A Small Circus

by Hans Fallada

  The mayor lengthens his stride. The wind pushes rain into his face. He jams his hat low down on his brow, but when he turns on to the Burstah, he doesn’t head for his office, he goes the other way, away from the town hall, up towards the station.

  He passes a cigar shop, turns round, and quickly goes in. ‘Five Brazilians at twenty pfennigs, please. Yes, they’ll do. Some real coffin-nails.’

  ‘“Coffin-nails”, very good, Your Worship.’ The shopkeeper bows and sniggers.

  You won’t be laughing at my pleasantries and bowing tomorrow, matey, thinks the Mayor. And, aloud: ‘Plus a directory, please!’

  He looks up an address and goes on his way. He turns down the Stolpe Road. He stops outside number 72. Eyes the house. The greengrocer in his shop unenthusiastically gives the information that the Tredups live round the back, on the yard side. Gareis makes his way there and knocks on the door.

  A voice calls: ‘Come in!’

  The room he enters is a paupers’ room, the one where these people do all their living. Gareis takes it in at a single glance. Everything is here: the kids’ toys, the plates, the tub, the sewing machine, fourteen books, a bicycle, a sack of potatoes and the beds.

  The woman was lying on one of them, and has got up now and silently eyes the visitor from the door on the opposite side of the room.

  Even the mayor is struck by how much the woman has changed from when he saw her just a couple of months ago: the lank hair falls into the pale, wrinkled face. The lower part of her face is so pronounced, the teeth seem to have lengthened behind the thin bloodless lips.

  ‘You look very pale, Frau Tredup,’ he calls. ‘Are you all right?’

  The woman eyes him.

  ‘Yes,’ says the mayor, ‘I’d like to talk to your husband, if I can?

  ‘There’s something I have to say to him.’

  The woman doesn’t answer.

  The mayor is patient. Then he asks her: ‘Is your husband not home?’

  The woman still doesn’t answer. She stares at him, blankly, unblinkingly.

  ‘It’s perfectly natural,’ says the mayor, ‘for you to be angry with me, Frau Tredup. Your husband will have told you—well, that’s why I’ve come. We are not always in charge of our nervous systems. I was unfair, and I’ve come to tell you so, in person.’

  The woman looks at him expectantly.

  ‘I’ll do whatever I can to help him. I heard he lost his job. I’m sorry about that. I’ll gladly . . .’

  But the woman says nothing.

  The mayor is a little discouraged. ‘You know, you ought to give me a chance to talk to your husband. If you don’t want to forgive me, that’s your affair. But maybe your husband . . .’

  The woman walks slowly towards him, across the whole breadth of the room. She walks lightly, almost on tiptoe, as though not to disturb something, something sleeping as it might be. She stops in front of the mayor—who looks at her attentively—stops and whispers: ‘I’m waiting . . .’

  The mayor isn’t afraid, but he feels uncomfortable. ‘Yes?’ he asks.

  ‘He’s still not back,’ says the woman.

  ‘Did he go somewhere?’ the mayor whispers back—it seems to be catching.

  ‘I’ve been waiting since yesterday evening.’

  ‘And he hasn’t come back?’

  ‘No. And he won’t come back either.’

  The mayor looks at the woman appraisingly. ‘How long is it since you’ve slept, Frau Tredup?’ he asks. And when she doesn’t say anything, he takes her arm and leads her to the bed.

  She follows him unresistingly, her face twisting like that of a child about to cry. He picks her up and lays her down on the bed. He pulls a blanket over her.

  ‘Now, go to sleep, Frau Tredup,’ says Gareis. ‘He’ll be back.’

  She moves her lips, as though to contradict him, but she’s already asleep.

  The mayor watches her for a few moments, then he tiptoes out of the room.

  V

  Gareis steps out on to the street again. The visit has done nothing to cheer him up. Tredup disappeared—well, people have been known to disappear over such things.

  He’ll be back, he says to himself.

  He’ll not be back, says the dull voice of the woman.

  The mayor, lost in thought, has followed the Stolpe Road out of town. He crosses the railway line. To the right of him are the large, ugly, smoky hangars of the rail-repair workshops, to his left the equally ugly railwaymen’s cottages of the Reichsbahn. Then the fields begin, rain-sodden, neglected fields.

  And then the town seems to start again, only it’s not Altholm any more, it’s Grünhof.

  ‘mendel’s inn. two indoor bowling alleys. a big shooting range.’

  This is where the militia were waiting. Well, well. Hmm. I could always think about something else for a change.

  In front of him is the bus stop. A bus has just drawn in, on its way into town. Six or seven people were standing waiting for it, including someone in uniform. But they don’t climb aboard; on the contrary, a couple of people get off.

  Voices are raised.

  Gareis speeds up.

  The people are in a heated exchange, the uniform, now inside the bus, answers aggressively and rudely. The mayor recognizes Police Superintendent Kallene.

  The bus is about to drive off, accompanied by the abuse of those left behind, when Gareis appears and waves to the driver to stop.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  A moment’s silence.

  Then ten voices shout all at once: ‘It’s awful, Your Worship!’

  ‘I won’t be thrown off the bus.’

  ‘I’ve paid my fare.’

  ‘Sitting down here himself, what a way to behave.’

  ‘That’s the police all over. Of course we’ve got no flaming rights.’

  ‘All right,’ says the mayor. ‘What’s going on, Superintendent?’

  ‘The bus is licensed to carry twenty passengers. I take a count, and find there are twenty-three on board. I duly put three of them out and gave the driver a ticket.’

  ‘And sat himself down too!’

  ‘Not as though he weighs anything. The police are lighter than air, didn’t you know?’

  ‘Don’t talk rot, Superintendent! Get off the bus! We’ll discuss this. I can’t do anything for the rest of you. Twenty is the legal limit, and legal limits can’t be exceeded in my presence.’

  ‘That’s all right, Mayor,’ says a worker. ‘I was just angry with the copper for sitting himself down and turfing off the rest of us.’

  ‘On your way, driver,’ says Gareis, and walks on.

  The incident did him a bit of good. There’s always things need doing in this world, he thinks. I’m not completely washed up just yet. Disappear? Pah, not while there’s so much work to be done! Wouldn’t dream of it. I got a good kicking. It was overdue.

  But I was silly too. I earned it, really. Next time I’ll take more care.

  Poor Tredup, you were never up to much. Always the back roads, the alleyways, never the bright lights. You’d have tripped over anyone’s leg, it happened to be mine. Poor wife.

  It’s raining fairly hard, and the wind doesn’t drop the other side of Grünhof. But now the fields are quite presentable, ploughed and ready for the winter sowing. Some farmers are out ploughing in spite of the rain. Gareis steps out.

  VI

  In the courtroom, the defence has applied as a matter of urgency to have the contents of the secret orders made known.

  ‘This matters to us because we see these secret orders as a link in the chain of exceptional measures undertaken against the farmers by the government. We already know that, in the government’s view, the Bauernschaft was especially dangerous, and that Commander Frerksen took a harsh approach to be official policy. We may have District President Temborius called as a witness.’

  Chief Adviser Meier stares with horror.

  ‘For the time being we ask the government’s representat
ive here present to comment on the secret orders.’

  But Meier won’t even go up to the judge’s table. He waves away at a distance: ‘I am not authorized to appear as a witness. I have no permission from the government to speak. Besides, I actually have no idea what may have been in the secret orders.’

  The judge says: ‘Is that really important to you, Legal Councillor? Given that the secret orders were apparently never even read.’

  ‘It is exceedingly important to us. It’s important as a picture of the government’s attitude. Moreover, it may have been communicated to the militia by another channel, which might explain the merciless procedure adopted in the auction hall. We ask that Lieutenant Wrede be called to the box.’

  His appearance is agreed. A militia officer present indicates that Wrede is in Altholm, and perhaps even in the public gallery.

  And lo, Lieutenant Wrede gets to his feet and walks up to the judge’s table.

  The judge says, smiling: ‘Lieutenant, have you been following today’s proceedings?’

  The lieutenant bows.

  ‘So you know that the contents of these secret orders seem to slip away as soon as we think we have them within our grasp. May I ask you before swearing you in whether you know the contents of the orders?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then I will swear you in.—Yes, Prosecutor?’

  ‘I would like to ask the witness whether he thinks he is allowed to give evidence without the approval of his superiors.’

  A ripple of impatience goes through the gallery. The judge folds his hands in a gesture of infinite patience.

  The lieutenant rasps back: ‘I have no concerns.’

  The prosecutor insists: ‘Your responsibility, Lieutenant—’

  The lieutenant interrupts him decisively: ‘No concerns whatever!’

  The judge sighs with relief. ‘The religious form of words, or . . . ?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  The oath is sworn.

  ‘Well, now, Lieutenant, tell us in your own words what you know of these secret orders.’

  ‘Secret orders—that’s just words. Military expression. Only signifies that the orders are for police eyes only.

  ‘Of course I don’t remember them word for word. The gist was two hundred men to be placed at the disposal of Herr Gareis, further reserves to be made available at a given place and time, and the use to which they were to be put defined.’

  ‘That part interests us the most.’

  ‘Well, they probably said the militia could only be used if the town police were not enough. That in the event of serious fighting, especially the use of firearms, headquarters had to be contacted.’

  ‘And beyond that?’

  ‘Beyond that? Nothing. I think that was the lot.’

  The defence counsel gets to his feet. ‘A question to the witness, if you please.—Lieutenant, do you recall any stipulation in the order to the effect that the militia should be especially rough or aggressive with the farmers?’

  The lieutenant does not disguise his contempt. ‘No. Not a sausage.’

  ‘Would the witness give me a precise answer?’

  ‘No, there was nothing like that.’

  ‘You remember that clearly?’

  ‘No possible error.’

  ‘Who issued the orders?’

  ‘I can’t say for sure. But I would assume Colonel Senkpiel.’

  ‘In Stolpe?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Perhaps the witness will forgive my ignorance.—Anyway, the defence should like to reserve the calling of Colonel Senkpiel.’

  ‘And with that,’ says the judge with smiling certainty, ‘we can put these secret orders to bed.—Thank you, Lieutenant.’

  VII

  It’s already dark, it’s past eight in the evening, when Gareis next sees the inside of his office.

  He remembered at intervals that he had promised to keep himself available for the court, but sod that. A day spent walking cross-country in wind and rain, and his battle-lust has returned, his don’t-carishness is with him again.

  I’ve been unlucky, well, my luck will change.

  When he stopped at a village inn in the afternoon (in Dülmen), and ordered something to eat, when he saw them gawping at him, and coming to him with their stupid lies, that they didn’t have anything, were right out of eggs, ham, potatoes, you name it, then he had pounded on the table with the roar of a bull, reduced the landlord in his corner behind the bar to a quivering jelly, and chased the old woman into the kitchen.

  He was served a farm breakfast of prodigious dimensions.

  They wouldn’t take his money, but there was a collection tin on the counter for shipwreck victims where he threw his obol—including beer, he thought two marks a fair price—and the landlord looked as if shipwrecked men could expect no breakfast from him.

  When he left the inn, word of his being there had spread: for a farming village on a rainy day in October, the street was unusually animated. He looked out for a familiar physiognomy, but he had no luck in Dülmen. So he walked through them; where they were clustered thickly he distinctly said, ‘And a good day to you’—he looked directly at them, coughing or clearing his throat deafeningly.

  Three villages on, or maybe four, he spotted a peasant he recognized. He couldn’t remember the name, but he remembered the case very well through which he had come to meet the man.

  A sow with her litter of piglets had been awarded a prize at the show in Altholm, and the prize was two hundredweight of lime marl, donated by the factory. But then the factory had made a fuss about the delivery, and Gareis had taken them to court. It was a date to which Stein probably went, at any rate the mayor did not know the outcome.

  Now he wobbles up to the farmer, who is standing there with three others.

  ‘Well, cousin, and did the lime marl finally get here?’

  ‘Just the other week,’ says the farmer. ‘It’s a disgrace that it took so long.’

  ‘That’s just how the manufacturers are with us too,’ says the mayor. ‘But we remain the cleverer, because we tricked them.’

  ‘You probably mean you’re cleverer. We farmers are on the bad side of any bargain.’

  ‘How so? Is the marl no good?’

  ‘Nothing the matter with the marl, but you Altholm people . . .’

  ‘My dear chap,’ says the mayor, ‘don’t you read the paper . . . ?’

  ‘If I’ve got a moment to spare . . .’

  ‘No moment like the present. So you read the Bauernschaft. You’re reading about the trial that’s in progress. What do you make of it?’

  ‘Well, Mayor, we’re the ones who got clobbered and are going to be punished again, while your man Frerksen, who made a pig’s breakfast of everything, is going scot-free.’

  ‘Christian! And whatever your other name is—’

  ‘Bruhn,’ says the farmer.

  ‘Well, Bruhn, you must have made an idiot of yourself one time or another. Ploughed too wet, or harvested too soon?’

  ‘I have, Mayor.’

  ‘Then you got your smack in the face. The soil all clods, or the rye grown out. Eh?’

  ‘Many’s the time, Mayor.’

  ‘And your neighbour here, what’s his name? Harms? Harms has done his share of stupid things too—’

  ‘You’re certainly right about that.’

  ‘And he’s still got his fields to come out lovely, and his rye drier than yours.’

  Harms protests: ‘No, Mayor, that would be—’

  But the others: ‘No, he’s right. You may celebrate Easter at Whitsun, but by the time Christmas comes around, you’re in shape.’

  ‘You see,’ says the mayor. ‘Sometimes a man has luck with him, and sometimes he doesn’t. Frerksen did his ploughing in the wet, and he’s on top of the world, and you, you did everything the proper way, and you’re in the shit.’

  The farmers look at him quietly, their elephant.

  ‘And because you believe in
Almighty God—or so you tell your reverend, even though I know you for a bunch of heathens—because you have your God, you comfort yourselves with the idea that He will punish Frerksen and that wicked Babylon of Altholm, on Judgement Day, if not before. But what I don’t understand is you selling your eggs and your butter for less, because of the sins of officials and politicians.’

  ‘Mayor,’ says a large, glowering farmer. ‘I don’t think for a second you’re on our side. You’re a bastard, like every other Red. But you’re the kind of bastard we can talk to. If it’s worth it to you, come over for a grog one evening, and we’ll talk the whole thing over.’

  ‘I’ll take you up on that,’ says the mayor.

  ‘But don’t bring anyone else. Come alone. So long as,’ the farmer stops and grins, ‘you’re not afeared of us.’

  ‘I’m quaking,’ says the mayor, and shakes all his flab.

  ‘I’ll pass the word round the villages. You can go and take a look yourself, and we can talk about what we stand to lose, and what you stand to lose.’

  ‘Boy oh boy,’ says the mayor, ‘you’ve got chutzpah. Won’t Reimers object?’

  ‘I’m District Headman Menken,’ says the farmer, ‘and I know how many stones I can carry up to the loft, and how many’s too much for me. Reimers has been in it for too long, he has no idea of the way people feel out here, or how smug the company at the Bauernschaft has become. We’ll talk with you, Mayor, and if we say “yes” to something, then that means “yes”.’

  ‘Boys,’ says the mayor, and his belly swings from side to side with happiness, ‘will you come and take a grog on me in the Krug? What’s the use standing around in the rain, I’m happy to have heard a sensible farmer’s word after all the argy-bargy these past months.’

  ‘Let’s go lift one, then.’

  It turned into several. And then as he trudged home in the dark, the mayor thought: Me and step down? Me and chuck my job? I’m going to hang on to it with tooth and claw.

  Other people have done far worse things: Manzow, Niederdahl, Frerksen, the lot of them. I’ll stick it out, for three weeks there’ll be a load of claptrap, and then they’ll be over it, and we’ll get down to it, and by Christmas the boycott will be history.