A Small Circus

by Hans Fallada

  A couple of hundred paces from the house, two men walk past her. One tips his hat to her, and politely and quietly says: ‘Good evening, ma’am.’

  She thanks him, and goes on. When she opens the garden gate she has a feeling of being watched, and she turns round to look at the street. Dimly she can make out the two forms; the men have stopped.

  You’re wasting your time, she thinks. When I was twenty years younger, maybe, but not any more . . .

  She walks down the gravel path, and quietly sets about unlocking the door, because the president’s bedroom faces on to the front. She mustn’t disturb him.

  Surprisingly the door is open. It wasn’t locked at all. Those naughty maids, she thinks. It’s time I told them off again. And Erna will have to get her marching orders, and marry her Willem. Two more weeks, and not even Temborius would remain ignorant of the biological condition of his parlourmaid.

  When she cautiously turns on the light in the hallway, she has fresh cause to be displeased with her girls. Smack in the middle of the hall is a chest, a plain white margarine chest. So Mahlmann did manage to send the preserves after all! And the girls just left them standing there!

  Klara tucks the box under her arm, and goes down the long passage to the kitchen, which is in the newer part of the house. She leaves the chest in the pantry, checks to see that the gas is turned off, turns off all the lights on her way back, and mounts the stairs to her bedroom.

  As she draws the curtain she looks out at the street once more. Strange, the two men have come closer, she can see their darker shadows in the shadows of the trees.

  Perhaps one of the girls has a new man? She is certain she doesn’t know either of them, even though she didn’t get a good look at them.

  Then she goes back inside the room, switches on the light, and is about to pull back the covers.

  At that instant it’s as though a hurricane bursts into the room. She feels herself carried aloft, eyes closed, higher and higher . . .

  The ceiling must come any moment, surely . . .

  And now she’s falling . . . There’s a crack, the crack of doom. She thinks she can hear herself screaming . . .

  But now she knows she is lying somewhere. It is so deathly still . . .

  And now there’s a trickle of powder, incessantly, in the walls, in her ears . . .

  And now everything is just black. Dull, bitter black.

  4

  A Storm Brews

  I

  A man is walking along the sandy track from Dülmen to Bandekow-Ausbau. Everything about his clothing and shoes bespeaks the gentleman, but somewhere something is lacking: no maid introducing him would have taken him for a gentleman.

  It’s a warm day, and the man is taking his time. He dawdles along, stops now and then, and examines the tracks in the sand.

  A motorbike has come this way, he thinks, that much is clear. And not come out. According to the map, there is only this one approach to the farm. Nice, godforsaken stretch of country. Ten miles to the nearest railway station.

  The man stops again and looks around while he catches his breath. The country is nothing particular, a poor mix of scrubland, clumps of pine, blueberry swamp and any amount of juniper.

  Actually I always thought aristocrats must live in these kind of settings. I think there is some count here too, someone so hungry he can’t get to sleep at night.—I wonder what this is going to lead to.

  If you’re fifty-two and still a deputy inspector in spite of all your diligence, then thoughts like this may give rise to feelings of a hopeful nature. Since the Revolution, Deputy Inspector Perduzke (Altholm) has seen plenty of his colleagues promoted to inspector, commander, even superintendent. He, for all his diligence, has remained what he was.

  And if I manage to solve this bomb hoax, then they’ll have to promote me, even if I don’t have a Party book ten times over.

  He stares. Rubbish! If they behaved the way they ought to, then they would have made me inspector in the wake of the Kapp Putsch. Shameful, the way that Red duo Gareis and Frerksen have strung me along.

  Perduzke is a born sleuth. Hunting is his passion. Even the chance that the proferred sausage will be snatched away from him isn’t enough to rob him of his enthusiasm for the chase. He is already on the case after finding that note in his in tray this morning, with just two words: ‘Bombs—Bandekow.’

  He didn’t tell his superiors anything about this lead. If he manages to find anything out, he’ll report straight to the government or the minister, otherwise they’ll intercept his reports and claim the credit for his work. Officially-unofficially he is on the trail of some cattle-rustlers. The best sort of introduction to that so-called gentleman farmer, Bandekow!

  It’s July, a quiet month in the country calendar. On the fields, which have now taken over from the scrubland, there’s no one to be seen. There’s nothing grazing on the pastures. It’s another fortnight till the rye harvest, and the hay is in.

  Annoying that there’s no one around. It’s the girls that are usually the best sources of information.

  Now a car is coming up behind him, an Opel four-seater with the top down. Perduzke stands on the verge, but there’s not all that much dust. The car crawls and bumps along, the sand is too loose to make a decent surface. That way the detective is able to get a good view of the four gentlemen.

  The two in the back are farmers, that’s for sure, though he doesn’t know them. He doesn’t know any of the farmers hereabouts. But in the front . . .

  And now his heart starts to race a little. What a good break it was that he set off the moment he got that little anonymous note! Who would have thought of Bandekow! But there’s a bad smell around Bandekow now, that’s for certain.

  He knows the driver well, that’s Padberg, the editor of the Bauernschaft, the farmers’ rag that loved to inveigh against the Reds. (Only it had no readers.)

  And the one in the passenger seat, the young fellow, that was Thiel, regardless of how much he might try to look the other way. That was Thiel, in quest of whom the whole province had been quietly turned upside down for the past five weeks. The ox-drover from the revenue office at Altholm, disappeared only to resurface in a car with Bauernschaft and farmers.

  Stolpe plates, notes Perduzke. We know the number. It’ll be Padberg’s. So they’re the ones who’ve bought the boy! Funny, I’d never have guessed it. First they make fun of him, put him through an ordeal by fire, throw him in a ditch, and then they give him a ride in their automobile.—It didn’t happen like that before the War.

  He goes on his way and wonders how to go about his business.

  Maybe they recognized me. Someone like that paper man, Padberg, they can always spot a detective. The half-hour till I get to the farm is plenty of time for them to hide the boy. But I’m on the trail.

  He crunches on through the sand till he gets to the gates of the farm, where he is met by the legend: residence of count bandekow. isn’t buying. isn’t selling. no visitors.

  Perduzke nods appreciatively. A nice touch! And when you hear the dogs as well, sweet-natured critters . . .

  They rush up to the bars, with open mouths, drooling chops, obviously set on ripping the visitor into tiny pieces.

  So this isn’t the way in, Perduzke sees. The car’s seen to it. But maybe the other side. He scrambles over the ditch.

  II

  The farm Bandekow-Ausbau is only a small offshoot of the principal seat of Bandekow. And its owner, Count Ernst Bandekow, isn’t especially close to his older brother, Count Bodo Bandekow, for several reasons, not least the material ones. An old bachelor, he is squatting on the farm, feels more like a farmer, and has taken their part.

  It’s barely more than a farm cottage, the place where the four occupants of the car are now sitting, along with the count with his pepper-and-salt beard and the slender Henning.

  The gentlemen have only just got here. The car is parked in the yard, beside the dungheap, and the dogs have been set loose. Then Count Ban
dekow sent the two maids and the housekeeper into the garden, and pulled out some schnapps and a Mosel.

  ‘Now we can talk freely,’ he says. ‘Padberg, you start.’

  ‘Then it’s last thing first: Henning, you’ll have to clear off, there’s a detective on the way.’

  ‘Bah! How would a detective find his way out here?’

  ‘A couple of miles ago there was one of those bastards slinking along the road. I had half a mind to run him over.’

  ‘A cattle-dealer, perhaps. There is a resemblance.’

  Thiel pipes up: ‘It was a detective, I can tell you. It was Perduzke from Altholm!’

  ‘My golly!’ Henning mocks him. ‘Someone pour the lad a brandy. He’s all white around the gills.’

  ‘You can do whatever you want,’ Thiel insists, ‘I’m getting out of here.’

  ‘Why? Do you think anyone would get past the dogs alive?’

  ‘What if he shoots them?’

  ‘Then I shoot him,’ says the count. ‘But leave all that for now. What’s he doing in Bandekow, Padberg?’

  ‘You see! What’s he doing in Bandekow? That’s the question. And here’s the other thing.—This morning I walk into the editorial office and find my desk open. I’d left it locked. I check everything, and the only thing that’s missing is the card you wrote me, Count, telling us to meet here today.’

  Farmer Rehder-Karolinenhorst: ‘I expect you forgot to lock it. And the card will be lying around somewhere.’

  ‘If there’s one thing I’ve had to get used to doing in my life, it’s keeping an eye out for paper.’

  ‘So the detectives checked at night. They’re in a state about the bombs anyway.’

  ‘Nah, they do things officially. They wreck the locks and leave everything a complete mess.’

  Henning says in a bored voice: ‘All right then, Padberg, why don’t you tell us what you think. I’m sure you’ve formed a suspicion.—And anyway, cheers!’

  ‘Yes, why don’t we raise our glasses! Cheers!’

  Padberg fishes a letter from his briefcase and passes it round. ‘Please take a look at this letter. Don’t worry so much about what it says. Some needy journalist. But look at the actual letter. What do you think?’

  They all look at it, hesitant, a little perplexed, awkward.

  ‘Well, come on, answers on a postcard!’ Padberg gees them up.

  ‘Stop showing off, Padberg,’ says Henning. ‘We don’t have time to play Sherlock Holmes here.’

  ‘None of you?’

  ‘Hang on! One minute!’ Thiel comes in. ‘Just a question, it might be stupid. Was the letter in the setting shop?’

  ‘Finally!’ says a gratified Padberg. ‘At least one of you.—No, my son, the letter wasn’t in the setting shop.’

  ‘But then a typesetter’s laid his grubby mitts on it?’

  ‘Shouldn’t have done.’

  ‘But the letter was lying in your drawer, somewhere near the top?’

  ‘That’s right, my son, along with the card that’s disappeared.’

  ‘Then,’ says Thiel, breathing hard, ‘then it was a typesetter that stole the card as well. The fingerprints on the letter are printer’s ink.’

  ‘If there’s nothing more to it than that,’ says Henning, ‘I could have told you that ages ago. All printers are Reds. They belong to something called a trade union.’

  ‘What a smart boy you are!’ Padberg jeers. ‘The perspicacity! Yes, they’re in a printers’ union. But that doesn’t mean they go around stealing postcards, least of all such an unimportant card, from some gentleman saying he’d like to see me.’

  The count combs his beard with his fingernails. ‘It seems to me we’ve got more important subjects to cover. Keep it short, Herr Padberg.’

  ‘All right. Briefly: in our printshop we have someone who with the aid of perfect night-keys steals documents to order. The fellow’s a little bit dim, because first he would have thought about not leaving fingerprints, and second he would have remembered to lock the desk drawer afterwards.

  ‘The person who commissioned the theft must be very well informed. Otherwise we wouldn’t have had Perduzke along as early as this morning.’

  There is a stricken silence into which Farmer Rehder slowly says: ‘I know Franz Reimers would have opposed it. I opposed it. Rohwer opposed it. We three elected leaders of our movement all opposed it. And still you did it, Henning!’

  ‘Well, I’m glad I did and all! They’re all so almighty slow about everything they do!’ Henning blurts unapologetically.

  ‘We have a good cause,’ Farmer Rohwer from Nippmerow. ‘You plunged it into noise and stench. The country’s been full of talk ever since that kitchen was blown up.’

  ‘And you lied too,’ Rehder carries on. ‘It was pure chance that nothing but the kitchen went up. You were hoping for something more.’

  Henning glowers at Thiel. ‘There are some old women I could mention who can’t shut up about anything.’

  Thiel blushes and looks away.

  ‘I don’t agree with you there,’ says Padberg smoothly. ‘I’m a newspaper man. Newspapers are propaganda, from the first page to the last. Whether it’s soap powder or politics, they’re always propaganda. Propaganda is something I know something about. Your movement was good, but it was taking place in a vacuum. It made nothing happen, it had no effect. It didn’t register with the government. It didn’t register with the revenue office. It didn’t register with the militia. To the town-dweller it was a bucket of cold spit.

  ‘Henning has given you a propaganda coup. He made a bang. You’re right, it was a big bang, one hundred per cent, big propaganda. And now there’s life in the movement, people are sitting up: What are the farmers up to? Your movement is getting attention. The movement is getting respect. The movement will be able to get things done.’

  ‘The farmers aren’t in favour of that sort of thing,’ says Rohwer. ‘We don’t like it.’

  The count says: ‘And you don’t have to have anything to do with it. None of you was involved in it, none of you knew the least thing about it. If the worst comes to the worst,’ he says, raising his voice, ‘they were strangers, outsiders, mystery men.’

  With a grin of approval, Padberg says: ‘Yes, the usual anarcho bomb-chuckers, whom we condemn in the strongest terms.’

  ‘We the anarcho bomb-chuckers thank you for your kind words,’ says Henning, also with a grin. ‘We aim to give satisfaction.’

  ‘But what are we going to do about the police?’

  ‘I don’t have time at the moment to get myself arrested,’ explains Henning, ‘I have to go to the demonstration.’

  ‘What a prospect,’ mocks Padberg. ‘Marching openly through the streets of Altholm. An arrest in broad daylight! No no, sonny, you’re staying here.’

  ‘I’m going. You need me.’

  ‘What do you mean, we need you? No one is irreplaceable.’

  ‘Come on. I’ll show you something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ll see. Come along.’

  III

  Henning leads the five men across the farmyard into the barn. In the chiaroscuro of the threshing floor—a ray of sunshine is just striking it—he shows off the product of several days of voluntary detention: a flag.

  There’s a white, rough staff, a handle as for a hayfork, very long, culminating in an upright scythe. The cloth—

  Henning comments eagerly on his creation: ‘I’ve thought very carefully about it. The cloth is black. As a sign of mourning over this Jewish republic. On it there’s a white plough: symbol of our peaceable work. But also, as a sign that we may not always mean peace, a red sword. All in the colours of the old Reich flag: black, white, red.’

  ‘What a clever boy!’ says Padberg mockingly.

  ‘What do you mean, “boy”?’ asks Henning sharply. ‘Isn’t it good? You say, Rehder! What do you think, Rohwer? Open your mouth, Thiel! What’s your view, Count? It’s based on the flag of Florian Geyer. You kn
ow,’ he says to the farmers, who don’t know, ‘Florian Geyer, the leader of a farmers’ revolt. Back in the Middle Ages.’

  ‘Yes. Admittedly against the creation of large estates,’ Padberg says mockingly. ‘But all that’s just so much nonsense. What are we wasting our time on?’

  ‘Excuse me,’ says Rohwer. ‘The flag’s good. Will you wave it, Henning?’

  ‘No, no, not on the farm,’ says the count hastily. ‘Listen!’ The furious barking of the dogs has come to his attention.

  ‘It’s Perduzke, see,’ Thiel is peering through a crack in a door on the other side of the barn.

  In the meantime, Henning has started waving his flag. It opens out, swishing and spanking. He stands there proudly. Waves it, lets it circle in the air.

  Rehder is delighted. ‘You have to be our flag-bearer on Monday.’

  Thiel reports: ‘Perduzke has crossed the ditch.’

  ‘But I’m supposed to be arrested,’ says Henning.

  ‘I wonder if he’ll be able to find the front door,’ Count Bandekow observes sarcastically.

  ‘Include that flag in your procession,’ Padberg argues, ‘and the police will have you broken up in five minutes flat.’

  Rehder says: ‘We’ll put young farmers at the head. Woe betide anyone who messes with our flag.’

  Rohwer: ‘But the scythe will have to be blunted. Otherwise it could lead to excesses.’

  Henning: ‘If you like. I’ll take the edge off with some metal-cutters.’

  And Padberg, astonished: ‘So you farmers approve of this bit of flummery?’

  The count: ‘I think it’s very good. It’ll have a great effect.’

  And Thiel: ‘I think it’ll be terrific.’

  Then Padberg again: ‘Who will carry it? Seeing as Henning will be arrested.’

  Rehder, energetically: ‘Henning is our flag-bearer.’

  Padberg, rather impatiently: ‘Don’t be stupid. They’ll arrest Henning in the first minute. They know he offered to buy Tredup’s pictures. And he was in front of the presidium when Tredup went in there with Frerksen. And will presumably have been the one who called with the bomb threat. And whoever knew about the false bomb, will have laid the real one.—Well, then?’