by Hans Fallada
The fat man read them. “In order,” he said. “You’ve only forgotten to safeguard yourself about selling after her departure as well.”
“Damnation!”
“Doesn’t matter. You can get that later.”
“But the Geheimrat will be here this evening.”
“You won’t see the Geheimrat any more. This evening you will go to Berlin and get Frau von Prackwitz to set down in writing that she’s in agreement with recent sales. This very night. Promise me that! You are flippant about such things!”
“You have news of Fräulein Violet?” cried Pagel.
“Sitting in the taxi below,” said the fat man.
“What!” Pagel jumped up, trembling. “And you let me sit here and her wait there?”
“Stop!” The fat man laid his hand, like a shackle not to be thrown off, on Pagel’s shoulder. “Stop, young man!” Pagel tried to free himself, furious. “What I just told you is not quite correct. She who is sitting in the car is not the Fräulein Violet you remember. Don’t forget that for two whole months she has been systematically terrified out of her mind. Out of her mind! You understand? I don’t know,” he said darkly, “if I’m doing her mother a service in bringing her back. But I haven’t gone out of my way to seek her—don’t you think that. If you travel round as much as I do, however, you hear a lot; old colleagues still count me in with them, even if the bigwigs have lopped me off. I just ran into her. What am I to do with the girl? As it is, I don’t even know whether you can take her to the mother; you must decide that for yourself. Only she mustn’t remain here with the old people. Get her away in a car within an hour.… Any place which is quiet and safe. Why let yourself be snapped at here by that old clodhopper? Get away!”
“Yes,” said Pagel thoughtfully.
“Take that fat wench in the hall, if only to have a woman’s help during the journey and not give people something else to say about you.”
“Good.”
“Don’t speak kindly or strictly to the girl. Say only what is essential. ‘Sit down. Eat. Go to sleep.’ She does everything like a lamb. Not a trace of her own will. And don’t call her Violet—otherwise she’ll be frightened. He never called her anything but whore.”
“And he?” asked Pagel in a low voice.
“He? Who? Who do you mean?” said the fat man and clapped Pagel on the shoulder so that he swayed. “That’s all,” said he more calmly. “Pack your things; you can go in the taxi outside. I will come as far as Frankfurt. And one other thing, young man; have you money?”
“Yes.” It was some time since Pagel had admitted that willingly.
“My expenses have been eighty-two marks. Give me them back now.… Thanks. I won’t give you a receipt; I haven’t a name which I care to sign any longer. But if the mother asks, say I had to dress her out—she was pretty tattered—and then a little money for fares and traveling expenses. And now off with you! Hurry up that fat girl—in half an hour I shall stop with the taxi between here and the wood. We don’t want people to notice.”
“But can’t I see Fräulein Violet now?”
“Young fellow, don’t be in such a hurry. That won’t be a very cheerful meeting. It’ll come soon enough. March! I give you half an hour.”
And he went.
VIII
Of the thirty minutes granted Pagel, eight were lost in letting Amanda Backs know what had happened and in convincing her that for Violet’s sake she would have to abandon her poultry to a completely uncertain future. Going to the staff-house took another five minutes. And since the same time must be allowed to get to the car, only twelve minutes remained for the packing. Thus there could only be two suitcases, one for Amanda, one for himself. Wolfgang Pagel, who had arrived in Neulohe with a monster of a trunk, went away with almost nothing. Should he leave behind a few explanatory lines for the Geheimrat? He very much disliked to think that next morning he would be torn to pieces by every tongue as an unfaithful employee and miserable coward. He consulted Amanda.
“Write? Why do you want to write to him? He won’t believe a word when he sees the mess here. No, you leave that to madam to settle later.… But, Herr Pagel,” she said tearfully, “for you to ask me to leave my best things lying around, and then some wench like Black Minna comes and turns everything over and very likely puts my clean linen on her filthy body …”
“Oh, don’t worry yourself about your things, Amanda,” said Pagel abstractedly. “One can always buy some more.”
“Oh!” Amanda was indignant. “Perhaps you can go on buying new clothes, but not me! And how pleased one is to have an extra pair of silk stockings in the cupboard for special occasions, you have absolutely no idea! And let me tell you that if the old grumbler doesn’t pay to have my things sent on at once, then I shall come here myself and tell him off.”
“Amanda, only three minutes more!”
“Oh, only three minutes more! And you tell me that so casually! What about my wages? Yes, Herr Pagel, you’ve thought of everyone, but these last months you’ve completely forgotten that I too would like to get something for my work. We don’t suffer from the same disease, however, Herr Pagel. If you’re silly in money matters there’s no need for me to be, and I want my wages for the last three months, with a receipt, all done properly—and you enter it in your cash book too! I like everything done fairly.”
“Oh, dear, Amanda,” sighed Pagel. But he did what she wanted.
Then for the last time he locked his office door and threw the key into the small tin letter box. And now they hurried away, suitcases in their hands, through the pitch-dark night, though in the village there were lights in almost all the houses—it must be pretty close to nine o’clock now. Neulohe was tensely awaiting the Geheimrat’s arrival.
“Careful!” said Pagel and pulled Amanda into a dark corner.
Someone came down Dorfstrasse and they stood anxiously in the dark like real criminals, and only walked on after hearing a front door close behind the nocturnal wanderer. Then they passed by the Villa—dark standing in the darkness.
The taxi was standing with dimmed lights by the forest. “Eight minutes late!” growled the fat man. “If I’d had any idea what to do with her I should have cleared off! … You, girl, sit beside her, and let me tell you you’ll get something on the snout if you start jabbering.”
With this he opened the door. The moment had come—and nothing happened. Something dark stirred in the corner, but the fat man merely said: “Don’t move. Go on sleeping.” And the darkness did not stir again. “Off!” he shouted to the driver. “As fast as you can to Frankfurt. If we’re there by eleven the young man will give you a tip.”
The car shot into the night. The Villa glided by again. Then came the lights of the apartment blocks. Pagel strained to make out the office building, but it wasn’t recognizable in the dark. Now came the castle.…
“That’s a light,” cried Amanda, excited. “Black Minna is waiting for me. How she’s going to set things right alone with the Geheimrat”—“Schnabel,” said the fat man, but it didn’t sound nasty.
“You may smoke without worry, young man. It won’t disturb her. I’m going to smoke, too.”
Not far from the local town they came very near to having an accident, almost running into a coach. That, however, was because the coachman Hartig had given the horses the rein while he kept his head turned round to his employer, telling him something of the lively events which had taken place at home.
“That was the Geheimrat,” explained Pagel as the raging abuse of coachman and master died away behind them.
“Well, well,” said the fat man, pondering, “I wouldn’t like to be that man’s bed tonight!”
After the Kreisstadt they entered Staatstrasse. After the bumps and stops and starts of the minor roads, the car went easily and ever faster over the smooth metal road—farther and farther. Troubled, Pagel thought what an odd crew they were—each completely for himself. He was wondering what he was to do with the girl, that night.
…
The fat man spoke. “You will hardly get to Berlin before two. Have you decided where you will take her? To the mother?”
The dark form in the corner did not stir.
“I don’t know,” Pagel whispered. “The mother’s in a hotel. Ought I to go there in the middle of the night with a—an invalid? Or to my mother? It will be upsetting enough for her as it is, my blowing in without warning.”
The fat man said nothing.
“I also thought of a sanatorium. I have an old acquaintance who is employed in one. But tonight I should never get so far.”
“Sanatoriums cost a lot of money. And money’s scarce with you people.”
“Well, where shall I take her?”
“To madam,” said Amanda. “To her mother.”
“Yes,” said the fat man. “What you said about hotels and midnight is complete nonsense. She’s the mother after all. And even if she is clapped out and has acted like a slattern, she is a mother, and now she won’t be a slattern.”
“Good,” said Pagel. But he began to think once more what answers he should give to all Frau von Prackwitz’s questions, because he knew absolutely nothing, and the fat man would certainly not give him any more information.
The detective tapped on the glass in front, on which the street lamps of Frankfurt shone. “I’m getting out here,” he said. “Listen, driver. The young man here will pay all the fare. You get eighty pfennigs a kilometer—a lot, young man, but that includes the return empty. When we started your meter was at 43,750. Make a note of that, lad.”
“All correct,” said the driver. “And you will have enough money, sir? It’ll come to over three hundred marks.”
“Got enough,” said Pagel.
“Then it’s all right,” said the driver. “I was a bit leery, though.”
“Get her a cup of coffee here in Frankfurt and something to eat, but not in an inn. Fetch it out to her in the car. Good night.” And with this the fat man turned away.…
Strangely excited, Pagel shouted after him. The other made a sign with his hand, and turned a corner—never to be seen again.
“Driver,” said Pagel, “once we’re more or less through the town, stop at some little public-house. We want to eat something.”
It was now lighter in the taxi but the dark figure, its face pressed in the cushions, did not stir.
“Fräulein—Fräulein Violet, would you like to eat something?” said Pagel, oppressed. He had forgotten about it—no, he hadn’t forgotten about it, but he hadn’t wanted to talk to her as one talks to a stupid child or a simple dog.
She trembled in her corner. Did she understand? Or did she not want to understand? Or could she not?
The trembling increased, a moan of grief was heard, nothing articulate—as a bird in the night sometimes laments alone.
Amanda made a movement. Warningly Pagel laid his hand on hers and endeavored to strike the fat man’s cold passionless tones. “Keep quiet now. Sleep.…”
Later they stopped.
Amanda went inside and brought out what was necessary. “Eat—drink now,” said Pagel.
The taxi drove on again. “Go to sleep now.”
They drove a long way. It was dark and quiet. Was not Pagel also a son who had been lost and was now going home? She was also going home! Stranger—estranged, children don’t know their parents anymore. Is that you? asks a mother. Oh, life, life! We can’t hang on to it, whether we want to or not. We glide through it, we rush—restless, always changing. Of yesterday we ask, is that you? I no longer know you! Stop, oh, stop! Now, go on!
The car drives on. Sometimes the walls of the sleeping villages magnify the noise of the engine, which alternates with the purring quiet of the country roads.
Had Pagel believed that he would bring back a daughter to her mother, joyfully? He was merely tired and low-spirited, carrying on with Amanda a conversation drowsy and often a little irritable. What was she really going to do in Berlin if madam didn’t want her assistance? “I don’t know, Amanda. You are quite right; it was thoughtless.”
Then even that conversation died away, as if there were nobody special in the taxi, no daughter who was restored to life, but rather some indifferent, almost troublesome, occupant. Nothing more.…
At last he stood in the hotel lobby. It was half-past two in the morning. Only with trouble had he got the night porter to connect him with Frau van Prackwitz’s room.
“Yes, what is it then?” inquired the startled woman’s voice.
“This is Pagel—I am below in the lobby—I am bringing Fräulein Violet.” He broke off. He didn’t know what else to say.
A long, long silence.
Then came a distant low voice. “I’m—coming.”
And—only a few minutes could have passed—Frau Eva came down the stairs, those same red-carpeted stairs down which Herr von Studmann had once fallen. (But Pagel did not think of that now—although that fall, and a few other things, had taken him to Neulohe.)
She advanced, pale, very calm. She hardly looked at him. “Where?” was all she asked.
“In the taxi.” He led the way. Oh, he would have had so much to say and he had believed she would have had so much to ask—but no, nothing. Only this single “Where?”
He opened the door.
The woman pushed him aside. “Come, Violet.”
The figure stood up, came out of the taxi. For a moment Pagel saw the profile, the shut mouth, the lowered eyelids.…
“Come, child,” said the woman and gave her her arm. They went into the hotel, went out of Pagel’s life—he stood forgotten in the street.
“And where now, sir?” asked the driver.
“What?” said Pagel coming to himself. “Oh, yes. Some small hotel in the neighborhood. It doesn’t matter.”
And softly, taking Amanda’s hand: “But don’t cry, Amanda. Why are you crying?” And yet he too felt as though he must weep. And did not know why.
Chapter Sixteen
The Miracle of the Rentenmark
I
We have gone far, and have often had to stop on the way—now we’re in a hurry. When we began it was summer; almost a year has passed since then. Once more it is green outside, it is flowering, a harvest is approaching, and inside the town, in Frau Thumann’s room, the Pottmadam, the yellow-grey curtains once more hang motionless in the sticky heat. We don’t know, but we assume. Outside and in—it’s all the same. And everything is quite different. So little has happened: a man came and all was up with the senseless, the contemptible notes, the astronomical figures. To begin with, people looked at the new money in amazement. There was only a One on it or a Two or a Ten; if there were two noughts behind the number then it was a very large note indeed. How strange! When one had got used to counting in milliards and billions!
Coins came into circulation again, real money. One was to calculate not only in marks, but with groschen, no, with pfennigs also. There were men who, when they got their wages, built little towers with the money, playing with it. It seemed to them as though they had returned into childhood from a stormy, ruined age, from the terribly complicated into the simple.
And out of these low numbers, out of these coins and small notes, there came a magic. People began to calculate and suddenly they perceived—it tallies! I earn such and such a week, therefore I can spend so and so much—see, it tallies! For years people had been calculating—and it had never tallied. They had calculated themselves out of their minds; in the pockets of those who had starved to death had been found 1,000-mark notes; the poorest tramp on the highway had been a millionaire.
And now they all awoke from a confused torturing dream. They stood still and looked around. Yes, they could stand still and remember. Money would not run away from them now. Alarmed, they looked one another in the familiar, yet strange, faces. Was that you? they asked hesitatingly. Was that I? … Already those memories, still so near, were beginning to dissolve away like a fog.…
No, that wasn’t I, they
declared. And with new courage they set upon their work; once more there was a meaning in work and life.
Oh, everything has become very different!
II
A man leaves the University building, crosses the outer court, and steps into Unter den Linden.
The street is in full sunshine. He blinks a little in the light. Hesitantly he watches a bus, a bus which drives the students home to wives and children. He makes up his mind, shakes his briefcase a little, holding it by the handle, and with an easy yet swift step he goes along toward the Brandenburger Tor, toward the Tiergarten park. All his life he has been a city dweller. And for a short time has lived in the country. From that brief stay there has remained the need for peaceful, solitary paths, which recall the time when he rushed about the fields, supervising the farm laborers. Now he supervises his own thoughts, his own labors, his relations to the world around. He has a thoughtful, friendly face. He walks upright and quietly, but his eyes remain bright, shining. They are still quite young. In the bad days an antique business or dealing in pictures had seemed to him the highest that could be obtained. But on his return to Berlin he had said: “If you could do it, Mamma, I should like most to be a doctor. Psychiatrist. For mental diseases. Once I wanted to be an officer, and then it looked as though I would be nothing, a gambler, played out, hollow. Later agriculture gave me much satisfaction, but what I would like to be is: a real doctor.”
“Oh, Wolfi, exactly the longest course!” She had been quite frightened.
“Yes, admittedly,” he smiled. “When my son goes to school I shall still be learning. It’s taking rather a time for his father to become something and earn money. But I’ve always liked to have to do with people. I’ve always liked to consider how matters are with them, and why they do this and that. I’m happy if I can help them.…” He looked in front of him.
“Stop, Wolfi!” said his mother. “Now you’re thinking of Neulohe again.”
“Why shouldn’t I? Do you think it hurt me? I was much too young! To really help people, you must know a lot, have experienced a lot—and you mustn’t be soft. I was much too soft!”
