Little Man, What Now?

  ‘But I’d like to …’ continued Pinneberg obstinately.

  ‘No,’ said Lammchen. ‘No. Just stop.’

  And she looked so angry that it took Pinneberg by surprise. He couldn’t remember seeing her like that before and he quickly looked away.

  But then he went to the window and looked out, muttering to himself: ‘And next time I am going to vote Communist.’

  But Lammchen said nothing, while the baby at her breast drank contentedly.

  APRIL BRINGS FEAR BUT HEILBUTT HELPS. WHERE IS HEILBUTT? GONE

  April came in, a typical, changeable April with sun, clouds, and showers of hail, grass turning greener, daisies blooming, bushes sprouting and trees growing. At Mandels Mr Spannfuss was sprouting and growing as well, and every day stories of further economies went round the Gentlemen’s Outfitting department. This usually meant one salesman doing the work of two, any emergency being covered by the recruitment of a new apprentice.

  Heilbutt now regularly inquired of Pinneberg: ‘How are you doing? How much?’

  Pinneberg would then look away, and if Heilbutt again asked: ‘Tell me how much. I have plenty in hand,’ he would at last say, in great embarrassment: ‘Sixty.’ Or, on one occasion, ‘A hundred and ten, but you mustn’t. I’ll get there.’

  And then they wangled it that Pinneberg would come up at the very moment when Heilbutt had just sold a suit or a coat and enter it on his own sales-pad.

  They had to watch out, as Jänecke was sniffing around, and Kessler was sniffing around too, eager to tell tales. But they were very careful. They waited for the moment when Kessler was at lunch, and when he once turned up they claimed that Pinneberg had saved the sale, and Heilbutt coolly offered to box Mr Kessler’s ears.

  But, oh, where were the days when Pinneberg had reckoned himself a good salesman? Nowadays things were different. People had definitely not been so awkward before. A big fat man came in with his wife, demanding an ulster. ‘No more than twenty-five marks, young man, understand! A man who plays cards with me got one for twenty, an authentic English one in wool with a woven lining, understand!’

  Pinneberg gave a wan smile. ‘Perhaps the gentleman was exaggerating his bargain a bit. A genuine English ulster for twenty marks …’

  ‘Listen here, young man, you aren’t calling my friend a liar, are you? He’s a genuine fellow, d’you understand?’ The fat man became more and more worked up. ‘I don’t need you to cast aspersions on one of my card-playing friends, understand!’

  Pinneberg tried to apologize.

  Kessler gawped. Mr Jänecke lurked behind the clothes-stand to the right. But no one came to his aid. No sale. ‘Why do you rub people up the wrong way?’ asked Mr Jänecke mildly. ‘You used to be quite different, Mr Pinneberg.’ Pinneberg knew only too well that he used to be quite different. But it was Mandels’ fault. Since that despicable quota system had come in, everyone had lost their nerve. At the beginning of the month it was still all right, people had money and bought this and that. Pinneberg fulfilled his quota easily and was in good spirits: ‘This month I’m certainly not going to have to rely on Heilbutt.’

  But then there would come the day, or even two, on which not a single buyer showed up. ‘Tomorrow I’m going to have to sell three hundred marks’ worth,’ thought Pinneberg as he left Mandels in the evening.

  ‘Tomorrow I’m going to have to sell three hundred marks’ worth,’ was his last thought after he’d given Lammchen her goodnight kiss and was lying in the darkness. It wasn’t easy to go to sleep with such a thought in his mind, and it was by no means his last waking thought.

  ‘Today I’ve got to sell three hundred marks’ worth,’ was on his mind as he woke up, drank his coffee, walked to work and entered the department. All day long: ‘Three hundred marks.’

  Then along would come a customer; oho, he wants a coat, eighty marks, that’s a third of the quota, come along customer, make up your mind! Pinneberg produces masses of coats, tries them on him, says they all look great, and the more excited he gets (make up your mind! make up your mind!), the cooler the customer becomes. He pulls out all the stops, tries crawling: ‘You’ve such splendid taste, sir, everything looks good on you …’ He can tell he’s becoming increasingly disagreeable, that the customer is going off him by the minute, but he can’t help it. And then the customer goes away, saying: ‘I’ll think it over.’

  And so Pinneberg would be left standing, in a state of something like collapse. He knew he’d done it all wrong, but he was driven by fear: two to provide for, it’s tight enough already, if the money doesn’t go round now, what would it be like if …?

  True, things hadn’t got that far yet. Heilbutt, true friend in need that he was, would come up to him without being asked and say: ‘How much, Pinneberg?’

  He never told him he ought to have done this or that, never told him to pull himself together, never gave him any know-all advice like Jänecke or Mr Spannfuss. He knew Pinneberg could do it, but that he just couldn’t do it at the moment. Pinneberg wasn’t hard. He was soft. When they squeezed him he went to pieces, turned to porridge.

  It wasn’t as though he had lost all courage. He pulled himself together again and again and there were good days when he was as on top of the job as he used to be, when every sale succeeded and he began to think he had overcome his fear.

  But then the bosses would come along, and say something in passing like: ‘Can’t you put a bit more zip into your sales, Mr Pinneberg.’ Or: ‘Why aren’t you selling any dark blue suits? Would you prefer us to keep them in the store-room?’

  And then they would pass on by and say something, probably the same thing, to the next salesman. Heilbutt was quite right, you ought to pay no attention to it, it was just part of the slave-driving routine they felt obliged to keep up.

  No, there was no sense in minding what they said, but could one help it? Pinneberg had sold two hundred and forty marks’ worth one day, and this Mr Organizer came along and said ‘You look so weary, Mr Pinneberg. You should follow the example of your counterparts over there in the States, they look as cheerful in the evening as they do in the morning. “Keep smiling” is what they say.’ (He said it in English, adding a translation forthwith.) ‘You can’t look tired. A tired-looking salesman is no recommendation for a store.’

  He strode off, leaving Pinneberg thinking how much he’d like to punch the swine in the nose. But he made his little bow and kept smiling, and his feeling of confidence was gone.

  Yet he was doing comparatively well. He knew of a couple of salesmen who had been summoned to the Personnel Office and either warned, or told to do better, according to their offence.

  ‘He’s had the first injection,’ the saying went. ‘He’ll soon be dead.’ Then the fear grew, the salesman knew there would be only two more injections, then the end. Unemployed, broke, on welfare, the end.

  They hadn’t summoned him yet. But without Heilbutt he would long have been ripe for it. Heilbutt was a tower of strength; Heilbutt was impregnable. Heilbutt was able to say to Mr Jänecke: ‘Perhaps you’d like to demonstrate the perfect sale to me one day.’

  Whereupon Mr Jänecke said to him: ‘Don’t speak to me in that tone, Mr Heilbutt!’ and went away.

  And then one day Heilbutt was missing. One minute he was there, he’d sold something, then, in the middle of that April day, he was gone. No one knew where.

  Jänecke did perhaps, as he didn’t ask after him. And Kessler too, as he did ask after him, so emphatically and so spitefully, as to make it obvious that something out of the ordinary had occurred.

  ‘Do you know where your friend Heilbutt has got to?’ he asked Pinneberg.

  ‘Sick,’ growled Pinneberg.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t like to have what he’s got!’ smirked Kessler.

  ‘What do you know about it then?’ asked Pinneberg.

  ‘I don’t know anything. Why should I?’

  ‘Come on, man, you tell me …’

  Kessler was wounded. ‘I do
n’t know anything. All I heard was that he’d been called to the Personnel Office. Sacked. Get it?’

  ‘Rubbish!’ said Pinneberg, muttering ‘Idiot’, quite loudly after him.

  Why should Heilbutt have got the sack? Why should they have got rid of their best salesman? It made no sense. Anyone rather than Heilbutt.

  But next day he was still missing.

  ‘If he isn’t there tomorrow, I’ll go straight from work to his place,’ he told Lammchen.

  ‘Do that,’ she said.

  But next day came the explanation. It was Mr Jänecke who condescended to enlighten him. ‘You were friendly with that man Heilbutt?’

  ‘Still am,’ said Pinneberg combatively.

  ‘Ah. Did you know that he had rather strange views?’

  ‘Strange?’

  ‘About nudism.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pinneberg hesitantly. ‘He told me about it once. Some naturist club.’

  ‘Do you belong to it?’

  ‘Me? no.’

  ‘No, of course, you’re married.’ Mr Jänecke paused. ‘We had to dismiss your friend Heilbutt. A nasty business he got into there.’

  ‘What!’ exclaimed Pinneberg hotly. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  Mr Jänecke only smiled. ‘My dear Mr Pinneberg. You don’t have a very great understanding of human nature. I’ve often noticed that from the way you sell.’ And, as a parting shot: ‘Very nasty. He was having nude photos of himself sold on the street.’

  ‘What?’ shouted Pinneberg. He was, after all, a Berliner born and bred, but he’d never come across anyone having nude photos of himself sold on the street.

  ‘But it’s true,’ said Mr Jänecke. ‘It’s to your credit that you stand by your friend. Though it doesn’t say much for your knowledge of people.’

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ said Pinneberg. ‘Nude photos on the street?’

  ‘We can’t be seen to employ a salesman whose nude picture may have fallen into our customers’ hands, even our lady customers. With such a memorable face, I ask you!’ And with that Jänecke went on his way, smiling amiably at Pinneberg, presumably with the intention of encouraging him, so far as the distance between them permitted.

  ‘So, he told you what happened to your precious Heilbutt? Pretty filthy, I think. Could never stand him myself. Big-mouthed so-and-so.’

  ‘I liked him,’ said Pinneberg loudly. ‘And if you say anything like that again …’

  No, Kessler couldn’t show Pinneberg the famous nude photo in person, much as we would like to have read its effect on his face. Pinneberg got to see it in the course of the afternoon. The sensation it had created in Gentlemen’s Outfitting had quickly spread far beyond the bounds of that department, the salesgirls in Silk Stockings on the right and Cosmetics on the left were talking about it nineteen to the dozen, and the picture was doing the rounds.

  It eventually reached Pinneberg, who had been racking his brains all morning to think how Heilbutt could have nude photos of himself sold on the street. But that wasn’t actually it. Mr Jänecke was only partly right; it was in fact a magazine, one of those where you can’t tell whether their aim is to be salacious, or to promote the natural life.

  On the cover of the magazine, in an oval frame, was Heilbutt, quite unmistakably he, in warlike pose with a spear in his hand. It was an artistic amateur photo, and the subject certainly had a very handsome body—he also just as certainly had not a stitch on. It must have been very exciting for the little salesgirls, many of whom had a crush on Heilbutt, to see him so delightfully unclothed. No one’s expectations can have been disappointed. But it was highly revolutionary.

  ‘But who buys that sort of paper?’ said Pinneberg to Lasch. ‘It’s no grounds for dismissal.’

  ‘It’ll be Kessler again, sniffed it out,’ was Lasch’s opinion. ‘He had the magazine anyway, and he knew about it before anyone else.’

  Pinneberg determined to go to Heilbutt, but not that very evening. That evening he had to talk it over with Lammchen. Pinneberg was only human, and good friends though he and Heilbutt might be, the story did titillate him rather. He bought a copy of the magazine and took it to Lammchen by way of illustration.

  ‘Of course you must go and see him,’ she said. ‘And don’t let anyone slander him while you’re around, do you hear?’

  ‘How d’you think he looks?’ asked Pinneberg anxiously; he was a touch jealous of his friend’s handsome figure.

  ‘He’s well built,’ said Mrs Pinneberg. ‘You’re getting a little bit of a belly. And you haven’t got such nice hands and feet.’

  Pinneberg was embarrassed. ‘D’you think so? I think he looks simply marvellous. Couldn’t you fall in love with him?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Much too dark for me. And then …’ she put her arm round his neck and smiled at him. ‘I’m still in love with you.’

  ‘Still?’ he asked. ‘Really?’

  ‘Still,’ she said. ‘Really.’

  The next evening, however, he did go to Heilbutt’s. The latter was not in the least abashed. ‘You heard what happened, Pinneberg? This “summary dismissal” is going to get them into hot water. I’ve already lodged a complaint with the industrial tribunal.’

  ‘D’you think you’ll win?’

  ‘Bound to. I’d win even if I had given permission for them to print the picture. But I can prove that it was published without my consent. They can’t hold that against me.’

  ‘But then what? You get three months’ pay and you’re unemployed.’

  ‘My dear Pinneberg, I’ll find something else, and if I don’t, I’ll set up on my own. I’ll survive. I’m not going to live on the dole.’

  ‘I believe you. Will you take me on, if you get your own business?’

  ‘Naturally. You’d be the first I’d ask.’

  ‘And no quotas?’

  ‘Absolutely no quotas! How’s it going? It must be difficult. Will you manage on your own?’

  ‘I’ll have to,’ said Pinneberg, with a blithe confidence he did not entirely feel. ‘I’ll get by. These last few days have been fine. I’m a hundred and thirty in hand.’

  ‘There you are,’ said Heilbutt. ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing for you that I’m out of the way.’

  ‘No, it would be better if you were there.’

  Then Johannes Pinneberg went home. It was a funny thing, but after a while there was nothing more to say to Heilbutt. He was very fond of him, he was an outstandingly decent fellow, but he wasn’t, couldn’t be an intimate friend. You never got really close to him.

  And so he let a long time go by before looking him up again. In fact he had to be actually reminded of him, which happened when he heard them saying in the shop that Heilbutt had won his case against Mandels.

  But when he got to Heilbutt’s place, he found Heilbutt had moved out.

  ‘I’ve no idea where to, my young sir. Probably to Dalldorf, or Wittenau they call it now. He was keen enough on the place. And would you believe it, he was still trying to persuade me into his dirty goings-on, at my age.’

  Heilbutt was gone.

  PINNEBERG IS ARRESTED AND JACHMANN SEES GHOSTS. RUM WITHOUT TEA

  It was evening, a beautiful bright evening in late spring, or early summer. Pinneberg had finished his day’s work, he stepped out of Mandels Department Store, called ‘See you tomorrow’ to his colleagues and was on his way.

  A hand descended on his shoulder. ‘Pinneberg, you’re arrested!’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said Pinneberg, without turning a hair. ‘Why’s that? Good heavens, it’s you, Mr Jachmann! I haven’t seen you for ages!’

  ‘That’s a clear conscience for you,’ said Jachmann in a melancholy tone. ‘You didn’t even start. Good God, how I envy you young people!’

  ‘Steady on, Mr Jachmann,’ said Pinneberg. ‘What d’you mean: envy? You just try being in my shoes for three days. At Mandels …’

  ‘What about Mandels? I wish I had your job. It’s steady, it’s secure,’ said Jachmann
gloomily, walking beside him at a lingering pace. ‘Things are so dreary now. So, how’s your wife, Romeo?’

  ‘She’s very well,’ said Pinneberg. ‘We’ve got a little boy now.’

  ‘Good heavens! Really? A boy?’ Jachmann was very surprised. ‘That was quick. Can you afford it? You’re lucky.’

  ‘We can’t afford it,’ said Pinneberg. ‘But if that was it, people like us would never have children. Now we have to manage.’

  ‘Right,’ said Jachmann, who had obviously not heard a word. ‘Now listen carefully, Pinneberg. Now, we’re going to look in the window of that bookshop …’

  ‘And?’ asked Pinneberg expectantly.

  ‘It’s a very instructive book,’ said Jachmann very audibly. ‘I learned a terrific amount from it.’ Then, softly: ‘Look to the left, unobtrusively. Unobtrusively, I said!’

  ‘And?’ asked Pinneberg again, finding it all very puzzling, and the gigantic Jachmann very much changed. ‘What am I meant to be looking at?’

  ‘The stout man in grey with glasses and bushy hair, can you see him?’

  ‘Of course I can. He’s walking that way.’

  ‘Good,’ said Jachmann. ‘Keep your eye on him. And now have an ordinary sort of conversation with me. Don’t name any names, especially not mine. Now talk to me!’

  Pinneberg racked his brains. ‘What can be going on?’ he thought. ‘What’s Jachmann after? He’s not said a word about Mother, either.’

  ‘Come on, say something,’ Jachmann urged him. ‘It looks silly if we walk along without a word. It will be noticed.’

  ‘Noticed? Who by?’ thought Pinneberg, and said, ‘The weather’s quite nice isn’t it, Mr …’

  He’d nearly come out with his name.

  ‘Oh, do be careful!’ hissed Jachmann, then continued, loudly: ‘Yes, it is really very fine.’

  ‘But a bit of rain wouldn’t do any harm,’ said Pinneberg, staring intently at the back of the man in grey three paces in front. ‘It’s terribly dry.’

  ‘Rain would be a good thing,’ Jachmann agreed readily. ‘But preferably not at the weekend.’

  ‘No, of course not!’ said Pinneberg. ‘Not at the weekend.’