A Small Circus

  ‘Oh, I knew that.’

  ‘Frerksen is relieved of his post.’

  The fat man jumps out of his chair. ‘Frerksen relieved? That’s not possible. That’s betrayal. That’s the administration stabbing us in the back. The government kowtowing to the peasants. The government shopping their own police. That’s not possible. He’s not allowed to pre-empt the minister!’

  ‘He’s done it.’

  ‘Quick, Adviser! Run! I need the letter. Go and get me my letter. Do you think there’s still time? I want to show those pieces of work in Stolpe who has nerves, who can fight, who has the support of the workers . . . Run!’

  The adviser is already back. He hands Gareis the letter.

  He tears open the envelope, standing up. Gives it the once-over. Reads it a second time. Then lets it drop.

  ‘And they expect a man to go on working. That administrative genius! He’s wrecked my entire outfit here. He’s strengthened the boycott. Woe is Altholm! The president has got it in for you.’

  The fat man turns round, walks over to the window, stares out.

  Comes back. ‘Draw the curtains, will you? This August sun is unbearable. All right, Adviser, here, read it. President Temborius disapproves in the strongest terms. The demonstration should have been banned. If the police did anything, then it should have been in accordance with his secret instructions—’ He breaks off.

  ‘Those wretched disappeared secret instructions. If only I had the least idea of what was in them. I can hardly tell Temborius I’ve never seen them.’

  He looks at the letter again. ‘Commander Frerksen’s approach deserves severe censure. Frerksen will be relieved of his duties by the executive until such time as the legal process has run its course, and is confined to indoor work forthwith.

  ‘Final position reserved till the court case is over. Files on the case passed to the Minister of the Interior.’

  Suddenly the big man grins all over his big moon face, and there isn’t the least doubt: something has really cheered him up.

  ‘Well, my dear Political Adviser, this really is what you call a defeat all down the line. Temborius was quicker on the draw. I was thinking how clever I was when I set out to see the minister.’

  The storm is over, the fat man is thinking.

  ‘First,’ he says, ‘I’ll send Frerksen away on holiday. Call him, and have him come right away. He may as well be gone from here for the next four weeks.—Then I’ll go round to the councillors and enjoin them all to keep quiet, on their oath. Do you think they won’t give me an oath? Stein, this is no rehearsal any more, there’s no quarter given nor asked, I’m going to kick them in the balls unless they do what I say.

  ‘These letters from Temborius, these rulings—no one must know about them. It would do us too much damage. And since this is ultimately about the public purse, the councillors will keep quiet.’

  There’s a knock, and Commander Frerksen walks in.

  ‘Tell me, Frerksen,’ says Gareis, ‘what’s all the talk in town about your sabre? You do have your sabre, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour.’ And he drops his hand on the hilt of his sabre, but blushes furiously.

  ‘So what are people doing, talking about it? Was there a time you didn’t have it?’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour.’

  ‘Don’t be quite so martial with me, if you don’t mind. I can’t follow if you do. So, you lost your sabre once?’

  ‘Yes, sir—’

  ‘All right, all right. And when did you get it back?’

  Silence.

  ‘You can’t even give me a martial answer to that. So you didn’t get it back?’

  Silence.

  The mayor sits up straight. ‘Is it really true then that the KPD official, Matthies, is in possession of your sabre, Commander? He has been heard to boast to that effect.’

  ‘I don’t know, Your Honour. He brought me my sabre when I didn’t have a sheath for it. And then, later, I must have forgotten about it.’

  ‘Tsk, tsk. So you forgot about your sabre. It’s easily done, I suppose. The absent-minded professor and his umbrella. The commander and his sabre. One more thing: can you tell me why, in your eloquent reports on the demonstration, the losing of your sabre, the reunion with your sabre, the forgetting of your sabre, are all left unmentioned?—Yes, please! Your answer, Commander.’

  But Frerksen says nothing.

  ‘Would you explain to me, then, why it is that your son tells everyone at his school that you said the peasants were all criminals and should be stood against the wall and shot? No, no, please, Commander! No figures of speech. Your son said those words, his headmaster told me so in person.’

  Frerksen stands there in silence.

  ‘You’re listening, Commander, you’re not answering. Perhaps you want time to think about your answers? You shall have it. I want you to go home and consider yourself on leave. You’re not to spend your holiday in Altholm. Initially, it will be for the next four weeks. Leave me your address. I’ll let you know if it’s to be extended at all beyond four weeks.

  ‘That’s all, Commander.’

  The creature in blue uniform clicks its heels. Then, not before time, the door shuts after it.

  The adviser, white-faced, says: ‘My God, Mayor, Frerksen will never forgive you.’

  ‘Forgive me . . . ? One day he will thank me. Is it better to tell him the president has dismissed him? Firstly, he’d have gossiped about it. Secondly, his self-esteem would have been destroyed. Now he’s in a fine old rage against me. That’ll strengthen his spine. He’s always been a bit of a pudding anyway, Frerksen, a soft and yielding pudding. It would be no bad thing if he got a bit brown and crisp.’

  X

  There is one person in Altholm who really suffers as a result of the events of the 26th of July, suffers night and day.

  It wasn’t hard to guess how Altholm Gymnasium would position itself in relation to the events of the 26th of July: a flag-bearer hurrying along with his flag was far too compelling an image for young people to resist. And since Henning was a hero, it followed that his attackers were villains.

  But who was the leader of the villains? Who was the unhappy individual who had drawn his sabre on the hero?

  None other than Commander Frerksen.

  He was the sinister power, the Nifling, the monster, he was Ephialtes, the bogeyman, the principal of darkness.

  And it was unfortunate that such a man should nonetheless have a protector. What a wretch that protector must be, someone who evidently turned black into white, and white to black.

  At the age of eleven, Hans Frerksen, the second-former (green cap, gold braid on azure ground), had to fight the fight for his father every day.

  He fought it bravely, without a word about it at home.

  It had begun quietly the day after the demonstration, with looks, whispers, gawping stares, and Coventry.

  That night Hans had heard a conversation in his parents’ bedroom, which was also his own bedroom. His weak bladder had woken him just in time to hear his father say that these peasants were villains and crooks, and deserved no sympathy.

  He had smiled to himself at first when they stared at him, those boys were so thick. They didn’t understand about anything. Their first instinct was always to blame the police, and later on, when they understood, they would see that the police had done everything right.

  But this isolation went on a bit long, for a child anyway. In the yard at break, he was the object of stares. Big boys, even sixth-formers, asked to be brought to him, and then they would look at him and say, ‘So that’s who it is,’ and walk away again. After break, when everyone pressed in through the narrow doorways, up the narrow staircases, there was a kind of air pocket round Hans Frerksen. No one likes to come too close.

  It took an alarmingly long time for the truth to come out, and the worst of it was that even the teachers were not immune. It showed in all sorts of contradictory ways. Some asked him an unusual lot of quest
ions, others purposely ignored him. But the way they quizzed him, and the way they ignored him, had this in common: the understanding that this is Frerksen, the son of that other Frerksen.

  He was isolated, so he isolated himself further. He didn’t want to have anything to do with any of them, he could bide his time, one day they would come to him, and he wouldn’t know them. He would refuse to pardon them. He would be implacable and proud.

  But then one day, Hans Frerksen changed his tactics. He felt so hollow inside, there was nothing left in him, his pride was exhausted. He went on to the attack. He pushed into the rings of the others, he interrupted them, he didn’t care in the least when they walked off. He walked off after them.

  He started talking about the peasants, those crooks, and at least then they started to listen to him. Even though they still didn’t ask him any questions or take issue with him, they did at least listen, and then they went away and laughed sardonically.

  There were nicknames for him now, and allusions were made. There was an awful lot about some sabre or other, he had no idea what that was about. Then they started stuffing issues of the Bauernschaft in his desk. The story of the sabre was told in that, there were great tirades about Red Frerksen, Bloody Frerksen, who liked nothing so much as bathing in peasants’ blood.

  Of course it was all a lie, but you couldn’t ignore it, so you exaggerated just as those others exaggerated, and you talked about criminals who deserved to be put up against the wall.

  What happened, happened. First he was asked to see his form master, and a few days later it was the headmaster.

  Blah, blah. ‘Did you say something about criminals who deserved to be stood up against the wall?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Hans Frerksen.

  ‘How did you come to say such a thing? Did you hear it anywhere?’

  ‘My father said it, and my father knows.’

  ‘Boy, think about it. Your father can’t possibly have said that.’

  ‘Yes, he did. He said it.’

  ‘But Frerksen. There were four thousand peasants in the town. You’re old enough to know that they can’t all be criminals. Do you think they should all be shot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But surely you’ve read that one of the people hurt was a dentist, someone who wasn’t involved at all. He’s not a criminal, is he?’

  ‘Yes, he is.’

  ‘But how? Think. A dentist on the way to help a patient?’

  ‘It’s wrong to participate in crowd events. My father says where there are crowds of people it’s best to go away. If you stay in a crowd, you’re responsible for what happens to you.’

  ‘But it doesn’t make you a criminal.’

  ‘Yes,’ says the boy.

  The headmaster is getting impatient. ‘No, it doesn’t. And the peasants aren’t criminals either.’

  ‘Yes, they are,’ avers Hans Frerksen.

  ‘You just heard me say they’re not. I’m your teacher. I know more than you do.’

  ‘My father says they are criminals.’ And, obstinately: ‘They all deserve to be shot.’

  ‘No!’ yells the head. Then, more quietly: ‘It’s upsetting to hear this from you. I know your views will be different when you’re older.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I want you to keep quiet and listen. I said your views will be different—’

  ‘No,’ says the boy.

  ‘Dammit, will you keep your mouth shut! I’m going to have to punish you.—I’m forbidding you, do you hear, to talk about these things with the other boys, at school or during break. Not one more word, all right?’

  The boy looks at him stubbornly.

  ‘Did you understand, I asked you.’

  ‘But what if they start it! I can’t allow them to talk against my own father.’

  ‘Your father . . . All right, I’ll have your teacher tell the form that the class is not to talk about it. Then you’ll keep quiet, won’t you?’

  The boy looks at him.

  ‘All right, Frerksen, you can go now.’ He’s by the door when the head calls out to him: ‘When did your father say that about them being criminals?’

  ‘At night, the night after the demonstration.’

  ‘At night? Were you awake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you sleep in your parents’ bedroom?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he say it to you, or to your mother?’

  ‘To Mum.’

  ‘OK. Thanks. You can go.’

  He went. But, actually, it was worse after than it had been before. Yes, there weren’t so many references to it in his presence. But, quite apart from the fact that they went on and on about it behind his back, they simply stopped talking to him altogether. He was ostracized, despised, and then he had shopped them and told tales. Like father like son, both villains.

  It must have been ten times at least that Hans vowed to talk to his mother about it. But when he saw her, timid, shy, with red-rimmed eyes, he held back. He understood that she was in just such a bad way as he was. Her parents had stopped coming to the house, and other relatives had as well. Twice they had found excreta in the bag for the morning rolls hanging on the door, and the little cherry tree in the garden had been snapped one night.

  Everyone had their load to bear, Gretel as well, even though girls are different, they talk and talk about everything until they no longer know where they are.

  He comes home at lunchtime and hangs his cap on the hook. Drops his satchel on the chair in the hall.

  Dad is already home. His sabre is in the coat-stand. The damned sabre! Of course everything they said about it was a lie. But Hans would still like to know where the old sabre is. This one is new, he spotted that right away.

  Out of the dark behind the coat-stand his mother emerges. She is crying so much her cheeks are shiny with tears. ‘Oh, Hans, Hans, what have you done! Daddy . . .’

  The boy looks at her. ‘Don’t cry, Mum. I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Hans. Whatever you do, don’t lie. There, go in and see Daddy. I wish I could help you, my poor lad. Be brave, and don’t tell lies.’

  The boy goes into his father’s room. His father is standing by the window, looking out.

  ‘Hello, Daddy,’ says the boy, trying very hard to be brave.

  His father doesn’t answer.

  For a while they both stand there in silence, and Hans’s heart beats with terribly fast, painful strokes. Then his father turns. The son looks at the father.

  ‘Hans! What have you . . . No, come nearer. Stand in front of me and look at me. Tell the truth, boy. What did you say to your headmaster?’

  ‘The other boys . . .’

  ‘No, I’m not interested in that. No irrelevancies. What happened with Headmaster Negendank?’

  ‘The headmaster asked me if I said the peasants were criminals who deserved to be shot.’

  ‘And . . . ?’

  ‘I said yes. Then he asked me if the dentist is a criminal as well.’

  ‘Yes, and . . . ?’

  ‘Then I said, he is one as well. If someone is in a crowd, whatever happens to him in the crowd is his fault.’

  ‘And? Go on!’

  ‘Then the headmaster said they aren’t criminals. Then he told me not to say again that they were.’

  ‘And . . . ?’

  ‘That’s all. Then he sent me away.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s all?’ asks the father. ‘Didn’t you tell the headmaster that you’d heard the thing about criminals and being shot from me?’

  The boy looks at his father speculatively.

  ‘Did you tell him that? Answer me! I want to know.’

  ‘Yes,’ says the boy quietly.

  ‘May I ask how you come to spread such lies about me? What’s going on? Who told you to say that?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Who said that? Did I say it?’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  ‘There!’ The first blow strikes
him. The blow administered by a strong man to the face of a child, without holding back. ‘I’ll teach you! I said that? When did I say that?’

  The boy covers his face with his hands and doesn’t speak. ‘Take your hands down. Don’t make such a fuss. When did I say that?’

  ‘The night after. You said it to Mum.’

  ‘There! There! There! I never said it! Never!’

  ‘You did!’ yells the boy.

  ‘Never! You hear me: never!—Anne, come here.’

  The mother comes in, pale, shaking, teary.

  ‘There, look at this fellow, your son. He’s wrecked my whole career with his criminal talk. That lying rascal claims I said to you the night after the demonstration that the peasants were all criminals who deserved to be shot.—Did I say that, Anne?’

  The son looks at his mother, imploring and serious.

  The mother looks at her son, then her husband.

  ‘No,’ she says, hesitantly, ‘you didn’t quite put it—’

  ‘No! None of that! Just: did I say it or didn’t I?’

  ‘No,’ says the mother.

  ‘There you are! You wretched liar! Take that! That! That! Stay away, Anne. The rascal deserves it. Let go of my hand, Anne.’

  ‘No, no. Not now, Franz. Not in the heat of anger. He was only wanting to stick up for you!’

  ‘Thanks for the support. Thanks for the support of a liar. We’re going straight to the headmaster, and I want you to tell him you told a lie. And there’ll be trouble if you try and say anything else!’

  He grips his son by the wrist. Drags him through the streets to the Gymnasium.

  But the headmaster is at home.

  Another schlepp. The livid, trembling man drags his son along.

  The headmaster isn’t available at the moment. The headmaster is having lunch.

  I must see the headmaster.

  ‘Here, Headmaster, I’ve brought you my son. I’ve only just heard what a shameless and barefaced lie he told you. Hans! I want you to beg the headmaster’s pardon right away. Say: I have lied to you.’

  The headmaster, napkin in hand, walks sheepishly back and forth. ‘Commander, not like this. Not in the heat of the moment. Look at the boy. He has to be spared.’

  ‘Bah, spared! I’m sorry, but who thought to spare me?—Say: Headmaster, I have told a lie.’