arm, who paid for it and where I was treated. They can ask all that. And then what I’ve been living on for the last few months. Hang on a minute.
He ponders and walks on: what to do? Who do I ask now, how am I going to go about it, given I don’t want to scrounge of of their money.
He spends a couple of days between the Alex and Rosenthaler Platz, looking for Mack, to see if he can talk to him, and on the evening of the second day he runs into him on Rosenthaler Platz. Their eyes meet. Franz makes to shake him by the hand – the way they greeted each other back then, after the Lüders episode, the joy, and now – Mack reluctantly puts out his hand, doesn’t squeeze. Franz wants to start shaking the left hand again, when little Mack makes such a serious face; what’s the matter with the lad, what have I done to him? And they walk up Münzstrasse together, and walk and walk, and then go back to Rosenthaler Strasse, and Franz waits for Mack to ask what happened to his arm. But he doesn’t even ask, and always looks the other way. Maybe I just look too shabby for him. Then Franz makes a merry start, and asks after Cilly, what’s she up to.
Oh, she’s fine, how wouldn’t she be, and Mack goes into all kinds of detail about her. Franz is at pains to laugh. Mack still isn’t asking him about his arm, and Franz suddenly gets it, and he asks: ‘You still go to that bar on Prenzlauer?’ And Mack goes, ‘Mneh, sometimes.’ And then Franz knows, and he slows down and loiters behind Mack: that means Pums has told him about me, or Rein-hold or Schreiber did, and he takes me for a burglar. And if I want to speak to him now, I’d have to tell him everything, but he’s got another think coming if he thinks I’m about to do that.
And Franz gets a grip on hisself and stands tall in front of Mack: ‘Well, Gottlieb, I guess this is the parting of the ways, I’ve got to go home, we cripples like to hit the hay nice and early.’ For the first time Mack looks him in the eye, takes the pipe out of his mouth, makes to ask him a question, but Franz motions, nothing doing, and they’ve shaken hands, and he’s gone. Mack is left scratching his head, and thinking, I need to have a proper talk with him, and he feels dissatisfied with himself.
Franz Biberkopf crosses Rosenthaler Platz, feels good and says: what’s the use of talking, I need to earn some money, why am I wasting my time with Mack, it’s money I need.
•
Oh, you should have seen Franz Biberkopf as he set out on the hunt for money. There was something new and furious in him. Eva and Herbert had left him the use of their room, but Franz wants his own place, otherwise he can’t really get going. The moment comes when Franz gets his place, and the landlady lays the registration forms on the table. Franz is sitting there, pondering again: so I’m to write down, name Biberkopf, and straight away they’ll be able to look me up in their files, and then they can call the police, and then it’s: come on over, and why can’t we take a look at you, and what’s the matter with your arm, where were you treated, who paid, and it’s all one big mess.
And he rages over the table: welfare, do I need welfare and looking after. I don’t want that, that’s not fitting for a free man; and while he’s still pondering and raging, he writes a name on the form, first Franz, and in his mind’s eye he sees the police station and the prisoners welfare bureau on Grunerstrasse and the car they threw him out of. He feels the stump through his sleeve, they will ask him about his arm, well, let them, I don’t care, goddamnit, I’ll do it.
And thickly as with a burnt stick he inscribes the letters on the paper; I’ve never been a coward yet, and I’m not letting anyone tell me what my name is, this is who I am, this is who I was born as, and so I remain: Franz Biberkopf. One thick letter after another, Tegel Prison, the avenue of trees, the prisoners are sitting in there, glueing, planing, stitching. One more dip of the pen, a dot over the ‘i’. I’m not scared of the police with their badges. I’m a free man or I’m nothing at all.
There is a reaper, Death yclept.
Franz hands the registration form to the landlady, there, that’s that taken care of. Done. And now we hitch up our troos, stiffen our thews and we march into Berlin.
Clothes make people, and a new person gets a new set of eyes
On Brunnenstrasse, where they’re digging a tunnel for the underground, a horse fell down a shaft. People have been standing around for half an hour, and here come the fire brigade with their truck. They run a strap under the h
orse’s belly. It’s standing on a bunch of electricity cables and gaspipes, who knows if it hasn’t broken a leg, it’s trembling and whinnying, from the street all you can see of it is its head. They winch it up, the animal lashing out in all directions.
Franz Biberkopf and Mack are in the crowd. Franz jumps into the pit with the fireman, helps push the horse forward. Mack and everyone are astounded by what Franz can do with his one arm. They pat the sweating animal, which is unhurt.
‘How do you do it, Franz, you’re brave, and how do you get the strength in one arm?’ ‘Because I’ve got muscles, if I want to do something I can do it.’ They slope off down Brunnenstrasse, they’ve just run into each other again. This time, Mack is all over Franz. ‘Well, Gottlieb, it’s from all that good food and drink. And shall I tell you what else I’m doing?’ I’m going to snub him, Mack’s not gonna talk to me like that again. I don’t need friends like that. ‘Listen, I’ve got gainful employment. I’m working as a barker in a circus on the fairground on Elbingerstrasse, and I shout horses, once around ladies and gents fifty pfennigs, and back on Elbingerstrasse I’m the strongest man in the world with one arm, but only since yesterday, and then you can get in the ring with me if you like.’ ‘Christ, one-armed boxing.’ ‘Turn up and see for yourself. Whatever I can’t keep covered, I make up for with legwork.’ Mack is astounded, Franz must be having a laff.