by Hans Fallada
Pagel looked uncomfortable, with an expression like a cat’s in a thunderstorm. And it really was thundering, and uncomfortably so.
“I explained to you this morning all my ideas about it,” said Marofke, sighing. “I didn’t believe you could help me much, but I did think, The young man’ll keep his eyes open. But that’s not exactly what you’ve done, Lieutenant; you wouldn’t have got the Iron Cross for that in wartime. But there, it’s all right, I know what a young man’s like. But please do this for me now—do keep your eyes open a little the next few days. I don’t think all the gendarmes together, whatever they say, will catch my five chaps. You’re here, though, and it would be very nice if you could write to the administration in a few days’ time: We’ve got the five and Marofke told us how to catch them.… What do you think?”
“Gladly, officer,” said Pagel obligingly. “And what is it you think I ought to do?”
“Man, have you got cotton wool in your ears?” Marofke jumped up. “Haven’t you any brains? I can’t tell you anything more. Keep your eyes open, that’s all. I don’t ask anything else. No need to play the detective or skulk in corners, nor even try to be cunning—only keep your eyes open!”
“All right, then,” said Pagel, rising. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You know what to do,” replied Marofke hurriedly. “I’m convinced that they have accomplices in the village, one or more, probably girls, but not necessarily. And while the police are all over the place here, they’ll keep under cover in the woods, in the village, who knows! It’s you who must use your eyes. In three or four days’ time, when it’s a bit quieter, our old pals will set forth, properly, by train, and well dressed.…”
“I’ll look out,” promised Pagel.
“Do it, too,” Marofke begged. “Looking out is harder than you think. And there’s another thing you ought to know. What they have on their backs.…”
“Yes?”
“That’s State property. And every prisoner knows that if he makes away with one piece of it he’ll be wanted for larceny. A missing scarf may mean six months’ penal servitude. So when really experienced lads bolt they take care that their things get sent as soon as possible to the prison. Usually by post—in which case I’ll let you know. If so much as a single piece turns up here, then you must keep watch like a pointer. Don’t think that it’s something I’ve left behind, because I never forget a thing. If it’s only a gray prison sock with a red rim, there’s something wrong. Do you even know what our shirts look like? Or the mufflers? Come along—I’ll show you.”
The principal warder did not, however, get as far as initiating Pagel into these secrets. Down the village street came ten bicycles, bringing nine warders from the prison, all belted, with rubber truncheons swinging and their faces dripping with sweat. In front rode a fat flabby man in a thick crumpled black suit. His belly almost rested on the handle bars. When the principal warder saw this threatening colossus he stared, forgetting everything else, including young Pagel, and murmured in dismay: “The labor inspector himself!”
Pagel saw the fat man, breathing heavily, descend from his bicycle, which a zealous warder held while he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He did not look at Marofke.
“Inspector,” said Marofke imploringly with his hand still at his cap badge. “Report Harvest Detachment Five Neulohe, a senior warder, four warders … forty-five men …”
“Where is the Manor office, young fellow?” demanded the colossus distantly. “Please show me the way. As for you, Marofke”—the inspector seemed to be interested in the gabled wall of the barracks, on which the stone cross stood out with its somewhat lighter red—“as for you, Marofke, you will soon find out that you’re finished.” He went on looking at the wall, considering. Then, in an indifferent tone: “You will immediately, Marofke, see if the footwear of the prisoners has been greased according to regulations and if laced up in conformity with orders. That is, bow knots and no others!”
One of the warders sniggered. Marofke, the little vain potbellied principal warder, replied, pale: “Yes, inspector,” and disappeared round the corner of the barracks.
Pagel, leading the way to the office, thought bitterly about the little man who, although he had taken the greatest trouble and borne the heaviest anxieties, was snubbed by everybody. No one, however, had cast any reproach at himself … despite all the mistakes he had made. He resolved, if an opportunity offered, to rehabilitate Herr Marofke. He could understand how difficult it was for anyone who looked so absurd to obtain respect—however efficient he might be. Efficiency was not at all the chief thing; it was more important to look like it.
“So this is the office,” said the inspector. “Thank you, young man. Who are you?”
“A friend of Herr Marofke’s,” answered Pagel rudely.
The fat man was not to be put out. “I was thinking of your occupation,” he said, still friendly.
“Pupil,” replied Pagel with fury.
“There you are!” beamed the fat man. “Then you are certainly suited to Marofke. Pupil! He, too, has a lot to learn.” And, nodding, he opened the door.
Wolfgang Pagel had had another lesson, which was that one should not vent ill-humor on those whom it delights.
VII
Half an hour later Harvest Detachment Five moved off from Neulohe, and a quarter of an hour afterwards the gendarmes set out on their battue through the woods. From the office windows all four—the Geheimrat, the gendarme officer, young Pagel and Frau von Prackwitz—watched the convicts’ departure. It was very different from their arrival. There was no singing, no one smiled; they went away with lowered heads, sullen faces, and their feet dragging in the dust. This dull shuffling along had in it something despairing, an evil rhythm, a “We are the enemies of this world”—that was what it sounded like to Wolfgang.
No doubt the prisoners had been thinking about their escaped fellow sufferers; burning envy had filled them when they considered the freedom of those five who now haunted the woods, while they were to return, under an escort of loaded carbines, to their solitary stone cells—punished because the others had escaped. From them had been taken the sight of distant fields, a laughing girlish face, a hare jumping along the potato furrows—all exchanged for the faded yellow dreariness of cell walls, because five others were scampering about in freedom.
In front of the column went the principal warder, Marofke. On the right he had to push a bicycle, on the left another; he wasn’t even allowed to watch over his men now. And behind the column trod the inspector, with spiky eyebrows and elephant feet, alone. His fat, white face raised, expressionless. Strong white teeth flashed in his mouth. At the side of the road Vi had stood to take stock. Seeing her there, Pagel had been angry.
The Geheimrat spoke to his daughter. “I should advise you, incidentally, not to sleep in the Villa alone with your stupid Räder the next few nights. All respect to our clever gendarme officer—but safe is safe.”
“Perhaps one of the gentlemen would …?” began Frau von Prackwitz, looking from Pagel, who was staring out of the window, to Studmann.
Although Marofke had specifically warned against any playing at being detective, Pagel preferred being free in the nights that followed, to do a bit of looking and hearing around—to keep his eyes open, as he’d been told. So he looked at no one but out of the window—but the convicts had left at last, and the barracks looked like an empty red box.
“I shall be very pleased to sleep with you,” said von Studmann—and flushed terribly.
The old Geheimrat bleated, and looked out of the window, too. Pagel shrugged his shoulders. The awkwardnesses of the adroit are always the worst. When a completely conventional man like Studmann makes a slip, everyone turns red.
“That’s settled, then. Thanks very much, Herr von Studmann,” said Frau von Prackwitz in her deep, even voice.
“It will cost you a heap of money to restore the barracks to its old condition,” declared the Geheimrat. “All this trelli
s-work and bolts must disappear as soon as possible, and the doorway be made free again.”
“Perhaps we could leave the place as it is for the moment,” suggested Studmann cautiously. “It would be a pity to tear everything out and have to put it back next year.”
“Next year? No detachment’s coming to Neulohe again!” announced the Geheimrat. “I have had about enough of your mother’s nervousness, Eva. Well, I’ll go up now and see how she is. All these green police coats will have cheered her up, of course! What an upset! And I keep asking myself what you’re going to do about your potatoes.” With this last thrust he left the office. The jealous father had taken a sufficient revenge for Studmann’s flush, for his daughter’s momentary embarrassment (perceived only by him), and for the accentuated indifference with which young Pagel was staring out of the window.
“Yes, what’s going to happen to our potatoes?” asked Frau von Prackwitz, looking doubtfully at Studmann.
“I don’t think that will offer any great difficulty,” said Studmann hurriedly, glad to have found something to talk about. “Unemployment and hunger are on the increase, and if we let it be known in the local town that we are digging potatoes, not paying cash, but giving ten or fifteen pounds in kind per hundredweight, we’ll get all the people we want. We shall have to send, two, three, perhaps four carts into town every morning to fetch the people and take them back at night, but we can manage that.”
“A nuisance—and expensive,” sighed Frau von Prackwitz. “Oh, if those convicts …”
“But far cheaper than if the potatoes are frozen. You, Pagel, won’t be a landed gentleman any longer. You will have to be in the fields all day and distribute tokens, one for every hundredweight.…”
“Thank Heaven!” said Pagel submissively.
“I have to be away tomorrow,” went on Studmann, “so I will also get a start on with this business—put an advertisement in the town paper, and settle things with the labor exchange.”
“You’re going away? Now, when the convicts … !” Frau von Prackwitz was very annoyed.
“Only a day in Frankfurt,” said Studmann. “Today is the twenty-ninth, you know.” Frau von Prackwitz didn’t understand. “The rent is due the day after tomorrow,” he added with emphasis. “I’ve already been in negotiation about it, but now it’s high time to scrape together the money. The dollar is a hundred and sixty million marks, and we shall have to raise an enormous amount—at any rate, an enormous amount of paper.”
“Rent! Rent! When convicts are loose in the district!” cried Frau Eva impatiently. “Did my father press for—?”
“Herr Geheimrat said nothing, but …”
“I am certain my father would not approve of your going off at this moment. In a way, you have taken over the job of protecting us.” She smiled.
“I shall be back by evening. In my opinion, the rent ought to be paid exactly on the minute. That is a point of honor with me.”
“Herr von Studmann! Papa loses nothing if he gets the rent a week later at the current dollar exchange. I will speak with him.”
“I don’t think the old gentleman will prove very amenable. You have just heard him demand that the harvesters’ barracks be immediately put into its former condition.”
“Anything might happen now, any minute!” pleaded Frau von Prackwitz. “Please, Herr von Studmann, don’t leave me alone now … I have such a disagreeable feeling.”
Herr von Studmann was embarrassed. For a moment he looked at Pagel, who was himself looking silently out of the window, but he immediately forgot about him again. “I would really like to say yes, but I’m sure you’ll understand; I don’t want to have to ask the Geheimrat for a postponement. It is really a point of honor. I took the management over from Prackwitz, and I am responsible to him. We are able to pay—I’ve gone into that thoroughly. I don’t want to look ridiculous. In life we have to be exact, punctual.…”
“Ridiculous!” cried Frau von Prackwitz angrily. “I tell you it’s the same to my father when we pay, since my husband’s not here. He’s only like that in order to annoy him. I tell you, when I think of the Villa, alone there with Vi and those stupid servants and the still more stupid Räder, and over five hundred yards to the nearest cottage.… Oh, it’s not that!” she exclaimed, irritated and surprised at meeting another Studmann and learning something at last of the drawbacks of pedantry and trustworthiness. “I have a disagreeable feeling, and I don’t want to be alone these next few days.”
“But you have nothing to fear,” declared Studmann, with that obstinate gentleness which can drive excited persons mad. “The gendarme officer is also of the opinion that the convicts have left the district. After all, an agreement is an agreement, especially among relatives. It must be carried out to the letter, and I am ultimately answerable for that. Prackwitz would rightly be able to reproach me—”
“The Rittmeister!” said Pagel in a low voice from the window. “He’s driving up to the farm now.”
“Who?” asked Studmann, dumbfounded.
“My husband? I thought he was shooting his five-hundredth rabbit!”
“Impossible!” said Studmann, yet in that moment he saw the Rittmeister getting out of a car.
“I had this uneasy feeling all day,” declared Frau von Prackwitz.
“Just what I thought,” said the Rittmeister entering, to shake hands, beaming, with the surprised trio. “A full council meeting once more to debate those quite insoluble problems my friend Studmann always solves in the end. Fine! Just as I thought; everything the same. Don’t pull such a face, Studmann. Your still unknown friend Schröck asks, by the way, to let you know you are, now as formerly, the right man for him. I’m good only to shoot rabbits. But, tell me, my dears, what are all the green frogs doing in Neulohe? I saw a whole section marching away into the woods. Is my father-in-law thinking of catching his poachers? That reminds me, I met our old Kniebusch this morning in the station at Frankfurt, quite broken up; his case is on today, about Bäumer.… So none of you, including my respected father-in-law, has been fretting himself much about the old chap. He might really have been spared that! Well, I shall have to get down to work again. And the gendarmes? Convicts have bolted? The gang’s withdrawn?” He laughed heartily, dropping into a chair. And the more he caught sight of the surprised, embarrassed faces, the more he laughed.
“But, my dears, you didn’t need to get rid of me for that. I could have committed such stupidities by myself. Magnificent. I suppose mother-in-law is shivering with fright as usual? And the young gentleman here doesn’t think of joining in the drive? Well, if I was your boss, Pagel, you’d have to go. It’s a question of honor; there ought to be someone at least from the estate. Otherwise they’ll think we’re afraid.…”
“Very good, sir,” said Pagel. “I’ll go.” And went.
“There!” beamed the Rittmeister. “Now he’s out of the way. The youngster can’t be always standing round here without lifting a hand; after all, he’s supposed to be working here. Well, children, now tell me your worries. You can’t imagine how fit and rested and restored I feel. Every day a pine-needle bath and ten hours’ sleep—that does one good! Now then, Studmann, out with the worst. What about the rent?”
“I am fetching the money tomorrow from Frankfurt,” replied Studmann without glancing at Frau von Prackwitz.
Strange. All of a sudden he no longer felt so pleased that he had had his way about that trip.
VIII
When toward evening the milk cart came back to the farm, and the milkman handed over the postbag, Studmann found in it a letter from Dr. Schröck which threw some light on Rittmeister Joachim von Prackwitz’s sudden return.
Dear Herr von Studmann [read the letter from the gruff and rather truculent consultant for nervous and mental disorders] this will reach you at the same time as your friend Prackwitz, who did not become mine. A visit from him as a paying patient will always be a pleasure to me, but to avoid misunderstandings I should like to inform you now t
hat psychopathic persons like Rittmeister von Prackwitz, unstable and inclined to moods of depression and excitement, with a considerable craving for self-assertion together with weak intellect, are not really curable—certainly not at his age. What is required in most cases of this sort is to encourage interest in some harmless occupation, such as stamp collecting, cultivating black roses, or finding out the German for foreign words; then they can’t do any damage and may even become bearable.
I had got Herr von Prackwitz almost as far as five hundred rabbits and was making extremely broad hints about the record being a thousand when he—devil take him!—hit on the idea that he ought to cure my patients, since I couldn’t. This he set about doing with all the enthusiasm of the ignoramus. There is a Russian princess who has been with me for over eight years, believing herself pregnant all the time and who has been going round a pond in my park these eight years, convinced that, if she circles this pond ten times a morning, she will be delivered. What he did was actually to drag this excellently paying and completely satisfied patient, weighing two and a half hundredweight, ten times round the pond; whereupon, if she did not give birth, nevertheless her heart and mental condition are in a state of collapse. He asked a beautiful schizophrenic for a lock of hair, the girl cropped herself bald—and the visit of her relatives is expected. With his fists he attempted to change the peculiar disposition of an unfortunately abnormal gentleman who had made certain proposals to him; and in his innocence he helped Reichsfreiherr Baron von Bergen, whom you have met, to escape again. In short, through Herr von Prackwitz I have lost patients to the value of about three thousand gold marks monthly. Therefore I say, thus far and no farther. I have made it clear to him that his presence in Neulohe on the first of October is absolutely essential—I am aware, of course, of all his troubles—and he is in agreement with this.
Should you, dear Herr Studmann, be inconvenienced by his return, this will make me very glad, because I take it that you will then come here all the sooner.
