Ferdinand, the Man with the Kind Heart

by Irmgard Keun

  To raise the general spirits, there’s punch to drink. Everyone has chipped in. The Klattes donated two bottles of sour Moselle, Johanna a bottle of still more sour Ahr wine, Heinrich a bottle of sekt, and I a half-bottle of domestic cognac, which is so bad that Frau Stabhorn let me have it on credit, purely to be rid of it. I poured the lot into a fish tureen and gave it a stir. It couldn’t be worse than the sum of its parts. I called the whole thing a champagne cocktail. A label can make anything taste better. Now—after the third glass—no one has the least idea whether it’s good or bad. Before the currency reform, we drank stuff that no yogi could have withstood.

  Heinrich is in fact just talking about a yogi who is in our midst. He is terribly impressed with the fellow and would like to publish an article on him in his paper. The man is nothing short of miraculous, a medical miracle. You can hammer nails through his tongue and he doesn’t bat an eye, drive long needles through his body and he doesn’t bleed, bury him for hours on end and he doesn’t suffocate.

  Johanna would like to meet him. The Klatte ladies are faithful, impressed, and anxious to hear more.

  My father-in-law feels it incumbent upon himself to assert his authority through skepticism. “Women are apt to fall for stunts like that,” he says. Frau Klatte feels offended by the word “women.” “What do you mean, women? You men fall for stunts just as much, you fell for Hitler’s stunts, Leo, otherwise we wouldn’t be celebrating your de-nasty-Nazification today. Golly, that word is hard to say.”

  A withered anemone in the hand of a child is like a tiger compared to my mother-in-law in the grip of day-to-day living. But I keep seeing how that delicate, oppressed female harbors dormant forces that can be roused to splendid awakening by means such as states of emergency and champagne cocktails.

  So as not to allow the festivities to become tarnished by politics, I change the subject away from de-Nazification and back to the yogi. Women are devotees of supersensory phenomena and find terms like “old Indian Tantric cults” intoxicating. Heinrich looks suddenly devout as further yogic miracles are described. Klatte capitulates and plays the cultivated fellow, quoting the Swan of Avon: “There are more things in heaven and earth than in thy philosophy, Horatio.”

  I sigh with relief when the quotation comes. It had to come, it was overdue. As soon as the attention of a group turns to matters inexplicable, it’s only a matter of time before someone, full of weary wisdom, drops it into the conversation to stop everyone else from pushing more things onto the astral plane.

  Johanna refills everyone’s glasses, the yogi talk has died the death. Luise fiddles with the wireless and finds an opera she thinks might be Il Trovatore. Klatte insists it’s Tosca, Frau Klatte reckons Oberon, Johanna plumps for Aida. No one is interested in listening to it, but now everyone is waiting for it to end so that we can hear what it was. I am too unmusical to become involved.

  I am left thinking of the lamentable irrelation between the attainments of a yogi and his earning power. What’s the point of such a man’s superhuman gifts if there’s nothing he can do with them beyond earning a crust at a funfair? Any bank employee has a better life. What makes a yogi a yogi? It can hardly satisfy any artistic or intellectual ambition to walk barefoot over broken glass, have yourself buried alive, or get some other hideous thing done to you. Even his powers of hypnotism hardly take a fellow like that any further.

  On the other hand, how impressive and convincing it would be if a yogi walked into an expensive restaurant where people like Cousin Magnesius were dining on trout and smoked goose breast. The yogi would coolly stop in the entrance. Slowly all the movers and shakers would lower their eating irons, walk up to the yogi, and, bowing deeply, put down their wallets. The snooty headwaiter would pick them all up and hand them to the yogi. Too bad I’m not one. Nature far too often squanders talents and aptitudes on the wrong people.

  Johanna is singing a flirty American hit song. I’m not sure if she’s drunk or just playing drunk. The Klattes eye her askance, and that’s as well. The reason I asked Johanna along was to show me in a poor light. Luise is to become convinced of my worthlessness and so be deflected to Heinrich. I planned the whole thing with considerable acuity and psychological insight. I give Johanna an encouraging nod.

  Johanna is telling us about Jimmy, a charming American soldier she met in the summer of ’45. Luise frowns. “Why ever not?” says Johanna. “I wanted an American soldier for myself. I had a letter from him the other day, he’s in Texas now,” Johanna tells us. I know the story. One could call it something like Johanna and the White Rose, a ballad in prose.

  It was the summer of ’45. Sun, ruins, confusion, and dirt. Johanna was sleeping on a mattress beside the ruined counter of her present-day lending library. The rest of the room was in pieces, but by the standards of the time was accounted in quite good shape. One lunchtime, Johanna was carrying buckets of water from the other end of the street. An American GI called out his “Hello, Baby,” and helpfully took the buckets for her. Johanna had long curly hair, dramatically pale shrunken cheeks, a simple dirndl dress, and round, innocent eyes. In the association with the buckets of water, the overall effect will have been like a popular song. The soldier was called Jimmy, and Johanna thought he was nice. He suggested coming by later, and Johanna was looking forward to some proper ground coffee. She had been told that the prime purpose in life of American GIs was to scatter ground coffee among the population, and she fancied some. She enlisted Liebezahl for the evening, because he speaks English and could get hold of a couple of bottles of wine.

  Liebezahl turned up with the bottles of wine and a German–English dictionary. Jimmy didn’t. Not at six, not at seven, not at eight. Johanna was annoyed because of the coffee, and just in general. At nine o’clock, Jimmy turned up, a little flushed, but beaming. He came conservatively, bearing a white rose. He had spent hours wading through the ruins of Cologne till he found a white rose for Johanna. Other than the white rose, he had nothing, no coffee, no cans of meat or beans. He told her over the course of the evening that in his mess they were drowning in coffee, which he didn’t drink anyway, and he had had it up to here with canned food.

  Johanna didn’t mention the coffee. She made an inner adjustment and was delighted by the white rose. Cautiously, she put it in her only water glass. She drank her wine from a cup without a handle, while Jimmy the Rose was given a tin can, and Liebezahl drank straight from the bottle. The evening passed off merrily and peaceably. The white rose shimmered and smelled faintly. “Poor old Europe,” sighed Johanna, “it’s not even a romantic continent anymore, now we even import our romance.” She gave Jimmy the eye, but he didn’t understand, and Liebezahl is neither romantic nor introspective. Later on, through the agency of Jimmy the Rose, he was able to pull off a few lucrative swap-deals.

  That evening, though, everyone was gentle and dreamy. The moon rose. Jimmy’s eyes were a beaming nursery blue, and Johanna sustained herself through the feeling that he liked her.

  The next morning, she scraped some beet jam onto a crust of bread, drank water from the cup without a handle, and tried to draw sufficient optimism from the sight of her white rose to be fit for the day ahead.

  For my sake, Johanna adds a vague, shimmering conclusion that leaves open certain obvious possibilities. Even so, the Klatte ladies are not sufficiently indignant. The Romance of the White Rose made a favorable impression.

  My father-in-law tells Heinrich anecdotes from his time in the army. Tortured but attentive, Heinrich listens. Everything the Klattes say is important and revealing: they represent his future readership profile.

  I have another drink. My brain is clouding over, and the world is growing alien to me again. I don’t feel at home in myself. Luise has a new hairstyle that suits her. She is a nice girl. Too bad I don’t love her. The older Klattes are nice to me, but what are they to me really? Probably they see something in me that I am not. But who can prove to me that
I am what I think I am? You meet a thousand people, and they will take a thousand different views, and your own is the thousand-and-first. It’s confusing to think about how multiple and various you are. When I think about how many times I exist, I have to wonder whether I even exist at all.

  I feel so deep-frozen. I wonder if I’ll ever thaw out in this life.

  At least other people have some kind of ambition, a little illusory fire at which they can warm their hands. What have I got? Sometimes I feel like wandering on through the entire world. Maybe eventually I’ll run into a place or a person who will make me say yes, this is it, I’ll stay here, this is my home.

  I wonder if it’s the punch, making me melancholy. I must take steps against it. Thomas Aquinas recommends baths and sleep against low spirits. If the Klattes’ gas water-heater hadn’t been broken, I might have tried to take a secret bath this evening.

  Everyone is lively, the conversation is washing around me. They are talking about Hitler. Just now a load of German newspapers are carrying articles about him again. An acquaintance of Eva Braun’s writes, Hitler’s personal attendant writes, Hitler’s secretary writes, a mailman, a general, a movie actress write. I have no interest in Third Reich gossip. Personal articles bore me because they usually favor the person writing them. Just at the moment there seems to be a vogue for them, though. I can see that Heinrich would love to print something of that sort. Maybe I’ll write one for him: I was Hitler’s pest control guy.

  An agitated ringing interrupts the conversation. Luise hurries to the door, and two energetic-looking women stream into the room. We can tell right away they have come with unfriendly intentions. Since they both speak at once, and further, keep correcting one another, it takes some time for the purpose of their visit to become clear. They are demanding the return of the bombproof door, and a window frame that they claim Frau Klatte illegally took from a half-destroyed house. The Klattes are gradually getting used to such visits. People still drop in wanting this or that thing that Frau Klatte stole. Of course, Frau Klatte resists. What she has she holds. It’s quite possible that people feel more attached to things they have personally stolen than things they have honestly acquired. All the Klattes are firmly convinced that things that have been in their possession for years belong to them.

  When he has been drinking, Herr Klatte occasionally suffers from attacks of universal philanthropy. He asks the women to stay for a drink. In carnivalesque exuberance, he produces a further bottle of spirits.

  To begin with, the women aren’t interested in staying or drinking. Mention is also made of a handcart that has been left outside the door that is liable to be stolen. “We’re all honest people here,” says Herr Klatte, and asks me to wheel the cart into the entryway to set the ladies’ minds at rest.

  The ladies give up their resistance and join in the general festivities. Perlbaum is the name. Luise passes them some of her home-baked goods, Johanna puts asters in their hair, Frau Klatte asks if they wouldn’t prefer some bread and cheese, and Heinrich asks them what their favorite reading is. He stares in ravishment at the unpretentious ladies of the people and tries to divine their literary preferences.

  The radio plays a carnival hit, and this affirms the conciliatory mood. The Perlbaums wax enthusiastic about Weiberfastnacht.* What else was life good for, everything was much too expensive, and where was it all going? Frau Klatte is fully in agreement.

  Johanna remembers the conditions of her coming here and starts flirting with me. It would take a real expert to tell it from the genuine article.

  I see Luise smoking; there is ash on her dress.

  The Perlbaums want the return of their bombproof door, because the world is supposed to end the day after tomorrow, and ideally they would have the window frame installed as well. Frau Klatte isn’t convinced about the end of the world, but just in case she’d like, with Luise’s help, to set the washing to soak. Then she tries to find out what ill-intentioned individuals set the Perlbaums on her track.

  Heinrich is keen to publish an article on the end of the world. If it’s not happening, I won’t have much to say about it, and if it does I’ll have even less.

  The Perlbaums aren’t opposed to the end of the world. No reason why they should be. The world’s not up to much anymore, there’s lies and deceit wherever you look, there were plenty of bankruptcies in the summer, they wouldn’t vote, politics were evil, prices were much too high, they had a nephew who needed something to wear to his confirmation, but dark-blue suits were so unpractical.

  Frau Klatte and Luise haven’t had to go hungry since the currency reform, in fact they’ve each managed to put on around fifteen pounds. Surely they would agree things are going better for them.

  Then, full of quiet reverence, I recall the great day I had not long ago. For the first time in years, I threw away a cigarette end quite reflexively, without even thinking about it. Afterwards I felt almost guilty. I hope my little fit of irrational exuberance doesn’t come back to haunt me one day.

  My life as a smoker was one continual remorseless descent. One day on the train I saw a well-dressed gentleman who didn’t throw away his dog end, but carefully dinched it and stuffed it in a box along with other dog ends. They looked distinctly unappetizing, and I shuddered. I thought to myself, admittedly, I’m a smoker, but if I’m ever reduced to that, I’m going to give up. There are limits, and even the worst addict must muster a minimum of self-respect.

  A few months later, I was collecting my own ends in a little tin. Once I was sure I was alone, I pulled out the threads of tobacco. A few weeks later, I no longer cared if I had witnesses to this.

  Then, in a pub, I saw a man pick up strangers’ cigarette ends from a strange ashtray. I was revolted. Everything must have limits, I thought. It’s only natural that a man will smoke his own stubs. But to seek out those of others is degenerate. I’d sooner give up than sink so low.

  Some time after, I was going through the ashtrays of my acquaintance. I always had a rich harvest at my friend Liebezahl’s, who often hosted black marketeers with lavish smoking habits. Johanna needed her own ends, and my landlady Frau Stabhorn counted the ends of her smoking visitors and could cut up rough if she noticed there was one missing. To be fair, I will say that she occasionally let me have the odd one of hers.

  In a busy street one day, I saw an elderly man creep round a parked car, bend down, and pick a sodden end out of the gutter. Good grief, I thought, I may have come down a little in the world, but you’ll not catch me doing that.

  An hour later, I was standing at a bus stop when a Belgian gentleman threw away a cigarette end. And what an end it was! My heart stopped when I saw it lying in the dirt, all white and fat, and just about the length of a baby’s finger. If I’d hesitated for a second, a greedy-looking youth would have beaten me to it.

  So I never even noticed that one day there was no smoker in the world so degenerate that I could look down on him. I stood so low that no one could stand below me.

  And then just the other day, I threw away a cigarette end, and since then I’ve thrown away many more. And now I get to my feet and enjoy the experience of taking an overflowing ashtray and emptying the contents out in the lavatory.

  When I return with the emptied ashtray, I find Heinrich in intense conversation with Luise and Johanna. “I could never marry an uncultivated man whom I viewed as an inferior,” says Luise.

  “What do you mean by inferior?” asks Johanna. “What do I care if someone isn’t my social equal and is uncultivated from the point of view of a university professor?”

  Luise assumes an arrogant expression. “You don’t even believe that—would you take a sewage worker or a garbageman?”

  Johanna dangles her legs over the chair arm and laughs. “Why not? If he’s nice, and I fancy him! I want someone for me, not for other people. Sooner a garbageman who’s a good husband to me than a senator who bores me and is a rot
ten husband.”

  Just as well that Heinrich is cultivated and is a prospect for Luise. I could have brought Habermann too, I suppose. Habermann is interested in Luise, and I’ve always taken care to foster that interest.

  Before the currency reform Habermann used to supply cauliflowers, leeks, and potatoes to the Klattes (for my sake) and was always respected and flattered for doing so by them. He was treated not just as a social equal but as a superior and a benefactor. Frau Klatte would put out cushions for him to sit on, Herr Klatte would humbly and gratefully fill his pipe from Habermann’s tobacco pouch, and Luise would save clippings for him from the magazines Farmers’ Weekly and Allotments and More. It didn’t matter if Habermann dirtied the carpet, his grimy fingernails were eyed with benevolence, and his views were respectfully solicited on such subjects as economic policy, foreign trade, party political programs, nuclear war, and the prospects for the nation. A scholar whom the Klattes had formerly been proud to know was cut dead after he’d once approached Habermann at the Klattes’ and got a few pounds of cherries and onions from him. “Hunger makes certain individuals calculating and shameless” were Frau Klatte’s words at the time, half-pitying, half-contemptuous.

  Habermann was a jealously tended favorite, and I thought I could allow myself the greatest hopes.

  I’ve known him for a long time. He is a man with a heart of gold, a man of whom it is plausibly said that he would worship the ground his wife treads on.

  Following the currency reform, though, there were vegetables in profusion, and Habermann became an insignificant and inferior individual where the Klattes were concerned. His good nature and sterling husbandly qualities were disregarded. His father is a night watchman, and he himself a common or garden gardener.

  Please God Luise finally sees my social inferiority. I’m not a cultivated man. My two or three semesters of German really don’t count. I have a brother who is currently a hotel porter in Brazil, another is an agricultural laborer in the South of France. On the negative side, I’m sorry to say my mother married a botany professor, while my sister Elfriede is a minister’s wife. I have several relatives who are even more exalted than that, as well as a whole bunch of others who aren’t at all exalted. They more or less cancel one another out.