Little Man, What Now?

by Hans Fallada

  Lauterbach muttered something unintelligible and cleared off.

  Now the two of them were alone. Now he’ll start on me, thought Pinneberg. But to his surprise Kleinholz said quite affably: ‘Nothing to choose between them, those colleagues of yours: about as different as a heap of dung and a heap of manure.’

  Pinneberg did not reply.

  ‘You look quite festive today. I can’t give you any dirty work, can I? Make me up a statement for the Hoenow estate account, as of the 31st August. And be careful when you come to the straw deliveries. They delivered oat straw instead of rye straw that one time, and there’s a query against that load.’

  ‘I know about that, Mr Kleinholz,’ said Pinneberg. ‘That was the load that went to the racing-stables in Karlshorst.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Emil. ‘You get things right, Pinneberg. If only all my people were like you! Good, that’s what you’ll do then. Good morning.’

  And he was away.

  Oh Lammchen! rejoiced Pinneberg. Oh my Lammchen! We’re safe, we can stop worrying about my job and the Shrimp.

  He got up and fetched the folder with the specialist’s report, the straw-wagon having been examined by a specialist on the occasion in question.

  ‘So what was the balance at 31st March? Debit. Three thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five marks, fifty-five. So …’

  He looked up, thunderstruck. ‘And I, stupid fool that I am, gave my word of honour and agreed with the others that we’d all give notice if one of us was sacked. I put them up to it myself; what an idiot, what a dumb clot! I mustn’t do that. He’d simply throw us all out!’

  He jumped to his feet; he paced up and down.

  It was Pinneberg’s moment of truth, in which he wrestled with his angel.

  He thought that he would certainly not get another job in Ducherow. Nor, as things stood at present, anywhere else in the world either. He thought of how he had been unemployed for three months before he went to Bergmanns, and how dreadful that had been when he was on his own; but now there were two of them and a third on the way! He thought of his colleagues whom deep down he couldn’t stand, and both of whom could much more readily bear to be sacked than he. He thought that it was far from certain they would keep their word if he was sacked. He reflected that if he gave notice and Kleinholz let him go, he would not be entitled to unemployment benefit for quite a long time, as a penalty for having given up a job. He thought of Lammchen, of old Bergmann the rag-trade Jew, of Marie Kleinholz, and suddenly of his mother. Then he thought of a picture out of the Miracles of Motherhood showing an embryo in the third month; that was how far the Shrimp had developed already, a naked mole, gruesome to contemplate. He thought about that for quite a long time.

  He paced to and fro, getting very heated.

  ‘What should I do? I can’t simply … And the others certainly wouldn’t! So? … But I don’t want to be a rat. I don’t want to be ashamed of myself. If only Lammchen were here! If only I could ask her! Lammchen is so upright; she always knows what you can do without having anything on your conscience.’

  He rushed to the window of the office; he stared at Market Place. If only she would come by. Now! She was due to pass this way early today, as she said she wanted to get some meat. ‘Dear Lammchen, kind Lammchen, please come by now.’

  The door opened, and Marie Kleinholz came in.

  It was an old prerogative of the women of the house of Kleinholz to be allowed, on Monday morning, when nobody visited the office, to lay out their washing on the big office table. And it was further the right of these ladies to demand of the clerks that they should find that table cleared. This, however, in the excitement of the day, had not been done.

  ‘The table!’ said Marie Kleinholz sharply.

  Pinneberg sprang into action. ‘One moment! So sorry; it’ll be ready at once.’

  He threw samples of wheat into cupboard drawers, stacked ring-binders on the window-sill, was temporarily at a loss where to put the corn-tester.

  ‘Hurry along, man,’ said Marie, trying to pick a quarrel. ‘I’m standing here with my washing.’

  ‘Just one moment,’ said Pinneberg very gently.

  ‘A moment, a moment,’ she nagged. ‘It could have been done long ago. But if you must watch out for tarts at the window …’

  Pinneberg preferred not to answer. Marie flung her load of washing with panache onto the now empty table. ‘It’s filthy! Only just got this stuff clean and straight away it’s dirty again. Where’ve you put the duster?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Pinneberg with the beginnings of ill-humour, and pretended to look for it.

  ‘Every Saturday evening I hang a fresh duster here, and by Monday it’s gone. Somebody must be stealing them.’

  ‘That’s a bit much,’ said Pinneberg crossly.

  ‘What d’you mean a bit much? No one’s accusing you. Did I say anything about you stealing dusters? I just said somebody. Some man. I don’t believe girls like that ever pick up a duster; far too common for them.’

  ‘Listen, Miss Kleinholz,’ began Pinneberg, then thought better of it. ‘Oh never mind!’ he said, and sat down to work in his place.

  ‘Yes, you’d better be quiet. Canoodling with a girl like that on the public road …’

  She waited a while to see if her dart had struck. Then: ‘All I saw was the canoodling, I don’t know what else may have happened. I’m only talking about what I could swear to …’

  She was silent again. Pinneberg thought desperately: ‘I must hold my tongue. She hasn’t got a lot of washing there. Then she’s bound to wander off …’

  Marie took up the thread of her chatter again. ‘Awfully common she looked. All got up.’

  Pause.

  ‘Father says he saw her in the “Palm Grotto”, she was a waitress.’

  There was another pause.

  ‘Lots of men like girls to be common; it turns them on, Father says.’

  Another pause.

  ‘I’m sorry for you, Mr Pinneberg.’

  ‘And I’m sorry for you,’ said Pinneberg.

  A fairly long pause. Marie was rather taken aback. Finally: ‘If you get cheeky with me, Mr Pinneberg, I’ll tell Father. He’ll throw you out on the spot.’

  ‘What do you mean: cheeky?’ said Pinneberg. ‘I said exactly the same to you as you said to me.’

  Silence now reigned. It look as though it had set in for good. The sprinkler rattled every so often when Marie Kleinholz shook it over the washing; the steel pen tapped the ink bottle.

  Suddenly Marie gave a cry. She rushed triumphantly to the window. ‘There she is, the silly cow! Goodness, she’s plastered with make-up. It’s enough to make you sick.’

  Pinneberg stood up and looked out. The person going by outside was Emma Pinneberg with the string shopping-bag, his Lammchen, the most wonderful thing in the world to him. And what Marie had been saying about ‘make-up’ was a lie, that he knew.

  He stood up and stared after Lammchen until she had gone round the corner and disappeared into Bahnhofstrasse. He turned round and went towards Miss Kleinholz. His face was disturbing to look at, very white and threaded with lines on the forehead, but strangely alive about the eyes.

  ‘Listen to me, Miss Kleinholz,’ he said, sticking his hands firmly in his pockets as a precaution. He swallowed and began again. ‘Listen, Miss Kleinholz. If you ever say anything like that again, I’ll hit you right in your ugly mug.’

  She tried to say something, her thin lips twitched, her little bird-like head jerked towards him.

  ‘You keep your mouth shut,’ he said coarsely. ‘That’s my wife, do you understand!’ And now his hand did leave his pocket, and the gleaming wedding-ring was held right under her nose. ‘And you can count yourself lucky if you ever in your life turn out half such a decent woman as she is.’

  With that, Pinneberg turned on his heel, he had said everything he had to say and he felt wonderfully relieved. Consequences? What consequences? They could do what they liked, all of th
em! Pinneberg turned on his heel, and walked back to his seat. For a long time Marie said nothing at all. He squinted over at her. She wasn’t looking at him. She was pressing her poor, small head with the thin ash-blond hair against the window. But the other woman had gone; she could not see her any more.

  And then she sat down on a chair, laid her head on the edge of the table and began to cry, real heartbreaking sobs.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Pinneberg, a little (but only a little) ashamed of his brutality, ‘it wasn’t meant as badly as that, Miss Kleinholz.’

  But she was weeping floods of tears; it must have been doing her good in some way, and in between she stammered something to the effect that she couldn’t help being like she was, that she’d always thought him a thoroughly decent man, quite different from his colleagues, and was he really married, ah, not in church then, and he shouldn’t be afraid of her telling her father, because she wouldn’t, and whether his girl was from here, she didn’t look like it, and what she’d said before she’d said only to annoy him, she looked very nice.

  So it went on, and would have gone on a fair while longer, had not the sharp voice of Mrs Kleinholz rung out: ‘What are you doing with the washing, Marie? We’ve got to get on with the mangling!’

  With a horrified ‘Oh God!’ Marie Kleinholz sprang up from table and chair, grabbed her washing and dashed out. Pinneberg, however, remained seated, feeling actually quite satisfied. He whistled to himself, calculating zealously and glancing up every so often to see whether Lammchen might not be coming back. But perhaps she had already passed.

  And so it turned eleven, then half-past eleven, then quarter to twelve, and Pinneberg was already singing his ‘Hosanna, praise be to my Lammchen, we’re safe for another month’, and everything might yet have gone well. But at five to twelve, father Kleinholz came into the office, surveyed his book-keeper, went and stared out of the window and spoke, in a kindly tone: ‘I’ve been humming and hawing, humming and hawing, Pinneberg. I’d prefer to keep you and let one of the others go. But the fact that you wished the Sunday stable duty on to me simply so that you could go and amuse yourself with your women, that I can’t forgive, and that’s why I’m going to give you notice.’

  ‘Mr Kleinholz!’ began Pinneberg in the firm and manly resolve of explaining his case in such detail that it would take them way beyond the latest possible time for giving him notice, which was twelve o’clock. ‘Mr Kleinholz, I …’

  But at that moment Emil Kleinholz cried out furiously: ‘Damn it, there’s that woman again! I’m giving you notice till 31st October, Mr Pinneberg!’

  And before Johannes Pinneberg could say a word, Emil had gone, slamming the door thunderously behind him. Just then Pinneberg saw his Lammchen disappearing around the corner of Market Place. He sighed deeply and looked at the clock. Three minutes to twelve. At two minutes to twelve Pinneberg was to be seen dashing across the courtyard to the seed-corn store. There he rushed up to Lauterbach and said breathlessly: ‘Lauterbach, get over to Kleinholz and give notice. Remember you gave your word of honour. He’s just given me notice.’

  Ernst Lauterbach, however, slowly let go the handle of the winnow, looked in astonishment at Pinneberg and spoke: ‘First, it’s one minute to twelve, and after twelve I can’t give notice; second, I’d have to talk to Schulz first, and he is not here. And third, I just heard from Mariechen that you’re married, and if that’s true you’ve not been as frank with us as your colleagues. And fourth …’

  But Pinneberg never learned what the fourth thing was; for the clock in the tower struck slowly twelve times and then it was too late. Pinneberg had been given notice, and there was nothing more to be done.

  MR FRIEDRICHS, THE SALMON AND MR BERGMANN, ALL IN VAIN: THERE IS NOTHING FOR PINNEBERG

  Three weeks later—it was a cold, overcast, rainy September day, very windy—three weeks later Pinneberg slowly closed the outer door of the local office of the Clerical, Office and Professional Employees Association of Germany. He stopped for a moment at the top of the steps, and gazed absently at a notice calling for the solidarity of all white-collar workers. He sighed deeply and went slowly down the steps.

  The fat man with the splendid gold teeth had conclusively proved to him that there was nothing to be done for him, that his lot was to be unemployed. ‘You know yourself, Mr Pinneberg, what it’s like in the clothing sector here in Ducherow. No vacancies.’ A pause, then more emphatically: ‘And there will be no vacancies.’

  ‘But the Association’s got offices all over the place,’ said Pinneberg timidly. ‘Perhaps you could get in touch with one of them. I’ve got such good references. Perhaps somewhere,’ he gestured plaintively into the beyond, ‘Perhaps somewhere there is something to be done.’

  ‘Out of the question!’ declared Mr Friedrichs definitely. ‘If a vacancy did occur, which it won’t because everyone who’s got a job sticks to it like glue, but if it did there’d be all those local members waiting for it. It wouldn’t be fair to put someone from outside in before them.’

  ‘But if the man from outside needed work more than they did?’

  ‘No, no, that would be highly unfair. Today, everyone needs work.’

  Pinneberg didn’t pursue the question of what was fair. ‘What else is there?’ he asked obstinately.

  ‘What else …’ Mr Friedrichs shrugged his shoulders. ‘There’s nothing else. You’re not a fully qualified book-keeper, although you will have picked up a bit at Kleinholz’s. Now there’s a funny place … is it true that he gets drunk every night and brings loose women into the house?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Pinneberg shortly, ‘I don’t work nights.’

  ‘Come on, Mr Pinneberg,’ said Mr Friedrichs rather crossly. ‘The Association is against that sort of thing: inadequately trained staff moving from one branch to another. The Association can’t support it; it undermines the status of the members.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ was all Pinneberg said. Then, still obstinate: ‘But you’ve got to find something for me, by the first, Mr Friedrichs. I’m married.’

  ‘By the first! In precisely eight days’ time. It’s quite out of the question, Pinneberg, how can I? You must know that, Mr Pinneberg. You’re a reasonable man.’

  Pinneberg had no faith in reason. ‘We’re expecting a baby, Mr Friedrichs,’ he said quietly.

  Friedrichs turned his eyes up to the applicant. Then he said in a kindly, comforting tone: ‘Ah well, children are a blessing. So they say. You will get the dole after all. There are so many people managing on less than that. It will be all right, you’ll see.’

  ‘But I must …’

  Mr Friedrichs realized he had to do something. ‘Now listen, Pinneberg. I can see you’re in a spot. Look at this: I’m writing your name on my notepad: Pinneberg, Johannes, twenty-three years old. Salesman, address … What’s your address?’

  ‘Green End.’

  ‘Oh! Way out there! And your membership number? Good …’ Mr Friedrichs looked thoughtfully at the note. ‘I’m putting it here, next to my inkwell, you see, so it’s always in front of me. And so if anything comes up, you’ll be the first I’ll think of.’

  Pinneberg started to say something. ‘I’m giving you special treatment, Mr Pinneberg. Actually it’s not fair on the other members, but I’ll answer for that. I’m doing it because you’re in a spot!’

  Mr Friedrichs looked at the note with narrowed eyes, took a red pencil and added a thick, red exclamation-mark for good measure. ‘There you are,’ he said, satisfied, and laid it beside the inkwell.

  Pinneberg sighed, and resigned himself to leaving. ‘You will think of me, Mr Friedrichs, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ve got the note. I’ve got it here. Good day Mr Pinneberg.’

  Pinneberg stood on the street wondering what to do next. He ought really to go back to the office at Kleinholz’s. He only had a couple of hours off to look for a job. But he hated the thought, particularly being with his dear colleagues, who hadn’t resigned, weren’t even
giving it a thought, but still asked sympathetically: ‘Still no job, Pinneberg? Get up a bit of steam then. The children are crying for bread, the honeymoon’s over.’

  ‘Stuff it …’ said Pinneberg emphatically, and set off for the town park.

  It was cold, windy, and empty. Desolate flower-beds! Puddles everywhere! And too windy even to get a cigarette alight! Just as well, soon there’d be no more smoking anyhow. What an idiot! No one ought to have to give up smoking six weeks after getting married.

  Then there was the wind. When you got to the place where the town park met the fields, it fairly jumped out at you. It shook you, your coat flapped, you had to grab at your hat to hold it on. The fields were thoroughly autumnal: wet, dripping, cheerless, in a mess … So, go home. There was a silly saying round here: ‘It’s a good thing houses are hollow, so people can live inside.’

  So, home to Green End. But when Green End was at an end, there’d be somewhere else. Somewhere cheaper, well, four walls at any rate, a roof over their heads, warmth. A woman, oh yes, a woman! It was so lovely to lie in bed with another person snuffling next to you in the night. So lovely to read the newspaper with someone sitting in the corner of the sofa, sewing and darning. So lovely to come home and hear someone say: ‘Hello, Sonny, love. How was it today? Was it all right?’ It was lovely to have someone to work for and care for … well, to care for, even when you hadn’t any work. It was lovely to have someone who allowed you to comfort them.

  Suddenly Pinneberg had to laugh. That salmon. That quarter of a salmon. Poor Lammchen. How unhappy she had been! To comfort someone, that was the thing.

  One evening they were just sitting down to dinner when Lammchen declared that she couldn’t eat anything, that she was nauseated by everything. But today she had seen a smoked salmon in the delicatessen, so juicy and rosy pink: if only she had that!

  ‘Why didn’t you get it?’

  ‘What! Just think what it would cost.’

  So they’d talked about it and talked about it, and of course it would be idiotic, it was far too expensive. But if Lammchen couldn’t eat anything else! Right away—supper was put off for half an hour—he was going to town for it right away.