by Hans Fallada
He stopped and looked at her.
She looked at him silently. She was thinking of Karlemann. This boy was three years younger than Karlemann and heading the same way—no love, no belief, no ambition, only thinking of himself.
She asked, “And what do you think’s going to become of you, Kuno?” And she added, “Are you planning to join the SA one day, or the SS?”
And he, stretched out: “Those guys? Not likely! They’re even worse than my old man! Just shouting and barking orders all the time! No, thanks all the same, that’s not where I’m headed.”
“But maybe you’d enjoy ordering other people around?”
“Why would I? No, I’m not like that. You know—what’s your name?”
“Eva—Eva Kluge.”
“You know, Eva, what I’d really enjoy would be cars. I’d like to know everything there is to know about cars, how the engine runs, and what the carburetor does and the ignition—no, not what it does, I sort of half know that already, but why… I’d like to know all that, except I don’t think I have the brains. When I was little they beat me about the head so much that I think it’s gone soft. I can’t even write properly!”
“But you don’t look as stupid as all that! I’m sure you can pick it up, the writing, and later on the engines.”
“You mean learn it? Like at school? Naah, I’m too old for that. I’ve had a couple of girlfriends already.”
She shuddered. But she came back pluckily, “Do you think one of your engineers or technicians has ever finished learning? They have to keep on learning, at the university or in evening classes.”
“I know! I know all that! That’s up on the billboards. Evening courses for advanced electrotechnicians”—suddenly his German was rather fluent—”the foundations of electronics.”
“Well then!” exclaimed Eva. “And you think you’re too old for that stuff! You don’t want to go to school any more? Do you want to be a bum all your life, washing dishes and chopping wood to get through the winter? That’s a nice life, and I wish you joy of it!”
He had opened his eyes wide, and looked at her questioningly, but also suspiciously.
“Are you saying I should go back to my people, and go to school in Berlin? Or do you want to hand me over to welfare?”
“Neither one. I want you to stay with me. And then I want to teach you myself, with a friend of mine.”
He remained suspicious. “And what do you get for doing that? I’d cost you a packet, what with food and clothes and books and everything.”
“I don’t know whether you’ll understand, Kuno. I used to have a husband and two sons, but I lost them all. I have a boyfriend now, but otherwise I’m all alone.”
“You can still have a baby!”
She blushed; the middle-aged woman blushed under the eye of the fourteen year-old boy.
“No, I can’t have any more babies,” she said firmly. “But it would make me happy if you made something of yourself, an auto engineer or an airplane designer or something. It would make me happy if I was able to make something of a boy like you.”
“I suppose you think I’m a poor bastard.”
“You know you’ve not got much going for you at the moment,
Kuno!”
“You’re right. Yeah, you’ve got a point, I guess.”
“And that’s okay with you?”
“Well, not really, but…”
“But what? Wouldn’t you want to come and live with me?”
“Sure I would, but…”
“What do you mean, but?”
“I think you’d have enough of me pretty quickly, and I don’t want to be sent away—I’d rather leave by myself.”
“You can leave whenever you want, I’m not going to stop you.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes, that’s a promise, Kuno. You’re free to come and go as you please.”
“But, if I’m with you, then I’ll have to be properly registered, and then my folks will find out where I am. They wouldn’t let me stay with you another day.”
“If your home is the way you say it is, no one is going to make you go back. Maybe I’ll be made your official guardian, and then you’ll be my boy…”
For a moment they looked at one another. She thought she could make out a distant gleam in that indifferent blue gaze. But then he said—dropping his head on his arm, and shutting his eyes again—“All right then. I’m going to sleep now. You go back to your ‘taters.”
“But, Kuno,” she cried. “You haven’t answered my question!”
“Must I?” he said sleepily. “You can’t make me.”
She looked down at him for a while musingly. Then, with a faint smile on her lips, she went back to her work.
She hoed, but she was hoeing mechanically now. Twice she caught herself about to decapitate a potato. Watch what you’re doing, Eva! she said crossly to herself.
But it didn’t help much. She thought maybe it was for the best if her scheme didn’t come to anything. How much labor and love she had invested in Karlemann, who had been an unspoiled child—and what had happened to that? And now she wanted to take a fourteen-year-old layabout, who had a thoroughly jaundiced view of life and mankind, and transform him? Who did she think she was? Anyway, Kienschaper would never agree to it…
She looked round at the sleeping boy. But the sleeping boy was gone, and all that was left were her things in the shade, by the edge of the forest.
Well, have it your own way, she thought. He’s made the decision for me. Run off! Good riddance!
And she went back to chopping angrily at the weeds.
Just a moment later she caught sight of Kuno-Dieter at the other end of the row, busily uprooting weeds and stacking them in piles along the edge of the field. She clambered over the furrows to him.
“Woken up already?” she asked.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I’m all confused because of you. I need to think!”
“Then think! But don’t think you have to work for my sake!”
“For your sake!” It was impossible to describe the contempt bundled into those words. “I’m pulling out weeds because it helps me think, and because I happen to enjoy it. Honestly! On your account! You mean in return for the sandwiches? Are you kidding!”
Once again, Frau Kluge went back to her work with a gentle smile playing about her lips. Whatever he might say, and even if he didn’t know it himself, he was doing it for her. Now she no longer doubted that he would leave with her at noon, and from that moment on, all the urgent, warning voices in her head lost their influence.
She stopped work a little earlier than usual. She went back over to the boy and said, “Okay, I’m going back for lunch now. If you want, you can come with me, Kuno.”
He pulled out a couple more weeds and then looked at the patch he had cleared. “I’ve done quite a bit,” he said with satisfaction. “Of course I’ve only done the worst of the weeds, you’ll need to go after the little ones with the hoe, but I figure it’ll be easier for you.”
“That’s right,” she said. “You take out the big weeds, I’m sure I can manage the little ones.”
He gave her another sidelong look, and she noticed that those blue eyes could also take on a roguish expression.
“Are you implying something?” he inquired.
“Whatever you think,” she said. “Not necessarily.”
“Well, huh!”
On the way back, she stopped by a swiftly flowing little stream.
“You know, Kuno, I don’t want to take you back into the village looking the way you do,” she said.
At once a furrow appeared in his brow, and he asked suspiciously, “I expect you’re ashamed to be seen with me?”
“Of course, if you want, you can come just as you are,” she said. “But if you plan on living in the village for any length of time, you could be here five years and always be spic and span, but the farmers won’t ever forget what you looked like when they first clapped
eyes on you. Like a pig, they’ll say in ten years’ time. Like a dosser.”
“You’re right,” he said. “That’s just what they’re like. Well, you hurry off and get some stuff, and I’ll start scrubbing myself.”
“I’ll bring soap and a brush,” she called over her shoulder, and hastened off into the village.
Later that day, much later—in the evening, by which time they had had their first meal together, Eva, the white-haired Kienschaper, and an almost unrecognizable Kuno-Dieter—later, then, Eva said, “Tonight you’ll sleep in the hayloft, Kuno. Starting tomorrow I’m going to have the little spare bedroom, they just need to clear the stuff out of it so you can move in. I’ll make it nice for you. I’ve got a bed and a dresser.”
Kuno merely looked at her. “You’re telling me it’s time to push off,” he said. “The two of youse want to be alone together. All right then! But I’m not going to bed yet, Eva, I’m not a baby, you know. I’m going to have a look around the village first.”
“But don’t let it get too late, Kuno! And don’t smoke in the hayloft, either!”
“Bah! I’d never do that! I’d be the first to go. Okay then. Have fun, you young people, as the old man said… And he proceeded to put the old lady in the family way.”
And exit Kuno-Dieter.
Eva Kluge smiled a little worriedly. “I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing in inviting that scamp into our little family, Kienschaper! He’s a bit of a caution!”
Kienschaper laughed. “But Evi,” he said, “surely you can see he’s only trying to show off! He’s trying to make an impression, and he doesn’t really care if it’s a good or a bad one! And because he’s sensed you’re a little prudish…”
“I’m not prudish!” she cried. “But if a fourteen-year-old boy tells me he’s already bedded a couple of women…”
“… well, then as I say, you’re just a bit prudish. And as far as him bedding those women, he certainly did nothing of the sort—at the very worst, they will have bedded him! That’s nothing. I’ll spare you tales of what the children in this simple, devout village get up to—compared to them, your Kuno-Dieter’s a saint!”
“But the children don’t go and talk about it!”
“That’s because they feel guilty. He doesn’t; to him, it’s all perfectly natural, because it’s all he’s ever known. He’ll settle down. There’s a core of good in the boy; in six months’ time, I imagine he’ll blush when he remembers the stuff he said in his first few days here. He’ll drop it, just like he’ll drop his Berlin argot. Did you notice he’s actually capable of speaking perfectly good German when he wants to? Only he doesn’t want to.”
“I feel bad, especially toward you, Kienschaper.”
“You mustn’t, Evi. I get a kick out of the boy, and there’s one thing I can promise you: whatever he turns out like, he’ll never be a common-or-garden Nazi. He might be an eccentric, but never a Nazi.”
“Oh, pray to God!” said Eva. “That’s all I want.”
And she had a faint sense that by rescuing Kuno-Dieter, she was in some way beginning to atone for the atrocities committed by Karlemann.
Chapter 44
THE FALL OF INSPECTOR ZOTT
The letter from the precinct supervisor was correctly addressed to Inspector Zott at Gestapo Headquarters, Berlin. But that didn’t result in the letter landing in Zott’s in-tray. Instead, it was his superior, SS-Obergrüppenfuhrer Prall, who was clutching it as he walked into Zott’s office.
“What’s this all about, Inspector?” asked Prall. “Here’s another one of your Hobgoblin’s cards, and this note pinned to it: ‘Prisoners released in accordance with phoned instructions from the Gestapo,’ Inspector Zott. What prisoners might those be? Why has none of this reached my ears?”
The inspector looked up over the rims of his spectacles at his superior. “Oh, yes! I remember. It was yesterday, or maybe the day before. I’ve got it, it was on Sunday. Sunday evening. Sometime between six and seven, I would say, Obergrüppenfuhrer.”
And he looked up at the Obergrüppenfuhrer, proud of his excellent memory.
“And what precisely happened on Sunday between six and seven o’clock? What prisoners are you talking about? And why were they let go? And why has none of it been reported to me? It’s profoundly comforting to hear that you know what it’s about, but I’d like to know too, Zott!”
That “Zott” spat out without any form of title, sounded like the opening salvo in a barrage.
“But it’s a perfectly trivial matter!” The inspector made calming motions with his parchment yellow hands. “There was some nonsense at the station. The police, bless them, pulled in a married couple as possible writers or distributors of the postcards, complete nonsense of course—we know the man lives by himself! Ah yes, and there was another thing, too: the man was a carpenter, when we know the Hobgoblin has something to do with the streetcars!”
“Are you trying to tell me, sir,” said the barely restrained Obergrüppenfuhrer (that “sir” was the second, and far more dangerous, shot in this battle), “are you trying to tell me that you authorized the release of these people without even having seen them, without even having questioned them, just because there were two of them rather than one, and because the man had a carpenter’s ID on him? Sir!”
“Obergruppenführer,” replied Inspector Zott as he got to his feet, “in our investigations, we detectives follow a specific plan and don’t deviate from it. I am looking for a man who lives alone and works in public transport, not a married man who is a carpenter. I’m simply not interested in the latter. I wouldn’t go a step out of my way for him.”
“As if a carpenter couldn’t work for public transport—for instance, repairing carriages!” Prall screamed back at him. “How stupid can you get!”
At first, Zott thought he should be offended, but his superior’s apt remark gave him pause. “You’re right,” he said glumly, “that didn’t occur to me.” He collected himself. “But I am still looking for a man living on his own,” he said again. “And this man has a wife.”
“Have you any idea what vile bitches women can be!” growled Prall. But he had something else in his armory: “And did it not occur to you, Inspector Zott,” (this was the third and most lethal shot), “that this card was dropped on a Sunday afternoon, near Nollendorfplatz! Did that minor or meaningless circumstance escape your schooled detective’s attention?”
This time Inspector Zott was really stunned, his little goatee bobbed up and down, and it was as though a veil had been drawn over his dark, sharp eyes.
“I’m embarrassed, Obergruppenführer! How could something like this have happened to me? I got ahead of myself. I was thinking about streetcar stations; I was so proud of my discovery. Too proud…”
The Obergruppenführer looked angrily at the little man, who was confessing his shortcomings, not cringingly but with evident disappointment.
“It was a mistake on my part,” the inspector proceeded, “to have taken over this inquiry in the first place. I am good for desk work, not a criminal investigation. Escherich is ten times better than I am. And now I’ve also had the misfortune that one of the men I asked to check out a house in the area, a certain Klebs, has been arrested. He is alleged to have been involved in theft, the robbing of a dipsomaniac. He has been badly beaten up. A very unpleasant story altogether. The man will not keep quiet in court, he will say that we sent him…”
Obergruppenführer Prall trembled with rage, but Inspector Zott’s dignity and utter lack of regard for his own fate held him in check.
“Do you have any views on how we should proceed in this matter, sir?” he asked coldly.
“I beg you, Obergruppenführer,” Zott beseeched him with raised hands, “release me! Release me from this investigation, which is completely over my head! Get Escherich back out of the basement, he will do better than me…”
“I do hope,” Prall said, and it was as though he hadn’t listened to a word of what Zott had just
said, “I do hope you’ve at least kept a record of the name and address of the two detainees?”
“I didn’t! I didn’t! I behaved with culpable negligence. I was blinded by my theory. But I will call the station, they will find the addresses, and we will see…”
“All right, call them!”
The conversation was very short. The inspector told the Obergruppenführer, “No note was kept of the names and addresses.” And, in response to a furious gesture from his superior: “I am to blame, only I! After calling me, they had no option but to view the incident as closed. I am completely to blame for there being nothing in writing!”
“So we have no lead?”
“No lead!”
“And what do you think about your conduct?”
“I ask that Inspector Escherich be brought up from the basement, and that I be confined in his place!”
Obergruppenführer Prall looked at the little man in silence. Then, shaking with rage, he said, “Do you know I’ll have you put away in a concentration camp? You dare make such a suggestion to me, to my face, without wailing and shaking with fear? It’s Communists and Bolsheviks that are made of the sort of stuff you’re made of! You confess your shortcomings, but you still appear to be proud of them!”
“I’m not proud of my shortcomings. But I am ready to take the consequences for them. I hope I will do it without wailing and trembling!”
Obergruppenführer Prall sneered contemptuously at those words. He had seen too many illusions of dignity collapse under the punches and kicks of SS men. But he had also seen something in the eye of some victims, a look of cool, almost mocking superiority even as they were being tortured. And his memory of that look caused him not to scream and lash out, but merely to say, “I want you to stay here at my disposal. I must first make a report.”
