The fat fellow threw back his head and laughed, spread his arms, bear-hugged the redhead: ‘You know how to tell a story, by gum you do. Franz has had some experiences. Franz knows life. Franz knows who he is.’ ‘Let me tell you, you once sang very sadly.’ ‘Yes, then, then. Past is past. Now we’ve reinflated our waistcoat. My ball flies well, let me tell you. No one can prove different. So long, and when I get spliced, you’re invited!’
•
That’s what he’s like, then, the cement worker, later furniture mover, Franz Biberkopf, a coarse, rough man of repulsive appearance, back on the streets of Berlin, a man on whose arm a pretty girl from an engineer’s family once hung, whom he turned into a whore and finally beat up so badly that she died. He swore to all the world and to himself that he would remain decent. And as long as he had money, he remained decent. But then he ran out of money, which was a moment he had been waiting for, to show them all what he was made of.
Chapter Two
Our hero has been successfully brought to Berlin. He has sworn to mend his ways, and we wonder whether we shouldn’t simply stop here. An ending here would be optimistic and straightforward, an ending seems to be at hand, and the whole thing would have the advantage of brevity.
But Franz Biberkopf is not just anyone. I have not summoned him for my own amusement, but for his heavy, true and illuminating fate to be experienced.
Franz Biberkopf has been burnt, now he stands there in Berlin, feet apart and merry, and when he says he wants to be respectable, we believe this to be the case.
You will see how for several weeks he succeeds. But that’s just a period of respite.
Once upon a time, two people lived in Paradise, and their names were Adam and Eve. They had been put there by Almighty God, who had also created animals and plants and heaven and earth. And the Garden of Eden truly was a Paradise. Flowers and trees grew there, animals frolicked about, no one bothered anyone else. The sun rose and set, the moon ditto, the livelong day in Paradise was a joy to behold.
So we begin in happiness. Let us sing and dance: we will clap clap clap our hands, and stamp stamp stamp our feet, and in and out and once about, it’s not difficult.
Franz Biberkopf enters Berlin
Trade and Industry
Sanitation and Street-Cleaning
Public Health
Planning and Architecture
Art and Culture
Traffic
Banking and Finance
Gasworks
Fire Department
Tax and Excise
Publication of a plan for the property An der Spandauer Brücke, 10.
The design for an ornamental rosette on the front wall of the property defined in perpetuity as An der Spandauer Brücke, 10, in the borough of Berlin-Mitte, is now open to public inspection. Concerned parties, with relevant supporting documents, are entitled to make objections. The borough planning officer is similarly entitled to raise objections. Any and all such objections to be made in person, or addressed to the council offices of Berlin-Mitte, Room 76, Klosterstrasse 68, Berlin C-2.
– With the agreement of the Chief of Police I gave the lessee, Herr Bottich, a provisional permit to shoot wild rabbits and other pests in the Fauler Seepark on the following days of 1928: said shooting to take place in summer, from 1 April to 30 September and to be concluded by 7 p.m., and in winter from 1 October to 31 March by 8 p.m. During these hours, the public are under advisement not to enter said terrain.
(Signed) The Oberbürgermeister, in my capacity of Controller of Hunting Licenses.
– Master furrier Albert Pangel, at the end of almost thirty years’ service, has laid down his title, in consequence of advancing years and removal from the district. For an unbroken period of years he served as welfare official, resp. head of welfare. The council has expressed its thanks in writing to Herr Pangel.
•
Rosenthaler Platz is abuzz.
Weather changeable, bright, just below zero. An anticyclone over Germany continues to determine the outlook. An area of low pressure is moving slowly south over a broad front. Daytime temperatures will be a little colder than recently. Now the prospects for Berlin and surroundings.
Tram 68 via Rosenthaler Platz: Wittenau, Nordbahnhof, Heilanstalt, Weddingplatz, Stettiner Bahnhof, Rosenthaler Platz, Alexanderplatz, Strausberger Platz, Bahnhof Frankfurter Allee, Lichtenberg, Herzberge Asylum. The three Berlin mass-transport firms, tram, rail (under- and overground) and omnibuses, form a single fare grouping. Standard adult fare is 20 pfennigs, half fare 10, children receive a reduction until the end of their fourteenth year, as do full-time students, trainees, war invalids, handicapped men and women with a permit from the local benefit office. Get to know your network. During the winter months, no ingress or egress through the front doors, 39 seats, 5918, to stop the conveyance pull the cord in a timely fashion, no conversation with the driver, getting on and off the moving vehicle is hazardous.
In the middle of Rosenthaler Platz a man with a couple of yellow parcels jumps off the 41 and is almost run over by a taxicab, the traffic policeman watches him scamper away, a ticket inspector turns up, inspector and policeman shake hands: that fellow and his parcels had a bit of a lucky break.
Fruit liqueurs at wholesale prices, Dr Bergell, solicitor and notary, Lukutate, the Indian specific for the rejuvenation of elephants, Fromms Akt, the best rubber sponge, what do people need so many rubber sponges for.
The principal thoroughfare leading away from the square on the north side is Brunnenstrasse, the premises of AEG are on the left, just before Humboldthain. AEG is a colossal enterprise which, according to the 1928 telephone book, comprises: Electrical Light and Power Plants, Central Administration, NW 40, Friedrich Karl Ufer 2-4, Local Network North 4488, General Management, Janitors and Maintenance, Electrical Bank Ltd, Division of Lighting, Russian Division, Oberspree Metallurgy, Machine Works Treptow, Brunnenstrasse Plant, Hennigsdorf Plant, Insulation Factory, Rheinstrasse Factory, Cable Works Oberspree, Transformer Factory Wilhelminenhofstrasse, Rummelsburger Chaussee, Turbine Factory NW 87, Huttenstrasse 12-16. The Invalidenstrasse winds away to the left, in the direction of the Stettiner Bahnhof, where trains from the Baltic come in: you’re all covered in soot – yes, it’s dirty all right. – Hello, goodbye. – Does sir have something to wear, 50 pfennigs. – You look refreshed. – Oh, the tan will wear off in no time. – Wonder where people get money to go on holiday from. – In a little hotel in a poky little side street a couple was found shot, a married woman and a waiter from Dresden, they’d signed in under assumed names.
From the south, it’s Rosenthaler Strasse that enters the square of the same name. There, Aschinger’s Entertainment and Victualling Business provides people with food and beer. Fish is nutritious, some people like to eat fish, others get the heebie-jeebies, eat fish, stay slender, hearty and hale. Ladies’ stockings, real artificial silk, here’s a fountain pen with an excellent gold nib.
On Elsasser Strasse they’ve fenced off the entire thoroughfare, with the exception of one lane. Behind the building fence a locomobile is puffing away. Becker-Fiebig Ltd, Construction, Berlin W 35. There’s a constant din, dump-trucks are backed up as far as the bank on the corner, a branch of the Commerzund Privatbank, safe deposits, securities, savings accounts. Five men are kneeling in front of the bank, tapping little stones into the ground. Pavours.
At the stop on Lothringer Strasse four people have just boarded a No. 4, two elderly women, a worried-looking working man and a boy with a cap and ear-flaps. The two women are together, they are Frau Plück and Frau Hoppe. They are buying a girdle for Frau Hoppe, the elder of the two, because she has a tendency to umbilical rupture. They are on their way to the trussmaker on Brunnenstrasse, then they are meeting their husbands for lunch. The man is a coachman, Hasebruck, who is having trouble with a second-hand electric iron he picked up cheap for his boss. He was given a defective one, his boss tried it out for a couple of days, then it no longer got hot, he tried t
o exchange it, but the vendor refused, he’s going back for the third time today, with a little extra money. The lad, Max Rüst, will one day become a plumber, the father of seven little Rüsts, will work for Hallis & Co., installers and roofers, Grünau, at the age of fifty-two he will win a quarter-share of the Prussian State Lottery jackpot and retire, and then, in the midst of a case he is bringing against Hallis & Co., he will die at the age of fifty-five. His obituary will read: On 25 September, suddenly, from heart disease, my dearly beloved husband, our dear father, son, brother, brother-in-law and uncle Max Rüst, in his fifty-sixth year. This announcement is placed by the grieving widow, Marie Rüst, on behalf of all with deep grief. The rendering of thanks will go as follows: Being unable to acknowledge individually the many tokens of sympathy we have received, we extend thanks to all our relatives, friends and fellow-tenants in Kleiststrasse 4 and our wider acquaintances. Especial thanks to Pastor Deinen for his words of comfort. – At present this Max Rüst is fourteen and on his way home from school, via the advice centre for those hard of hearing, with impaired vision, experiencing difficulties of speech, dyspraxia and problems with concentration, where he has been a few times already, about his stammer, which seems to be getting better.
•
Little bar on Rosenthaler Platz.
At the front there’s a pool table, in a back corner two men are drinking tea and smoking. One has sagging features and grey hair, he’s still got his coat on: ‘OK, fire away. But sit still, and stop fidgeting.’
‘You won’t catch me playing pool today. My hands are shaking.’
He’s chewing at a dry roll, doesn’t touch his tea.
‘Why should you. We’re fine where we are.’
‘It’s always the same. Well, this time I did it.’
‘You did?’
The other man, young, fair hair, taut features, taut body: ‘Yeah. You think it’s always the others? Now it’s all out in the open.’
‘In other words, you’re out of a job.’
‘I spoke to the boss in words of one syllable, and he shouted at me. That night I got my notice effective on the first of the month.’
‘There are situations where you should never speak in words of one syllable. If you’d spoken to him in words of two syllables, you’d still be there.’
‘What are you talking about, I am still there. I’ve just clarified my position. They think I’m going to make life easy for them. Now every day, at two in the afternoon, I’m going to turn up and make life hell for them: you see if I don’t.’
‘Oh, Lord, Lord. I thought you were married and all.’
He props his head on his hand: ‘That’s the bind, I haven’t told her yet, I can’t tell her.’
‘Maybe it’ll sort itself out.’
‘She’s expecting.’
‘Your second?’
‘Yeah.’
The man in the coat pulls it closer to him, smiles sardonically, nods and says: ‘Well, that’s all right then. Children give you courage. You could use some.’
The other shifts: ‘Oh, come on. It’s the last thing I need. I’ve got debts up to here. All those instalment payments. I can’t tell her. And then to get sacked just like that. I’m used to a bit of organization, and this is a wretched outfit from top to bottom. The boss has his furniture factory, what does he care if I bring in orders for shoes? I’m superfluous. That’s all there is to it. Standing round the office, asking: have the specials gone out? What specials? I told them six times, why should I keep chasing the customers. I’m just making a fool of myself. Either he lets the business go bust, or he doesn’t.’
‘Drink your tea. It seems for the moment he’s letting you go bust.’
A man in shirt-sleeves wanders over from the pool table, taps the young man on the shoulder: ‘Fancy a game?’
The other answers on his behalf: ‘He’s just had some bad news.’
‘Pool helps.’ He slopes off. The one in the coat sips at his tea: it’s good to drink hot tea with sugar and a shot of rum, and listen to someone else’s troubles. It feels cosy in here. ‘So I guess you won’t be going home tonight, Georg?’
‘I don’t dare. What am I going to tell her. I can’t look her in the eye.’
‘Just turn up and look her in the eye.’
‘Oh, what do you know about it.’
He slumps across the table, pulling his coat tails over him. ‘Listen, Georg, have a drink, or eat something, and stop belly-aching. I know all about it. I wrote the book. When you were yea-high, I’d been all over.’
‘I’d like someone to put themselves in my situation. It could have been a half-decent job, and they ballsed it up for me.’
‘I used to be a schoolmaster. Before the War. When the War started, I was already the way I am now. This bar was like it is now. They didn’t enrol me. They’ve got no use for people like me, addicts. Or rather: they did enrol me, and I thought, fuck, I’ve had it. They took my needle away, and the morphine as well. And I joined up. I stuck it out for two days, that’s how long my reserves lasted, and then so long, Prussia, and it was the loony bin for me. Then they let me go. Well, what was I saying, then the school fired me, morphine, sometimes you get a bit fuddled first off, it doesn’t happen any more. Unfortunately. And my wife? And kid? Well, bye-bye Fatherland. My God, Georg, I could tell you some stories.’ The grizzled man drinks, hands cupped round his glass, drinks slowly, deeply, stares at his tea: ‘A woman and a kid. It feels like the whole world. I wasn’t sorry, I don’t feel guilty; you have to find a level for things, and for yourself as well. Don’t make a cult of destiny. I’m not a believer in fate. I live in Berlin, not ancient Greece. Why are you letting your tea go cold? Here, take some rum in it.’ The young fellow puts his hand over his glass, but the other pushes it away, and pours him a slug from a little metal flask he takes out of his pocket. ‘I’ve gotta go. Thanks all the same. Walk off my nerves.’ ‘Oh, stay here, Georg, have a drink, play some pool. No disorder, no panic. That’s the beginning of the end. When I found my wife and kid not at home, just a note, gone to Mum in West Prussia and so on, botched life, failed husband, the humiliation and all, I cut myself, here in my arm, it looked like an attempted suicide. Take every opportunity to learn, Georg; I’d studied Provençal, but this was anatomy. – I mistook the sinew for the pulse. I still don’t really know any better, but I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. You know, all that pain and remorse, it was so much bullshit, I was alive, my wife was alive, the kid was alive, she even went on to have a couple more, in West Prussia, I like to think it was remote control. Anyway, we’re all alive. This place here makes me happy, the cop on the corner makes me happy, pool makes me happy. I’d like to hear someone say his life was better, and that I didn’t know anything about women.’
The fair-haired man looks at him with distaste: ‘You’re a wreck, Krause, you know that. You’re no sort of example to anyone. You’re bad luck. Didn’t you tell me yourself about starving on what you made from tutoring. I don’t want to be buried like that.’ The iron-haired man has drained his glass, sits back in his coat on the iron chair, blinks aggressively at the younger man, then he barks, cackles: ‘No, no sort of example, you’re right about that. Never said I was. No sort of example. Take the fly. The fly sits under a microscope and thinks it’s a horse. Who do you think you are, Master Georg? Introduce yourself to me, why don’t you: rep. for Smith & Co.’s, shoes. Stop kidding around, telling me about your misery: M for martyr, I for Idiot, S for stupid. You’re barking up the wrong tree, mate, barking up the wrong tree.’
•
A girl gets out of the 99, Mariendorf, Lichtenrader Chaussee, Tempelhof, Hallesches Tor, Hedwigskirche, Rosenthaler Platz, Badstrasse, Seestrasse/Togostrasse, weekend service between Uferstrasse and Tempelhof, Friedrich-Karl-Strasse at fifteen-minute intervals. It’s eight in the evening, she is carrying a music case under her arm, her collar is pushed up in her face, she is walking up and down on the corner of Brunnenstrasse and Weinbergsweg. A man in a
fur coat accosts her, she jumps, and crosses over to the other side of the street. She stands under a tall lamp-post, observing the corner where she stood before. A compact, elderly gentleman in horn-rims appears, she runs across to him, walks giggling at his side. They go up Brunnenstrasse together.
‘I mustn’t be so late back tonight, I really mustn’t. I shouldn’t have come at all. But I’m not allowed to ring you.’ ‘No, only in an emergency. They listen in the office. It’s for your own protection, child.’ ‘Yes, I’m worried, but I don’t think it will get out, you won’t tell a soul.’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘My God, if Papa should hear, or Mama.’ The elderly gentleman takes her affectionately by the arm. ‘Nothing will get out. I won’t say a word to a soul. What did you do in your lesson?’ ‘Chopin. I’m playing the nocturnes. Are you musical?’ ‘Yes, at a pinch.’ ‘I wish I could play for you sometime. But I’m so nervous of you.’ ‘Oh, come.’ ‘It’s true, I’ve always been nervous of you, not very, just a little. Not very. But I don’t need to be nervous of you, do I.’ ‘Not a bit. Honestly. You’ve known me now for three months.’ ‘It’s Papa I’m afraid of, I suppose. If word got out.’ ‘Oh, come, surely to goodness you can step out with a friend every now and again. You’re not a baby any more.’ ‘That’s what I kept saying to Mama too. And I go out.’ ‘We’ll go wherever we please, ducks.’ ‘Don’t call me that. I only told you, so – well, never mind. Where shall we go today. I need to be home by nine.’ ‘In here. We’re already there. Flat of a friend of mine. We can go upstairs without worrying.’ ‘I feel scared. Are you sure no one’s seen us? Will you go on ahead. I’ll come up after.’