A Small Circus

by Hans Fallada

  ‘Whatever you say, comrade,’ says the lad, and tips his hat. That gives Stuff a nice warm feeling inside. He walks faster, and looks enterprisingly at the low two-storey cottages.

  ‘It’s the next corner,’ says Henning. ‘Facing the back. We just need to climb over the fence.’

  ‘You know what you’re about.’

  ‘I’ve been on his trail for the past five days. But he’s cagey. Doesn’t go into bars, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, nothing with girls.’

  ‘He’s got no money.’

  ‘Exactly. Those are the hardest cases.’

  ‘Or maybe the easiest.’

  ‘Not him.’

  They climb quietly over a fence, cut around a barn, and the little yard, with gardens on two sides of it, is in front of them.

  There’s a light on in one curtained window. ‘That’s where he lives. Let’s take a look.’

  They try to look inside. ‘No, nothing? Why is his light still on? Why isn’t he asleep yet, it’s one in the morning?—Wait a minute. You stand aside, so that he doesn’t see you right away. I’m going to knock on the window.’

  Stuff knocks softly.

  No sooner has the sound died away than a shadow falls across the curtain, as though the man within had been waiting for the knock.

  ‘We’re not going to take him by surprise,’ murmurs Stuff, and his mate pats him on the shoulder in agreement.

  The curtain is pulled aside, the window opens, and a dark head asks quietly: ‘Yes? Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me, Stuff. Can I talk to you, Tredup?’

  ‘No reason why not. If it’s not too humble for you inside. Come in, I’ll open the door.’

  The window closes, and the curtain is pushed across again.

  ‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ asks Henning.

  ‘Of course. He’s not someone you stand on ceremony with.’

  The door on to the yard opens quietly. Tredup stands in the doorway. ‘Come on in, Stuff. Oh, there’s two of you? Well, welcome, the pair of you.’

  It’s not a big room that they enter from the yard. On a dresser is a shaded paraffin lamp, lighting piles of envelopes, an address book, ink and a pen. Along the walls are two beds, with shapes in them. Deep, rhythmic breathing.

  ‘You can talk softly here. The children have a sound sleep, and my wife never hears anything that’s not meant for her ears.’

  ‘What are you doing up so late, Tredup?’ Stuff gestures to the dresser. ‘By the way—Herr Henning—Herr Tredup.’

  ‘I write addresses. For a publisher in Munich. Five marks per thousand. The Chronicle isn’t overly generous in what it pays, wouldn’t you agree, Stuff?’

  ‘I’m sorry about your article, Tredup. But I’ve got a better proposition here. That’s why I came to you with this gentleman, who’s passing through town. He’s a buyer of photographs for an illustrated magazine, and he’s interested in your pictures of the cattle confiscation. He would pay fifty marks for a picture.’

  Tredup has listened to Stuff’s faintly awkward speech with a quiet smile on his lips. ‘I have no photographs of the cattle confiscation.’

  ‘Tredup! I know for a fact you do. It’s a lot of money for you!’

  ‘And I would take it, honestly I would! I’m not choosy. Yes, I was taking pictures. But they didn’t turn out. One of those bastard farmers knocked the camera out of my hands.’

  ‘I knew that, Herr Tredup,’ says Henning. ‘A little birdie. But you got off some pictures before that. One. Or maybe two.’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Very well, one. I’ll pay you for each picture, if you sell me the film and all prints, one hundred marks.’

  Tredup grins. ‘That’s as much as twenty thousand addresses. One hundred and sixty hours of night work. But we unlucky bleeders miss out on good deals like that. The first picture is just fresh air.’

  Stuff says imploringly: ‘Tredup . . . !’

  Tredup smiles again. ‘Oh, you don’t believe me. You take me for a millionaire, who scribbles addresses for the fun of it. Well, I can fix that.’

  He opens a drawer in the dresser and starts ferreting around in it. ‘It was a roll of film with twelve exposures. Three of the church restoration in Podejuch. Two interiors, one exterior. Two photographs of the confiscation. Here’s the air shot. All smoke. Hold the film up against the light, and you’ll see it really is smoke. Here’s the failed shot when the farmer knocked a hundred marks out of my grip. Next is one you bought from me, Stuff: the crashed car on the road to Stettin. Six. Seven to ten: four pictures of the weekly market. Eleven and twelve: the opening of the new petrol station. Is that right?’

  ‘My God, Tredup, as if we wouldn’t take your word for it.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Henning. ‘I would have liked to make a deal with you. But maybe you’ll sell me the three pictures of Podejuch church. My magazine can use them. Five marks apiece. Is that all right?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘There. And now I’ll leave you in peace. You need to go to bed.’

  ‘Yes, I think I can stop for tonight. I’m dog-tired. Don’t fall over anything when you go. Wait, I’ll open the gate for you. Goodnight, gents, and thank you.’

  The two of them walk down the road.

  ‘Do you think,’ Stuff asks hesitatingly, ‘that that was on the level?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think. The twelve pictures were just a little bit too handy and worked out.’

  ‘Oh, where that’s concerned, Tredup is a model of pedantry and good order. And for a hundred marks . . .’

  ‘That’s what’s comforting me too. Then you can tell Kalübbe tomorrow morning that he won’t have to recognize anyone.’

  ‘Yes. Well, goodbye now, Herr Henning.’

  ‘We’ll see each other again somewhere. My hotel is this way. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  Tredup has turned out the light, and lies down beside his wife. ‘Let me tell you something, Elise. We have two mayors here. The Oberbürgermeister is on the Right, and has no power, and is generally useless. The mayor is on the Left, and he’s also the chief of police. It’s him I’m going to be seeing tomorrow.’

  ‘I expect you know what you’re doing, Max,’ says his wife. ‘Just see that we get a little money into the house. Hans’s shoes need new soles, and Grete must have two new blouses.’

  ‘We have fifteen marks for now. But I won’t be bought for fifteen marks. Nor yet for one hundred. Five hundred is more my price.’

  And with that they go to sleep.

  V

  Every morning at ten Tredup goes to the town hall, where he asks the office manager for public announcements to put in the advertising section of the Chronicle.

  Today, after pushing two or three sheets of paper into his briefcase, he climbs the stairs from the ground floor to the first floor. He goes through a double door; a long white corridor with red doors lies ahead of him. He knows that somewhere hereabouts Mayor Gareis, the police chief of Altholm, is to be found.

  He starts reading the names on the doors: market police, traffic police, criminal investigation department, deputy commissioner. There it is: mayor. But a red arrow points the visitor to the next door: mayor’s outer office. Visitors report here.

  He didn’t think about there being an outer office! He will have to sit and wait there, other people will be sitting there too, one of them will recognize him, and Stuff will get to hear that Tredup, the advertising manager of the Right-wing Chronicle, has paid a call on the Leftist mayor.

  Falteringly he turns back. He can’t risk his job, and the existence of the three people who depend on him.

  At the top of the stairs, he changes his mind again. In the course of the night, five hundred marks have become a thousand. The police and public prosecutors pay out money like that pretty regularly. And a thousand marks seems to offer security, a decent living . . . maybe a little shop.

  But he won’t do the ou
ter office. He will have to risk it. And with a sudden jerk he opens the door of the mayor’s inner sanctum. But it’s a double door, and he opens the inner one much more gently.

  He’s in luck. The mayor is alone, seated at his desk, telephoning. At the sound of the opening door, he turns his head to the incomer. He narrows his eyes a little in the effort to recognize him, then points him to the outer office.

  Tredup pulls the door quietly shut after him, and remains where he is, leaning forward and alert.

  Mayor Gareis continues to telephone.

  Tredup has heard it said that the mayor is the tallest man in Altholm. But this man isn’t just tall, he’s huge, a colossus, an elephant. Great big limbs, quantities of flesh barely held together by his suit, a face with two chins, pendulous dewlaps, massy thick hands.

  After his initial dismissive gesture, the mayor has not looked at the visitor again. He continues to talk calmly on the telephone, about the time of some meeting, not an interesting conversation.

  Tredup begins to look around the room.

  Suddenly he notices that the mayor is looking at him, and a painful feeling comes over him, that these clear, bright eyes—under the smooth black hair—can see everything: the unironed trousers, the dirty shoes, the poorly washed hands, the pasty complexion.

  But now he can’t ignore it any more: across the telephone receiver, Mayor Gareis is smiling at him. And now he’s pointing him to a chair in front of the desk, he makes a hospitable gesture, and now, right in the middle of his conversation he says: ‘I’ll be with you in just a moment.’

  Tredup sits down, the mayor puts the receiver down on its cradle, smiles once more, and asks quickly: ‘Where’s the fire?’

  Suddenly Tredup has the sensation that he can tell this man everything, that he will understand anything that is put to him. He feels a rush of emotion, a hot, grateful enthusiasm spreads through his body. He says: ‘The fire? The fire’s in Gramzow, on the roads to Haselhorst and Lohstedt.’

  The mayor is serious, he nods once or twice, looks pensively at a mammoth pencil his hands are toying with, and he says: ‘There was a fire there.’

  ‘And are the police interested in catching the arsonists?’

  ‘Might be. Do you know them?’

  ‘A friend of mine. Just might.’

  ‘“Friend” is too ambiguous. Let’s just say: an unknown party. X.’

  ‘All right then, my friend X.’

  The mayor’s shoulders heave. ‘Are you from Gramzow?’

  ‘My friend? No. He’s from town.’

  ‘This town?’

  ‘Could be.’

  The mayor gets up. Tredup is alarmed. It’s as though a mountain has started moving. He gets up and gets up and it still isn’t all of him. From somewhere near the top, a voice intones down to Tredup, curled up in his armchair: ‘I’ve got all the time in the world for sense, but no time to spare for nonsense. We’re not playing cops and robbers here. You want something from me, presumably money. Sell me some news. Well, I’m not interested.’

  Tredup wants to raise an objection. The voice overrides it. ‘All right, I’m not interested. Gramzow isn’t part of my constituency. The country warden in Lohstedt might be. Or perhaps Stolpe.’

  The mayor sits down again. Suddenly he breaks into a smile: ‘But perhaps I can help you anyway. Just stop talking nonsense. Spit it out. I’ve learned to be discreet over the course of my life.’

  The somewhat crushed Tredup rallies. He says eagerly: ‘I was there, that afternoon. I saw the whole thing: the officials, the farmers, the oxen.’

  ‘You would be able to identify them, I expect?’

  Tredup nods eagerly. ‘More than that.’

  ‘You know their names?’

  ‘No, not the names. But . . .’

  ‘But . . . ?’

  ‘But I took a couple of photographs, one of the fire on the road to Haselhorst, the other from the Lohstedt Road. The farmers are on them, the ones who set the fire, who scattered the straw, who are standing by, all of them . . .’

  The mayor, pensively now, asks: ‘I’m not up with the statements that have been brought in. But so far as I know, none of them mentions a stranger standing there taking pictures.’

  Tredup thinks in a rushed way: It’s not his affair? He doesn’t know all the statements? And he knows . . . Something warns him, and he just says: ‘I’ve got the pictures.’

  ‘Not posed pictures? The difference is obvious.’

  ‘The other side knows about them. At one o’clock this morning, I was offered five hundred marks for them.’

  ‘That’s a good price,’ says the mayor. ‘Maybe they’re no longer worth the celluloid they’re printed on. The case is up in Gramzow at the moment. If the officials recognize the farmers there, then your pictures will be worthless.’

  ‘If . . . The party that offered me five hundred will have thought about what to do with the officials too.’

  The mayor surveys his visitor long and thoughtfully. ‘You’ve got something about you. How much are the pictures?’

  ‘A thousand. Today.’

  ‘And tomorrow? No, let’s not play that. It’s not out of the question. So you have the pictures with you?’

  Tredup ducks the question: ‘They can be made available any time.’

  ‘I believe they exist. And they are clear, usable? You can recognize people’s faces on them?’

  ‘Just as I’m sitting in front of you, Mayor.’

  ‘All right then, Herr X. Perhaps you’ll wait outside for ten minutes. As I say, I’m not interested. But it may be that Stolpe is. So wait a little. And thanks for the moment.’

  Tredup is hardly out of the door before the mayor is ringing his bell.

  ‘Listen to me, Piekbusch. Will you pick up a few files, and cross the corridor as casually as you can. There’s a young man there, black hat, trousers out at the knees, briefcase, pale, the laces on his right shoe are undone. Take a casual look at him and see if you know him. Come straight back and report to me.’

  Secretary Piekbusch goes.

  The mayor picks up the telephone: ‘Get me the district president. Personal and urgent. While you’re waiting to get him on the line, get me Commander Frerksen. And then County Judge Grumbach.—Is that you, Frerksen?—Yes, please come and see me right away. Get yourself driven. You will be taking someone to Stolpe in fifteen minutes.—Yes, right away.—Well, Piekbusch, do you know the man?’

  ‘I’ve seen him before, Herr Mayor, but—’

  ‘So you don’t know him. Will you go down to the Criminal Investigation Department. Get whoever’s there to step out into the corridor, go to this office or that, go to the toilet. As soon as anyone can identify him, call me. Or, no, better report in person.

  ‘Yes, who is it? Judge Grumbach?—Yes, Judge, this is Mayor Gareis. I wanted to ask you, if possible, to delay the hearing at Gramzow by a couple of hours, if you can do such a thing.—Interesting new lead.—Local hearing is probably unnecessary. Why? Well, you’ll see.—We have our sources.—I can’t tell you yet, but I’m about to call Stolpe.—Yes, on my say-so.—The Revenue? Pah, what those gentlemen come up with. It’s not enough to sentence anyone, maybe not even enough to mount a case.—It’s either all or nothing.—Well, you’ll be hearing from me. Or from the district president.—What’s it to do with Temborius? He has to pay. It costs money, money and more money.—That’s right, I’ll leave him the bill, and will be happy with the renown. Ha, bye-bye now!’

  He puts down the telephone. The secretary walks into the office.

  ‘Piekbusch, leave me. Once someone can identify him, I said.’

  ‘The young man has disappeared, Herr Mayor.’

  ‘Disappeared?! You mean he’s gone?’ The mayor gives a start. He thinks: If some enemy of mine has played me false, then I’m really in the soup. He could have been a spy, trying to find out what the government has up its sleeve. Then I’m done for. Ach, that wasn’t a spy. He will have been scared off. And, aloud: �
��Go and check the toilet, Piekbusch. He’s maybe just gone for a pee.’

  Piekbusch turns to leave. ‘Hold it! And I want to see Frerksen. What’s keeping him?—Ah, Frerksen, there you are.—Now, Piekbusch, whoever’s in the outer office, send them along to Stein. He can hold the fort for me. If it’s very important, I can deal with it in fifteen minutes.—Now, Frerksen, sit yourself down, something’s come up, it looks as though we’ll at last be able to make a favourable impression on Comrade Temborius in Stolpe.’

  3

  The First Bomb

  I

  The inner sanctum of District President Temborius is a long, dark, wood-panelled room. The lights are always turned down low there. The windows decorated with coats of arms and gaudy putti are enough to tone down the brightest summer day.

  This official, kept in power by the support of his party, a modicum of administrative expertise and a lot of string-pulling, is no friend of loud noises. Quiet, soothing, chiaroscuro murmur suits him better. Quietly, soothingly and murmuringly is how Comrade Temborius has steered the fortunes of his district, and quiet, discreet murmur also describes the conversation between him, his militia colonel and Revenue Councillor Andersson. Somewhere in the darkest recess a fat little adviser is minuting the remarks of the three gentlemen for subsequent filing, to the security of his boss.

  ‘It remains regrettable,’ murmurs the softly spoken provincial representative of the Minister of the Interior, ‘regrettable that the lawyer was not contactable at such short notice. What happened at Gramzow was not a chance incident, but a sign of things to come.’

  Colonel Senkpiel is pining for a cigar. ‘We should hit them, and hit them hard.’

  ‘If the pictures do what Gareis promises, then we will be able to nab the ringleaders at last.’

  ‘Yes, from one place. The movement has long since ceased to be local.’

  ‘That’s right! So we’ll see if there were emissaries from other places around.’

  ‘Gentlemen . . .’ The president begins, falters, stops. And then again, with an irked twitch of the shoulders: ‘The views of the prosecution would have been extraordinarily valuable to me.’