Then she sits by him, looks at him tenderly the way she always does: ‘Oh, won’t you give up politics.’ ‘I don’t do politics.’ ‘And not go to political meetings neither.’ ‘I think I’ll stop going.’ ‘Then tell me.’ ‘Yes.’
With that, Mitzi lays her arm round Franz’s shoulder, presses her head to his, and they don’t say anything.
And once again, there is nothing so contented as our Franz Biberkopf, who tells politics to go get lost. As if he’d bang his head against a wall. There he is in the bars, moping, playing cards, and Mitzi has already made the acquaintance of a gentleman who is almost as rich as Eva’s, but he’s married, which is even better, and he’ll set her up in a nice two-bedroom flat.
And what Mitzi wants, Franz is helpless to avoid. One day Eva surprises him in his room, and why not, if Mitzi wants it too, but Eva, if you really had a little one, Christ, if I have a little one, my feller will build me ten castles, he’d be that made up.
The fly clambers up, shaking the sand from its wings; before long it will buzz some more
There’s really not much to say about Franz Biberkopf, we know the fellow already. We can predict what a pig will do when it reaches the sty. Only, a pig is better off than a human being, because it’s put together from meat and lard and not much more can happen to it so long as it gets enough to eat: at most it might throw another litter, and at the end of its life there’s the knife, which isn’t particularly bad or upsetting either: before it notices anything – and what does an animal notice anyway – it’s already kaput. Whereas a man, he’s got eyes, and there’s a lot going on inside him, and all of it mixed up together: he’s capable of thinking God knows what and he will think (his head is terrible) about what will happen to him.
So sweet, chubby, one-armed Biberkopf, our little beaverhead, lives on into the month of August, and feels reasonably good about things. He’s become quite adept at rowing with his left arm, and he doesn’t hear anything from the police either, even though he’s failed to report to them, they’re having their summer holidays at the station, my God, they’re only officials with two legs, and they’ll hardly pull one out for the pittance they’re paid, and why should someone run around and make inquiries: what’s the story with Franz Biberkopf, what kind of name is that, Biberkopf, and why has he got one arm when he used to have two; let him rot in the files, we’ve got other worries.
But there are the streets where you can see and hear various things, you remember things from before, even if you didn’t want to, and life goes on, day after day, something happens one day, and you blink and miss it, then something else happens the next, you forget that too, in short something’s always happening. Life will turn out, he daydreams. On a warm day you can trap a fly on the windowsill and put it in a flowerpot and dribble sand over it: if it’s a proper healthy fly, it will crawl out again, and all your dribbling won’t have made the least bit of difference in the long run. That’s what Franz thinks sometimes, when he sees one thing and another, I’m all right, what do I care, and if I do care, politics has got nothing to do with me, and if people are stupid enough to allow themselves to be exploited, then it’s no fault of mine. Why should I go around racking my brains on their behalf.
Only Mitzi has her work cut out keeping him off the booze, that’s a weak point with Franz. He has a powerful inclination to drink, it’s in him, and keeps popping out. He says: it makes a man put on weight, and keeps him from thinking too much. But Herbert says to Franz: ‘Christ, man, don’t drink such a lot. You’re a lucky sod. Look at what you used to be. A newspaper seller. Now you’re short one arm, but you’ve got Mitzi, you’ve got your living, you surely won’t start drinking again, like when you were with Ida.’ ‘Of course not, Herbert. When I drinks now, it’s only to pass the time. You’re sitting there, doing nothing, so what do you do: you have a drink, and then you have another, and another. And anyway, look at me, I can handle it.’ ‘Well, you may say so. I say you’ve gotten pretty fat. Take a look at your eyes in the mirror.’ ‘Wassa matter with my eyes?’ ‘Well, touch them, you’ve got bags there like an old man; how old are you, you make yourself old drinking, drinking ages yer.’
‘Oh, leave it out. You got any news? What are you up to, Herbert?’ ‘We’re almost ready to go again, we’ve got a couple of new lads, good lads, they’re doing well. Remember Knopp, what used to swallow fire? See, he recruited those lads. He says to em: well, so you want to join us? Let’s see what you can do. Eighteen-, nineteen-year-olds. So Knopp stands over on the corner of Danziger, to see what they’re made of. They’ve got an old woman in view, they watched her collect money from the bank. They come after her. Knopp imagines they’ll give her a little push somewhere along the line and reach in, and thank you ma’am. Not a bit of it, they’re patient, and follow her to where she lives, and there they are, standing there as she totters along, the old biddy, and look her in the eye. Are you Frau Müller, because that’s her real name, and then they talk to her till the tram comes along, and then it’s pepper in her face, grab the bag, slam the door, and over the road. Knopp is cross and says the whole thing with the tram was unnecessary; before she had the door open and anyone knowing anything, they’d be calmly back in the pub. Just drawing suspicion to themselves by running.’ ‘Did they at least jump off early?’ ‘Yes, and then, as Knopp went on to lament, they did something else: they took Knopp with them, and picked up a brick, this is nine at night, and smashed the window of a jeweller’s on Romintener Strasse, reached in, and ran away. And not took anything. These boys are brazen as Oskar, stopped in the middle of the crowd. We could use their sort all right.’ Franz’s head drops: ‘Cheeky fellers.’ ‘Well, it’s not something you need to be doing.’ ‘No, I don’t – need it. And I won’t worry my head too much about what to do later.’ ‘Just lay of the booze, Franz.’
Franz’s face judders: ‘Get off my case, Herbert, why shouldn’t I drink. I can’t do anything else, what can I do, I’m a hundred per cent invalid.’ He looks Herbert in the eye, the corners of his mouth are drawn down: ‘You know, you’re all having a go at me the whole time, one says I’m not to drink, the next one says not to go around with Willi, the other says, Christ, leave the politics out.’ ‘I never said anything about that, you can keep the politics for all I care.’
And then Franz leans back in his chair and looks at his friend Herbert, and Herbert thinks: his face is going every which way, and he’s a dangerous man, however cheerful he may be the rest of the time. Franz whispers, nudges him with his outstretched arm: ‘They made a cripple of me, Herbert, look at me, I’m no good for nothing.’ ‘Get over it, can’t you. Tell it to Eva, or Mitzi.’ ‘Oh, I can loaf around in bed, I’m good for that. But you, you can do things, you and the boys, you’re working.’ ‘If you really want to, you can go back into business with your one arm and all.’ ‘They didn’t want me. Mitzi didn’t want me to neither, and I had to give in.’ ‘Then go on, just start up again.’ ‘Oh, so it’s called start now. Stop this, start that. As if I was a little dog on the table, get down off the table, get up on the table.’
Herbert pours a couple of cognacs; it’s time I had a word with Mitzi, the boy’s not sound in the head, she needs to look out, else he’ll get in a temper and she’ll wind up like Ida. Franz knocks his back: ‘I’m a cripple, Herbert: see this sleeve, well, there’s nothing in it. You can’t imagine how my shoulder hurts at night; I can’t sleep.’ ‘Then see the doctor.’ ‘I don’t want to, I won’t do it, I don’t want to see any doctor, Magdeburg was plenty for me.’ ‘In that case I’ll tell Mitzi to take you away somewhere, you need to get out of Berlin, have a change of scene.’ ‘Just let me drink, Herbert.’ Herbert whispers something in his ear: ‘Mitzi’s going to end up the same way as Ida!’ Franz listens: ‘What?’ ‘Yes.’ See, that got your attention. Now look at me. I reckon four years wasn’t enough for you. Franz brandishes his fist in Herbert’s face: ‘Christ, are you stark staring mad?’ ‘Me? No, you are!’
Eva was stand
ing listening at the door, she’s about to go out, she walks in in a smart tan suit and gives Herbert a little jab: ‘Lay off him, man, let him drink.’ ‘Can’t you see what’s going to happen. Don’t you remember last time?’ ‘You’re crazy, shut yer mouth.’
Franz stares across at Eva.
•
Half an hour later he’s back in his room, asking Mitzi: ‘What do you say, do I have permission to drink?’ ‘Yes, but not too much. Not too much.’ ‘Would you like to get drunk with me?’ ‘With you, yes.’ Franz is jubilant: ‘Wow, Mitzi, you want to get drunk, I bet you’ve never been drunk?’ ‘Yes. Come on, let’s get drunk. Right away.’
Just a moment ago he was sad, and now Franz can see her burning, just like she was not long ago, with Eva, and the talk of the baby. And Franz is standing next to her, his girl, his dear girl, his best girl so small next to him, he can tuck her in his jacket, she is clinging onto him, he holds her hip with his left arm, and then – and then –
And then Franz is gone, only for a second. His arm is round her hip, perfectly stiff. But in his mind Franz performed a movement with the arm. All the time his face remains stony. In his mind there was a little wooden instrument he was holding in his hand and he brought it down on her from above, and he struck Mitzi, struck her ribcage, one time, two times. And he broke her ribs. Hospital, cemetery, the boy from Breslau.
Franz lets go of Mitzi, and she doesn’t know what’s come over him, she is lying next to him on the ground, and he is muttering and chattering and crying and kissing her and crying, and she is crying with him, and she doesn’t know why. And then she brings in two bottles of schnapps and he keeps saying, ‘No, no’, but it makes him blissful, my God, the two of them are having such fun. Mitzi is supposed to be with her gentleman, but what’s the girl to do, she stays with Franz, he’s armless, she’s legless, she can’t stand up, much less run. She drinks schnapps out of Franz’s mouth, and he tries to fish it back, but already it’s running out of her nose. And then they giggle, and he snores stertorously into the day.
•
Why is my shoulder hurting me so, they cut my arm of.
Why is my shoulder hurting me like that, my shoulder is so sore. Where has Mitzi got to. She left me lying here alone.
They cut my arm off, it’s gone, my shoulder hurts, bastards, my arm is gone, they did it, the bastards, it was them, those bastards, the arm’s gone, and they left me lying there. My shoulder, my shoulder hurts, they left me the stump, if they could have done they would have taken it of as well. Why didn’t they tear that of as well, then it wouldn’t hurt so much, dammit. They didn’t kill me, the bastards, they failed, they were unlucky, the brutes, but it’s still not good, I can lie there and no one is with me and who will listen to me yell: my arm, my shoulder, I wish the bastards had run me over properly and killed me. Now I’m just half a man. My shoulder, my shoulder, I can’t stand it any more. Brutes, they’ve made a mess of me the brutes, what am I supposed to do, where’s Mitzi got to, she’s gone and left me lying here. Oh, oh, oh, ow, ow, oh.
•
The fly scrambles and scrambles, it’s in the flowerpot, the sand is trickling off it, it doesn’t bother it, it shakes it off, it sticks out its black head, it crawls up.
•
There by the water sits the great Babylon, mother of harlots and of earth’s abominations. How she sits on a scarlet-coloured beast, having seven heads and ten horns, visible, you must see it. She is happy about every step you take towards her. She is drunken with the blood of saints, whom she has torn to pieces. There are the horns with which she butts, she comes from the abyss and leads to perdition, there look at her, the pearls, the scarlet, the purple, the teeth, the way she shows them, the thick fat lips, blood has flowed over them, she used them to drink with. The whore Babylon. Golden yellow poisonous eyes, bulbous throat. She is giving you the glad eye.
Forward, in step, drum roll and battalions
Careful, man, where there are shells, there’s dirt, advance, lift your legs, push on through, I gotta get out, advance, I can’t get more than my bones broken, dummdrummdumm, in step, one two, one two, left right, left right, left right.
Here comes Franz Biberkopf marching through the streets, with firm stride, left right, left right, not feigning tiredness, no bar, no drink, let’s see, a bullet came flying, let’s see it, if I get it, I lie, left right, left right. Beating of drums and battalions. Finally he draws a deep breath.
They’re marching through Berlin. When the soldiers march through the city, oh for wherefore, oh for therefore, oh just on account of the tarara-boom di-ay, oh just on account of the tatara-toom.
The buildings are standing still, the wind blows where it wills. Oh wherefore, oh therefore, oh just on account of the tatara-toom.
•
In his dull and dirty building – dirty building, oh wherefore, oh therefore, oh just on account of the tatara-toom – sits Reinhold, big wheel in the Pums gang, when the soldiers march through the city, the girls look out at windows and doors, he reads the newspaper, left right, left right, is she mine or is she thine, reads about the Olympic Games, one two, and the fact that pumpkin seeds are a sovereign remedy for tapeworm. He reads very slowly, aloud, to help his stammer. When he’s on his own, it’s better anyway. He cuts out the pumpkin seed article, when the soldiers march through town, because he had a tapeworm once, maybe he’s still got one, perhaps it’s the same one, perhaps it’s a new one, the old one had babies, he should try the thing with the pumpkin seeds, it’s important to eat the husks as well, not peel them. The houses stand still, the wind blows where it wills. Skat congress in Altenburg, not my game. Round the world trip, all expenses paid, only 30 pfennigs per week, pull the other one. When the soldiers march through the city, the girls look out at windows and doors, oh wherefore, oh therefore, oh just on account of the tarara-boom di-ay oom. A knock, come in.
Jump up, march, march. Reinhold straight away reaches into his pocket, revolver. A bullet came flying, is she mine or is she thine. She took him away, he lies now at my feet, as if it were a piece of me, as if it were a piece of me. There he stands: Franz Biberkopf. Lost an arm, war veteran, the fellow’s drunk, yes no. One move and I’ll blow him away.
‘Who let you in?’ ‘Your landlady,’ offensive, offensive. ‘The bitch is out of her mind!’ Reinhold in the doorway. ‘Frau Tietsch! Frau Tietsch! What’s all this about? Am I at home or am I not at home? When I tell you I’m not at home, I’m not at home.’ ‘Sorry, Herr Reinhold, no one said anything to me.’ ‘Then I’m not at home, for Christ Almighty. That means you don’t let any Tom Dick and Harry in.’ ‘You must of told my daughter, but she just come downstairs, and never told me nothing.’
He slams the door, revolver present and correct. The soldiers. ‘What are you doing here? What have you got to s-s-say to me.’ He stammers. Which Franz is it. You’ll know soon. The man lost his arm to a car recently, he used to be a law-abiding citizen, it can be sworn on oath, now he’s living on immoral earnings, we will look into the reason why. Drum roll, battalions, now he’s standing there. ‘Christ, Reinhold, you got a six-shooter.’ ‘So?’ ‘What do you need it for?’ ‘Me? Nothing.’ ‘Well, then you can put it away, can’t you.’ Reinhold lays the revolver on the table in front of him. ‘What have you come here for?’ There he stands, there he is, he hit me in the passageway, he threw me out of the speeding car, before that there was nothing, there was Cilly, I went down the stairs. All that swims into his ken. Moon over water, brighter, more dazzling in the evening, ringing of bells. Now he’s got a six-shooter.
‘Sit down, Franz, say, you must have been tippling?’ Because he’s staring straight in front of him, he must be drunk, he can’t lay off the booze. That’ll be it, he’s juiced, but I’ve got my little friend. Oh just on account of the tarara-boom di-ay, di-ay oom. Franz sits down. Sits there. The bright moon, the water, gleams. He’s sitting at Reinhold’s. That’s the man he helped out with his woman problem, taking them off him one after
another, then he tried to get me to be lookout, though I never agreed, and now I’m a pimp, and God knows what will happen with Mitzi, that’s the situation. But that’s all just in the mind. Only one thing is happening, which is Rein-hold. Reinhold sits there.
‘I just wanted to see you, Reinhold.’ That’s all I wanted, to look at him, just look at him and me sitting there. ‘You wanted to put the squeeze on me, eh, spot of blackmail, eh, because of what happened?’ Keep still, no twitch, boy, march on, it’s just light shelling. ‘Blackmail, eh? How much you want? We’re expecting it. We knew you was a pimp now.’ ‘That’s what I am. What else am I going to do, with one arm?’ ‘So whaddaya want?’ ‘Oh, nothing, nothing.’ Just sit up straight, hold on, that’s Reinhold, that’s the way he likes to slink around, don’t let meself be knocked over.
But there is a trembling in Franz. There were three Kings from Orient, they had incense and they shook it, they kept on shaking it. Before long they are swathed in smoke. Reinhold ponders: either the fellow’s drunk, in which case he’ll leave soon and there’s nothing the matter, or he’s after something. He’s after something, but what, it’s not blackmail, but what is it. Reinhold gets schnapps, and thinks I’ll draw him out with this. So long as Herbert hasn’t sent him to scout us out, and then wreck us. The instant he sets out the two little blue glasses, he sees that Franz is trembling. The moon, the pale moon, it is climbing loonimously over the water, no one can look at it, I’m blind, what’s the matter with me. Look, he’s all in. He’s sitting upright, but he’s all in. And then Reinhold feels joyful, and he slowly takes the revolver off the table, and puts it in his pocket, and he pours and he looks up again; the fellow’s mitts are shaking, he’s got the shakes, he’s a quitter, the big-mouthed so-and-so, he’s afraid of the revolver, or of me, well, I’m not about to harm him. And Reinhold is very calm and friendly, oh yes indeedy. The bliss of seeing him trembling, no he’s not drunk, Franz, he’s just scared, he’s falling apart, he’s shitting himself, he so badly wanted to come and talk big.