Iron Gustav

by Hans Fallada

  Now he could see their doorway. He hadn’t written to her about his leave; he had deprived her of the pleasures of anticipation, and he became anxious. What will she be like? he thought. Will she have changed much? Aren’t I already much too late, now that I’ve changed so much? How will I find her?

  A woman in trousers overtook him, glancing indifferently at the bearded face of the soldier on leave. Not till she came to the next doorway did Eva Hackendahl realize that she had looked on the face of her brother Otto – a face with purpose in it, the eyes frank and manly.

  Leaning against the wall, she tried to think out what her brother’s return would mean for her. Odd that her first thought should be to wonder if Otto, tired from his journey, might want to lie down on the only bed, the bed standing beside the child’s cot. Or would she be allowed to have it herself – at least for this morning?

  As if that were important! Nevertheless she couldn’t help wondering how they were going to manage during the next few days with only one room and a kitchen, and only one bed, too. How much leave did a soldier get – a week or a fortnight?

  He was now entering their doorway. Quickly she hid herself and he passed into the rear courtyard. She followed, watching him. Then our former life would begin again. This echoed in her mind. But what was that old life? Suddenly she understood how provisional it was, infinitely transient, a life lived at a day’s notice. One day the war would be over and there would be no more arms factories. One day her brother would come home and want the place for himself – but then what would happen to her?

  He had started to walk upstairs. Terrible depression overcame her.

  But what did I really imagine? she pondered. Did I think it could go on for ever, night shift and shared bed, for a lifetime, a whole lifetime? Of course, it’s all rubbish – I did it on purpose. She ought to have taken her paw away quicker, the silly bitch. I suppose I hoped they’d chuck me out. Well, if I must I must – there’s no way out once it’s written that you’re to go to the bad.

  Otto was now outside his flat. What he carried with him was nothing. He ran like a youngster, came out of the courtyard. Eva, as he touched the bell push, passed behind him and went a floor higher. She wasn’t going to stand there beside her brother; nor would she open the door for him, although she had the key in her pocket. She had thought of this place as her home, but that was another piece of rubbish – it was his, alone – she had no home, that was the position.

  She sat down on the stairs – homeless. She would see what happened, she had time! When you purposely injure someone’s hand in your machine you can still deceive others and yourself about it. But when heaven sends your brother home that same morning, to drive you out of your bed and your sleep – your sole prospect of blessed oblivion – then it means you are inevitably destined for the mire.

  But if that is the situation – which it is – you don’t make a fuss about it. You settle down on the last step before the door to the attic and wait for what comes next. Mud will find mud. There’s no hurry!

  § XI

  Otto had watched the working woman in trousers in astonishment. What does she want up there? There’s only the attic. But he forgets that immediately, because in reply to his ringing, a voice calls through the door: ‘Mummy’s not here!’

  ‘Where is Mummy then, Gustäving?’ asked the father, putting his ear to the door and trying to realize that this was his son, now no longer two, but four years old.

  ‘Fetching coal,’ said the shrill little voice within. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘To see you, Gustäving.’

  ‘Who are you? How do you know my name? What’s yours?’

  Otto Hackendahl pondered for a moment. He would have liked to say ‘I’m your father’, but somehow he could not. A door divided them – and he had to wait.

  ‘Where does Mummy fetch coal, Gustäving?’ he asked. ‘Still from Tiedemann’s?’

  ‘From Tiedemann’s?’ questioned the voice. And a great light must have flashed on the child’s mind, for suddenly hands were drumming against the door: ‘Open it! I know who you are – you’re my papa. Open the door, please – Mummy’s always saying that you’re coming soon. I want to see you, Papa.’

  ‘Yes, Gustäving. But be quiet. I’m your papa, yes. Listen, Gustäving, I haven’t got a key so we’ll have to wait till Mummy comes. You won’t recognize me, you know, Gustäving.’

  ‘Yes, I will. You’re my papa.’

  ‘Because I’ve got a long, long yellow beard.’

  ‘I don’t believe it – my papa hasn’t a beard.’

  ‘I grew it at the Front, Gustäving.’

  ‘Open the door, Papa! I want to see it!’

  ‘But I’ve got no key, Gustäving. We must wait till Mummy comes.’

  A brief silence for thought.

  The girl on the stairs above was also thinking. Yes, that’s home and homecoming. But there’s nothing like that for me. And why not? I’m much prettier and at any rate as intelligent as Tutti. And nobody was more of a milksop than Otto. But they get it and I get nothing. And Erich has got on, too, and Sophie’s been made a sister and has a Red Cross Medal. Only I …

  Below it went on and on: ‘I know, Papa, go down into the courtyard. Stand there and I’ll look out of the window. Then I’ll see whether you’re my papa or not.’

  ‘But you’ll fall out, Gustäving!’

  ‘No, I won’t. Go on, Papa!’

  ‘Wait a bit. Mummy may be coming any moment now.’

  ‘Oh, do go, Papa. Go on.’

  ‘You won’t recognize me in my beard.’

  ‘Yes, I will, I’ll recognize you! Not recognize my own papa!’

  ‘And you promise not to open the window?’

  ‘Of course, Papa, I promise. I’ll look through the glass. Hurry up!’

  ‘But it’ll take some time to get downstairs.’

  ‘As if I didn’t know, Papa! Five floors. Are you always so slow, Papa?’

  ‘I’m going, Gustäving.’

  ‘Well, hurry up then!’

  Otto Hackendahl, bag and baggage, went downstairs.

  The courtyard was narrow, not much more than an airshaft with, to make it worse, a criss-cross of washing lines overhead. He had to push his way among dustbins and, since the view of himself promised not to be very good, he climbed upon them, pulled off his field cap and waved it. He could see nothing himself, but roared lustily: ‘Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!’

  Women looked out of their windows.

  ‘A screw loose, eh?’

  ‘Pretending to be loony, so he won’t have to go back to the Front.’

  But Otto Hackendahl had already climbed down from the bins and was running upstairs again to find that a miracle had happened – the door stood wide open and in the doorway was a boy, a very thin child with a large head …

  ‘Gustäving! You see I am your papa! Who opened the door? Gustäving, are you pleased, too?’

  ‘I said at once you were my papa. Your beard’s not as long as you said. Have you brought me something to eat? I’m very, very hungry.’

  The door, which had been opened after so much action, closed again behind them. They no longer puzzled their heads over what had happened. The girl above sat for a while, her shoulders shaking. She felt the same as she had not long before, standing on the little wet platform. Eventually she stood up and went slowly down the steps. Downstairs she met her sister-in-law, Gertrud Gudde.

  The little cripple stood panting beside a bag of coal, only half a hundredweight, but much too heavy for such a fragile creature. Her hair hung down in wisps and the soft eyes looked anxious. But they lit up at once when they saw Eva. ‘Oh, Eva, how kind you are, waiting for me. I was so afraid of all those stairs.’

  Eva had originally intended to pass Tutti without a word, but now she stopped. What do I care about Tutti? I’ve got my own troubles to bear. Unprotesting, she shouldered the sack and carried it upstairs, all the while thinking that, without the mishap in
the factory and her brother’s return, she would long ago have been lying comfortably asleep in bed. She had never yet thought of helping her sister-in-law with the housework. Had she done so, how often might she not have seen this radiant gratitude?

  They arrived at the flat. Gertrud, so that Eva need not put down the sack, had the key ready. But Eva barred the way.

  ‘Here’s your coal, Tutti,’ she said with a strange expression on her face. ‘Tidy yourself up a bit, you look all of a mess.’

  Gertrud stared at her – Eva was so odd. Tidy herself up on the landing? No one had cared for years what she looked like. Under Eva’s gaze she became quite confused, put a hand to her hair and tucked in a stray lock …

  Suddenly she heard something – listened – trembled. In the flat she heard her child laugh, and a man’s voice …

  She looked at Eva.

  ‘Yes,’ said Eva in a changed voice. ‘Yes, there you are! Tidy yourself quickly, Otto’s home!’ Leaning over the coal bag, she thought: you ugly old hunchback, you’ve got all the luck. What about me? I ought to hate you.

  But she tidied Gertrud’s hair and smoothed out with trembling hands the collar and neck of her dress. ‘Yes, Tutti. Yes. Yes … Otto’s there … and perfectly well.’

  Two arms went round her neck. ‘Oh, I’m so happy … My heart, my heart!’ And, quickly releasing herself, Gertrud said: ‘Do I look awful, Evchen?’

  ‘You look wonderful.’ (Hunchback!) ‘You look splendid.’ (Hunchback!) ‘You’ve got a nice colour in your cheeks.’ (Hunchback!) ‘Now go in to him!’

  And she, Eva, opened the door and pushed Tutti in. She, Eva – pretty Eva, Father’s favourite – stood in her ugly overalls beside the sack of coal and listened to the cry of joy within … and the deep, warm voice saying, ‘Yes, my good one, my sweetie, my beauty – here I am with you …’

  Eva dragged the sack of coal into the dark corridor before she gently closed the door and left. She climbed slowly down the steps. Her tears flowed, and she kept on thinking, ‘Why her? Why not me?’

  She crossed the courtyards, went out of the house and came out onto the street.

  § XII

  The fact that Otto Hackendahl went to look for his father already on the afternoon of the first day of the holiday was not only because he wanted to get his talk with him over as quickly as possible, but also because Tutti and Otto had waited for Eva with mounting alarm; but she had not come.

  ‘I’ll see her at my parents’, no doubt,’ said Otto. ‘Where else could she have gone to?’

  Indeed, where else could she have gone? Tutti remembered one morning when she helped to undress a half-frozen Eva, when one of her legs was drenched through up to her calf, but she hadn’t said a word.

  Otto went along the Frankfurter Allee, the old, familiar way known to him from a thousand walks. In his mind’s eye he already saw the wooden fence and the sign: ‘Conveyances for Hire. Gustav Hackendahl.’

  As in a dream, where everything is the same and yet different, so Otto next stood before this fence and read on the signboard: ‘Hay and Forage Merchant. Hans Bartenfeld.’

  Like a man who is lost he gazed up and down the street along which he had walked so often. And when he looked closer he saw that the board was new. It was a very recent alteration, then, which explained why he hadn’t yet heard about it. Father would have carried out the sale secretly, holding it to be entirely his own concern – ‘a man’s affair’ – and Mother wouldn’t have been told till the last moment.

  It was the same old yard but there were different curtains on the first-floor windows and another woman’s face, not Mother’s, looked out at him. Otto’s heart contracted painfully. The son who had gone abroad, who had marched into war – the weak-willed son – had changed, become harder, more resolute. And with every day he had shed something of the home, had ceased gradually to be a son. Now that with his own eyes he saw how, both symbolically and actually, the old home existed no longer, the last link in the chain that had bound him snapped, and he was free.

  He asked the woman at the window where the Hackendahls had moved to. She, in true Berlin manner, met this question by asking if he were one of the sons. Then Otto asked how long they had been gone and learned that they lived in the Wexstrasse. And was he the elder or the younger one?

  Otto said thank you and left. He no longer saw either the woman or the courtyard. Nor did he turn towards the wooden fence, though he couldn’t help thinking about how often, on Father’s orders, armed with bucket and brush, he’d had to scrub away the slogans of the local youths, from ‘I’m an idiot’ to ‘Teacher Stark’s got false teeth’.

  He went on. At last, it was all over. Earlier he obeyed Father’s orders. Now he had his own voice in his own breast, the voice that gave orders about grenade craters and which told the strange Lieutenant von Ramin what had tortured him for so long …

  Otto Hackendahl went along the Frankfurter Allee, and considered how he could most quickly get to Wexstrasse. It occurred to him that in this completely unfamiliar area of Berlin (like a completely different town, in fact), there was the circle line station of Wilmersdorf-Friedenau. Wexstrasse must be near it. That’s how he would get there fastest.

  He hurried away, crossed the Alexanderplatz, went to the Suburban Railway and got in a train. Tack-tack-tack went the dilapidated carriages, grumbling and groaning. The winter wind blew through the broken panes. Their window straps had been cut off, the netting of the luggage racks was torn – but the carriages still did their duty, though not without protest. They were taking him to the destination for which he had prepared himself during two years on the Western Front – this destination was the Wilmersdorf-Friedenau Station for the moment.

  The Wexstrasse was easy to find, everybody knew it. But he did not like the place. In the grey light of the early winter evening the street seemed to him narrow and cheerless. The Frankfurter Allee had been spacious and airy – here one could hardly breathe. Oh Father! Otto stopped dead. He had seen something familiar, a link with the past. By the kerb stood a cab without a driver. But Otto had no need to see the driver – he knew the horse. It was the grey, dismally hanging her head and seeming to study the pavement.

  Otto ruffled her mane and rubbed her nose but the grey did not move her ears, nor sniff at the caressing hand – hardly bothered even to lift up her dull, half-extinguished eyes to her master’s son.

  How often have I groomed you! thought Otto. Do you remember how ticklish you used to be under the belly and how you always kicked out at me? I could never be careful enough. It wasn’t your wickedness but just exuberance. In those days I was the one kept under and you were full of life. But now … No, I’m still not the exuberant type, but I still lift my eyes from the road and see the edge of the sky, rather farther than one can reach … So he chattered on, interspersed with, Horsey, where’s Father? Horsey, what’s happened to Father? Horsey!

  No, it was naturally impossible that Father would ever drive this, his most miserable beast. True, Mother had written that business was bad, many reductions had to be made, and that Father was driving once again … However, the coachman sitting safely in the bar over there would be some kind of supplementary driver needing to pass the one and a half hours till going-home time.

  Otto entered the tavern.

  It was about half past four in the afternoon and the gas lamps in the street were beginning to light up. But inside they were sparing with their illumination; a solitary bulb burned dimly over the counter, just sufficient light for the landlord to see how much he was pouring into his glasses. In the corners were a few dim figures.

  Otto sat down near the door and called out to the landlord: ‘A bitter, please.’

  For a moment there was silence. Then a hoarse voice said: ‘Man, it’s quite clear that the war can’t be won. They asked for U-boats and now they’ve got them and still the Americans keep sending over soldiers and arms, no end to them.’

  ‘Excuse me …’

  ‘You h
old on a moment, I’m speaking. Great offensive on the Western Front they said – and they’re still in the same old place. Decision in the East they said – well, it’s now been decided in the East, and what’s it come to? You any less hungry?’

  ‘Let me have a say, Franz!’

  ‘Forget it for a moment. I’ll just say one word. I’ll say: international social democracy! Oh, yes, you’ll think, the big bosses … Big bosses indeed, and the stories they’ve told us. But a light eventually goes on even with the most stupid, and when it goes on it goes red …’

  ‘You’ll get your mug punched – there’s a soldier here.’

  ‘Well, and what about it? What d’you mean, soldier? He thinks just as I do. When you’re down, everyone turns on you – that’s life.’ But the speaker said no more, for the soldier stood up, took his beer glass in his hand and went obliquely across the tavern towards the speaker’s table.

  The speaker puffed himself up and was already half ducking himself under the table, calling the others almost pathetically as witnesses. ‘But what did I say then? I didn’t say anything. I just said that we’d succeed in the East.’

  However, while he was still speaking, Otto passed his table. Beer glass in hand, he went to a table behind by the wall, put his glass down and said, ‘Good evening, Father. It’s me – Otto!’

  The old man slowly raised his large, round, staring eyes from the dregs of his beer, which he had sat contemplating. With a sudden movement he held out his hand.

  ‘You, Otto? That’s good. Sit down, sit down! D’you find me by accident?’

  ‘I saw the grey, Father, so I looked in.’

  ‘Oh, the grey, the grey! There’s less an’ less to her every day, no feed an’ no guts. I can’t get her past the horse butcher’s – she always tries to walk in.’ The old man laughed, a dismal sound.

  ‘And how are things otherwise, Father? How is the stable doing?’

  ‘The stable? Haven’t got a stable now. I’ve got a bay horse as well, but it’s worn out, too. Not much doin’ in my line, Otto.’