Iron Gustav

by Hans Fallada

  On 13 November the dollar was quoted at 840 milliards – exactly double what Hackendahl counted on. That day the brokers closed his accounts, collecting his margins to cover his losses. Hurrying from one to another, he begged them to wait only another day; he swore that the mark would be stabilized at 420.

  They shrugged, they smiled. Roest said: ‘They all like to win, these small fry, but not to lose … Herr Hackendahl, be a man. You’ve still got a fine car, a diamond ring, no family – I’ve been worse off in my time.’

  Again and again Erich put through a call to Berlin – not till evening did he get his friend on the telephone. But by the sound of his voice he felt at once there was no hope.

  Nice of Erich to ring him after all this time … How was he doing? Why had he been silent so long? What was he doing in Amsterdam? Ah, business going badly? Really? Business bad, eh? Worrying … for Erich! What was that? Written? By wire? He was joking, surely! Hopefully, Erich hadn’t been taken in by some practical joker. But of course he was much too shrewd for that. No, not that tone, please, in spite of their friendship. Letters? Telegrams? One moment, please, Erich.

  ‘The Managing Clerk speaking. Yes. Herr Justizrat has just asked me to take down your grievances in case the matter goes further. You allege you received letters and telegrams from Herr Justizrat? Herr Justizrat asks me to inform you that he has neither written nor telegraphed you at any time. His name must have been used, then. Oh, the letters weren’t signed? But what makes you assume …’

  Hopeless. Erich hung up. He thought of suicide the whole night, but no way of doing it seemed sure and painless enough. The two had to go together. And nothing there corresponded to Erich’s wishes.

  The dissolution of his Amsterdam household went much quicker than the Berlin one. He only had to sell his car. As much money as he might temporarily have possessed in Amsterdam, he hadn’t owned anything but the car. So this time he had nothing to fear from Customs; even if he was still well kitted out, none of his things looked new any more.

  With three suitcases, one gentleman’s fur coat, a diamond ring and a gold watch, Erich Hackendahl departed from Amsterdam with a burning, heartfelt hatred for his former friend. It was 16 November 1923. The dollar stood at 2,520,000,000,000 against the mark. The question as to what rate of exchange the mark would be stabilized at was still unanswered.

  The weather was grey, foggy, raw; very much as on the day of his arrival.

  Not till he was sitting in the express to Cologne did it occur to him that he hadn’t seen the Rembrandts after all. And he had the feeling that nothing would ever make up for this.

  § XV

  About the time that Erich Hackendahl went back to his native Berlin, Heinz Hackendahl also returned there, from a shorter journey. He had taken his sister-in-law and her two boys to the island of Hiddensee, where Gertrud Hackendahl née Gudde had received a small inheritance – a little house, some land, a cowshed.

  While Erich had been fighting great financial battles over real money, suffering defeat, Heinz had been fighting over paper millions. In spite of Tutti’s untiring efforts it had become increasingly difficult to get bread for four mouths; unlike wartime, bread was waiting at the bakers’ – one merely needed the money to buy it. When, in due course, a trip to Hiddensee went not unfavourably, with a clamp of potatoes, a cow in the byre and three pigs in the sty, the nourishment of the eternally hungry children seemed assured.

  The evening before his departure Tutti and he had sat on a fishing boat on the beach; the boys, dead tired from rushing about in the unaccustomed sea air, had gone to bed long ago.

  ‘Oh, this does you good,’ said Tutti, shivering in the breeze.

  ‘A bit chilly, though,’ said Heinz.

  ‘It’s a clean wind and a clean chilliness,’ cried Tutti, happy to be home again.

  ‘That’s true! You’ll have to keep an eye on Gustav, though. His throat’s very delicate.’

  ‘You never get really ill here. Doctors don’t grow rich on this island.’

  ‘You must take care, Tutti,’ said Heinz emphatically.

  ‘Of course. My sole thought is for the children, Heinz.’

  Of course she was right. It was stupid to remind her. She’d never thought of anything else but the children.

  ‘If you’d have stayed in Berlin six months longer, Tutti, I’d have succeeded in getting Father to see the children.’

  ‘It’s not so important, Heinz.’

  ‘Not for you or for them,’ he admitted. ‘But it might have been for him. Father is pretty unhappy.’

  Both were silent. It had become almost dark, except that a misty glow lay over the waters and at short, regular intervals they saw the lightning flash of the lighthouse on Arcona and the more peaceful reddish beam from the Bahöft lighthouse. Both thought of the old man who had stayed brave on a bad day – very brave.

  ‘You’ll have a look at Eva now and then?’ asked Gertrud Hackendahl.

  ‘Of course. As often as possible.’

  ‘I’ll write to her. And send her a parcel when we do our slaughtering.’

  ‘I’ll enquire if that’s permitted. The regulations …’

  ‘We’ll be killing shortly before Christmas; surely it’s permissible at Christmas time.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. You must remember it’s a penitentiary. A penitentiary is the strictest form of punishment there is.’

  Again they were silent.

  After a while Gertrud said thoughtfully: ‘Two years – when you’re outside it doesn’t seem so much. Inside it must be an eternity.’

  ‘If it hadn’t been for Father it would have been five or six years.’

  ‘You know that I don’t like him, Heinz, if only on account of Otto – I can never forget how he behaved to Otto. But the way he stood up in court when the others were putting the blame on Eva and she just agreeing to everything, the way he got up and said that his girl was good but weak, while the chap was utterly rotten … and when the solicitor attacked him …’

  ‘Yes. And when he said to the lawyer: if the girl’s really as bad as you make out, she wouldn’t agree to everything you say; she’s protecting that scoundrel and all he wants is to drag her in the mud.’

  ‘After that they were more cautious with him.’

  ‘Yes, it was Father who saw to it that they gave Bast the heavier sentence and not Eva.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tutti. ‘He got his eight years all right. Will she really be free of him when he comes out, I wonder?’

  ‘Eight years!’ exclaimed Heinz. ‘Who can think as far ahead as that? In eight years it will be 1931. What will it be like?’

  ‘Let’s hope life will be a little better.’

  ‘Yes. If only we had proper money again. You don’t know how crazy it is at the bank. They’re off their heads at the counters, off their heads in the stocks and shares, and the foreign currency is the craziest of the lot. As for the management, they’re completely out of their minds.’

  ‘There must be a change soon,’ said Tutti consolingly. ‘It can’t go on like this.’

  ‘Yes, and what then? Nobody will have any more money. Most people have lost everything.’

  ‘You mean because of the banks?’

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘Oh, the banks will always have work to do, Heinz. And so will you. You’re so efficient!’

  He laughed lightly in the dark.

  ‘Things are also easier for you, Heinz, aren’t they, now you’re rid of us?’

  ‘Of course, only you know very well that …’

  ‘Keep on the flat whatever happens. Whatever you do don’t give up the flat. You need to move into a furnished room.’

  ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep the flat for your furniture.’

  ‘The furniture is yours now, Heinz. No, I want you to have it. Then you have a flat and you have furniture.’

  ‘But Irma doesn’t want to, Tutti! She absolutely doesn’t want to.’

  ‘She’ll give in eve
ntually.’

  ‘No, no. She’s worried. She’s really worried that I’ll run away again.’

  ‘What rubbish! You’ll never run away from anyone! You didn’t run away from me, either.’

  ‘But I did once run away from her.’

  ‘Oh, you were still a youngster then.’

  ‘Not for Irma I wasn’t.’

  Again they were silent.

  Then, suddenly standing up, Tutti said: ‘It’s really cold. Come, Heinz, let’s walk along the beach a bit. And let me repeat: you mustn’t give up the flat. With the flat, you’re a real prospect, and Irma will see that too.’

  § XVI

  Heinz was once again home in his flat. He walked about, put on the heating, opened the window and let in a bit of the dismal, damp air. He laid out the beds, and considered how he should arrange the furniture. The children’s beds could go upstairs …

  The children’s things were no longer on the wall, and the cupboards and drawers were mostly empty. That’s why there was such an echo when he walked about. It sounded empty. Everything had become empty, not just the drawers and the flat – his whole life.

  The young ones would soon get used to the island, and for Tutti it was a real homecoming. But he would never get used to the empty flat. He thought about what it would be like, from now on, when he came home from the bank. No one would be waiting for him in the flat. He would have to do the heating, clear up, cook – and all just for himself.

  He thought about how much it had helped him through the terrible years that lay behind him that he had had to care for someone, in fact for three people. That had helped him get over Tinette, and it had also made it easier for him to come unscathed through the terrible years of the inflation. From one day to the next, he had always had to do some caring; there had always been small objects in view – a new suit for Gustav, radiation treatment for Otto, the dentist for Tutti … Those had been his extra duties, beside the usual daily ones: paying the rent, bread, gas … In his early twenties he had already had to become father of a family. That had often been difficult. He couldn’t go to cafés like other people, or dance in dance halls, or sit in cinemas. It had often been difficult, but always good.

  How often his colleagues laughed over him! ‘Hackendahl, you’re a double idiot! Burden yourself with two brats! What’s social welfare for?’

  Yes, of course he was an idiot. For such people, Heinz Hackendahl was by and large an idiot. However, he would outlive them, with all their shallow pleasures, in all his stubborn idiocy. There was something in him and about him – he had a project.

  ‘We will survive,’ they said. ‘How we do it doesn’t matter.’ But it certainly did matter, how they did it. You can’t survive on dancing girls and cocaine, but you can survive with two children. Professor Degener, a widely unknown man, had given the right advice when he said: ‘Small things first, Hackendahl! Organize your cells: without proper cells you can’t have a healthy body.’

  The man was right. Bravo! He should be consulted again. Perhaps he could think up a little election slogan for someone in a cold and empty flat, once more without a project. Heinz Hackendahl knows more about himself now than he did when he was seventeen. He knows that he is no great shakes. He is a manual worker, but one still confident that he can properly occupy his position. Only, he would just like to know what his position was. And a project? You don’t want to have spent your time on earth creeping along with aches and pains, and then being fully satisfied. You can think about God and heaven however much you like, but you still believe you are more than a microbe. Or do you?

  Heinz Hackendahl hit his bed angrily. His thinking was fired up. It seemed quite out of the question that his aim in life was to go to the bank and establish first-class statistics on the developments of exports in the electro-industry (with special regard to plants built by German workers abroad), and then creep home in the evenings to tidy up his digs. Definitely not.

  Suddenly Heinz Hackendahl was in a hurry. He shut neither the oven door nor the window, and the beds were unmade. Instead, he put on his hat, pulled on his coat and stormed out of the house and through the town, not even thinking of driving. You can’t cope with impatience by driving. You’ve got to walk it off.

  The result was that he rushed into the shop of Widow Quaas in a state of greater impatience. ‘My dear Quaasi, don’t make a fuss! I must speak to Irma immediately.’

  And already, even before the increasingly miserable widow could utter a sound, he jumped over the counter and into the front room.

  ‘Irma, excuse me, but I’m in a terrible hurry … When are we getting married?’

  ‘You seem to have gone clean mad, Heinz. I’ll never marry you, never.’

  ‘I tell you I’m in a hurry. Wait, I put the rings in my pocket. Where are they? I’ve been to the registrar’s. Your mother gave me your papers. What about Wednesday?’

  ‘I never …’ began Frau Quaas, but her thin wail faded out unnoticed.

  ‘Mental,’ said Irma. ‘Absolutely mental. How old are you, young man?’

  ‘Please, Irma, get a move on. Stop showing off.’

  ‘I beg your pardon? I’m not showing off!’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And who started all the kissing?’

  ‘I gave you a box on the ears then, and would gladly give you another.’

  ‘Irma, please do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Please do. You want to hit me one, don’t you? Go on then. But come along with me afterwards.’

  ‘Where am I to go with you?’

  ‘I’m telling you for the umpteenth time – to look at our flat.’

  ‘So he’s got a flat as well.’

  ‘If you want to marry me I must have a flat. That’s only logical.’

  ‘I don’t want to marry you.’

  ‘Of course you do. Now don’t go over it all again.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘You can’t get out of it now. We’ve had the banns put up at the register office!’

  ‘That’s your business – cancelling it.’

  ‘I don’t want to cancel it.’

  ‘But I do.’

  ‘There, you see!’

  ‘What do I see?’

  ‘That we agree!’

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘Well, of course!’ he said and grinned. ‘What else?’

  ‘You think you can drop me in it. Me – never! I remember already telling you that when we were teenage friends. Now you’re a man – never!’

  ‘Irma! Irmchen! Irmgard! I suggested it to you myself – so please do.’

  ‘Suggested what?’

  ‘The box on the ears. You wanted to give me a box on the ears. So please do.’

  ‘I shouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘I can see you’re suffering from a frustrated box on the ears. Please give it to me – for the past. Please, Irma.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think of it. And about the past you’d better be silent.’

  ‘With pleasure – when you box my ears. Other people give each other a betrothal kiss but we’re content with a betrothal slap. We’ve passed the stage of kissing.’

  ‘Of slapping, too.’

  ‘God, what a stubborn girl you are. So you won’t let yourself be taken by surprise?’

  ‘Not by you.’

  ‘All right. Then I must give you time to think it over.’ He snivelled significantly, pulled a chair for himself up to the table and sat down beside her.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ she exclaimed indignantly. ‘Are you making yourself at home here?’

  ‘That was my idea. Until you’ve thought the matter over.’

  ‘You’re too – never mind, don’t bother, Mother. Behave as if he wasn’t here. It’s too silly for words.’

  ‘I didn’t give him your papers, Irmchen, truly,’ whimpered Frau Quaas. ‘I’ve just had a look, they’re still
there. It’s a lie.’

  ‘Of course it’s a lie. Don’t get excited, Mother. He’s just a common liar.’

  No reaction from the accused.

  ‘And about the rings, that was a lie, too. Of course he hasn’t got them. Every word’s a lie.’

  Heinz said nothing.

  Very disdainfully: ‘And of course he hasn’t a flat either – he’s glad enough to be able to pay for a furnished room.’

  ‘That’s not right,’ said Heinz coolly. ‘The flat’s really true. Oh God!’ He jumped up, startled. ‘Now I’ve left the gas alight and the milk on it.’

  He rushed to the door. Terror-stricken they looked at him, picturing the milk boiling over and stinking.

  He turned back, pale but resolute. ‘It’s all the same to me,’ he said gloomily. ‘Let it burn, let the fire brigade come. I’m not leaving until I’m out of this awful suspense. I must have a definite answer at last.’ He sat down beside her.

  ‘I’ll never marry you,’ she shouted into his ears. ‘Now you’ve got your definite answer.’

  ‘Please, dear Heinz, your milk!’ Frau Quaas was absolutely overwhelmed.

  ‘I told you so,’ he said, nodding his head. ‘She hasn’t decided yet. She must have time for reflection.’

  ‘Please, Heinz, the milk.’

  ‘Are you going, Heinz, or aren’t you?’ Irma’s patience was at an end. Crimson with fury, she stood in front of him.

  ‘If only you’d think it over quietly,’ he begged. ‘You’re too excited now, Irma.’

  ‘You’re to go and see about your milk. You’re upsetting Mother.’

  ‘It’s only half a litre,’ he said apologetically. ‘By the time I got there it would be burnt away, anyhow. I’d rather wait here.’

  ‘You’re to leave at once.’

  ‘And then’ – Heinz looked repentant – ‘I find lying beastly. To tell the truth I’ve got no milk on the gas at all, Irma. And the gas isn’t turned on either, but—’

  Smack! That was his slap all right. Smack! Smack! Smack! Three more than he had bargained for.

  ‘There! There! There! You miserable liar, to torment us like this. You do nothing but torment people.’