by Hans Fallada
Wolfgang stepped up to the change-table, drew out a packet of bank notes, the second. “Chips for the lot!” While the man counted and recounted, he turned to the Rittmeister and cried, almost exultingly: “Tonight I shall win a fortune. I know it.”
The Rittmeister moved his head slightly, as if he too knew it, as if it was indeed a natural thing.
“And you?” asked Pagel.
“I’ve no more money with me.” It sounded strangely guilty, and while saying it the Rittmeister glanced almost with fear at the open door.
“I can lend you some. Play on your own account.” Pagel held out a packet of money.
“No, no,” said the Rittmeister. “It’s too much. I don’t want so much.”
(Neither remembered at that moment the scene in Lutter and Wegner’s, when young Pagel had first offered him money and had been rebuked with the most scornful indignation.)
“If you really want to win,” explained Pagel, “you must have sufficient capital. I know!”
Again the Rittmeister nodded. Slowly he reached for the packet.
When von Studmann returned, the anteroom was empty. “Where are the gentlemen?”
The sergeant major made a movement with his head in the direction of the roulette room.
Von Studmann stamped his foot and went toward it. Then he turned back. I wouldn’t dream of it, he thought angrily; I’m not his governess, however much he needs one.
A door opened. The girl with whom Pagel had had the quarrel stepped out.
“Can you take me downstairs?” she asked tonelessly, speaking as if she were not quite conscious. “I feel bad, I would like some fresh air.”
Von Studmann, the eternal nursery governess, offered her his arm. “Certainly. I wanted to go anyway.” The sergeant major took a silver-gray wrap from the wardrobe and draped it over the woman’s naked shoulders.
The two descended the stairs without saying a word, the girl leaning heavily on Studmann’s arm.
VIII
The spotter, the same one who had shown them up, had been standing downstairs, taking good care not to hear the calls for him. Every player who wanted to go had to be given the opportunity of changing his mind. But when von Studmann appeared in the passage with the girl on his arm, he was fully capable of dealing with the situation. The Valuta Vamp, or Walli, he knew, and also that gold and love often play ring-around-the-rosy with each other.
“Taxi?” he asked. And before Studmann could reply, said: “Just wait here. I’ll get one from Wittenbergplatz.” With that he vanished. In the dark open passage of an unknown house, an unknown girl on his arm, von Studmann had time to reflect on his ambiguous situation. And upstairs was a gambling club. Now only the cops were missing.
It was all very awkward, and today had already fully covered von Studmann’s requirements so far as awkward situations were concerned. In these times a man never knew what was going to happen in the next quarter of an hour, whether things were what they seemed. He had honestly been pleased to meet his old regimental comrade that morning. Prackwitz had behaved with extraordinary decency; without his intervention nothing would have reached Studmann’s ear of a Dr. Schröck; he would have been kicked out more or less with ignominy. The prospect, too, of going with him out of this bottomless pit into the peaceful country had been very agreeable—and now the selfsame Prackwitz was sitting upstairs, throwing away his money in the silliest manner, and had already called him a “children’s nurse.”
He required no children’s nurse, he had said. Yet he did and at once. When Studmann recalled young Pagel’s absurd bundles of money, and the vulture-like nose and rapacious glance of the croupier, then he knew that—children’s nurse or no children’s nurse—he ought to go back at once and put an end to this suicidal gambling. But this unfortunate girl on his arm! She didn’t seem quite herself—and no wonder, after that heavy blow. She was trembling, her teeth chattered, she kept whispering something about snow. About snow—in a foul, damp heat that was enough to kill you! It was clear that Studmann ought to go upstairs at once and get his friend away, but it was just as necessary first to take this girl safely somewhere—to relatives. He wanted to learn her address, but she wouldn’t listen. Her sole response was brusque. Let him leave her in peace! Where she lived was no business of his!
A taxi stopped outside. Studmann was not certain whether it was the one meant for him—the spotter was nowhere to be seen, the girl whispered something about snow, von Studmann stood, hesitating. Finally, however, he slouched out of the doorway into the taxi. “Sorry to have kept you waiting. I felt as if there was a nasty niff in the air. You know—the cops’ gambling squad! Those chaps can’t sleep quiet for one night; on their rotten wage, hunger keeps them awake.” He whistled the tune of—“And I sleep so bad and I dream so much.” “Well, hurry up, Count, into the bone-shaker with you. Don’t forget me! There, that’s nice. Some more cash the old woman doesn’t know about. Well, where to, Fräulein?”
He waited in vain. Von Studmann looked doubtfully at the girl reclining next to him in the taxi.
“Going home, Walli?” the spotter bellowed. “Where do you sleep now?”
She murmured something about being left in peace.
“All right, hop it, mate,” said the spotter to the driver. “Down Kurfürstendamm. She’ll soon wake up there.”
The taxi started, and Studmann was annoyed with himself for not getting out.
Later, when he looked back on it, it seemed as if they must have driven for hours and hours. Up streets, down streets—dark streets, brightly lit streets, empty streets, streets full of people. From time to time the girl tapped on the window, got out, went into a café or spoke to a man on the pavement …
She returned slowly, said to the chauffeur: “Drive on!” And the taxi set off again. She sobbed, her teeth chattered more and more, she muttered incoherently to herself.
“I beg your pardon?” said von Studmann.
She did not reply. As far as she was concerned he wasn’t there. He could have got out long ago and driven back to his friends. If he remained it was not because of her; he was not such an uncritical admirer of the feminine as Rittmeister von Prackwitz. And he knew now what he was sitting next to. He had guessed what the girl was hunting for. “Snow,” he remembered, had also been a subject of discussion in his hotel. A lavatory attendant in the café there had been trafficking in it recently. Of course, he had been dismissed—even the most modern hotel didn’t go quite so far toward meeting the wishes of its guests in crazy times.
No, if he still drove on with the girl, if he waited with increasing tension to see whether her inquiries met with success, it was because he was struggling with a decision. As soon as she was successful he would decide one way or the other.
The spotter’s remark about the cops’ gambling squad had given von Studmann the idea that the best thing would be for him to telephone the squad and have the club raided. What he had previously heard about these things, and the taxi driver confirmed it, was that the players had hardly anything to fear. Their names were taken, at the worst they were punished with a small fine, and that was all. The ones severely dealt with were the exploiters, the club organizers—which was only just.
Again and again Studmann said to himself that this was the best solution. What sense is there in my going up again? he kept thinking. I shall merely quarrel with Prackwitz, and he’ll just go on playing. No, I’ll ring up the police at the next café. I know that would be the most effective lesson for him; there’s nothing he hates more than being conspicuous, and if his identity were established by the police, that would rid him of any further desire to gamble. He still thinks he’s sitting in the casino—surrounded by beggars and swindlers.… It will do him good!
Yes, the organizers would be punished, but both the indiscreet Prackwitz and young Pagel, who seemed to have lost all his bearings, would be warned. Nevertheless, Studmann continued to fight for the strength to carry out his decision. Yet he felt reluctant to do the
right thing, because one didn’t bring a friend into contact with the police—not even if one’s intention was for the best. First let him settle with the girl, then decide.
He waited for her expectantly, but again she said nothing, and whispered for a long time with the chauffeur.
“That’s too far, Fräulein,” he heard the driver say. “I’m going off duty soon.”
At last he gave way. “But, Fräulein, if that’s also no good …”
They drove on, endlessly. Deserted, almost black streets. Broken street lamps. For economy’s sake only every sixth or eighth one was burning.
The girl was muttering automatically “Oh, God—Oh, God,” and after each “Oh, God” she knocked her head against the back of the cab.
Von Studmann could see himself in the telephone booth of a café: “Please give me the police station, gambling squad …” But perhaps there wouldn’t be a telephone booth, and he’d have to phone at the counter; then the people would think he was a fleeced gambler wanting to revenge himself … It looked very indecent, but it was decent. “It—is—decent!” Studmann said it to himself again and again. Formerly people had been luckier; then decent things had also looked decent. He was decent as well this afternoon. He could have knocked this wretched Baron down dead. And he paid for his decency by rolling drunk down the steps—what a life!
If only he’d been in the country with the rescued Prackwitz—in the peace and quiet, with long-lasting patience.
At last the taxi stopped. The girl got out and stumbled toward a house, cursing. In the uncertain light von Studmann saw only dark house-fronts. Not one café. Not a soul. Something like a shop, a chemist’s apparently. The girl knocked at a ground-floor window next to the shop door, waited, knocked again.
“Where are we?” von Studmann asked the driver.
“Near Warschauer Brücke,” said the man sullenly. “Are you paying for the taxi? It’ll cost you a mint of money.”
“Yes,” said Studmann.
The window on the ground floor had opened; a large pale head above a white nightshirt appeared and seemed to be whispering maledictions. The girl pleaded and begged in a mournful whine.
“He’s not dishing any up,” said the driver. “What do you expect, being dragged out of his bed in the middle of the night like that? And he can go to jail for it. A skirt like that won’t keep her mouth shut. Well, what did I tell you!”
The nightshirt had angrily shouted, “No! No!” and slammed the window. The girl could be heard weeping, inconsolable and at the same time angry. Von Studmann could already see her collapsing. He got out of the taxi to help her.
But she was on him with several very quick, short steps.
“What’s the idea?” he cried.
She had wrenched the walking stick from his hand and ran, before he could get it away from her, back to the window—all without a word, sobbing. This sobbing was particularly horrible. And now she had shattered the windowpane with one blow. Loudly the glass rattled on to the pavement …
“Swindler! Fat pig!” screamed the girl. “Are you going to give me the snow?”
“Let’s shove off,” suggested the driver. “The cops must have heard that. Look, now the windows are being lit up.”
And, indeed, here and there in the dark house-fronts appeared lights. A weak high voice shouted, “Quiet!”
But it was quiet now, for the two by the broken window were whispering to each other. The pale-faced man was no longer cursing, or only softly.
“There you are!” drawled the driver. “Them that starts with such people have got to do what they want. She doesn’t care whether the cops come and shut up his shop so long as she gets her dope. Shall we drive on?”
But Studmann could not make up his mind to do this. Even if the girl had behaved irresponsibly and meanly, he couldn’t drive off and leave her in the street, when the police might come strolling round the corner at any moment. And then there was that other business—that if she got her snow, then he would ring up the police. Once again he saw himself with the receiver in hand: “Gambling division of the criminal police, please.” There was nothing else for it. Prackwitz must be saved. One had one’s obligations.
The girl was back, and von Studmann had no need to ask whether her expedition was successful. The way she suddenly regarded him, the way she addressed him, the way he began to exist for her again, made it easy to guess that she had got her snow and had already sniffed it.
“Well?” she asked challengingly and held his stick out to him. “Who are you? Oh, yes, you’re the pal of the young man who hit me. Nice friends you have, I must say, hitting a lady in the kisser!”
“You are wrong,” said von Studmann politely. “It was not the young man—who, by the way, isn’t my friend—who hit you like that. It was someone else, one of the two men who always stand next to the croupier.”
“Do you mean Curly Willi? No, don’t spring any yarns on me—I wasn’t born yesterday. It was your pal, the one who brought you along. Well, I’ll pay him out!”
“Shall we drive on?” suggested von Studmann. He felt dog-tired, tired of this woman and of her cheeky, quarrelsome tone, tired of this aimless wandering about in the gigantic city, tired of all the disorder, the filth, the wrangling.
“Of course we’ll drive on!” she said at once. “Do you think I’m going to pad the hoof to the West End? Driver, Wittenbergplatz.”
But now the driver rebelled, and since he didn’t find it necessary to speak like a gentleman, and since the gent had declared himself ready to pay the fare, he didn’t mince his words, but told her plainly what he thought of an old doper like her who broke windows. He announced that he wouldn’t drive her a step farther, not to save his life! He declared he would have chucked her out long ago if the gent hadn’t been there …
This abuse made little impression on the lady. She was used to it; in some ways quarreling was her natural element. It enlivened her, and the drug she had just taken lent wings to a fancy which proved vastly superior to that of the rather dense driver. She would report him to his employer. She had a friend—she had noted the number of his car. He needn’t be surprised if he found his tires slit tomorrow morning!
A silly, endless altercation. The exhausted von Studmann wanted to put an end to it, but he lacked animation and was no match for them. When would it end? Windows were being lit up again, voices were again calling for quiet …
“But I say, please …” he protested feebly.
Suddenly the noise was over, the quarrel at an end. It had not even been pointless: the parties had come to a friendly understanding. True, they were not going to drive as far as Wittenbergplatz, but all the same they were going to drive “a step,” namely as far as Alexanderplatz.
“My garage is close by there,” explained the driver, and this explanation prevented von Studmann from reflecting any further on their objective, Alexanderplatz. For otherwise it would undoubtedly have occurred to him that in Alexanderplatz stood the very Police Headquarters whose gambling squad he now had to phone up, seeing that the girl had obtained what she wanted. But he could think of nothing except of getting into the taxi again and being able to settle down comfortably. He was really very tired. It would be good if he could now have forty winks. Sleep is never so good as in a softly rattling car. But it wasn’t worth sleeping between here and Alexanderplatz—it would make him feel even more tired. He lit a cigarette.
“You might offer a lady a cigarette!”
“Help yourself!” said von Studmann, and offered her his case.
“No thanks!” she said sharply. “Do you think I need your rotten cigarettes? I’ve got some myself. You should be polite to a lady.”
She fetched a case out of her bag, brusquely demanded a light, and then said: “How do you think I’m going to pay your friend out?”
“He’s not my friend,” said von Studmann mechanically.
“I’ll give him something to remember me by, that lad! Sauce the chap’s got, hitting a lady
. How does he come to have so much cash this evening? He usually hasn’t got any, the little squirt!”
“I really don’t know,” said von Studmann wearily.
“All right! If he doesn’t have his money taken off him in the club, I’ll see that he gets rid of it. You can be sure of that. When I’m through with him he won’t have a penny left.”
“My dear Fräulein!” pleaded von Studmann. “Won’t you let me smoke my cigarette in peace? I’ve already told you the gentleman is not my friend.”
“Yes, you and your friends!” she said angrily. “Hitting a lady! But I’ll peach on him—your friend!”
Von Studmann remained silent.
“Don’t you hear? I’ll peach on your friend!”
Silence.
Scornfully: “Don’t you know what peaching means? I’m going to squeal on your friend.”
Through the open glass partition came the driver’s voice: “Hit her one on the jaw. Right on the jaw. That’s what she deserves. Your friend was quite right; he’s a right ‘un, he knows what to do! Keep hitting it till she shuts up. Here are you running up all this expense with the taxi, and then she comes out with a lot of common talk about squealing!”
The quarrel between the two sprang into life once more. The glass partition was repeatedly wrenched open and again slammed shut, the taxi echoed with the screaming and shouting.
He ought to pay a little more attention to his steering, thought von Studmann. But what does it matter? If we hit something, at least this noise will stop.
However, they arrived safely at Alexanderplatz. Still cursing, the girl clambered out of the taxi, stumbling over von Studmann’s legs. “And a man like that thinks he’s a gentleman,” she shouted back into the car, and dashed off across the square toward a large building where only a few windows were lit up.
“There she goes!” said the driver. “And she’ll do a whole lot of talking if the cop lets her in; she’s really going to do what she said. And she’s done some pretty shady things herself. If they ask her whether she dopes she’ll be in the soup at once. Perhaps they’ll pinch her on the spot. Well, I shan’t be sorry.”
