by Hans Fallada
In the corridor he heard Madam Po’s repulsive shuffle and her phlegmy cough, noises which somewhat dispersed the cloud of sadness, and he felt that he would punish this woman for what had happened—no matter what it was.
Cautiously the door was put on the jar, but he kicked it wide open and towered over the startled woman. “Oh, Lor’, Herr Pagel, what a fright you gave me!” she complained.
He stood silent, perhaps waiting for her to speak, for her to start to tell him what had happened. But he had obviously filled her with fear, for she didn’t utter a sound, only smoothed her apron with her hands.
Suddenly—a second ago Pagel himself hadn’t known that he would do it—his shoulder pushed aside the woman as it had done the lad in the schnapps bar, and without hesitating he went along the dark corridor toward his room.
Frau Thumann rushed up behind him. “Herr Pagel! Herr Pagel! Listen to me a second,” she whispered.
“Well?” He turned so suddenly that she was again scared.
“Lor’, what’s the matter with you, Herr Pagel? I don’t understan’ it.” She was very flustered. “It’s only that I’ve let your room. To a girlfriend of Ida’s. She’s in it now—not by ‘erself. You understand? Why are you looking at me like that? You want to frighten me. You needn’t, I’m frightened enough already. If only Willem’d come! You ain’t left anything there, and your girl having been fetched away by the coppers …”
She was under way again, was Madam Po. But Pagel listened no longer. He pushed open the door of his room—had it been locked he would have broken it open—and went in.
On the bed sat a half-naked female, prostitute, of course—on the same narrow iron bed in which he had slept that morning with Petra. A young man of no better appearance than substance was just unbuttoning his braces.
“Get out!” said Pagel to the startled pair.
Frau Thumann was lamenting in the doorway. “Herr Pagel, this is the last straw. I’ll call the police. This is my room and you not having paid I need money too. No, Lotte, don’t talk, the man’s cracked. They took his girl to the police station, and so he’s gone off his rocker.”
“Shut up!” said Pagel sharply and punched the youth in the back. “Hurry. Get out of my room! Look sharp!”
“I must really ask—” The youth made a timid show of resistance.
“I’m just in the mood,” said Pagel softly but very distinctly, “to give you a good hiding. If you and that whore are not out of my room in one minute …”
His voice failed. He was shaking from head to foot with fury. He had never for one moment intended to claim this damned filthy hole, but it would suit him admirably if this bloody counterjumper said one single word of opposition.
He did not, however. Silent and flurried, he buttoned up his braces, fumbled with his waistcoat and jacket …
At the door Madam Po was wailing. “Herr Pagel! Herr Pagel! I don’t understand you! You’re an educated man an’ we always got on so well, an’ me wanting to give a roll and a pot of coffee to your girl, only Ida wouldn’t stand for it.… Besides, everything was Ida’s fault, I’d got nothing against you. Lor’, now he sets my place on fire!”
Pagel, paying no attention to her, had been standing by the window, absent-mindedly watching the girl putting on her blouse in a great hurry. Then it occurred to him that he was no longer smoking. Lighting a cigarette, he eyed the burning match in his fingers. Beside him was the curtain, the repulsive, dingy curtain which he had always hated. He touched it with the match. The hem scorched and writhed, then burst into flame.
The girl and the Thumann woman screamed, the man made a step toward him, then hesitated.
“So!” said Pagel and crumpled the curtain up, thereby extinguishing the flame. “This is my room. What do I owe you, Frau Thumann? I’ll pay to the end of the month. Here!”
He gave her some money, any odd amount, a couple of notes, it didn’t matter. He was putting the wad back into his pocket when he noticed the girl looking at it with a pathetically covetous look. Supposing she knew, he thought with satisfaction, that this was only one of six such packets—and the least valuable at that.
“There!” he said to the girl and held it out.
She looked at the money, then at him, and he realized that she did not believe him. “All right, then,” he said indifferently and put the money away. “You’re a fool. If you’d taken it you could have kept it. Now you won’t get anything.”
He went to the door. “I’m going to the police, Frau Thumann. In an hour I’ll be back with my wife. See that there’s something for supper.”
“Certainly, Herr Pagel. But you haven’t paid for the curtain yet. A quarter of an hour ago a copper was looking for you. I told him you had ‘opped it.”
“Good. I’ll go there now.”
She hurried after him. “And, Herr Pagel, please don’t take it amiss. You’ll hear about it any’ow at the station. I only said you were a bit behind with the rent, and straightaway they made me sign something about fraud. But I’ll take it back, Herr Pagel, I didn’t mean it. I’ll go at once to the police and take it back. I didn’t want to do it, but he made me. I’ll be there right away. I must first get rid of the girl. A fool like her wouldn’t never have earned the rent, and you’ve seen what sort of a gent that was, Herr Pagel, with a dickey on …”
Pagel was already descending the stairs; the devil takes the hindmost, and so it was quite in keeping that Frau Thumann had laid a charge on account of fraud. It didn’t matter to him, but as regards Petra …
He returned. Madam Po had started to report the events to a neighbor on the landing. “If you’re not at the police station in twenty minutes, Frau Thumann,” he said, “there’ll be the devil of a row.”
The yellow secretary at the police station had had a bad day. It was a severe bilious attack, as he had feared in getting up that morning. Dull pressure in the region of his gall-bladder and a feeling of nausea had warned him. He knew quite well, and the surgeon had told him often enough, that he ought to report sick and undergo a course of treatment. But what married man nowadays could afford to let his family depend on sick benefits which lagged so far behind the devaluation?
The excitement of the Gubalke case had brought on a real bilious colic. He had hardly been able to finish the records for the transfer of the prisoners to Alexanderplatz at seven o’clock, and now he was huddled in the lavatory while they were calling for him outside. He could have screamed with pain. Of course he could go home if he was ill; no superintendent, and his least of all, would have any objection; but one couldn’t leave one’s duty so suddenly, especially at this hour when the heaviest tasks of the police started. The shops had closed, throwing thousands of businessmen and employees on the streets; hundreds of restaurants displayed their illuminated signs, and the lust for amusement swept people off their feet. He would stick it till he was relieved at ten o’clock.
He was sitting at his desk again. With some anxiety he noticed that, although the bilious attack and the pain had stopped, their place was taken by a state of utter irritation. Everything annoyed him, and he looked almost with hate at the pale spongy face of a street-vendor who, without having a license, had sold some toilet soap of dubious origin out of a suitcase and, when reprimanded by a policeman, had started a row. I must pull myself together, thought the secretary. I mustn’t let myself go. I’m not to look at him like that.
“It is forbidden to offer goods for sale in the street without a hawker’s license,” he said for the tenth time, as gently as possible.
“Everything is forbidden,” the hawker shouted. “You ruin a chap. Here you’re only allowed to starve to death.”
“I don’t make the laws,” said the secretary.
“But you’re paid to carry out the lousy laws, you and your fat job,” the man shouted. Just behind him stood a good-looking lad in a field-gray uniform, with an open, intelligent face. He gave the secretary strength to endure such abuse without exploding. “Where did you get
the soap?” he asked.
“Find out!” the vendor bawled. “Why must you interfere with everything? You only want to ruin the likes of us, you corpse-maggot. When we’re dead you’ll have a good feed.” And his abuse did not cease even while a policeman was pushing him toward the cells.
The secretary shut the lid of the soap case sadly and put it on his desk. “Yes?” he said to the young man in the field-gray uniform, who, frowning and with his chin thrust out, had watched the hawker being taken away. His face, the secretary now noticed, was not so frank as he had first thought it; there was defiance in it and foolish obstinacy. The official was familiar with the expression which some men assume whenever a policeman uses force against a civilian. Such men, the born kickers against the pricks, see red, particularly when they have been drinking a little.
This young man had himself under control, however. With a sigh of relief he looked away as soon as the iron door closed on the corridor. He jerked one shoulder in the tightly fitting tunic, went up to the desk and said in a challenging but otherwise reasonable voice: “My name is Pagel. Wolfgang Pagel.”
The secretary waited, but nothing further was forthcoming. “Yes?” he said. “What do you want?”
“You are expecting me,” replied the young man angrily. “Pagel. Pagel from Georgenkirchstrasse.”
“Why, yes,” said the secretary. “Yes, of course. We sent a man along. We should like to have a talk with you, Herr Pagel.”
“And your man has compelled my landlady to make a charge against me.”
“Not compelled. Hardly compelled,” the secretary corrected. “We have no special interest in accepting charges. We’re stuffed up with them.” He was determined to keep on good terms with this young man.
“Nevertheless you’ve arrested my wife for no reason,” said the young man vehemently.
“Not your wife,” the secretary corrected again. “An unmarried girl, Petra Ledig, isn’t that so?”
“We wanted to marry at lunch time,” said Pagel flushing. “Our banns were put up at the registrar’s.”
“But the arrest didn’t take place till this evening. So you weren’t married at midday?”
“No. But we can soon change that. I had no money this morning.”
“I understand,” said the secretary slowly. “But an unmarried girl for all that!” his gall trouble made him add.
He looked at the green ink-stained baize before him, then selected a sheet from the pile of papers on his left. He avoided glancing at the young man, but again he could not resist adding: “And not arrested without a reason. No.”
“If you mean the charge of fraud, I’ve just paid the bill. In ten minutes the landlady will be here to withdraw her statement.”
“So this evening you have money,” was the secretary’s astonishing reply.
Pagel felt like asking the sallow man what business that was of his, but he refrained. “If the statement is withdrawn,” he said, “there will be nothing to prevent Fräulein Ledig from being discharged, then.”
“I believe there is something,” said the secretary. He was tired out, sick of all these things, and terribly afraid of a quarrel. He would have preferred to be in bed, a hot-water bottle on his belly, and his wife reading him the serial in today’s newspaper. Indeed, there would inevitably be a scene with this agitated young man whose voice was becoming more and more strained. Stronger, however, than his need for rest was the irritability which was oozing out of his gall-bladder and poisoning his blood. But he held himself in. Of all his points he chose the weakest, so as not to enrage this Herr Pagel any further. “When she was arrested she had no home and was dressed only in a man’s overcoat.” He watched Pagel’s face to see the effect of his words. “It was causing a public nuisance,” he explained.
The young man had become very red. “The room has been re-engaged and paid for,” he said hurriedly. “So she will have a roof. And with regard to her clothes, I can buy the necessary dresses and underclothes in a few minutes.”
“So you have enough money for that? Quite a lot of money?” The secretary was sufficiently a detective to pin a man down to anything he casually admitted under examination.
“Enough for that, anyhow,” said Wolfgang vehemently. “So she will be discharged?”
“The shops are now closed,” replied the secretary.
“Never mind. I’ll get her some clothes somehow.” And almost beseechingly: “You’ll discharge Fräulein Ledig?”
“As I said, Herr Pagel, we should like to have to talk with you, quite apart from this matter. That’s why we sent an officer along.”
The secretary whispered for a moment with a man in uniform, who nodded and vanished.
“But you’re still standing. Please take a chair.”
“I don’t want a chair. I want my friend to be discharged at once,” Pagel screamed. But he pulled himself together immediately. “Forgive me,” he said in lower tones. “This won’t happen again. But I’m very worried. Fräulein Ledig is a good girl. Anything you may have against her is my fault. I didn’t pay the rent, I sold her dresses. Do please set her free.”
“Sit down,” said the secretary.
Pagel wanted to flare up, but thought better of it. He sat down.
There is a method of examination by which criminologists can crush most men and certainly the inexperienced. This method is far removed from gentleness or humanity. It cannot be otherwise. The examiner has in most cases to discover a fact which the examined person does not want to admit, has to browbeat the questioned man till he admits the fact against his will.
The secretary had before him a man who was the subject of a vague accusation that he lived by card-sharping. This man would never confess to the truth of this accusation if he were in a calm and collected frame of mind; in order to make him lose his head he had to be provoked. Often it is difficult to find something which enrages the accused to the extent of making him lose his powers of reasoning. In this case the secretary had found the something which he needed: the man seemed to be genuinely concerned about his girl. That must be the lever to open the door to a confession. But such a lever could not be used gently; kindly consideration would not liberate the farmers of East Prussia from a three-card trickster. One had to attack him vigorously: the young man had self-control, he hadn’t flown into a rage, he had sat down. “I have a few matters to inquire about,” said the secretary.
“Certainly,” replied Pagel. “Ask what you like, as long as you promise me that Fräulein Ledig will be discharged this evening.”
“We can talk about that later.”
“Please promise me right away,” begged Pagel. “I’m worried. Don’t be cruel. Don’t torture me. Say yes.”
“I’m not cruel,” replied the secretary. “I’m an official.”
Pagel leaned back, discouraged and irritated.
Through the door came a tall, sad-looking man in uniform. He had heavy pouches under his eyes and an iron-gray sergeant major’s mustache. This man stepped behind the secretary’s chair, took a cigar out of his mouth and asked: “Is that the man?”
The secretary leaned back, looked up at his superior and said in an audible whisper: “That’s the man.”
The superintendent nodded slowly, subjected Pagel to a detailed scrutiny and said: “Carry on.” He continued to smoke.
“Now to our questions,” the secretary began.
But Pagel interrupted him. “May I smoke?” He was holding the packet of cigarettes in his hand.
The secretary rapped on the table. “The public are forbidden to smoke in this office.”
The superintendent puffed vigorously at his cigar. Angrily, but without losing his temper, Pagel put away his cigarettes.
“Now to our questions,” said the secretary again.
“One moment,” interrupted the superintendent, putting his big hand on the other’s shoulder. “Are you examining the man about his own case or the girl’s?”
“So I also am concerned?” Pagel asked
with surprise.
“We shall see later,” said the secretary. And to his superior, again in that ridiculously audible whisper: “About his own case.”
They treat you like dirt, do what they like with you, thought Pagel bitterly. But I won’t be upset. The main thing is to get Petra out this evening. Perhaps Mamma was right, after all. I ought to have employed a lawyer. Then these fellows would be more careful.
He sat there outwardly calm, but inwardly uneasy. The feeling of despair, as if everything was in vain, had not left him since he had been in the schnapps bar.
“Now to our questions,” he heard the persevering secretary repeat. It had really begun.
“Your name?”
Pagel gave it.
“Born when?”
Pagel told them.
“Where?”
Pagel said where.
“Occupation?”
He was without an occupation.
“Address?”
Pagel gave them the address.
“Have you your identity papers?”
Pagel had.
“Show them.”
Pagel showed them.
The secretary looked at them, the superintendent looked at them. He indicated something to the secretary and the secretary nodded. He did not hand the papers back, but put them down in front of him. “So,” he said, leaning back and looking at Pagel.
“Now for the questions,” said Pagel.
“What?” demanded the secretary.
“I said ‘Now for the questions,’ ” Pagel replied politely.
“Right,” the secretary said, “Now for the questions.…”
It was not clear whether his irony had made any impression on the two officials.
“Your mother lives in Berlin?”
“As can be seen from the papers.” They want to confuse me, he thought, or they’re stupid. Yes, they’re definitely stupid.
