by Hans Fallada
“But all of you sitting here,” roars the speaker in conclusion, “foremen, department heads, directors—I make you personally responsible for the healthy condition of your works! Healthy condition means National Socialist thinking, and nothing else! Anyone who is weak-willed and mealy mouthed and doesn’t immediately denounce anything and everything wrong will wind up in a concentration camp himself. I swear, whether you’re directors or foremen, I’ll get you knocked into shape, if I have to kick the feebleness out of you with my own boots!”
The speaker stands on the rostrum a moment longer, his hands clenched with fury, his face is purple. At the end of this outburst the auditorium is silent. Everyone looks sheepish, all those who have effectively been asked to spy on their fellow workers. Then the speaker stomps off, the decorations on his chest tinkling slightly, and Director Schröder gets up and inquires palely whether anyone in the audience has anything to say.
The assembly draws a deep collective breath, shifts about in the seats—it’s as though a nightmare has come to an end and the day can begin. No one seems to have anything to contribute, everyone wants to leave the hall as soon as possible, and the general director is about to close the meeting with a Heil Hitler! when a man in a blue work tunic gets up near the back and says that as far as the productivity of his team goes, there is a perfectly simple remedy. They just need such and such machinery, and he lists the items and explains how they have to be set up. Yes, and then six or eight people will have to be laid off the team—unproductive wastrels and layabouts. If he were given those conditions, he would be able to reach the productivity targets in three months, not six.
Quangel stands there, cool and calm: he has taken up the fight. He can feel them all staring at him, the simple worker, out of place among these natty gents. But he has never cared about them especially, and he doesn’t care that they are staring at him now. Now that he’s said his piece, they put their heads together on the rostrum to talk about him. The speakers are asking who the fellow in the blue shirt is. Then the major or colonel gets up and tells Quangel that the technical directors will discuss the machines with him, but what does he mean about the six or eight people who ought to be thrown out?
Slowly and obstinately Quangel replies, “Well, there’s some who can’t work, and some others who don’t like to. There’s one of them sitting there!” And with his big stiff index finger he points directly at Carpenter Dollfuss, sitting a few rows in front of him.
A few people in the hall burst out laughing, among them Dollfuss, who has turned his head round to look and is now laughing at him.
But Quangel goes on, not batting an eyelid, “Yes, talking and smoking cigarettes in the john, and skipping work, that’s all you’re good for, Dollfuss!”
On the rostrum, they have put their heads together about this peculiar eccentric. But nothing can hold back the speaker in the brown uniform, who leaps to his feet and shrills: “You’re not in the Party—why are you not in the Party?”
And Quangel answers the question the way he has always answered it: “Because I need every penny for my family to live. I can’t afford to join any Party.”
The man in brown roars, “Because you are a selfish dog! Because you won’t do anything to help your Führer and your nation! How many are in your family?”
Coldly Quangel answers to his face, “Listen, mate, don’t talk to me about my family today. I’ve just had news that my son has fallen.”
For an instant there’s a deathly hush in the room, the brown official and the old foreman stare at one another across rows of chairs. Then abruptly, as though everything was settled, Otto Quangel sits down, and a little later the Nazi sits down, too. Once more, Director Schröder rises and offers the Sieg Heil! to the Führer. It sounds a little thin. With that, the meeting is at an end.
Five minutes later, Quangel is back in his workshop; with raised head, he slowly allows his eyes to travel from the planing machine to the band saw and then on to the nailer, the drills, the conveyor belts… But it is no longer the old Quangel standing there. He can sense it, he knows it, he has outfoxed them all. Maybe he did it in an ugly way, by capitalizing on the death of his son, but where does it say you have to play fair with those monsters? No, he says to himself, almost aloud. No, Quangel, you’ll never be the same again. I’m curious what Anna’ll have to say to all this. Perhaps Dollfuss won’t return to his workstation? Then I’ll have to take on another man, we’re shorthanded…
But no need to worry, here comes Dollfuss. He’s even accompanied by a junior manager, and Foreman Otto Quangel is instructed that, while he will technically remain in charge of the workshop, he will be replaced in the Arbeitsfront by Herr Dollfuss, effective immediately. “Understood?”
“You bet I understand! I’m glad you’re taking the post off me, Dollfuss! My hearing is getting worse, and having to keep my ears peeled the way the gentleman told us to a little while ago, I don’t think I can do that in all this noise.”
Dollfuss nods curtly and says, “What you saw and heard a moment ago, not a word to anyone, or else…”
Almost offended, Quangel replies, “Who am I going to talk to, Dollfuss? Have you ever known me talk to anyone? I’m not interested in all that, I’m interested in my work, and I know we’re significantly behind today. It’s high time you were back at your machine!” And with a look up at the clock: “That’s one hour and thirty-six minutes you’ve missed already!”
A moment later, Carpenter Dollfuss is back at his saw, and in no time, no one knows from where, a rumor has started up that Dollfuss was given a carpeting for his incessant smoking and chitchat.
But Foreman Otto Quangel walks alertly from machine to machine, takes a hand here, glowers at a chatterbox there, and thinks to himself, That’s the end of that, for good and all. And they haven’t got a clue: as far as they’re concerned, I’m just a doddery old fool! When I called that Nazi “mate,” that did it for them! I wonder what I’m going to do next. Because I will do something, I know. I just don’t yet know what it will be…
Chapter 7
BREAK-IN AT NIGHT
Late in the evening, almost nighttime, and properly speaking far too late for the matter in hand, Emil Borkhausen did indeed run into his Enno in an establishment called the Also Ran. (The righteous fury of the postie Eva Kluge may have had something to do with that.) The two gents sat down at a corner table over a beer, and whispered and whispered—all over that single glass of beer—till the landlord brought it to their attention that he had called for last orders a long time ago, and didn’t they have wives to go home to?
The two men continued their conversation outside in the street; first they went in the direction of Prenzlauer Allee for a while, and then Enno wanted to go back the other way, because it occurred to him that it might be better to try his luck with an old flame of his who went by the name of Tutti. Tutti the Gorilla. Better off staying with her than pulling some cowboy stunt…
Emil Borkhausen almost leapt out of his skin at so much foolishness. He assured Enno for the tenth, for the hundredth time, that this was not a cowboy stunt. It was an SS-approved and practically legal confiscation, and the victim was an old Jewish woman that no one cared what happened to. They would make enough to tide themselves over for a while, and the police and the courts would have absolutely nothing to say on the matter.
Whereupon Enno again: No, no, he had never gotten involved in business like that, it wasn’t his thing at all. Women, yes, and bets anytime, but he had never done anything crooked like that. Tutti had always been pretty good to him, despite being called the Gorilla, and she surely wouldn’t hold it against him that she had helped him out previously with a little money and a few ration cards, without knowing it.
And with that they were on Prenzlauer Allee again.
Borkhausen, always veering between enticements and threats, says crossly, tugging at his long, wispy mustache, “Who on earth asked you to understand this operation? I can do it all by myself, if need
be, and you can just stand and watch with your hands in your pockets! I’ll even pack a case for you, if you like! The only reason I’m taking you, Enno, is for insurance, in case the SS doublecross us, as a witness that we’ve divvied up everything properly. Just think of the riches we can find at the house of a wealthy Jewish businesswoman, even if the Gestapo must have picked up the odd item when they took away the husband!”
All at once Enno Kluge said yes. There was no more wavering, no more demurral. Now he couldn’t get round to Jablonski Strasse quickly enough. What changed his mind was neither the arguments advanced by Borkhausen, nor the prospect of a rich haul, but plain and simple hunger. He suddenly imagined Frau Rosenthal’s larder, and he remembered that Jews had always liked to eat well, and that he had probably never enjoyed anything so much in his life as a stuffed neck of goose that a Jewish clothier had treated him to once.
Suddenly he is thoroughly in the grip of hungry fantasies: he is convinced Frau Rosenthal will have a stuffed neck of goose in her larder. He can see the porcelain dish, the neck lying in congealed gravy, stuffed to bursting like a big fat sausage, and both ends tied with thread. He will take the dish and heat the thing up over the gas—nothing else is of any interest to him. Borkhausen can do whatever he wants; he doesn’t care. He will dunk bread in the rich, spicy gravy and he will eat the goose neck with his fingers, the juice running all down his wrists.
“Would you mind getting a move on, Emil, I’m in a hurry!”
“What’s the rush?” Borkhausen asks, but in fact he’s more than happy to get a move on, too. He’ll be only too glad when the thing is over and done with; it isn’t his line of work either. It’s not the police or the old Jewish lady he’s scared of—what’s going to happen to him for Aryanizing her property?—but the Persickes. They’re an unscrupulous bunch all right, and he wouldn’t put it past them to put one over on a freelance like himself. It was purely on account of the Persickes that he picked up this goofy Enno, he’ll be a witness, someone they don’t know, and that will cramp their style.
In Jablonski Strasse, everything went smoothly enough. It will have been about half past ten when they unlocked the front door with Borkhausen’s key. Then they listened in the stairwell, and when there was no sound, they switched on the stair light and pulled off their shoes, because, as Borkhausen said with a grin, “The property is entitled to peace and quiet.”
After the light clicked off, they tiptoed swiftly and silently up the stairs, and then everything went like clockwork. They didn’t make any beginners’ errors, like bumping into anything or dropping a shoe with a clatter, no, they tiptoed silently up four flights of stairs. So, that was a good bit of stair work, even though neither of them is a proper burglar and they’re both in a state of fair excitement, one over his stuffed neck of goose and the other over the booty and the Persickes.
The door to her apartment was something Borkhausen imagined would be fifty times harder than it proved: it was not even locked, merely closed. What an irresponsible woman, and as a Jewess she really should have known better than that! So the two of them slipped into the apartment, they couldn’t even say how, that’s how easy it was.
Now Borkhausen, bold as brass, switches on the light in the corridor. In fact, he’s all boldness now. “If the old bitch screams, I’ll smack her in the chops!” he announces, just like he did in the morning to Baldur Persicke. But she didn’t scream. So they took a relaxed gander round the small corridor first, which was fairly stuffed with furniture and boxes and cases. Well, the Rosenthals used to own a large apartment near their shop, and if you have to leave in a hurry and move into two rooms with bed and kitchen, then that’s bound to create a bit of clutter, isn’t it? Stands to reason.
Their fingers were itching to begin prying and poking and packing the loot away, but Borkhausen thought it would be sensible to find Rosenthal first and tie a hanky over her face so she wouldn’t make any trouble. The bedroom was so piled high they could hardly move, and they understood that there was so much plunder here that they wouldn’t be able to move it in ten nights—they could only try and pick the best stuff. In the other room, same story, and in the cloakroom as well. Only there’s no Rosenthal anywhere. The bed hasn’t been slept in. Borkhausen checks the kitchen and the toilet, but there’s no sign of the woman, and that’s a huge stroke of luck, because it saves them trouble and makes their work considerably easier.
Borkhausen goes back into the first room and starts digging around. He doesn’t even notice that his partner, Enno, has gone missing. Enno is standing in the larder, bitterly disappointed at not finding any stuffed neck of goose, just a half a loaf of bread and a couple of onions. But he starts eating anyway, slices up the onions and lays them flat on the bread, and he’s so hungry, it tastes pretty good to him.
While Enno Kluge’s standing there chewing away, his eye falls on a lower shelf and he suddenly sees that while the Rosenthals may not have much in the way of food in the house, they do keep a cellar. Because down on the lower shelf are rows and rows of bottles—wine, but also schnapps. Enno, a moderate man in all things except horses, picks up a bottle of dessert wine, and starts off by drizzling his onion sandwiches with it from time to time. But God knows why, suddenly the sweet stuff is sickening to him. (Ordinarily, he is perfectly capable of nursing a glass of beer for three hours.) He opens a bottle of cognac and takes a couple of slugs from it, and within five minutes the bottle is half empty. Perhaps it’s the hunger, or the excitement, that makes him act so out of character. For the moment he’s stopped eating.
After a while the schnapps no longer interests him, and he trots off to find Borkhausen, who is still rummaging around in the big room, opening wardrobes and cases and chucking everything on the floor in his quest for something better.
“Wow, they must have moved their whole haberdashery here!” Enno says, awestruck.
“Stop talking and get cracking!” is Borkhausen’s reply. “There’s bound to be some jewelry hidden here, and cash—the Rosenthals used to be well-off people, millionaires—and you, you prize fool, go talking about cowboy stunts!”
For a time the two of them work together silently, which means they chuck more and more stuff on the floor, now so covered with clothes and linens and stuff that they’re trampling it underfoot. Then Enno, feeling the worse for wear, says: “I can’t see anything anymore. I need a drink to clear my head. Get some cognac out of the larder, will you, Emil!”
Borkhausen doesn’t fuss but does as he’s asked, and comes back with two bottles of schnapps, and then they sit down together companionably on the piles of linen, drink slug after slug, and talk through the situation earnestly and thoroughly.
“You know, Borkhausen, we’re not going to clean this stuff out very quickly, and we don’t want to sit over it too long, either. I vote we each take a couple of suitcases and clear off. Tomorrow, we can think about a return visit.”
“You’re right, Enno, I don’t want to sit here too long, either, on account of the Persickes.”
“Who’re they?”
“Oh, these people… But when I think of leaving with a couple of suitcases full of linens, and leave behind a box full of money and jewels, that drives me crazy. You’ll need to let me look awhile longer. Cheers, Enno!”
“Cheers, Emil! And why wouldn’t you go on looking around awhile longer? The night is long, and it’s not us paying the electricity bill. But what I wanted to ask you is where are you going to take your cases?”
“How do you mean? I don’t understand the question, Enno.”
“Well, where are you going to take them? Back to your flat?”
“Do you think I’m going to take them to the lost property office? Of course I’m taking them home to my Otti. And tomorrow morning off to Münzstrasse and flog the lot so the birds sing a bit.”
Enno rubs the cork against the bottleneck. “Here’s birdsong for you! Cheers, Emil! If I was you, I wouldn’t do it your way, and involve your apartment and your wife. What
does she need to know about your little earnings on the side? No, if I was you I’d do it my way, namely take the suitcases to the Stettiner Bahnhof and leave them at the station’s checked baggage department, and send myself the receipt, but general delivery. That way there’d never be anything on me, and no one could prove anything against me.”
“That’s pretty sharp, Enno,” says Borkhausen admiringly. “And when do you go back to collect the goods?”
“Well, whenever the coast is clear, of course, Emil!”
“And what do you live off in the meantime?”
“Well, it’s like I said, I’ll go to Tutti’s. When I tell her what I’ve done, she’ll throw open all her arms and legs!”
“Very good,” Borkhausen agrees. “Then if you go to the Stettiner, I’ll go to the Anhalter. You know, less attention that way.”
“Not bad, Emil. You’re a pretty sharp cookie yourself!”
“Oh, I pick up a few tricks here and there,” says Borkhausen modestly. “You hear this and that.”
“Well, right! Cheers, Emil!”
“Cheers, Enno!”
For a while they gaze at each other with mute fondness, taking the odd swig from their bottles. Then Borkhausen says: “If you turn round, doesn’t have to be right away, there’s a radiogram behind you, must be at least ten valves. I wouldn’t mind picking that up.”
