Upstairs they exchange smiles. She is standing in the corner. He has taken off his hat and coat, she allows him to relieve her of her music and hat. Then she runs across to the door and switches off the light: ‘But be quick about it, I haven’t got much time, I have to go home, I’ll keep my clothes on. Don’t hurt me.’
Franz Biberkopf is on the job market, you need to earn money, a man can’t live without money. And all about the Frankfurt Topfmarkt
Franz Biberkopf and his friend Mack sat down at a table where several other noisy men were already seated, and waited for the meeting to begin. Mack reasoned: ‘You shouldn’t go on the dole, Franz, you shouldn’t do factory work, and it’s too cold to be digging. Trade is best. Either in Berlin or the sticks. Take your pick. But trade is what’ll keep you fed.’ The waiter called out: ‘Mind your heads, gents.’ They sipped their beer. At that moment they heard footsteps overhead, Herr Wünschel, the first-floor administrator, was running for an ambulance, his wife had fainted. Mack was declaring: ‘For the love of Gottlieb, just look at the people here. Do they look hungry to you? Can’t you tell they’re all decent people.’ ‘Gottlieb, you know nothing matters more to me than decency. Now cross your heart and hope to die, is this a respectable calling you’re pressing on me or not?’ ‘Just look at the faces, don’t they speak for themselves. Tip-top, take a look at them.’ ‘A solid foundation, that’s what I’m about, a solid foundation.’ ‘This is the solidest thing going. Braces, stockings, socks, aprons, maybe neckties. Retail’s where the profits are.’
On the platform a man with a hunchback was talking about the Frankfurt Fair. It is not possible to exaggerate the drawbacks of supplying goods to the Frankfurt Fair. The fair is in a bad location. Especially the Topfmarkt. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed colleagues, whoever attended the Frankfurt Topfmarkt last Sunday will be able to confirm that it is not fit for the public.’ Gottlieb gave Franz a nudge: ‘He’s talking about the Frankfurt Topfmarkt. You’re not to go there.’ ‘No worries, this is a good guy, he knows his mind.’ ‘Anyone who has ever been to the Magazinplatz in Frankfurt will never go there again. That’s as sure as eggs is eggs. It was filthy, it was a ploughed field. Take as further evidence the fact that the mayor of Frankfurt gave us just three days’ notice before he said: it’s the Magazinplatz for us, not the Marktplatz what we usually go to. And the reason he gave, here, brothers, try this on for size: because the weekly market is held on the Marktplatz, and if we go there, there’ll be a disruption to traffic. That’s a scandalous decision from the mayor of Frankfurt, that’s a real smack in the face. A reason like that. They have four half-days of market there as it is, and they want us to make way. Why not the greengrocer and the butter lady? Why doesn’t Frankfurt build itself an indoor market? Sellers of fruit and vegetables and other comestibles are equally as badly off as we are, thanks to the Frankfurt authorities. We all suffer from their poor decision-making. But that’s enough of that now. Income from the Magazinplatz was piss-poor, it was nothing, it wasn’t worth the candle. No buyers braved the mire and the rain. Those of us who went mostly didn’t cover their expenses. Train fare, licences, setting up, taking down. And one other thing, I want to make this very clear, the condition of the lavatories in Frankfurt defies description. You’ll know what I’m talking about. Such poor hygiene is unworthy of a great city; the light of publicity must be shone on that. Such conditions will not attract visitors to Frankfurt, and it’s noxious to we traders. And on top of that, the way they jam the booths on top of each other, like so many flounders.’
Following the discussion, in which the executive did not escape a share of criticism for their previous passivity, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:
‘We traders view the relocation of the fair to Magazinplatz as a smack in the face. The takings are significantly below what was realized at previous fairs. The Magazinplatz is unfit as a venue because it can’t accommodate enough visitors for a viable fair, not by a long shot, and in respect of hygiene it’s positively a canker on the fair face of the city of Frankfurt on Oder, and furthermore, if a fire had have broken out, we traders and our wares would have all been goners. Therefore we the assembled tradespersons look to the city authorities to restore the fair to the Marktplatz, because that and that alone is sufficient to guarantee a future for the fair. At the same time, we urgently request a reduction in the rate for a stall, since as things stand we are not in a position to fulfil our responsibilities, and would only fall burden on the welfare resources of the city.’
Biberkopf was irresistibly drawn to the speaker. ‘Mack, that is a speaker, that is a man who is cut out for this world.’ ‘Try stepping on his toes, then, and see what he says.’ ‘You can’t know that, Gottlieb. Remember, the Jews helped me out. I was going round the courtyards and singing “Die Wacht am Rhein”, that’s how desperate things were with me. Then these two Jews fished me out and told me stories. Words can be good too, Gottlieb, the things that a man says.’ ‘Stefan, that Polack crook. Franz, you’re not playing with a full deck.’ Franz shrugged: ‘Deck here, deck there, Gottlieb, put yourself in my position before you open your mouth. That man up there with the hunchback, he’s good, I tell you, he’s good.’ ‘Well, never mind. You need to think about business, Franz.’ ‘Will do, everything at the proper time. I got nothing against business.’
And he pushed his way through to the hunchback. Meekly asked him for some information. ‘What do you want?’ ‘I’ve come to ask for some information.’ ‘No Q. and A. Finished, over. It sometimes happens that we up on the platform have had enough too.’ The hunchback was sharp: ‘What do you want anyway?’ ‘I— There’s all this talk about the Frankfurt Fair, and I thought you gave a first-rate speech, sir, splendid. That’s what I wanted to say, on my own behalf. I entirely agree with you.’ ‘Thank you, brother. What’s your name?’ ‘Franz Biberkopf. It did me good to see you go about your business, and give it to the people of Frankfurt.’ ‘The authorities.’ ‘Quite. You sorted their hash. They won’t know what hit them. They won’t try that again.’ The little man got his papers together, clambered down from the platform into the smoky hall: ‘Very nice, brother, very nice.’ Franz, beaming and scraping along in his wake. ‘Didn’t you say you wanted some information? Are you a member?’ ‘No, actually.’ ‘Well, you can join here and now. Come over to our table.’ He sat Franz down at the foot of the table, among red faces, drank, greeted friends, produced a form. He promised his contribution for the first of the month. Shake hands.
From a distance he waved the paper to Mack: ‘I’m a member now, I am. A member of the Berlin chapter. You can read it yourself, it says: Berlin chapter, Reich Union, and then what’s this here: itinerant tradesmen of Germany. There’s a thing, eh.’ ‘So what are you now, a trader in textiles? It says textiles here. Since when, Franz? Show me your textiles!’ ‘I never said textiles. I said stockings and aprons. He kept saying textiles. Well, can’t do any harm. And I don’t have anything to pay till the first.’ ‘Now come on, where’s the sense in selling dinner plates or buckets or cattle, like the gentlemen here: gentlemen, isn’t it absurd that this fellow takes out a membership in textiles, when he’s perhaps going to be selling beef?’ ‘I wouldn’t do beef. Beef is off. I’d advise poultry.’ ‘But the point is he’s not selling anything right now. Fact. He’s sitting around, thinking about it. You can say to him, all right, Franz, what about mousetraps or garden statuary.’ ‘If that’s what I have to do, Gottlieb, and if it keeps me fed. Maybe not mousetraps, there’d be too much competition from the poison industry, but garden statuary’d be a fine thing: why not be the man to introduce garden statuary into small towns?’ ‘There, you see, he takes out a membership in ladies’ aprons and ends up flogging statues.’
‘Oh no, Gottlieb, oh no, gentlemen, I mean you’re right, but don’t twist things like that. You need to shine a clear light on a subject, like what the little hunchback did with Frankfurt, only you weren’t listening.’ ‘What do I care about Fra
nkfurt. Nor do these others here either.’ ‘Fine, Gottlieb, very good, sirs, it’s not a complaint either, but personally, myself, I was listening, and it was ever so good, the way he illuminated things, calmly, but with force, spite of his weak voice, and the man has a lung condition, and how everything was laid out, and then the resolution was put to the assembly, every point nice and clear, a fine thing, a good head on him, up to and including the toilets that they didn’t like. I mentioned my own business with the Jews, you know. Sirs, when I was on my uppers, these Jews helped me, just by telling me stories. They talked to me, they were decent people who didn’t know me from Adam, and they told me about this Polack, and it was just a story, but it was very good just the same, and it was very instructive for me in my position. I thought: a glass of cognac might have set me to rights just as well. Who knows. But afterwards I felt right as rain.’ One of the dealers was smoking and grinning. ‘What was it then, you were run over by a bus?’ ‘No jokes, gentlemen, please. Though I suppose you’re right. It might as well have been a bus. It can happen in your life, that misfortune rains down on you and your legs turn to jelly. A mess like that can happen to anyone. It’s what you do afterwards matters. Your knees are shaking. You run around the streets, Brunnenstrasse, Rosenthaler Tor, the Alex. It can happen that you’re running around and not able to read a street sign. Some smart people helped me, they talked to me and told me stories, people with good heads on their shoulders, and so you should know: you shouldn’t swear by money or cognac or a few pennies in contributions. The main thing is keeping your head, and using it, and knowing what’s going on around you, so you don’t suddenly come a cropper. That’s all it is. There, gentlemen. That’s all I have to say.’
‘In that case, brother, we’ll raise our glasses to that. Here’s to our chapter.’ ‘The chapter, cheers, gentlemen. Gottlieb.’ Gottlieb laughed and laughed: ‘Now, man, now all that’s left is the little question of where you’ll pay your contribution, on the first of the month.’ ‘And then, young colleague, you must see to it now that you have your membership and belong to our chapter, that the chapter helps you to a proper wage.’ The dealers and Gottlieb laughed for all they were worth. One of the dealers said: ‘Take your membership to Meiningen, there’s a market there next week. I’ll be on the right, you on the left, and I’ll be able to see how you’re getting on. Just imagine, Albert, he’s got a membership, and he’s part of the chapter, and he’s standing in his stall. Over where I am they’re yelling: Frankfurter sausages, genuine Meininger rolls, and there he is yelling: Hello, hello, it’s my first time here, but I belong to the union, big sensation at the market at Meiningen. My God, people will be falling over themselves to buy from him. Cor, what a horse’s ass you are.’ They smote the table in their mirth, Biberkopf among them. Carefully he stashed his papers away in his inside pocket: ‘If a man wants to walk, he gets hisself a pair of shoes. I never said I was going to be a hotshot at business. But I didn’t fall on my face either.’ They adjourned.
•
Once on the street, Mack got into a vigorous argument with the two livestock dealers. They were maintaining their point of view in a law case that one of them was involved in. He had traded livestock in Brandenburg, when he was only licensed to trade in Berlin. A competitor had run into him and reported him to the police. But then the two livestock dealers, who travelled together, had got out of it prettily: the accused man claimed in court that he was just accompanying his friend, and was dealing on his behalf.
The livestock dealers declared: ‘We’re not paying. We’re swearing on oath. He’ll give a deposition, and he’ll swear he was accompanying me, and he’s been doing that for a while, and that’s where things will rest.’
At that Mack got beside himself, seized the two traders by the scruffs: ‘Listen, you’re soft in the head, wanting to perjure yourselves over something like that. The only winner there is the nasty fellow that tried to put one over on you. You’ll wind up in the newspapers. That nonsense before the court, m’learned friends and all, that’s never law. Justice is something else.’
The second trader insists: ‘Sure I’ll swear, why wouldn’t I? Do you think I should agree to a fine, three rounds of appeals, and the villain getting the last laugh? Envious so and so. I believe in chimneys, and a good draught.’
Mack struck his fist against his head: ‘Oh, you nincompoop, you belong in the dirt you’re lying in.’
They took leave of the livestock traders, Franz linked arms with Mack, and they made their way along Brunnenstrasse. Mack was still chuntering about the traders: ‘Those brothers. They’ve got us on their conscience. The whole country, they’ve got them on their conscience.’ ‘What’s that, Gottlieb?’ ‘They’re craven wretches, instead of standing up to the court, wretches, the whole people, the traders, the workers, every man jack of them.’
Suddenly Mack stopped and drew up in front of Franz. ‘Franz, I need to have a word with you. Otherwise I can’t walk another step.’ ‘Well, go on then.’ ‘Franz, I need to know who you are. Look me in the eye. Tell me honestly and truly you’ve been inside, and that you know what’s right and what’s just. Because what’s right is right.’ ‘ ’S true, Gottlieb.’ ‘Now then, Franz, cross your heart. What did they do to you there?’ ‘You can set your mind at rest. Believe me: if you’ve got horns, you can take em off. Inside we read books and learnt stenography, and we played chess, and I did and all.’ ‘You can play chess?’ ‘Well, you and I, Gottlieb, we can go on playing our skat, but you know, you sit around, not got much aptitude for reflection, we transport workers get too tired in our muscles and bones, then one day you say: damn you, leave us in peace, stay away. Mitts off, humans. What are the likes of us going to do with law and police and politics, Gottlieb? We had a Communist in the big house, he weighed more than I did, he was involved in the uprising of ’19 in Berlin. They didn’t catch him, but he came to his senses later, meets a widow and joins her business. A clever lad, as you see.’ ‘How did he come to be with you?’ ‘He will have tried a spot of fencing. We always used to stick together and watch him getting roughed up. But best give the others a wide berth. Let them go. Stay decent and keep yourself to yourself. That’s what I say.’
‘I see,’ said Mack and looked at him coldly. ‘Then we could all pack up, that’s pretty shabby of you, that puts the kibosh on everything.’ ‘It’s only those who want to can pack up, we’re not worried.’ ‘Franz, I’ll say it again, you’re a wet rag. You’ll get your comeuppance.’
•
Franz Biberkopf strolls down Invalidenstrasse, his new girlfriend, Polski Lina, is with him. On the corner of Chausseestrasse there’s a newspaper kiosk in an entryway, and people standing around, gabbing.
‘Move along now, no loitering.’ ‘Surely we’ll be allowed to look at the pictures.’ ‘Then make a purchase. Don’t block the entryway.’ ‘Idiot.’
Travel supplement. When the bitter season has broken into our chilly northland, between snow-sparkling winter days and the first green of May, we feel drawn – an ancestral urge – to the sunny south beyond the Alps, to Italy. Whoever is lucky enough to be able to follow such a call. ‘Don’t get excited about the fellow. Observe the coarsening of morals: a man assaults a girl in the S-Bahn, half-kills her, all for fifty marks.’ ‘I’d do the same.’ ‘What?’ ‘Do you have any idea what fifty marks are worth. You got no idea, fifty marks. That’s a pile of money for the likes of us, a pile of money, you know. Come back when you know what fifty marks are worth.’
Fatalistic speech from Marx, the Chancellor Marx: What lies ahead of us is according to my beliefs in Divine Providence. God has made His separate compacts with every nation. What individuals can do is strictly limited. All we can do is work as hard as we can, in accordance with our convictions, and so I will honestly and uprightly carry out the task I have been chosen to perform. I conclude, gentlemen, by offering my best wishes for a successful conclusion to your strenuous and magnanimous labours on behalf of our beautiful Bavaria
. I wish them every success. Live so that when the time comes for you to die, it’s as though you’ve had a hearty dinner.
‘Finished reading, then?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Would you like me to take the paper off the hook for you? I had a gentleman once who accepted my offer of a chair, so that he could read in comfort.’ ‘But the reason you hang out your pictures is so that—’ ‘Never you mind why I hang out my pictures. You don’t rent my kiosk. Spongers are no good to me, they just keep away honest customers.’
That’s the end of him, his shoes need cleaning, probably a dosser in the Palme in Fröbelstrasse, boards a tram. Bound to have a lapsed ticket. If they nab him, he’ll have picked up the wrong one. Always those spongers, now here’s two more. I’ve half a mind to put up a wire screen. Was that my stomach growling.
Franz Biberkopf marches up in his stiff hat, with blowsy Polish Lina on his arm. ‘Lina, look right, into the entrance. The weather’s no good if you’re unemployed. Let’s look at the pictures. Pretty pictures, but there’s a draught. Hey there, mate, how’s business. Doesn’t the chill get to you.’ ‘Well, it’s no community hall.’ ‘Would you want to stand in a thing like that, Lina?’ ‘Let’s go, the man’s giving us dirty looks.’ ‘I’m just thinking some people might like that, to have you standing in an entryway, selling newspapers. You know, the feminine touch.’
Puffs of wind, the publications flutter on their brackets. ‘Mate, you need to put up a paravang.’ ‘Yeah, that way no one can see anything.’ ‘What about a glass screen then.’ ‘Come along, Franz.’ ‘No, stop a minute. The man’s been stood here for hours, he’s not about to blow away. There’s no need to be nervous, Lina.’ ‘It’s because he’s staring so.’ ‘That’s my natural expression, miss, those are the features I was born with. I can’t be blamed for that.’ ‘You hear that, Lina, he’s always staring that way. Poor fellow, I say.’