Berlin Alexanderplatz
And then Franz runs downstairs, not to Aschinger’s, he goes straight to Herbert and he’s all pale, to show him the letter. Herbert is whispering next door with Eva. Then in comes Eva, she gives Herbert a parting kiss, shoves him away and drapes herself round Franz’s neck: ‘Well, Frankie, don’t I get a kiss?’ He stares at her. ‘Leave it out.’ ‘Oh, go on, Frankie, just a kiss. We’re old friends.’ ‘What’s got into you, behave yourself, what’s Herbert going to think.’ ‘I’ve just thrown him out, come on, let’s see if he’s there.’ She leads Franz through the rooms, Herbert is gone, well, so he’s gone. Eva shuts the door: ‘Now you can give me a proper kiss.’ And she curls herself around him, she is in a strange passion.
‘Steady on, girl,’ pants Franz, ‘you’re mad, what’s this all about?’ But she is beside herself, there’s nothing he can do about it, he’s astonished, pushes her away. Then something in him switches. He doesn’t know what it is with Eva, there’s a rage and ardour in the two of them. Afterwards, with bites on arms and throat, they lie there crosswise, she with her back against his chest.
Franz grunts: ‘Say, is Herbert really gone?’ ‘You don’t believe me.’ ‘I feel rotten, doing this to my friend.’ ‘You’re such a sweet man, Franz, I love you so.’ ‘Christ, and you’ll have bite marks all over you.’ ‘I don’t care, I could gobble you up. When you came in a moment ago, with the letter, I was this close to leaping at you in front of Herbert.’ ‘Eva, what’s Herbert going to say when he sees those marks later on, they’ll be blue and green for days.’ ‘He won’t know. I’ll go to my banker later, and I’ll tell Herbert he did it.’ ‘Ah, that’s good. You’re a clever girl, Eva. I don’t like going behind people’s backs. But what will the banker say when he sees you like that?’ ‘Yes, and what will my aunt say, and my grandmother? You are a scaredy cat, aren’t you.’
Then Eva has sorted herself out, grabs Franz by the ears, snogs him and presses her hot cheeks against his stump. And she takes the letter, gets dressed, puts her hat on: ‘I’m going now. You know what I’m going to do, I’m going to Aschinger’s, have a word with Mitzi.’ ‘Aw, Eva, why do that?’ ‘Cos I want to. Stay here. I’ll be back soon. Let me do it my way. Trust me to look after a little girl with no experience, in Berlin for the first time. All right, Franz—’ And she kisses him again, and they almost start all over again, but she pulls away and runs out. Franz doesn’t get it.
This is at half past one; by half past two she’s back, serious, calm, happy, helps Franz, who has dropped off, into his clothes, dabs his sweaty face with her scent. Then she gets going, perched on the bedside table, smoking: ‘OK, Mitzi laughed, Franz. She’s all right.’ Franz is astounded. ‘Forget the letter, Franz. She was sitting at Aschinger’s, waiting for you. I showed her the letter. And then she asked if you weren’t pleased about the canary and the schnapps.’ ‘Sure.’ ‘Now listen to me. I tell you she didn’t bat an eyelid. I liked her so much. She’s a good girl. I’d never put anything tawdry your way.’ Franz is grim and impatient: what’s it all about. Eva leans down, pats him on the knee: ‘You’re a sweetie, Franzeken. Don’t you get it. A girl wants to do something for her feller as well. What’s the good of you running around all day doing deals and so on, and all she can do for you is make coffee and keep the place tidy. She wants to give you presents, she wants to make you happy. That’s why she does it.’ ‘That’s why? You’re letting her pull the wool over your eyes. She’s cheating on me to make me happy?’ Eva gets serious: ‘Listen, there’s no question of her cheating on you. She said that right out: no chance. If someone sends her a letter, so what, these things happen, some man gets stuck on her and writes her a letter, haven’t you ever heard of that happening before, eh?’
Gradually it begins to dawn on Franz. Ah, so that’s the game, is it? She notices that he’s beginning to understand. ‘Of course. So? She wants to earn money. Is that so wrong? I earn my own keep as well. It doesn’t feel right to her to be kept by you, with you handicapped by your arm and all.’ ‘I see.’ ‘She told me so right out. Didn’t bat an eyelid. She’s a good girl, see, you can trust her. You need to take it easy, she says to me, after your having had such a year. And things weren’t exactly wonderful for you before that, you know, in the big house, Tegel, and all. She would feel ashamed to have you labouring away for her. So she works for you. Just she doesn’t quite dare tell you.’
‘I see,’ nods Franz, and his head slumps down onto his chest. ‘You’ve no idea,’ Eva is with him, rubs his back, ‘how devoted that girl is to you. You don’t want me. Or do you – want me, Franz?’
He takes her round the waist, she settles herself carefully on his lap, after all he’s only got the one arm to hold her with, he presses her head against his chest, quietly says: ‘You’re a good woman, Eva, I want you to stay with Herbert, he needs you, he’s a good fellow.’ Before Ida, Eva used to be his girl, don’t mess with that, don’t start it over again: Eva understands. ‘I want you to go to Aschinger’s now, Franz. Mitzi’ll either still be there, or waiting outside the door. She doesn’t want to go home unless she knows you want her.’
Very quietly and tenderly, Franz says goodbye to Eva. He sees little Mitzi standing outside Aschinger’s on the Alex, the side with the photo display case. Franz stands on the opposite side, in front of the construction fence, and watches her from behind for a long time. She walks over to the corner, Franz follows her with his eyes. It’s a decision, a turning point. His feet start to move. He sees her in profile on the corner. How petite she is. She’s wearing those little brown shoes with buckles at the sides. Watch out, someone will accost her any minute. The little turned-up nose. She’s looking. Yes, I’ve come from over the way, from Tietz’s, so she’s not seen me. An Aschinger’s bread van is in the way. Franz follows the construction fence to the corner where there are piles of sand for cement. Now she’ll be able to see him, but she’s looking the other way. An old gentleman is giving her the eye, she looks past him, wanders on in the direction of Loeser & Wolff. Franz crosses the road. He’s still ten paces behind her, and keeps his distance. It’s a sunny July day, a woman offers him a bunch of flowers, he gives her 20 pfennigs and takes the flowers and still doesn’t approach. Still not. But the flowers smell nice, she put some out in the room this morning, along with the birdcage and the bottles.
She turns round. Sees him right away, the lowers, he came after all. And she lies at him, her face glows, for an instant it glows and lames as she sees the lowers in his hand. Then she pales, a few red splotches remain on her face.
His heart is thumping. She takes his arm, and they cross into Landsberger Strasse, not saying a word. She peeks at the wild-lowers he has in his hand, but Franz is walking along perfectly upright at her side. A yellow double-decker 19 rumbles past, completely chocka, on the construction fence there’s an old poster. Reich Party of the German Middle Class, they can’t get across the street, the cars coming from the Alex and the police headquarters have a green light. By the Persil pillar Franz realizes he’s still holding the lowers, and wants to give them to her. And, looking down at his hand, he is still wondering, there’s a heaviness in him, he still hasn’t decided: do I give her the flowers or do I not. Ida, what’s it got to do with Ida, Tegel, I love her so much.
And on the little island with the Persil column, he presses the bunch into her hand. She has looked up at him beseechingly so many times, he hasn’t spoken a word, now she clasps his left forearm and lifts his hand, presses it to her face, which once again lushes. The heat from her cheek streams through him. And then she stops, drops his arm, her head seems to slump onto her left shoulder. She whispers to Franz, who in alarm clutches at her hip. ‘It’s all right, Franz. Let be.’ And they walk across the road diagonally to where they’re tearing down Hahn’s, and past. Mitzi is now perfectly upright again. ‘Why are you so upright, Mitzi?’ She presses Franz’s arm: ‘I was so scared just now.’ She turns her head to the side, tears have started up in her eyes, but she can start to laugh just a
s quickly, before he notices anything, they were terrible hours.
•
They are up in his room, the girl is sitting on the stool in front of him in her white dress, they’ve thrown open the windows because it’s boiling hot, a dense and humid heat, and he’s sitting in his shirtsleeve on the sofa, and he can’t take his eyes off his girleen. How in love he is; I’m so happy she’s there, look at your pretty little hands, child, I’ll buy you some kid gloves, just you wait, and then I want to get you a blouse, I don’t care what else you get up to, it’s just so nice that you’re there, I’m so happy you came back. Jesus. And he burrows his head in her lap. He pulls her over, can’t get enough of looking at her and squeezing her, feeling the girl all over. Now I feel human again, now I feel human again, no, I won’t leave you, I don’t care what. He opens his mouth: ‘Mitzi, my love, you can do what you like, I’ll never leave you.’
How happy they are. Arm in arm, they stop and admire the new canary. Mitzi feels in her handbag, shows Franz the letter from today: ‘And to think that you got all het up about that stuf?’ She crumples it up, throws it over her shoulder: ‘I could show you a whole box of those.’
Defensive war against bourgeois values
And over the next few days Franz Biberkopf goes for quiet walks. He’s no longer so dogged about his shady deals, and going from fence to fence or fence to buyer. If something fails to work out, he shrugs. Franz has time, patience, quiet. If the weather were better, he would do what Mitzi and Eva suggest, namely go out to Swinemünde and take a few days off; but the weather’s useless, every day it’s raining or drizzling or tipping it down, and it’s cold as well, trees have blown over in Hoppegarten, it wouldn’t be very pleasant up on the coast. Franz feels close to Mitzi and they are regular visitors at Herbert and Eva’s. Mitzi has found a well-off gentleman of her own, Franz has met him, Franz is her ‘husband’, he gets together sometimes with the man and another fellow, and the three of them eat and drink amicably together.
How nicely our Franz Biberkopf is currently situated! How well off he is, how everything has changed for the better! He was close to death once, now he’s picked himself up! What a well-fed critter he is, short of nothing, not food, not drink, not clothes. He’s got a girl who makes him happy, he’s got more money than he can spend, he’s already paid of his entire debt to Herbert. Herbert, Emil and Eva are his friends, they look out for him. He spends whole days sitting around at Herbert and Eva’s, waiting for Mitzi, going out to Müggelsee, where he rows with the other two: because by the day Franz is getting more adept and stronger with his left arm. He puts in an occasional appearance in the pawnshop on Münzstrasse, no more, just to see what’s going down.
•
You swore, Franz Biberkopf, that you would keep to the straight and narrow. You had a squalid life, you got under the wheels, before that you killed Ida and did time for it, all that was terrible. And now? You’re in the same situation, for Ida read Mitzi, you’ve lost an arm, careful you don’t start drinking, because then everything will start all over again, only worse, and then it’ll be all up with you.
– Nonsense, what can I do about it, did I ask to be a pimp? Bollocks. I did what I could, I did everything that was humanly possible, I let them take my arm, what more do you want. I’ve had it up to here. Didn’t I trade, didn’t I run around from morning till night? I’ve had it. No, I’m not decent, yes, I’m living of immoral earnings. No, I’m not ashamed. And what do you do, what do you live off, if not other people? Am I putting the squeeze on anyone?
– You’ll finish up in prison, someone will stick a knife in your belly.
– Let him. He’ll have had mine first.
•
The German Reich is now a Republeck, better believe it, or you’ll get it in the neck. On the corner of Köpenicker Strasse and Michaelkirchstrasse there’s a public meeting in progress, the hall is deep and narrow, workers, young men in open collars and blue overalls are sitting on ranks of chairs, women and girls, brochure sellers do their trade. On the stage behind the table, flanked by two others, sits a fat balding man, provoking, tempting, laughing, teasing.
‘After all, we’re not here to produce more hot air. They do enough of that in the Reichstag. Somebody asked one of our comrades once if he wouldn’t like to sit in the Reichstag. The Reichstag, with the gold dome on top and the leather armchairs inside. Do you want to know what he said? He said, comrade, if I do that and go in the Reichstag, that would just mean one more sonofabitch in the world. We’ve not got the time to talk out the chimney, everything turns to vapour. The Communists without lists, they like to say: we will pursue a politics of disclosure. And we’ve seen the upshot for ourselves: the Communists have ended up being corrupted themselves, so much for their politics of disclosure. It’s all a deception, and what is to be disclosed is something a blind man can see. We don’t need to go into the Reichstag for that, and whoever can’t see that is past help, Reichstag or no. Everybody understands that that talking shop is no good for anything except pulling the wool over the people’s eyes – everybody except the so-called representatives of the working people.
‘Our good Socialists! There are even some religious ones among them, and they’re the cat’s pyjamas: they can all run to Jesus for all I care. Because whether a man is a priest or a politician doesn’t matter; main thing is, you obey him. (Call from the audience: and you believe him.) Yes, that in any case. The Socialists don’t stand for anything, don’t know anything, can’t do anything. They always get the most votes in the Reichstag, but they don’t know what to do with them, except for sitting in the leather armchairs and smoking cigars and drawing ministerial salaries. And these are the people that the workers have supported with their votes and their political contributions; it just means another fifty or hundred individuals getting fat at the expense of the workers. The Socialists will never take over the state, no chance – because the state has taken over the Socialists. You can live to be a cow’s age, and still be learning, but there’s never been a cow yet to match the German proletariat. They keep taking their ballots in their hands, and going to the polling booths and voting, and they think, that’s it, all done. They say: we want to hear our voice in the Reichstag. I tell you, they’d be better advised to start a male voice choir.
‘Comrades, we won’t take a ballot in our hands, and we won’t vote. We’d rather spend Sunday in the country. And why else? Because the voter commits himself to the rule of law. And the rule of law is the same thing as the state’s monopoly on violence. Our democrats want us to put a good face on things, they want to hush us up, to keep us from understanding what the rule of law is. But we won’t vote, because we understand all too well what the rule of law is, and what the state is, and there are no holes and no doors that would let us tunnel into the state. At best we prop up the state, we carry the state. And that’s what the high priests of elections have in mind for us. They want to trap us and train us into being the state’s beasts of burden. With most of the workers they have succeeded long ago. As Germans, we are raised in the spirit of obedience. But comrades, it is not possible to combine fire and water, as workers ought to understand.
‘The Centrists and the Socialists and the Communists shout in one choir and are happy: all blessings come from above, they chant. From the state, from the law, from the powers of order. That’s what it feels like too. For people who live in a state, freedoms are enshrined in a constitution. They are fixed. The freedom we need is given us by no one, we have to take it for ourselves. This constitution wants to rob sensible people of their sanity, but what do you do with paper freedoms, comrades, with freedoms that are pen and ink? If you take your freedom, a policeman comes along and bops you on the head; you shout: what are you playing at, in the constitution it says such and such, and he says: you hold your noise, mate, and he’s right; the man doesn’t know any constitution, he knows his rule book, and he’s got his nightstick, so you’d better shut up.
‘Before long it won’t
be legal for workers in any of the major industries to go on strike. They’ve slapped the guillotine of compulsory arbitration on you, but beneath that you can move freely.
‘Comrades, people vote endlessly. They tell themselves, the next time will be better, pay attention, make an effort, organize at home, in the workplace, another five votes, another ten votes, another dozen votes, just you wait, then you’ll be in for a surprise. Yes, you are in for a surprise. This is just an endless game of ring-a-ring-a-roses, and at the end of it nothing has changed. Parliamentary democracy merely prolongs the agony of the proletariat. There’s talk about a crisis of justice, the need to reform the legal system root and branch, the judiciary needs to be refreshed, democratized, just, put at the service of the state. But we don’t want any new judges. In place of their justice we want no justice at all. We aim to destroy all the institutions of state by direct action. We have the means: refusal of labour. The wheels grind to a halt. And that’s not a form of words either. Comrades, we refuse to be lulled by parliament, welfare, that whole socio-political mumbo-jumbo. All we have to offer this state is our opposition – spontaneity and lawlessness.’
•
Franz walks round the room with canny Willi, listens, buys brochures, stuffs them in his pocket. He doesn’t really care for politics, Willi hectors him, Franz listens, he pokes it with his fingers, it moves him, then it doesn’t. But he sticks close to Willi.
– The existing social order is founded on the economic, political and social enslavement of working people. It finds expression in the property laws, in various monopolies, and in the state, with its monopoly of power. Not the satisfying of natural human needs, but the prospect of gain is the basis of production today. All technical innovation serves to increase the wealth of the propertied class to infinity, in shameless contrast to the wretchedness of broad swathes of society. The state serves to protect and perpetuate the privileges of the owning class and the oppression of the masses, it works with every means of cunning and power to preserve the monopoly and the class divides. The creation of the state marks the beginning of an artificial organization, from the top down. The individual becomes a puppet, a dead cog in a vast mechanism. Wake up! We don’t aspire to take political power, the way all the other parties do, we want its removal. Don’t co-operate with the so-called legal institutions: all they do is put the seal of law on the enslavement of the slave, nothing more. We reject all arbitrary national and political boundaries. Nationalism is the creed of the modern state. We reject all national units: they only camouflage the rule of the propertied classes. Wake up! –