by Hans Fallada
Inspector Rusch casts a swift look at it, then looks round at his two companions, the alert Hitler Youth leader and his own regular number two, that sluggish lump Friedrich. He sees the two of them are watching him tensely. So he knocks the hand with the bracelet impatiently aside, takes the heavy woman by the shoulders, and shakes her hard. “Wake up, Frau Rosenthal!” he shouts. “That’s an order! I’m telling you to wake up!”
He lets her go, and her head lolls against the back of the sofa, her body sags—her tongue lisps something incomprehensible. This method of bringing her round seems not to have been the right one. For a while the three men look silently at the old woman slumped on the sofa, not recovering her consciousness.
The inspector suddenly whispers very quietly, “Why don’t you take her back to the kitchen with you, and wake her up!”
The assistant executioner Friedrich merely nods. He picks the heavy woman up with one arm and carefully clambers with her over the obstacles on the floor.
When he reaches the door, the inspector calls after him, “And keep it quiet, will you! I don’t want any noise on Sunday morning in a tenement. Otherwise we’ll do it in Prinz Albrecht Strasse.* I’ll be taking her back there later anyway.”
The door shuts behind them, and the inspector and Hitler Youth leader are alone.
Inspector Rusch stands by the window and looks down at the street below. “Quiet street, this,” he says. “A real play street, eh?”
Baldur Persicke affirms that it is indeed a quiet street.
The inspector is a little nervous, but not because of the business involving Friedrich and the old Jewess in the kitchen. Pah, worse things happen every day of the week. Rusch is a lawyer manqué, who made his way into the police service. Later, he graduated to the Gestapo. He likes his work. He would have liked his work under any regime, but the brisk methods of the present lot suit him down to the ground. “Don’t get sentimental,” he sometimes tells newcomers. “We have certain objectives. The way we get there doesn’t matter.”
No, the old Jewess doesn’t bother the inspector at all—he doesn’t have any of that sentimentality in him.
But this boy here, Hitler Youth leader Persicke, is cramping his style a bit. He doesn’t like outsiders present at any action; you never know how they’ll react. This one, admittedly, seems to be the right sort, but you really only know for sure when the job’s done.
“Did you notice, Inspector,” asks Baldur Persicke keenly—he tries to ignore the sounds coming from the kitchen, that’s their affair!—“did you notice she wasn’t wearing her Jewish star?”
“I noticed more than that,” the inspector says. “I noticed, for instance, that the woman’s shoes are clean, and it’s horrible weather outside.”
“Yes.” Baldur Persicke nods uncomprehendingly.
“So someone in the building must have been keeping her hidden since Wednesday, if she really hasn’t been up to her flat for as long as you say.”
“I’m fairly certain,” says Baldur Persicke, a little confused by the thoughtful gaze still being leveled at him.
“Fairly certain means nothing, my boy,” says the inspector contemptuously. “There’s no such thing.”
“I’m completely sure, then,” says Baldur quickly. “I am willing to testify on oath that Frau Rosenthal has not set foot in her flat since Wednesday.”
“All right, all right,” says the inspector, a little dismissively. “You must know, of course, that by yourself you couldn’t possibly have kept the flat under observation since Wednesday. No judge would take your word on that.”
“I have two brothers in the SS,” says Baldur Persicke eagerly.
“All right.” Inspector Rusch is content. “It’ll all take its course. But what I wanted to say to you is that I won’t be able to have the apartment searched till tonight. Perhaps you would continue to keep the place under observation? I take it you have keys?”
Baldur Persicke assures him happily that he’ll be delighted. His eyes shine with joy. Well, now—this was the other way, didn’t he know it, all perfectly legal and aboveboard.
“It would be nice,” the inspector drawls on, looking out of the window again, “if everything was left lying around like it is now. Of course, you’re not responsible for what’s in wardrobes and boxes, but other than that…”
Before Baldur can get out a reply, there is a high, shrill scream of terror from inside the apartment.
“Damn!” says the inspector, but he makes no move.
Pale, Baldur stares at him. His knees feel like jelly.
The scream is stifled right away, and now all that can be heard is Friedrich cursing.
“What I wanted to say…” the Inspector begins again.
But his voice trails off. Suddenly there’s very loud cursing in the kitchen, footfalls, a running hither and thither. Now Friedrich is yelling at the top of his voice, “Will you keep still! Will you!”
Then a loud scream. Worse cursing. A door is yanked open, boots thud across the hall, and Friedrich yells into the room, “Well, what do you say to that, Inspector? I had just got her to the point of talking sensibly, and the bitch goes and jumps out the window on me!”
The inspector slaps him across the face. “You goddamned fool, I’ll have your guts for garters! Run, move!”
And he plunges out of the room, races down the stairs…
“In the yard!” Friedrich shouts after him. “She fell in the yard, not on the street! There won’t be no trouble, Inspector!”
He gets no answer. All three are running down the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible on this quiet Sunday morning. The last of them, half a flight behind the others, is Baldur Persicke. He had the presence of mind to shut the Rosenthals’ door after him. He is still in shock, but at least there is the consolation that he has all those beautiful things in his keeping. Nothing had better get lost!
The three go running past the Quangels’ flat, past the Persickes’, past retired judge Fromm’s. Two more flights, and they’re in the courtyard.
Otto Quangel had got up and washed, and was watching his wife make breakfast in the kitchen. After breakfast they would have their conversation—so far they had only wished each other a good morning, but that was something.
Suddenly the two of them give a start. In the kitchen overhead, there’s shouting and yelling, and they listen, each looking at the other with concern. Then their kitchen window is darkened for a second, something heavy plunges past—and they hear it land with a crash in the yard. Downstairs someone yells—a man. Then deathly silence.
Otto Quangel pulls the kitchen window open, but retreats when he hears the tramp of people coming down the stairs.
“Will you put your head out here, Anna!” he says. “See if you can see anything. A woman attracts less notice.” He takes her by the shoulder, and presses her very hard. “Don’t scream!” he commands. “You mustn’t scream. There, now shut the window again!”
“God, Otto!” wheezes Frau Quangel, and stares at her husband with a white face. “Frau Rosenthal’s fallen out of the window. She’s lying down in the yard. Borkhausen is standing by her, and…”
“Enough!” he says. “Quiet, now. We don’t know anything. We haven’t seen or heard anything. Take the coffee into the parlor!”
And, once there, with emphasis, “We don’t know anything, Anna. Hardly ever saw Frau Rosenthal. And now eat! Eat, I tell you. And drink coffee! If anyone comes by, they’re not to notice anything out of ordinary!”
Judge Fromm had remained at his observation post. He had seen two civilians going up the stairs, and now three men—the Persicke boy was now with them—were charging down them. Something had happened, and now his cleaning woman was coming from the kitchen with the news that Frau Rosenthal had just fallen into the courtyard. He looked at her in consternation.
For a moment he stood there perfectly still. Then he slowly nodded his head.
“Yes, Liese,” he said. “That’s it. You can’t j
ust want to rescue someone: they have to agree to be rescued.” And then quickly: “Is the kitchen window shut?” Liese nodded. “Hurry, Liese, and tidy my daughter’s room; no one must see that it’s been used. Plates out! Clothes out!”
Again, Liese nodded.
Then she asked, “What about the money and the jewels on the table, Judge?”
For a moment he stood there almost helplessly, looking wretched, with a perplexed smile on his face. “Well, Liese,” he said. “That’ll be difficult. I don’t suppose any heirs will come forward. And for us it’s just a burden…”
“Shall I put it in the bin,” suggested Liese.
He shook his head. “No, they’re too smart for that, Liese,” he said. “That’s their speciality, rummaging around in dirt! I’ll think of something. But in the meantime, you get on with the room. They could be here any minute!”
For now, though, they were still standing in the courtyard, with Borkhausen.
Borkhausen had got the first and the worst of the shock. He had been hanging around the courtyard from early morning, racked by his hatred of the Persickes and his lust for the lost things. He wanted to monitor events—and so he was keeping the staircase under constant supervision, the windows at the front…
Suddenly something fell very close to him, brushing past him from a great height. He was so shocked that he collapsed against the wall, and then he had to sit on the ground, because everything was going black in front of his eyes.
Then he jumped up again, because suddenly he was aware that Frau Rosenthal was lying next to him in the courtyard. God, so the old woman had thrown herself out of the window, and he knew who was to blame for it, too.
Borkhausen could see right away that the woman was dead. She had a little trickle of blood coming out of her mouth, but that barely disfigured her. On her face was an expression of such deep peace that the wretched little stoolie had to look away. Then his gaze lit on her hands, and he saw that she was holding something in one of them, a piece of jewelry, something with shining stones.
Borkhausen cast a suspicious look around him. If he was to do anything, he had to do it quickly. He stooped; then, turning away from the dead woman so that he didn’t have to look her in the face, he pulled the sapphire bracelet from her grip and dropped it into his pocket. Again, he looked around suspiciously. He had a sense of the kitchen window at the Quangels’ being gently closed.
And already there they came, running across the courtyard, three men, two of whom he recognized immediately. What was important now was that he manage to behave correctly from the start.
“Er, Inspector, Frau Rosenthal has just thrown herself out of the window,” he said, as though reporting a perfectly ordinary event. “She almost landed on top of me.”
“How do you know me?” asked the inspector casually, while he and Friedrich bent down over the body.
“I don’t know you at all, Inspector,” said Borkhausen. “I just thought maybe that’s what you were. Because I get to do little jobs for your colleague Inspector Escherich sometimes.”
“Is that right?” said the inspector. “Well, then. Perhaps you’ll stick around a bit. You, sir,” he turned to Persicke, “will you keep an eye on this lad, and make sure he doesn’t disappear off somewhere. Friedrich, see to it that no one comes into the courtyard. Tell the driver to block the front entrance. I’ll just go upstairs to your flat and make a phone call!”
By the time Inspector Rusch returned from telephoning, the situation in the courtyard had changed a little. In all the windows of the back building there were faces, there were even a couple of people up on the roof—but some way off. The corpse had been covered with a sheet, but the sheet was a little small, and Frau Rosenthal’s legs were exposed to the knees.
Herr Borkhausen meanwhile was looking a bit yellow, and was wearing a pair of handcuffs. Watching him silently from the side of the courtyard were his wife and five children.
“Inspector, I protest!” Borkhausen called out plaintively. “I never threw the bracelet down into the cellar. Young Herr Persicke has got something against me…”
What had happened was that Friedrich, having quickly performed his allotted tasks, had then begun looking for the bracelet. Up in the kitchen, Frau Rosenthal had had it in her hand—it was over the bracelet, which she had refused to relinquish, that Friedrich had got into a heated argument with her. Distracted by this argument, he hadn’t paid as close attention as he would normally, and the woman had been able to jump out of the window. So the bracelet must still be lying in the courtyard somewhere.
When Friedrich began looking around, Borkhausen was standing by the wall. Baldur Persicke had caught sight of something flashing and heard a rattle in the coal cellar. He had gone down to look, and lo and behold, there was the bracelet!
“I certainly didn’t throw the bracelet in there!” Borkhausen insisted timidly. “It must have dropped from Frau Rosenthal into the cellar!”
“I see!” said Inspector Rusch. “You’re that sort, are you! That’s the sort of bird who’s working for my colleague. Escherich will be pleased when I enlighten him about the caliber of his occasional associates.”
But all the while the inspector was ruminating, his gaze moved back and forth, back and forth, between Borkhausen and Baldur Persicke. Then Rusch went on, “Well, I’m sure you won’t mind paying us a visit?”
“Not at all, sir!” said Borkhausen, trembling, as his face grew a few degrees paler. “I’m happy to come along! It’s in my interest to have this thing properly cleared up!”
“Very good,” said the inspector drily. And, following a swift look at Persicke, “Friedrich, take the handcuffs off this man. You’ll come with us without them, will you not?”
“Of course I’ll come! Of course, gladly!” Borkhausen eagerly assured him. “I’m not going to run off anywhere. And if I did—well, you’d find me easily enough, Herr Inspector!”
“That’s right!” Rusch said, drily once more. “A bird like you’s never hard to find.” He broke off. “Well, there’s the ambulance, and the police. Let’s see if we can’t get the formalities over with quickly. I’ve got a lot on this morning.”
Later on, once the formalities were indeed “over,” Inspector Rusch and young Persicke once again climbed the stairs to the Rosenthals’ apartment. “Just to make sure the kitchen window’s shut!” as the inspector said.
On the staircase young Persicke suddenly came to a stop. “Did you notice something, Inspector?” he asked in a whisper.
“I noticed various things,” replied Inspector Rusch. “But what did you think about the pencil, my lad?”
“Didn’t you notice how quiet the building is? Did you notice that here in the front building no one leaned out of the window, and in the back building they were everywhere! That’s suspicious, isn’t it? They must have noticed something, the people who live here. They just want to claim not to have noticed anything. Shouldn’t you now search those apartments, Inspector?”
“Well, and where better to start than with the Persickes,” replied the inspector, quietly walking on up the stairs. “Because as I recall none of them were looking out the window, either.”
“They got really blotto yesterday…”
“Listen, Sunshine,” the inspector went on, as though he had heard nothing. “What I do is my affair, and what you do is yours. I don’t want any advice from you. You’re too green for me.” He looked, quietly amused, over his shoulder at the wincing expression of the boy. “Boy,” he said, “if I don’t conduct any house searches here, then it’s purely because they’ve had time to get rid of any evidence. Anyway, why so much fuss about a dead Jewess? I’ve got enough on my plate with the living ones.”
By now they were outside the Rosenthals’ apartment. Baldur unlocked the door. Rusch closed the kitchen window and picked up a fallen chair.
“There!” said Inspector Rusch, looking around. “Everything hunky-dory!”
He went ahead into the parlor and sat down
on the sofa, in exactly the spot where he had shaken old Frau Rosenthal into a complete collapse an hour before. He stretched out leisurely and said, “Right now, Sunshine, and why don’t you fetch us a bottle of cognac and a couple of glasses!”
Baldur went off, came back, poured. They clinked glasses.
“That’s better, son,” said the Inspector agreeably, and lit a cigarette. “And now why don’t you tell me what you and Borkhausen were doing in this apartment together?”
Seeing the indignant reaction on the face of young Persicke, he went on, a little more quickly, “I would think about it carefully if I were you, son! It’s not impossible I might take a young Hitler Youth leader back to Prinz Albrecht Strasse, if he got too fresh for my liking. Think about whether honesty wouldn’t be the better policy. Maybe we can keep it under wraps, so let’s hear your story.” And, seeing Baldur hesitating, “I did—as you keep asking—notice a thing or two, you see. For instance, I’ve seen your bootmarks on the sheets in the corner. And that’s not from today. And how come you know there’s cognac, and exactly where to find it? What do you think Borkhausen told me in his panic? Do I need to sit here and have you tell me a string of whoppers? No, as I say, you’re too green for that!”
Baldur could see that, and he confessed everything.
“I see!” the inspector said finally. “I see. Everyone does what he can. Stupid people do stupid things, and smart people often do much more stupid things. Well, son, at least you wised up in the end, and didn’t try to lie to Papa Rusch. I have regard for that. What would you like out of this lot?”
Baldur’s eyes lit up. A moment ago, he had been completely demoralized, but now things had suddenly brightened again.
“The radio and the phonograph with the record collection, Inspector!” he whispered greedily.
“Very well!” said the inspector graciously. “I told you I won’t be getting back here before six. Anything else?”
“Maybe one or two suitcases full of bed linen!” said Baldur. “My mother doesn’t have much.”
“Oh, I’m so touched!” the inspector said mockingly. “What a devoted son! What a little mama’s boy! Well, go on then. And no more. Everything else you’re accountable to me for! And I have a damned good memory for what’s stacked and lying around here, so don’t think you’ll pull one over on me! And as I said, in case of doubt, we just instigate a search of the Persicke place. Where I’m pretty sure we’ll turn up a radiogram and two suitcases of sheets, if not more. But no worries, son—if you play straight with me, I’ll play straight with you.”
