The magistrate and detective exchange glances, the car flies on its way, dips into potholes, bounces up again, the avenue shoots by, this is where I drove with him, 180 days I give you. ‘I expect something cropped up that damaged your friendship?’ ‘Well, the way it is (he’s trying to sound me out, no, stop right there, we’re not falling for that one). It’s like this, Your Honour: Reinhold is a madman, and the latest thing is he wanted to rub me out.’ ‘Oh, so he made an attempt on your life?’ ‘Not as such. But he made remarks.’ ‘Nothing more?’ ‘No.’ ‘Well, let’s see.’

  •

  Mitzi’s body is found a couple of days later, half a mile away in the same woods. Following early newspaper reports, two assistant gardeners came forward who had seen a man in the area lugging a heavy suitcase. They wondered what he might be carrying, later they saw him taking a breather, sitting in the dell. When they went back that way half an hour later he was still sitting there, in his shirtsleeves. This time the suitcase was gone, it was probably in the hole. They had an excellent description of the man. About five foot ten, broad shoulders, black stiff hat, light-coloured summer clothes in dove-grey, houndstooth jacket, drags his legs as though he’s walking with a limp, very high forehead with horizontal creases. In the vicinity of the area the two gardeners were talking about, there are a lot of dells, police dogs come up with nothing, then all traces of recent activity are examined. In one of them, after a couple of spits, they struck a large brown cardboard box, tied with string. When the officers open it they find women’s clothing, a torn chemise, long, flesh-coloured stockings, an old brown wool dress, used handkerchiefs, a couple of toothbrushes. The cardboard is wet, but not sodden; the whole thing looks as though it’s not been there very long. Strange. The deceased had a pink blouse.

  And shortly afterwards in another dell they find the suitcase, and the body curled up inside it. It’s tightly secured with venetian-blind straps. By evening there are reports buzzing round all the stations in the country, descriptions of a man the police would like to interview, and so on and so forth.

  •

  Reinhold knows what’s coming from the moment he was questioned at the station. And he decides to get Franz involved. Why couldn’t he have done it. What can Karl the plumber prove. Doubtful that anyone saw me in Freienwalde. And if someone saw me in the inn, on the way, that’s no matter, I’ll try it anyway, Franz has got to go, it’ll look as though he was in on this.

  The afternoon he gets out, Reinhold is up at Franz’s, Karl the plumber has squealed, you’d better get out of here. Franz does his packing in fifteen minutes, Reinhold helps him, both of them cursing Karl for a grass, then Eva takes Franz round to Toni’s, an old girlfriend of hers in Wilmersdorf. Reinhold goes out to Wilmersdorf with them and they buy suitcases together, Reinhold wants to go abroad, he is in the market for something enormous, first a wardrobe trunk, then he decides in favour of a wooden s ea-chest, the biggest one he can lift, I don’t trust railway porters, they’re nosy parkers, I’ll send you my address, Franz, remember me to Eva.

  The great disaster of Prague, twenty-one confirmed dead, 150 still missing. The pile of rubble that only moments earlier had been a seven-storey tenement, now many more dead and badly injured are buried there. The reinforced concrete structure, weighing 800 tonnes, collapsed onto its two subterranean storeys. A policeman on duty in the street outside warned pedestrians away when he heard the creaking. With great presence of mind he leapt in the path of an approaching tram and applied the brakes himself. Violent storms over the Atlantic. A succession of low-pressure ridges are advancing across the European mainland, while two highs are stuck fast, one in Central America and the other in the North Atlantic between Greenland and Ireland. The newspapers are bringing pages and pages about the Graf Zeppelin and its impending flight. Every detail of the airship’s construction, the personality of the commander and the prospects for the enterprise are itemized, while lead articles hymn German efficiency in general and Zeppelin’s airships in particular. In spite of all the propaganda for fixed-wing aeroplanes, it is thought that the future of flight lies squarely with the airship. But the Zeppelin isn’t flying, Eckener is against putting it at unnecessary risk.

  •

  The trunk containing Mitzi is opened. She was the daughter of a tram conductor in Bernau. There were three kids at home, the mother walked out on the father, no one knows why. Mitzi is parked at home all alone, and given the household to run. In the evenings she sometimes hopped on the train to Berlin and went to dances, at Lestmann’s and opposite, now and again a man took her back to a hotel, and then it got late, and she didn’t dare go home, she stayed in Berlin, and then she met Eva, and things took their course. All in the vicinity of the Stettiner Bahnhof. Life smiled at Mitzi, who at the time was going by Sonia, she had a large circle of acquaintances and quite a few friends, but after a while she was regularly seen in the company of a powerfully built man with one arm, with whom Mitzi fell in love at first sight and to whom she remained devoted to the end. A bad end, a sad end that Mitzi came to in the end. Why, oh why, what did she do wrong, she came from Bernau to the whirlpool metropolis of Berlin, she was no innocent, by no means, but she felt an inner, inextinguishable love for the man who was like a husband to her, and whom she tended like a child. She was shattered because she went there, as luck would have it, to stand by her man, and that was her life, hard though it is to contemplate. She went to Freienwalde to protect him, and there she was strangled, strangled, died, finished, and that was her life.

  They take an impression of her face and neck, and she is just a murder file, a technical process not dissimilar to the laying of a telephone line, that’s how far along she is. They make up a mask of her, paint everything in natural colours, it looks eerily real, like a kind of celluloid. And lo there is Mitzi, her face and neck in a filing cabinet, come to me, come to me, we’ll be home soon, Aschinger’s, comfort me, I’m yours. She is behind glass, her face a pulp, heart a pulp, crotch a pulp, smile a pulp, comfort me, please.

  So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun

  Dear Franz, what are you sighing for, why does Eva have to keep sidling up to you and ask you what you’re thinking, and no answer, and sidle away again with no answer, why are you depressed, and now you’re keeping your head down, down, down, little hole in corner, little curtain, just taking little tiny baby steps? You know something about life, it’s not as though you got here yesterday from another planet, you have a nose for things and you notice them. And now you see nothing and hear nothing, but somehow you sense it, you don’t dare level your eyes at it, you squinny away, but you don’t run either, you’re too resolute for that, you’ve got your teeth gritted, you’re no coward, but you don’t know what might happen, and whether you’re up to it, whether your shoulders are broad enough to take it.

  How much did Job, the man from the land of Uz, suffer before he learnt everything, before nothing more could befall him. From Saba enemies fell upon him, and murdered his shepherds, the fire of God fell from the heavens and burnt up his flocks and herds, the Chaldeans slew his camels and their drovers, his sons and daughters were sat in the house of the oldest brother, when a wind blew out of the desert and smote the four corners of the house, and the children were all killed.

  That was plenty, but it was not enough. Job rent his clothes, bit his hands, tore his hair, he heaped earth on himself. But it was not enough. Job was struck with a plague of boils, he had boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, he sat in the sand, pus lowing down his body, he picked up a potsherd to scrape his skin withal.

  His friends came to visit him, there was Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, they all came from afar to comfort him, they cried and wept terribly. They didn’t recognize Job, so terribly was he stricken, who had had seven sons and three daughters and 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of cattle, 500 she-asses and a very great household.

  You ha
ven’t lost as much as Job from the land of Uz, Franz Biberkopf, your woes are taking their time to descend on you. And step by step you drag your way to what has befallen you, you have a thousand kind words for yourself, you flatter yourself, because you want to take a chance, you are determined to come closer to yourself, to risk the ultimate, but oh woe, the very ultimate thing of all? Not that, oh not that. You buck yourself up, you coddle yourself: oh come, nothing will happen, we can’t avoid it. But something in you won’t have it. You sigh: where can I find protection, misfortune is descending on me, where is there something I can hold on to. It’s coming ever closer. And you draw nearer, like a snail, you’re no coward, you have more than just strong muscles, you are Franz Biberkopf, you are the cobra. Watch it coil, inch by inch, against the monstrous beast that stands there about to pounce.

  You will lose no money, Franz, but you will be burnt to your innermost core. See the whore rejoicing! The whore of Babylon! And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: 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. The woman is drunken with the blood of saints.

  You sense her now, you can feel her. Will you be strong, that you won’t go under.

  •

  Franz Biberkopf sits and waits in the nice bright room in the garden house on Wilmersdorfer Strasse.

  The cobra coils, lies in the sun, warming itself. It is bored, and it is full of strength, and it wants to do something, it is lying around, they haven’t yet agreed as to where they will meet, and fat Toni has got him a pair of dark horn-rims, I need to buy myself a whole new wardrobe, maybe I’ll get myself one of those duelling scars over the cheek. Down there someone is running across the courtyard. Is he ever in a hurry. Take your time, sunshine. If people weren’t in such a rush, they’d live twice as long and achieve three times as much. It’s the same thing with the six-day races, you go round and round, stay calm, patience, the saucepan won’t boil over, it doesn’t matter if the spectators boo, what do they know about it.

  There’s a knock on the door outside. What’s this, why don’t they use the bell. Damn it, I’m going to go outside, listen.

  Step by little step you get closer, you brace yourself with a thousand comforting words, you flatter yourself, you bribe yourself, you’re prepared for anything, if not for the most ultimate thing of all, oh, not for that.

  Listen out. Who’s this. I know her. I know that voice. Wailing, crying, crying. Let’s have a peek. Oh Lord, oh my God, what’s going through your mind? The things that go through a man’s mind. I know her. That’s Eva.

  The door is open. Eva is outside, fat Toni is holding her in her arms. A whimpering and lamenting, something’s up with the woman. All the things that go through your mind, all the things that have happened, Mitzi crying, Reinhold lying in bed. ‘Hello, Eva. Don’t take on so, woman, what’s the matter, it may never happen.’ ‘Let me go.’ Listen to her grunt, she must have had a beating, somebody’s been laying into her. She’s talked to Herbert, Herbert knows about the baby. ‘Did Herbert beat you?’ ‘Let go of me, don’t touch me.’ The way she’s looking at me. She doesn’t want anything to do with me. When it was her idea. What can the matter be, what’s got into her, people will come, I’d better bolt the door. There’s Toni standing there, looking after Eva: ‘There, there, Eva, it’s all right, tell me what the trouble is, come in won’t you, where’s Herbert?’ ‘You won’t get me to go in there, I’m not going in there.’ ‘Well, then stop here, sit down, I’ll fix us some coffee. Franz, leave us alone.’ ‘Why should I leave you alone, I’ve not done anything.’

  At that Eva makes big, round, terrible eyes, as though she wanted to eat him, and she screams, clutches at Franz’s weskit: ‘I want him there, I want him, he’s to be there too, you come with me.’ What’s got into her, the woman’s lost her marbles, somebody must have said something to her. Then she’s on the sofa, gibbering away next to plump Toni. She looks all puffy and nervous, that’s to do with her condition, although that was me that caused it, and I’m hardly going to hurt her. Then Eva puts her arms around fat Toni and whispers something in her ear, first she can’t speak but finally she manages to get it out. Now Toni looks all shocked. She claps her hands together, and Eva is gibbering and pulling a crumpled sheet of newspaper out of her handbag, they’ve gone mad the pair of them, what’s this performance they’re putting on for me, what does it say in the newspaper, maybe it’s something about the job on Stralauer Strasse, Franz gets to his feet and roars, these fucking stupid bitches. ‘You idiots. Stop your show you’re putting on for me, you think I’m your idiot.’ ‘For goodness’ sake, for goodness’ sake,’ the fat one sitting there, Eva still gibbering away to herself not saying anything and whimpering and shaking. At that Franz reaches across the table and snatches the newspaper out of the fat one’s hands.

  There are two photos side by side, eh, eh, terrible, terrible gruesome horror, but, hey – that’s me, what am I doing there, must be because of the Stralauer Strasse job, what for, gruesome horror, but that’s me, and that’s Reinhold, title: Murder, murder of a prostitute in Freienwalde, one Emilie Parsunke from Bernau. Mitzi! What’s this all about. Me. Behind the stove sits a mouse, wants out.

  His hand clutches the newspaper. He slowly lowers himself into his chair and sits there shrunkenly. What’s it say then. Behind the stove sits a mouse.

  So the two women are staring and crying and gawping at him, what’s the matter with those two, murder, how can that be, Mitzi, I’m going mad, what’s that, what have they written. His hand returns to the table, and there it says in the newspaper, here: my picture, me, and Reinhold, murder, Emilie Parsunke from Bernau, in Freienwalde, what’s she doing out in Freienwalde. What newspaper is this anyway, oh, the Morgenpost. His hand rises with the paper, his hand falls with the paper. Eva, what’s she doing, she’s changed her expression, she’s looking at him now, she’s not howling any more: ‘Well, Franz?’ A voice, someone said my name, I have to reply, two women, a murder, what’s murder, out in Freienwalde, I murdered her in Freienwalde, hang on, I’ve never been to Freienwalde, where the fuck is Freienwalde anyway. ‘Go on, Franz, say something.’

  Franz looks at her with his big eyes, he balances the newspaper on the palm of his hand, his head is trembling, he reads and speaks in jerks, he rumbles. Murder in Freienwalde, Emilie Parsunke from Bernau, born 12 June 1908. That’s Mitzi, Eva. He scratches his jaw, looks at Eva with his open, empty expression, you can’t see anything there. That’s Mitzi, Eva. It is. What – say, Eva. She’s dead. That’s why we didn’t find her. ‘And that’s you in the paper, Franz.’ ‘Me?’

  He picks up the paper, looks into it. She’s right. That’s my picture.

  His torso is rocking back and forth. For the love of God, for the love of God, Eva. She is more and more frightened, pushes a chair between them. He continues to rock. For the love of God, Eva, for the love of God, the love of God. And continues to rock. Now he starts to huff and blow. There’s an expression on his face as though it was a joke. ‘For the love of God, what are we going to do, Eva, what are we going to do.’ ‘So why did they have the picture of you for?’ ‘Where?’ ‘There.’ ‘Christ, I don’t know. I’ve no idea, what is that, how did they come up with that, haha, that’s funny.’ And now he looks at her with a helpless expression, and trembles, and she’s glad, because that’s a human emotion, the tears spill from her eyes, and fat Toni starts to whimper too, then his arm goes round her back, his hand is on her shoulder, his face pressed against her throat, Franz whimpers: ‘What’s going on, Eva, what’s happened to our wee Mitzi, what’s happened, she’s died, something’s happened to her, that’s
it, she didn’t leave me, someone killed her, Eva, someone killed our little Mitzi, my Mitzikins, what’s the matter, can that be right, tell me it’s not true.’

  And he thinks of his little Mitzi, and something comes up in him, a kind of fear, terror beckons to him, there it is, there is a reaper, Death yclept, he comes with axes and rods, he blows a flute, then he cracks open his jaws and he takes a trombone, will he play the trombone, will he hit the cymbals, will the terrible black storm goat come, boom, always gently, boom-vroom.

  Eva watches the slow grinding of his jaws. Eva holds Franz. His head trembles, his voice comes, the first note creaks, then it gets quieter. Not one word.

  He was lying under the car, it felt like now, there is a mill, a stone quarry, which poured over me incessantly, I pull myself together, it doesn’t matter what I do, nothing helps, it will break me, and if I’m a steel beam, it will still break me.

  Franz churns and mutters. ‘Something’s coming.’ ‘What’s coming?’ What sort of mill was it, the works are churning, a windmill, a water-mill. ‘Watch yourself, Franz, they’re looking for you.’ And I’m supposed to have done her in, me, he’s back to trembling, his face is pulled into a grin, I smacked her once, they must think because I done Ida. ‘Sit down, Franz, don’t go out, where will you go, they’ll spot you with your one arm.’ ‘They won’t get me, Eva, not if I don’t want, you can bet your bottom dollar they won’t. I have to go out to the advertising column. I need to see it. I need to read about it in the bar, in the newspapers, the things they’re writing, and what happened.’ And then he’s standing in front of Eva, staring at her, can’t get a single word out, so long as he doesn’t laugh: ‘Look at me, Eva, is there something on me, look at me.’ ‘No, no,’ she screams and holds him. ‘Look at me, is there something about me, there must be something about me.’