Berlin Alexanderplatz
Instantly, Sonia goes pale, the cigarette sags in the corner of her mouth, she puts it down, asks quietly: ‘What’s the matter? For goodness sake?’ ‘Who knows what the matter is. I don’t go around looking after Franz, and it seems you don’t either. I know, I know, you’re busy. But does he tell you where he goes? What’s he say?’ ‘Ooh, it’s just politics, I don’t understand any of it.’ ‘And you see, that’s what he’s occupying himself with, politics and nothing but politics, with Communists and anarchists and scum like that that don’t have a decent pair of trousers to cover themselves with. And that’s the kind of person your Franz is running around with. And you’re happy about it, and you work to support it?’ ‘I can’t tell Franz what to do. Go here, go there – I can’t do it, Eva.’ ‘If you weren’t so small and not yet twenty, I’d smack you. Suddenly you’ve got no say in what he does. Do you want him to finish up under the wheels again?’ ‘He won’t, Eva. I’ll keep an eye on him.’ Odd, little Sonia has tears in her eyes now, and holds her head in her hands, Eva looks at her and can’t make her out; does she love him so much? ‘Here, have some wine, Sonia, my gentleman likes claret, here you are.’
She pours her half a glass, while a tear rolls down the girl’s cheek, and her face looks terribly sad. ‘Have another sip, Sonia.’ Eva sets the glass down, strokes Sonia’s face and thinks, she’ll get excited again. But no, she keeps staring into space, gets up, walks over to the window and looks out. Eva ups and stands beside her, I can’t make any sense of her. ‘Don’t take it to heart so about Franz, Sonia, you know, the thing I said, I didn’t mean it that way. Just don’t let him run around with that idiot Willi, Franz is too easy-going, he should be thinking what to do about Pums, and whoever took his arm off, and undertake something in that regard.’ ‘I’ll keep an eye on him,’ says little Sonia quietly, and, not lifting her head, slips her arm around Eva’s shoulder, and they stand there like that for almost five minutes. Eva thinks: I don’t mind her having Franz, but no one else.
Afterwards they go rampaging around the rooms with the little monkeys, Eva gives her a tour of everything, Sonia is dumbfounded by so much splendour: Eva’s wardrobe, the furniture, the beds, the carpets. Are you dreaming of the hour when you are crowned Pixavon Queen? Is it all right to smoke here? You bet. I’m astonished at the way you’ve been able to sell this quality cigarette for so many years at such a low low price; I must admit I’m overjoyed. Ah, the aroma. The wonderful scent of white roses, classical, as the German lady demands, and yet strong enough to develop a full range. Ah, the life of the American screen goddess is different than the legends would have you believe. Coffee is served. Sonia sings a song:
‘Once there roved at Abrudpanta Brigands wild and daring too. But their chief whose name was Guito Had a noble heart and true. Once he met in darkling forests Count von Marschan’s little maid. Soon there echoes through the branches: I am yours till life shall fade.
‘But they are too soon awakened, Hunters come with loud halloo. They are startled from their raptures, And they ask, what shall we do? And her sire doth curse the maiden, Curses loud the chieftain grim, Oh, have pity, father dearest, I shall go to death with him.
‘Soon Guito lies in darkness, Fearful is his woe and pain! Isabella seeks to shatter Her dear sweetheart’s heavy chain. She succeeds – and no oh wonder, He is once more safe and free, Yet scarce rid from ghastly shackles, He must stop a villainy.
‘To the castle next he hastens, There he sees his sweetheart now, But already she is kneeling, Ready for the wedding vow. Forced to say “yes” to the union Which she loathes with all her might, But the crime’s denounced by Guito, And his lips are pale and tight.
‘Swoon of death grips Isabella, And she lies so sweet and pale. Ah, there is no kiss can wake her, Nobly then he tells his tale. To her father now he turns: Yours the guilt that she is dead, You alone her heart have broken. You made pale those cheeks so red.
‘When the chief once more beholds her Lying on the silent bier, He bends down to see her better, She still lives, Death is not near. Off he bears her, on his saddle, Struck with fear the people stand, And she wakes up from her swooning, He and she go hand in hand.
‘And they flee by love’s wind carried, Peace and quiet have left them now, Hunted and pursued by justice, Solemnly they take this vow: Freely let us both surrender. When the poison cup we’ve drained, God his judgment then will render, Up in heaven our love we’ve gained.’[9]
Sonia and Eva know it’s just a market ballad, cranked out against a painted background, but they are both reduced to tears, and when it’s over it takes them a little while to lay their hands on their cigarettes and get them lit.
Enough politics, idleness is much more dangerous
Franz Biberkopf stays bogged down in politics a little longer. The dashing Willi doesn’t have much in the way of money, he’s a quick thinker and a bright fellow, but a beginner among pickpockets, and that’s why he’s leeching off Franz. He was once in a home, and someone there told him about Communism, and that it wasn’t up to much, and that a sensible person follows his own bent and believes in Nietzsche and Stirner: everything else is just so much bullshit. And now the bold sarcastic fellow takes great relish in going to political meetings, and making trouble from the floor. He gets hold of people to do business with, or else just to take the mickey out of.
Franz doesn’t go around with him much any more. He’s through with politics, even without Mitzi and Eva intervening.
Late one evening he’s sitting at a table with an elderly carpenter they’ve run into; Willi is at the bar, talking to someone else. Franz has his elbow propped on the table, his head in his hand, and he’s listening to what the carpenter has to say, which is: ‘You know mate, the only reason I came to the meeting was because my wife’s ill, and’s got no use for me at home in the evenings, she needs her peace and quiet, on the dot of eight she takes her sleeping pill and her tea, and I need to turn out the lights, so what is there for me to do up there. It’s enough to give a man a taste for pub life, if he’s got a sick wife at home.’
‘Stick her in a hospital, mate. Keeping her at home’s no good.’
‘She’s tried hospital. I got her out of there. She didn’t like the food, and she didn’t get any better either.’
‘Is she very ill then, your wife?’
‘Her womb’s got fused with her gut or something like that. They tried operating, but it didn’t solve the problem. Not physically. And now the doctor’s saying it’s just a nervous condition, and there’s nothing really the matter with her. But she’s still in pain, and cries all day long.’
‘Jesus.’
‘He’ll discharge her, mark my words. She was supposed to go back to the company doctor, but she didn’t. He’ll discharge her. If someone’s got a nervous ailment, then they’re well, by his book.’
Franz listens, he was ill as well, his arm was run over, he was in hospital in Magdeburg. But he doesn’t need all that now, the world has moved on. ‘Want another beer?’ ‘Sure.’ ‘A beer.’ The carpenter looks at Franz. ‘You’re not in the party, are ya, mate.’
‘Used to be. Not ’ny more. Don’t see the point in it.’
The landlord joins them, greets the carpenter with an ‘Evening, Eddy’, and asks after the kids, and then he whispers: ‘Christ, you’re not going to get all political again, are you.’
‘We wuz just talking about that. No chance.’ ‘That’s as well, Eddy, I tell you, and my boy would bear me out, you won’t make anything out of politics, it ain’t no good for us, just other people.’
The carpenter looks at him through narrowed eyes: ‘I see, so your nipper August is saying that already, at his age.’
‘He’s a good boy, you’ll not pull the wool over his eyes, whoever you are. We just want to get by. And – well, it’s not going too badly. Just don’t complain.’
‘Cheers, Fritz. I’m happy for you.’
‘I don’t give a stuff for Marxism, and Lenin and Stalin and the
rest of the crew. If someone gives me credit, and how much and how long for – that’s what it’s about.’
‘Well, you’ve made something of yourself.’ Thereupon Franz and the carpenter sit there in silence. The landlord is burbling away about something, but the carpenter talks over him:
‘I don’t know the first thing about Marxism. But listen, Fritz, it’s not as simple as you might imagine it to be. What do I need Marxism for or the rest of them, the Roosians, or Willi here, and his man Stirner. They can all be mistaken. What I need I can count of on my fingers any day of the week. If someone gives me a thrashing, I understand that. Or if I gotta job one day, and am out on my ear the next, there’s no orders, the foreman stays, the boss too, of course, but I’m on my bike. And – if I got three kids and they go to the local school, the oldest girl has crooked legs from rickets, and I can’t send her away, maybe she’ll get a chance at school. Maybe my wife can run along to the social service place, but right now she’s sick and has her hands full with herself, she’s a good woman, she sells herrings, and the kids learn about as much as we did, you get the picture. See. And I can understand it too if other people teach their kids foreign langwidges, and go to the seaside in summer, and we can’t afford for them even to go out to Tegel. Posh kids probably don’t even get rickets. When I need to see the doctor for my rheumatism, then there’s about thirty of us perched together in the waiting room, and when it’s my turn he asks me, I expect you’ve had your condition for a while, and how long have you been working, and have you got your forms with you: he doesn’t believe me, and then I go to the company doctor, and if you’re hoping to get a rest cure prescribed, they always make deductions, I tell you you’ll be carrying your head in your hands by the time they agree. I don’t need spectacles to understand all that. You’d have to be a camel in the zoo not to understand that. And you certainly don’t need Karl Marx. But Fritz, listen to me, tell me I’m wrong.’
And the carpenter raises his grey head and looks at the landlord with his big eyes. He puts his pipe back in his mouth, draws at it, and waits to hear what the reply will be. The landlord growls, pulls a face, looks unhappy: ‘No, you’re right. My girl’s got rickets too, and I can’t afford to send her out into the countryside to get well. But then there’s always been rich and poor. There’s no way you and me will fix that.’
The carpenter smokes phlegmatically: ‘Just let them be poor as wants to be. Sooner someone else than me. I don’t feel like it. It grates on me.’
They talk very calmly, sip at their beer. Franz is still listening. Willi comes over from the bar. Hurriedly Franz gets up, takes his hat and goes: ‘Oh, Willi, I want to get to bed early tonight. We had a late night yesterday.’
•
And Franz stomps of alone down the hot dusty street, room dee boom dee dummel dee boo dee dummel dee day. Just wait a minute and then Hopper will come to you, with his little chopper he’ll make mincemeat out of you, wait, wait a minute and Hopper will come to you. Damn, where am I going, damn, where am I going. And he stops, and can’t cross the street, then he turns on his heel and retraces his steps, past the bar where they are all still sitting, the carpenter over his beer. I’m not going back in there. What the carpenter said was true. He was right. What am I doing with politics, all that garbage. No good to me. No good to me.
And Franz stomps back along the hot, dusty, unquiet streets. August. There are more people on Rosenthaler Platz, one man stands there with newspapers, the Berliner Arbeiter-Zeitung, Marxists at it again, a Czech Jew child abuser, had his way with twenty lads in his time and still not arrested, I used to sell that too. Terribly hot out today. And Franz stands there, buys the paper off the man, the green swastika on the masthead, the one-eyed invalid of the Neue Welt, drink, drink, little brother drink, leave your worries at home, no more trouble, no more pain, then life is a jest, no more trouble, no more pain, then life is a jest.
And he carries on round the square, into Elsasser Strasse, bootlaces, Lüders, no more trouble, no more pain, then life is a jest. Remember that, it were last Christmas, Christ, that’s a long time ago, I used to stand here outside Fabisch’s and shout, those crappy things for ties, tie-holders, and Lina, fat, Polish Lina would pick me up.
And, not knowing what to do with himself, Franz stomps back to Rosenthaler Platz and stands outside Fabisch’s by the bus stop, opposite Aschinger’s. And waits. Yes, that’s what he wants. He stands there waiting, and he feels like a needle on a compass – pointing north. To Tegel, the prison, the walls! That’s where he wants to go. That’s where he has to be.
And it so happens that the 41 comes along, stops, and Franz hops on. This is right, he feels, let’s go, and he takes the 41 tram out to Tegel. He pays his 20 pfennigs, he buys his ticket, everything goes tickety-boo, he’s off to Tegel, this is it! He feels so good. He’s on his way now, Brunnenstrasse, Uferstrasse, the avenues, Reinickendorf, it’s true, it all exists, that’s where he’s going, he’s on his way to find it. And this is the way. And the longer he sits there, the larger it looms, the more real, the more powerful. He feels such satisfaction, such strong and compelling pleasure, that as he sits he closes his eyes and is swallowed up by a mighty sleep.
The tram has passed the Rathaus in the dark. Berliner Strasse, Reinickendorf West, Tegel, everybody out. The conductor wakes him, helps him to his feet. ‘This is as far as we go. Where are you headed?’ Franz staggers out: ‘Tegel.’ ‘Well, then you’ve come to the right place.’ Clearly he’s sloshed, the way those veterans drink away their pension money.
Franz is so seized by a need for sleep that he crosses the square and makes straight for the first bench under a lantern. A policeman wakes him, it’s three in the morning, he doesn’t book him, the man looks respectable, he’s not sober, but someone might come along and rob him. ‘You can’t sleep here, sir, haven’t you got somewhere to go?’
Franz has had enough. He yawns. He wants to go to beddy-byes. Yes, so this is Tegel, what did I come out here for, did I want anything, his thoughts run into each other, I need to go to bed, that’s all there is for it. He drifts sadly: yes, this is Tegel, he doesn’t know why, yes, he was locked up there once. A cab. What was it again, what was I doing here. You, will you wake me if I drop off.
And sleep returns and tears his eyes open, and Franz knows everything.
•
And there are mountains, and the old man gets up and says to his son: come with me. Come with me, says the old man to his son, and he goes and his son goes with him, and they walk together into the mountains, up and down, mountains and valleys. How much further, Father? I don’t know, we are walking uphill, downhill, into the mountains, come with me. Are you tired, son, don’t you want to come with me. Oh, I’m not tired, if you want me to come, I’ll come. Yes, come. Up, down, valleys, it’s a long way, it’s midday, we’ve arrived. Look about you, son, is that an altar. Father, I am afraid. Why are you afraid, son? You woke me, we went out early, and we forgot the sheep we meant to sacrifice. Yes, we forgot it. Up and down, the long valleys, we forgot it, the sheep is not with us, there is the altar, I am afraid. I must take off my coat, are you afraid, my son. Yes, Father, I am afraid. I am afraid too, son, come closer, don’t be afraid, we must do it. What must we do? Up and down, the long valleys, I got up so early. Fear not, son, do it willingly, come closer to me, I have taken off my coat, so as not to bloody the sleeves. I am afraid, because you have the knife. Yes, I have the knife, I must slaughter you, I must sacrifice you, the Lord commands it, do it gladly, my son.
No, I cannot do it, I will scream, don’t touch me, I don’t want to be slaughtered. Now you are on your knees, do not scream, my son. Yes, I am screaming. Do not scream; if you don’t want, then I can’t do it, you must want it. Up and down, why should I not go home again. What will you do at home, is not the Lord more than a home. I cannot, yes I can, no I cannot. Move closer, see, I have the knife here, look at it, it is very sharp, it will touch your throat. Will it cut my throat? Yes. Then the blood
will bubble forth? Yes. The Lord wills it. Do you want it? I cannot yet, Father. Come quickly, I must not slay you; if I do it, then it must be as though you did it unto yourself. I unto myself? Ah. Yes, and be not afraid. Ah. And not live life, not live your life, because you will give it unto the Lord. Move closer. The Lord our God wills it? Up, down, I got up so early. You surely will not be cowardly. I know, I know, I know! What do you know, my son? Apply the knife to me, wait, let me turn down my collar so that my neck is open. You seem to know something. You must only will it, and I must will it, we will both do it, then the Lord will call, we will both hear Him call: yes, come here, give me your throat. There. I am not afraid, I do it willingly. Up and down, the long valleys, there put the knife to me, and cut, I will not scream.
And the son throws his head back, his father steps behind him, clasps his forehead, and shows him the butcher’s knife in his right hand. The son wills it. The Lord calls. They both fall on their faces.
What calls the voice of the Lord. Hallelujah. Through the mountains, through the valleys. You are obedient unto me, hallelujah. You shall live. Hallelujah. Stop, throw the knife away. Hallelujah. I am the Lord whom you obey, and whom alone you always must obey. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, lujah, lujah, lujah, hallelujah, lujah, hallelujah.
•
‘Mitzi babes, little Mitzi, will you give me a proper ticking off.’ Franz tries to pull Mitzi down onto his lap. ‘Say something. What was I doing, to make myself so late last night?’ ‘Oh, Franz, you’re making me so unhappy by the company you keep.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘The driver had to help you up the stairs. And not a squeak out of you because you’re lying there fast asleep.’ ‘I told you, I went to Tegel, all by myself, right, all by myself.’ ‘Be truthful, Franz.’ ‘All by myself. I once had to do time there.’ ‘Was there nothing else?’ ‘No, it was all served, every last day of it. I just wanted to have another look at it, there’s no need for you to be cross, Mitzi.’