Iron Gustav

by Hans Fallada

  For a moment it was deadly quiet in the kitchen. Heinz stood tall and pale over his little sister-in-law.

  Her eyes were closed. She was finding it hard to think.

  Then she begged him: ‘Get out, please. All of you get out of my kitchen. No, I’m not angry with you, Bubi. You may even be right. Perhaps what you say is true, but I don’t want to know … I don’t want to hear about it ever again … You’ve really hurt me, Bubi. I only know that Otto was good, and if he hurt his father, it was because he had to, but he didn’t want to …’

  ‘Come along, Heinz,’ said Irma. ‘You’re only tormenting her.’

  ‘Yes, Heinz, go to the Reichstag. Go everywhere, listen, and whatever you like. You’ll only find bad things.’

  He stretched out his hand hesitantly. ‘Goodbye, Tutti!’

  She smiled weakly. ‘Oh, Bubi, you dear boy! How you’re going to get your fingers burnt! You’ve such a soft heart. What you said hurt you just as much as it did me. All you Hackendahls are soft – the children I mean.’

  ‘Goodbye, Tutti.’

  ‘Goodbye, Bubi! Try not to hurt yourself too much …’

  § X

  Once down in the street, Irma asked, ‘But we’re going to the Reichstag, aren’t we?’

  ‘You can depend on it,’ said Heinz.

  ‘And when do we go home?’

  ‘When it’s time.’

  ‘And what will your father say?’

  ‘I don’t even think about it!’

  Of course he did think about it, but suddenly he didn’t care what his father would say. For very many years his father’s words had sounded like thunder, or the word of God, in his ears. Now he had become deaf to them, just as soldiers no longer heard their officers’ orders, and workers no longer listened to their employers.

  Everything seemed chaotic and increasingly confusing – Tutti and the newspaper, the torn-off shoulder straps, Otto’s rebellion against Father, brother Erich with his office in the Reichstag, and the kidnapped Liebknecht-followers – and the sailor. All confusion! Nevertheless there was a light in everything, a ghostly but increasingly palpable light. There was a sense that some meaning must lie behind all the confusion. Perhaps it was only the feeling of being young, of wanting to live, and not be led by bunglers and become their scapegoats – of wanting to lead his very own life, with all the possibilities of victory and defeat.

  ‘You say nothing,’ said Irma, worried by her friend’s silence. ‘I suppose you are thinking.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘So what about? About your brother?’

  ‘That too. What do you think, Irma, did I talk a lot of rubbish at Tutti’s?’

  ‘Half-half.’

  ‘No, tell me really!’

  ‘You were perhaps right, but you shouldn’t have contradicted Tutti, of all people, if you’re angry with all the Hackendahls.’

  ‘But I didn’t mention that.’

  ‘Of course you did – only that!’

  ‘Oh, no …’ He grew quite angry. So that’s what it looked like to others – to stupid women, for instance – if he spoke to the point. ‘Oh, you women,’ he consoled himself.

  ‘Thanks a lot! I’m not a woman – I’m your girlfriend!’

  ‘Well, true …’

  ‘And if you let your brother Erich have a bit of your anger with the Hackendahls, that would really please me. There’s the Reichstag!’

  Yes, there it was. Gloomy and dark, with no crowds swarming round it now, it lay wrapped in the mists of a November evening. Only a very few street lamps were lit. Somewhat uneasily Heinz and Irma mounted the steps to the main entrance, where they were stopped by a soldier, a proper wartime soldier with rifle, steel helmet and hand grenades. The man however wore an armlet with something stamped on it and Heinz assumed that this was identical with what was stamped on Erich’s permit, but here he was mistaken. Folding up the slip of paper, the soldier returned it. ‘No longer valid,’ he said.

  ‘But why? I got it only this afternoon.’

  ‘And this afternoon we smoked the comrades out of here. Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils have no standing now. We’re Noske’s people.’

  ‘But my brother …’

  ‘It’s quite likely,’ said the soldier indifferently, ‘that they’re still in the Schloss. But they won’t be staying there much longer either; we’ll see to that, even if we have to blow up the whole damned place.’ And he turned away into the entrance. Rather depressed, the two went back down the steps.

  ‘What are we to do now? Shall we go to the Schloss?’

  ‘That’s no use. The pass is for the Reichstag.’

  ‘But it’s not valid.’

  ‘It’ll be even less valid in the Schloss – that’s logic, isn’t it?’

  Undecided, they prowled round the dark building. They tried a second door but were turned back again.

  At the third door, however, they were luckier. The news that the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils had been thrown out seemed not to have reached the sentry at the back of the building. ‘See that corridor? Go along there and you’ll find a porter. Not that he’ll know much either; nobody does at the moment. But you can try.’

  They found the porter in his lodge – a dignified, white-haired old gentleman who seemed utterly confused by the excitement and uproar of the last few days. ‘Yes, indeed, Herr Hackendahl has a room here. Of course!’ Helplessly he looked at his telephone switchboard, and at the indicator on the wall, showing names and room numbers. He gave a disconsolate shake of the head. ‘No, none of my gentlemen is called Hackendahl. But my gentlemen aren’t coming here now. I beg your pardon, Herr Ebert still comes and so does Herr Noske, Herr Breitscheid, Herr Scheidemann …’ He seemed to want to continue the list of those who still came there.

  ‘But I’m looking for Herr Hackendahl. He’s got a room here.’ (Heinz however was not so sure of this now.)

  ‘Then come along,’ said the old man, going ahead of them. Their youth seemed to inspire him with confidence. ‘I oughtn’t to leave my post,’ he confessed, ‘it’s against regulations … I should really hand you over to a messenger. But all our messengers have run away.’

  This was strange but they were to come across even stranger things in the outwardly dignified gold-domed building, so often passed with such feelings of awe and respect … A door opened and from the room came a burst of laughter. A crowd of men sat there in a blue fug of drifting tobacco smoke; all were laughing and all were in shirtsleeves.

  In their ugly, worn-out shoes Irma and Heinz strode over thick plush carpets. Halfway up some stairs lay a soldier in field-grey, snoring with open mouth, his head on a knapsack. They stepped over him and came to an open window looking into the grey November night. Peeping from it stood two machine-guns on long, thin feet, menacing the scarcely visible buildings opposite; they stood there forsaken. Not a soul was in sight.

  They went up a staircase. Above, some laughing soldiers were clustered. They were watching a man on a ladder who was disfiguring with black paint a gold-framed portrait of the Kaiser.

  Again and again their guide stopped to make enquiries, sometimes of men in dark uniforms like his – in which case the talk went slowly and amiably, with much shaking of heads. Sometimes, however, he timidly questioned soldiers or people who were not officials and was glad then to get his information and move on.

  They were now in a far busier part of the great building. Everywhere men were running about, most of them soldiers in active service uniforms, and they could hear telephones ringing and the click of typewriters behind doors. Suddenly they were in a large, marble-flagged corridor, walking between pillars. Here tall doorways led to a huge, dimly lit hall. ‘That is the chamber of session,’ explained their guide.

  This corridor too was full of soldiers, some sprawling on the benches, others strolling up and down smoking cigarettes and many still wearing their steel helmets. And they had actually brought a field gun there, a monstrosity on wheels camouflage
d with daubs of green, brown and yellow paint. This was trained on a door.

  And supposing this door opened and supposing there should be people outside, a big crowd, a mass meeting for instance, and by some accident this meeting was listening to the wrong speaker, then the cannon’s mouth would vomit death and destruction on the unsuspecting persons below. By some accident! So much had happened by accident that afternoon.

  Heinz Hackendahl closed his eyes. But he opened them immediately, for Irma had nudged him and was whispering, very excited: ‘Look at that officer!’

  This officer, standing there unchallenged with his brown, determined face, smoking a cigarette among the soldiers, observing everything acutely and occasionally giving an order in an undertone – this seemed the most extraordinary sight of all on that confusing day to those two young people. Had they not already both witnessed how the three unfortunate sergeants, on account of a pair of shoulder straps …

  ‘So the old traditions haven’t completely disappeared,’ said Heinz quietly.

  Irma pressed his hand excitedly. ‘I’m so glad, Heinz!’ she whispered.

  He didn’t even ask why she was glad, he understood immediately.

  A little later their guide returned. ‘Now I know where Herr Hackendahl is,’ he said, hurt. ‘Upstairs on the second floor. Herr Hackendahl’s responsible for security in Berlin. You should have told me straight away, then I would have found him quicker!’

  ‘Security? What security?’

  Erich appeared ever more puzzling to Heinz.

  ‘Oh, you know, against attacks, looting. You must know about that if you’re his brother?’ And the old man suddenly looked at him suspiciously.

  ‘I really didn’t know that, although I’m definitely his brother,’ said Heinz. ‘So show us where we should go. And many thanks for your trouble!’

  § XI

  The carefully written notice on the door, ‘Dr Bienenstich – Secretariat’, had been clumsily crossed out in pencil. The fresh notice consisted of a piece of ordinary cardboard on which was scribbled ‘Committee of Security’ in blue. It could not be said that this was very informative either, but it was the place to which the porter, after many enquiries, had directed them. Heinz knocked and looked at Irma. She nodded. He knocked again. A voice shouted, ‘Come in,’ and they went in.

  Erich was standing by the window talking with a swarthy and rather stout gentleman. He only looked briefly at his two visitors, shouted ‘One moment!’, and continued to talk quickly, in a low voice, with the swarthy man.

  Irma and Heinz looked at each other. Then she nodded and Heinz said in a whisper: ‘Of course! That’s him!’ There was no doubt about it – they had seen this gentleman before, this swarthy gentleman in a dark coat, with the elegant striped trousers. In fact, he had been the speaker at the meeting which had been so violently interrupted. Heinz was dying to know who it was. It wasn’t Ebert. Ebert was smaller. And it wasn’t Liebknecht, either, who was not fat … He searched his memory, but as a true war child, to whom only the military seemed important, he hadn’t been interested in the civilian deputies, who were suddenly now important after all.

  The swarthy gentleman said, ‘Well, Erich, leave everything till tomorrow. I, for my part, must get at least five hours’ sleep tonight – and it would do you good too. And by the way, we’re putting off your visit.’

  Erich smiled, but this annoyed Heinz. It was a smile that seemed to say how completely unimportant his visitors were.

  But now the stout man looked at Heinz, and stretched a fat, very white, floppy hand towards him. Heinz had to take it and shake it.

  ‘So you’re our clever Erich’s brother?’ Heinz was asked.

  ‘You could also say that Erich was Heinz Hackendahl’s brother,’ he answered provocatively.

  The swarthy gentleman smiled in agreement. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘You don’t always want to be a clever man’s brother. And what are you? Student? At school?’

  Heinz had to admit that he was still at school.

  ‘And what’s the atmosphere like with you, at your school?’

  Heinz said the atmosphere differed.

  ‘Of course!’ The fat man understood straight away. ‘Depending on what’s just happened. Quite right too!’

  Heinz thought the fat gentleman could be a little more sparing with his praise. He always had a deep antipathy to the praise of his teachers.

  ‘And how do you feel?’ he was asked.

  ‘I heard you speaking this afternoon,’ he said excitedly. ‘My girlfriend and I had to run for it pretty quick.’

  To his surprise this sally didn’t seem to cause any wound at all. On the contrary, it produced hearty and quite sincere laughter.

  ‘Yes, that was a regrettable incident!’ said the fat man, laughing. ‘But with not entirely unpleasant consequences, what, Erich, my son?’

  Laughing, Erich admitted that the consequences had not been entirely unpleasant. No, certainly not!

  Heinz became angrier and angrier. ‘I saw women and children being badly trampled,’ he said heatedly, in response to the odd, self-satisfied laughter.

  The fat man immediately grew serious. ‘I know, I know. It all happened a bit fast, and the others were … Well, I don’t think such little bureaucratic mistakes will occur again soon.’

  He nodded to Erich in a friendly way, repeated: ‘Sleep, sleep, Erich, my son’, stretched out his hand to Heinz, nodded towards Irma and went quietly out of the room, visibly preoccupied by the ‘little bureaucratic mistakes’.

  ‘Who was that, Erich?’ asked Heinz, somewhat rudely, for the door had hardly closed.

  ‘Sit down. Cigarette? You don’t smoke yet, Bubi? They’ll let you start soon, surely. When are you taking your school leaving certificate?’

  ‘I asked you who that man was.’

  ‘Don’t you know? Why, you heard him speak. By the way, what did you think of it – the speech, I mean?’

  ‘Splendid,’ grinned Heinz. ‘Except the backfiring. And who’s the speaker?’

  ‘A future minister.’

  ‘Oh, Erich!’ Heinz shouted, laughing. ‘You still like to keep things quiet and swank about them, I see. Didn’t I describe him correctly, Irma?’

  Irma nodded.

  ‘Well, so he’s a minister! Oh, let’s leave it, Erich. You needn’t tell me his name. If he really is a minister, I’ll get to know anyway. And you’re his secretary, I presume, on the way to being head of a department, eh? Or higher up even?’

  But Erich was not in the least annoyed; on the contrary, he smiled quite complacently. ‘What did you mean by backfiring?’ he asked in rather too innocent a way.

  ‘Dear, dear, so you don’t know. The death-threatening car, of course, that broke up your meeting.’

  ‘Excuse me, the meeting was fired on by machine-guns.’

  ‘Pardon me, Irma and I were sitting on top of Bismarck – it was a car with a grey hood.’

  The brothers looked at each other.

  ‘Did you by any chance do a bunk from the meeting too?’

  Heinz turned red. ‘One has to hunt with the hounds.’

  ‘And run with the hares,’ laughed Erich heartily. The more furious his brother became the more he laughed. ‘Bubi, Bubi,’ he said, ‘you’re still damned young, you know.’ His little victory made him inclined to talk. ‘Can’t you exert your undeniably vast mental powers and see that in the end it’s completely immaterial whether it was a machine-gun that fired or a car that backfired?’

  ‘No,’ said Heinz perplexed. ‘I can’t. You’ll have to explain.’

  ‘Is it immaterial,’ cried Irma, ‘whether people are killed or not?’

  ‘I said in the end, little lady,’ drawled Erich, incredibly superior. ‘In the end!’

  ‘I’m not a lady!’

  ‘Then let’s hope you’ll become one.’ Erich turned to Heinz. ‘Listen, it’s quite simple. I’ll explain things … We have an agreement with the Liebknecht people not to disturb ea
ch other’s meetings. A kind of armistice, so to speak. Comrade Liebknecht speaks from the Schloss, we from the Reichstag. Now if our meeting’s been fired on we’ve got the right to complain of a breach of agreement and smoke out a Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council which has been found treacherous and unreliable.’

  ‘But there was no actual firing.’

  ‘Ass! We say there was – and that’s sufficient.’ Erich looked at his brother triumphantly. ‘Don’t you see it’s enough if you can assert with some probability that a right’s been infringed?’ He winked an eye as beautiful and fine as a cat’s. ‘Why should we have to investigate whether it was a machine-gun or a motor car?’ He bent over and whispered, ‘What’s wrong with producing a car or a gun yourself if it’s going to help?’ He straightened up. ‘The W. and S. Council here in the Reichstag was really very disturbing. Was disturbing, my dear Bubi. Was – since this afternoon.’

  Heinz stared at his brother. He had read about the tricks of diplomacy, about treason, spying and knavery, but such things were always abstract, remote, historic. That they should take place today, in front of his very eyes and by his own brother’s contrivance …

  ‘Oh, Erich,’ he said, and broke off. Even swearing did no good here. What would be the point of calling him a pig. He was proud of being one!

  ‘And those sailors who wanted to listen to Liebknecht, you lied to them too?’ asked Irma.

  ‘The end justifies the means, little Fräulein.’

  ‘Why employ such means?’

  ‘Why tear off shoulder straps?’ cried Heinz, upset. Then, reluctantly, he said, ‘Supposing Father heard about this?’

  ‘Please, stay still.’ Erich was quite unmoved. ‘No, sit down. It’s precisely for Father that I’m explaining this to you and permitting your fraternal cheek.’

  ‘I’ll never believe you,’ murmured Heinz.

  Erich didn’t hear him, because he didn’t want to. ‘Why do we resort to such means? Because we want power, alone and on our own!’

  ‘But who exactly is that “we”?’ cried Heinz desperately. ‘Here’s one speaker and there’s another and both are waving red flags and they’re all in revolt. You talk about a troublesome Workers’ Council! Well, what’s it all about? Do you understand it? No, it’s a general collapse – utter chaos.’