A Small Circus

by Hans Fallada

  Because by now Padberg and Bandekow have been to see him. Banz is no longer under suspicion. No one knows he has clubbed someone down, and he himself is careful not to mention it, not even to those two. He will sue the town of Altholm, and they will have to pay him damages, a pension. He was struck down from behind as he climbed the steps to a pub to drink a glass of beer. The inn people, who found him slumped on the steps, will be his witnesses.

  Banz hobbles on. The children are mowing the oats, he has to see how far along they are.

  Of course he can see from some way off that they haven’t done half of what they would have done with him to set an example. Their idea of a swathe is a tiny arc, and the oats aren’t exactly thick. And forever having breaks, and sharpening the blades, useless they are.

  Three hundred yards off, he has a fit of rage, one of those fits that come over him so regularly these days. He starts shouting and yelling and waving his stick around.

  Afterwards comes his giddy spell, and he can’t get down quick enough, he half falls to the ground. And there he lies for a while, dozily, his brain refusing to work. The family are used to it, they won’t come and help him up. Let him lie there. No wonder—what makes him really lose his rag is when they do come and help. Let them do their thing, the rabble, the bloody rabble.

  Slowly he gets up. It’s not so easy out here, where there’s nothing to grab hold of. But in the end he does it, with the help of his stick.

  Then he shambles on, swearing to himself, keeping his eyes on those pathetic mowers.

  For a while he stands there with them, without a word, walks along beside them, right next to the scythes. They’re mowing like the devil now, reaching out as far as they can in his direction. He’ll have to look out for himself, the old geezer, stands around, does fuck all, just eats and scolds and does nothing the next day.

  The old man walks along beside Franz, keeps pace with him. ‘What’s the matter with your scythe?’ he asks. ‘It’s loose. You need to drive the wedge in.’

  The boy mutters something under his breath, and carries on mowing.

  ‘Show us your scythe!’ the farmer orders him.

  The boy gives back: ‘Come on, I gotta keep up with the others.’

  ‘Gimme your scythe!’

  They all stop, and Franz steps out of line.

  ‘You carry on,’ says the farmer. ‘Everyone move over one!—And you, women, stop standing around gawping!’ In a sudden fury, he screams: ‘You’re not mowing anything, and half the oats are still not stacked! Get on with it! I’m keeping you on until the whole lot is stacked!’

  Silently, mother and daughter go back to work.

  The farmer tests the blade. ‘This hasn’t been whetted. Did you whet it last night?’

  Franz looks furious.

  ‘Did you whet it? Open your mouth.’

  ‘Yes,’ says the boy.

  ‘No, you didn’t. You’re lying. Look at the rings round your eyes! What were you up to last night? Where do you go to rut?’

  The boy is silent, the girls giggle, the lads smirk.

  ‘Where do you go out to at night, I asked.’

  ‘I don’t go anywhere.’

  ‘When did you last whet the scythe? Tuesday?’

  ‘Last night.

  ‘You’re lying, damn you! Fornicator! Where do you go?—Staying up all night with wenches, and hanging around all day like a fucked-out puppet—what do I feed you for?’

  The boy glowers fiercely.

  ‘Where d’you get the money from? You must pay women, looking the way you do! They wouldn’t fuck you for nothing, you ugly dwarf! Where d’you get the money?’

  ‘Where am I supposed to get it from? Have we even got any?’

  ‘You wait,’ says the farmer. ‘You’ll be found out. Here’s the scythe. Go to the rabbit field and start mowing there. You’re no use here.—And I want you to finish the rabbit field tonight. If I see so much as a blade of grass, there’ll be trouble!’

  ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘Did you hear what I said? Mow it! Mow it! I want it mowed clear!’ shrieks the furious farmer, smashing his stick on the ground. ‘Go! Let’s prove you spend your nights shagging! Leave your sap in bed, when we need it out here. Off with you. Scram.’

  ‘Go along, Franz,’ says his mother.

  ‘I can’t do it all on my own,’ says the boy hesitantly. The old man is now lying on the ground again, out of his mind. ‘Let Minna come too, so she can pick up the swathes.’

  ‘You go too, Minna,’ says the mother.

  They both head off towards the corner of the woods. The farmer, restored to consciousness, watches them go.

  ‘Come here, woman.’

  The woman comes.

  ‘Squat down beside me.’

  The woman does so.

  ‘Is the money still there?’ he whispers.

  ‘All of it,’ she says.

  ‘You’re lying,’ he says angrily. ‘There’s fifteen marks missing. I went there this morning.’

  ‘I took them for the pharmacy,’ she says quickly.

  ‘You’re lying,’ says the farmer. ‘Franz took them.’

  ‘Franz doesn’t steal,’ the woman insists.

  ‘Yes he does. If I catch him near the hiding place, I’ll beat his brains out.’

  ‘Franz doesn’t steal,’ the woman insists.

  ‘You’re all liars, the lot of you,’ says the farmer. ‘But I’ll pick myself up. Then you’ll be in for a surprise. And those folks in Altholm will as well. You wait.’

  He pulls himself up and hobbles back towards the yard.

  VI

  The permanent Deputy Inspector Perduzke has been assigned the interrogation of the remand prisoner Henning.

  ‘I’m surprised they haven’t given up,’ he says, and makes to go.

  ‘Aren’t you taking any files with you?’ asks his colleague, Inspector Bering.

  ‘No, I’m not.—Where are the cigarettes?’

  ‘There must be some in the cupboard.—Do you think he’ll fall for it?’

  ‘Gifts keep a friendship alive,’ says Perduzke, crams a carton of a hundred into his pocket, and heads off.

  At the hospital, he once again finds the man who’s supposed to keep guard on Henning inside with him, instead of outside the door. For once, though, Perduzke doesn’t tear him off a strip, he just says: ‘Off you go, Gruen. I’m here on duty.’

  ‘Just don’t get any ideas,’ says Gruen, his little blond goatee wagging crossly. ‘There’s all sorts of ways to serve the Republic.’

  ‘There’s a blonde nurse on the ward called Ellie,’ says Henning with a kind smile to Gruen, ‘I think you’d like her, and she’s already getting on my nerves a bit. Damned pretty, though.’

  ‘Women!’ says Gruen contemptuously. ‘Nothing but women on his mind! Some hero he is! A piece of meat, and all his thoughts are out the window.’

  ‘Save it for Ellie,’ says Perduzke, and pushes Gruen out the door. ‘We don’t need you here right now.’

  Then they are alone, and Henning sits down on a chair in front of the window. He looks fit and healthy again, the only suggestion of the much-mooted cripple being that he carries his arm in a sling.

  ‘Sit down, Perduzke. So you want to question me again?’

  ‘I do. I’ve got to. Here’s some cigarettes.’ And he gruffly puts the carton on the table.

  Henning looks at the pack. ‘Seconds. Not for resale.—How is it that in every German city detectives always turn up with these terrible cigarettes?’

  ‘Oh, so you’ve had dealings with detectives in every German city, have you?—Ah, leave it out, I don’t know, the questioning hasn’t begun yet. Why seconds? Well, I suppose the cigarette factories have to have somewhere to send their seconds. So they make them over to the police, so we have some bait for our hoodlums.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Henning, ‘but no thanks. I’ve got a whole cupboard full of fags.’

  Perduzke pulls his notebook ou
t of his pocket. ‘We’ll start the questioning, then, Henning.’

  And Henning: ‘The usual preliminaries first. I demand to be taken to the interrogating magistrate.’

  ‘Take it up with your lawyer.—I have been assigned the duty of questioning you—’

  Henning drones mechanically: ‘I would like to protest that my initial questioning is being carried out by a policeman. I will only speak in front of a judge. I will not answer questions put to me by a policeman.’

  ‘All right, done,’ says Perduzke. ‘Aren’t you afraid you’ll get bored, Henning?’

  ‘Duty must never become boring, Perduzke,’ Henning lectures him.

  ‘Moving on to the interview proper,’ says Perduzke, looking down at his notebook.

  ‘I wish to point out that I won’t answer any questions,’ says Henning.

  ‘Is Georg Henning your real name?’ asks Perduzke, blinking over a black-rimmed pince-nez.

  ‘My goodness,’ says Henning happily, ‘you’ve changed the record. At last it’s not that dreary 26th of July any more.—I decline to answer.’

  ‘Were you not previously known as Georg Hansen, Lieutenant Parsenow and First Lieutenant Hingst?’

  ‘Well, well, well,’ says Henning, his brow darkening a little, ‘there’s a thing.—I decline to answer.’

  ‘Were you not active with the Hamburg unit in the Baltic area?’

  ‘I decline to answer.’

  ‘Did you not belong to the Ehrhardt Brigade?’

  ‘I decline . . .’

  ‘Did you not belong to the Horse Guards, and were you not on the staff of the Hotel Eden?’

  ‘I decline . . .’

  ‘Were you not involved in an attempt on the Reichswehr barracks in Gemünden?’

  ‘I decline to answer the question.’

  ‘How do you manage to support yourself?’

  ‘I decline . . .’

  ‘Can you name any farmers who have purchased machinery from you in the last six months?’

  ‘I decline to answer.’

  ‘Where were you at the time the farmers’ flag was designed?’

  ‘I decline . . .’

  ‘Who provided you with materials that went into the making of the flag?’

  Who?—What?—Where from?—Why?—When . . . ?

  ‘I decline . . . I decline . . . I decline . . .’

  ‘Well, that’s about it for today. Would you like to sign a statement to confirm that you have refused to answer questions?’

  ‘I refuse to sign any papers.’

  ‘We’re finished, Herr Henning.’

  ‘All right. All right. So the interrogation is over?’

  ‘The interrogation is finished.’

  ‘Well, we had all sorts today.’

  ‘True. But only—stonewalling.’

  ‘Stonewalling?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll come again.’

  ‘So who will there be instead?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘You mean . . . ?’

  ‘Just what you think.’

  ‘But that’s impossible!’

  ‘All sorts of things are possible these days.’

  ‘Say, when?’

  ‘Another two or three days, maybe?’

  ‘And: definitely?’

  ‘Yes, inasmuch as a junior detective like me has any idea of these things: yes.’

  ‘Well, I’ll say farewell, then.’

  ‘Farewell, Herr Henning.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Yes. At the hearing.’

  ‘So there will be a hearing?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t there be a hearing?’

  ‘Indeed. Why not?—But is it certain, Perduzke? Because otherwise . . . You know, the security in this place isn’t especially tight.’

  ‘You can depend on it, Herr Henning. Good day.’

  ‘Good day. And send Gruen in to me.’

  ‘What is it?’ asks Gruen crossly.

  ‘They’re letting me go at the beginning of next week, my dear watchdog,’ says Henning.

  ‘Delay! Delay! Delay! If I was you, I wouldn’t wait.’

  ‘Of course I’m going to wait. Certainly now. A little wait now, while the temperature’s going up everywhere, that’s the best part of this whole nonsense.’

  Gruen looks at him disapprovingly. ‘I think you get a kick out of a bomb going off. The bastards there are on this earth!’

  ‘Get out of here, you donkey!’ roars Henning furiously.

  VII

  In the Chronicle’s dispatch office a man appears in a grey-green uniform, with a goatee.

  Fräulein Heinze says: ‘You must have come for the freesheets for the prisoners.’

  ‘I want to talk to the editor.’

  Heinze is uncertain. ‘I don’t think he’s available right now.’

  ‘Don’t think. Ask him.’

  The Fräulein gets up dismayed, gives her fingernails one last, longing look, and vanishes.

  She returns. ‘You can go through.’

  She sits down. Gruen tries to find a way through the barrier, misses the little door, and vaults it with a loud crash instead.

  Fräulein Heinze is indignant: ‘Were you brought up in a barn!’—but Gruen is already in the office.

  Stuff greets him: ‘Well, what are you after, jailbird?’

  ‘I need to ask you something, Stuff.’

  ‘Ask away. We never starved in that uniform, eh?’

  Gruen narrows his eyes and raises a very thin admonitory finger. ‘Are you in on the conspiracy too?’

  Stuff laughs. ‘Are they playing with you again? Are they shooting for your blond curls, old jailbird?—Of course I’m in on the conspiracy. I’m sitting right at the sweet heart of it.’

  Gruen shakes his head. ‘They all want to do deals. All of them. Even Henning stinks. Ever since he’s heard he’s being freed, he’s been delaying. Delay, I ask you. I’m not going to let them make a fool of me.’

  Stuff pricks up his ears. ‘Henning freed? You’re crazy!’

  ‘Other people are crazy. I’ve got my finger on the pulse. Back on July the 26th, I was the first to notice what was going off. If the peasants had done what I wanted them to do, and stormed the prison and sprung Reimers . . .’

  Stuff says sorrowfully: ‘You’re raving again, Gruen. Reimers wasn’t even in your jail at that point.’

  Gruen says enigmatically: ‘Reimers is still with us, but he’s being hidden.’

  ‘You’re crazy. Reimers has been free for weeks now.’

  ‘Reimers comes in lots of disguises.’

  ‘You really should get your head examined, you know. I’m serious, Gruen.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense. Tell me instead why you didn’t write about the meeting at the district president’s? The Bauernschaft was full of it. None of the town papers carried a word about it.’

  ‘Didn’t suit me,’ growls Stuff. ‘Things need to cool down.’

  ‘Cool down? They need to heat up. You see, you’re in on the conspiracy as well.’

  ‘Things can’t always happen the way you wish they would, Gruenie. I expect there’s people you’d like to release from your Red hotel, and can’t.’

  ‘Not one. They’re all common criminals, and the other ones are being tested.—Are you going to write about the meeting?’

  ‘Oh, give over. No, I don’t want to.’

  ‘You’ve got to, Stuff. You mustn’t betray the cause.’

  ‘Listen, jailor man, just get it into your head: I can’t. The high-ups, the politicians and whatnot, they’ve stuck their heads together, and the little fish have got to obey.’

  ‘Why have you got to obey?’

  ‘Because otherwise I’ll be out of a job. And whoever takes my place will be worse.’

  ‘Who comes after you is no concern of yours. You’ve got to write something.’

  ‘I know more about this than you do, Gruen. Leave me be.’

  ‘In on the conspiracy
too,’ says Gruen. ‘In on the conspiracy. Henning, Stuff, everyone.’

  ‘What’s Henning got to do with it?’

  ‘Enough. Same as you. But the lightning is in the cloud, and at the right moment it will strike.’

  ‘Gruen, I’m telling you—’

  The door opens, and Tredup walks in.

  He gives a start when he sees Gruen. The two of them scowl at each other.

  ‘Who’s that, Stuff?’ Gruen asks quietly.

  ‘Don’t you two know each other? This is our advertising manager, Herr Tredup.—Auxiliary prison warden, Herr Gruen.’

  ‘I do know him,’ says Gruen quietly. ‘He’s the fake Reimers who shopped me to the prison governor.

  ‘He’s the madman at the prison I told you about, Stuff. The fellow got me in big trouble . . .

  ‘You have people like that working for you, Stuff?’ Gruen remarks. ‘In that case the lightning has been hanging around in the cloud too long.’ Suddenly he stretches out his skinny arms. ‘It will destroy all of you . . .’

  Suddenly he disappears. Fräulein Heinze is heard screaming outside. They both run out.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Why did you scream like that?’

  ‘That madman! He frightened me! He suddenly jumped over the barrier.’

  ‘Yes, I think he really has lost it now,’ says Stuff pensively. ‘I’d better do something quickly to keep him from getting into trouble. Will you take on the cinema and the market news, Tredup?’

  ‘What was the film?’

  ‘Ach, the usual tosh. Just write: “Dina Mina displays her impish talents to full advantage.” The cinema ad will give the details. Surely I can trust you to do that?’

  ‘That’s what they’re all asking me now,’ mutters Tredup crossly. ‘Of course I’ll display my impish talents to full advantage.’

  VIII

  As Stuff approaches the back of the hospital—he prefers side streets to main roads—he sees that the generally peaceful avenue has become a sort of paseo at this early-evening hour. Girls are wandering up and down in pairs, schoolboys are in evidence staring, and there are some older girls too, girls of twenty or twenty-one.

  Stuff knows that from time immemorial the Burstah has been the main drag of Altholm. If its function has been taken over by the hospital road, there must be a reason for it. The reason is not far to seek: it is standing in an upper-ground-floor window of the hospital, smiling, calling down the odd word, blowing kisses. It is a beaming Henning, Henning the folk hero.