Little Man, What Now?

by Hans Fallada

  The second thing he noticed was that there was a very nasty smell around the place, just like …

  Then Lammchen said: ‘Well; Sonny, maybe this evening, certainly by tomorrow morning. I’m so looking forward to the Shrimp.’

  And he whispered: ‘I can tell you what I swore, Lammchen. I will never, in my life, smoke on a Saturday ever again if everything turns out well.’

  And she said: ‘Oh Sonny, Sonny …’

  Then the sister called: ‘Come on, Mr Pinneberg!’ And to Lammchen she said: ‘Has the enema worked?’

  Lammchen blushed and nodded, and Pinneberg realized for the first time that she had been sitting on a commode while he said goodbye, and he too blushed, though he thought he was a fool for doing so.

  ‘You can ring in any time during the night, Mr Pinneberg,’ said the sister. ‘Here are your wife’s things.’

  He went slowly away, feeling unhappy, because it was the first time in their marriage that he had handed her over entirely to other people, and because she was experiencing something that he couldn’t share. ‘Perhaps a midwife would have been better. Then at least I could have been there.’

  The Little Tiergarten. No, the women were no longer on the bench; he wouldn’t have minded, in fact, he would have been glad to talk to one of them. And Puttbreese turned out not to be around, so he couldn’t talk to him either; he had to return alone to the silence of his ship’s cabin.

  There he stood, in shirt-sleeves and Lammchen’s apron, finishing the washing-up, when suddenly he said aloud, very slowly. ‘What if I never see her again? Things can happen. They quite often do.’

  MUCH TOO LITTLE WASHING-UP! CREATION OF THE SHRIMP. LAMMCHEN WILL SCREAM TOO

  It isn’t easy to stand around thinking ‘perhaps I shall never see her again’ in an empty flat. It wasn’t easy for Pinneberg, anyhow. Well, there was the washing-up to be getting on with first, and that was something to keep him going. He went at it slowly and thoroughly, attacking every pot with Vim and a brush. Nobody was going to accuse him of not doing a good job. His thoughts went no further than the nightie with the garlands of letters printed in blue on it, and Lammchen looking flushed and childlike, and what more was there?

  There was more.

  The washing-up was over. What now? It occurred to him that he had long been intending to draught-proof the door with strips of felt but had never got around to it. The strips of felt and the drawing-pins had been lying around since the beginning of the winter, and now it was March. He went to work. He fitted the strip carefully, fixed it roughly and tested whether the door would shut. It shut, so then he fastened the strips, positioning the tacks with great care. He could take as long as he liked; it would be useless to ring before seven. Actually he needn’t ring, he could go there. Save a groschen and possibly find out more. He might even be able to see her.

  Or he might never see her again.

  All that was left now was to put her clothes away, they smelled of her, it was so nice, he had always loved her smell. Of course he hadn’t been kind enough to her; he had been grousy too often, and he had never really given a thought to what might be worrying her. Things like that. Of course all men thought of things like that when it might be too late. Typical, like the sister had said. It really was typical. Such regrets were useless.

  Five-fifteen. It was little more than an hour since he had left the hospital and already there was nothing more for him to do. He threw himself down on the big oilcloth-covered sofa and lay still for a long time, his face buried in his hands. Yes, he was small and wretched, he shouted and struggled and elbowed to keep his place in life, but did he deserve a place? He was a nothing. And she had to go through this torment because of him. If he had never … if he had not been … if he had only …

  He lay there, not exactly thinking, but being taken over by thoughts which he could not control.

  In Berlin NW, however remote from it you may lie in your half-a-ship’s cabin, on your oilcloth-covered sofa in a flat facing a garden, the noise of the big city still reaches you. The only difference is that here all the individual noises melt into one big sound. It swells and dies down, it is very loud and then it’s almost gone, as though the wind had swallowed it up.

  Pinneberg lay there, the noise reached him and lifted him, then dropped him slowly again, he felt the cool oilcloth coming up to his face, lifting him up and down but never letting him go, like sea-swell. That too goes on and on, to what purpose? …

  Lensahn was the name of the place, and there were cheap day-trips to it from Ducherow at weekends. On one Saturday afternoon at two, Pinneberg set off. It was early summer, May or June. No, it was June. Bergmann had declared a holiday.

  Lensahn is not very far from Platz. And so it happened that the village was full of people, radios blared out of every inn garden, and they were rampaging like wild things on the beach.

  But proper sandy beaches tempt you to go on and on. Pinneberg took off his shoes and socks and strolled off into the blue. He had no idea where he was going, whether he would get to another place, but what did that matter?

  He walked for a couple of hours, until there were no more people to be seen, then he sat down on the beach and smoked a cigarette.

  He got up and went on. What a beach it was, with its bays and headlands, sometimes it looked as if there was nothing behind the next tongue of land, as if you would walk straight into the sea.

  But it went on, curving ever so gently inland. A great bay, filled with blue, white-crested water, rimmed in the far distance by another tongue of dunes.

  Beyond that there could surely be nothing.

  But no, there was a bay, as usual. And something else: a person, coming towards him. He screwed up his eyes, it was only a tiny black dot, but it was definitely a person. What were people doing out here? Why didn’t they stop in Lensahn?

  As they came nearer to each other, he saw it was a girl, wandering barefoot towards him: broad-shouldered, long, thin-legged, wearing a pink silk blouse and a pleated white skirt.

  Evening was approaching and the sky was reddish.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Pinneberg, and stopped and looked at her.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Emma Morschel, and stopped and looked at him.

  ‘Don’t go that way,’ he said, pointing in the direction he had come. ‘It’s nothing but jazz, and half of them are drunk.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ she said. ‘Well, don’t go that way either,’ she pointed in the direction she had come. ‘Wiek is just the same.’

  ‘What shall we do?’ he asked, and laughed.

  ‘What is there to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Let’s have our tea,’ he suggested.

  ‘That’s all right by me,’ she said.

  They plodded into the dunes and sat in a hollow like a large friendly hand, where the wind skimmed their heads as it brushed over the dunes. They exchanged hard-boiled eggs and sausage sandwiches; he had coffee in his thermos, she had cocoa.

  They chatted a bit and laughed. But chiefly they ate, copiously and long. They also agreed wholeheartedly that people were a pain.

  ‘Oh dear, I don’t want to go to Lensahn,’ she said.

  ‘Nor I to Wiek,’ said he.

  ‘So what shall we do?’

  ‘Let’s have a swim first.’

  The sun had gone down, but it was still light. They ran into the gentle surf, splashed each other and laughed. They were well-behaved people: each had brought a swimsuit and a towel (or rather, Pinneberg had brought his landlady’s towel).

  Later they sat and didn’t know what to do.

  ‘Shall we go?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, it’s getting cold.’

  And they remained seated, saying nothing, nothing at all.

  ‘Shall we go back to Wiek or Lensahn?’ she asked, after a long interval.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ he said.

  ‘Nor do I,’ said she.

  Another long silence. The sea becomes a presence at such moments, it intervenes
in the conversation, it gets louder and louder.

  ‘So let’s go,’ she said again.

  Very cautiously and gently he put his arm round her. He was trembling, so was she. The water became very loud.

  He bent his head over hers; her eyes were dark caves with a light in them.

  His lips settled on hers; they parted willingly, came towards him, opened.

  ‘Oh!’ he said, and breathed out, deeply.

  Then his hand dropped gently from her shoulder, moved down until he felt her breast under the soft silk, full and firm. She made a little movement.

  ‘Please …’ he said softly.

  And the breast came back into his hand.

  And suddenly she said: ‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’

  It was a cry of joy. It came out from deep within her breast. She flung her arms around his neck, she pressed herself against him. He felt her coming towards him.

  She had said ‘Yes’ three times.

  They did not even know each other’s names. They had never seen each other before.

  The sea was there, and above them the sky, which Lammchen saw very clearly, grew darker and darker, and the stars came out one by one.

  No, they didn’t know anything about each other, they only felt that they were young, and that it was so good to love. They didn’t think about the Shrimp.

  But now he was on his way …

  The roar of the city returned. It had been glorious, it had stayed glorious, he had won the jackpot, the girl in the dunes had become the best wife in the world. But he hadn’t become the best husband.

  Pinneberg stood up slowly. He put on the light, and looked at the clock. It was seven. She was over there, three streets away. It was happening there, now.

  He put on his coat and ran over. The porter asked: ‘Where are you off to, now?’

  ‘The maternity block. I …’ But there was no need for explanations.

  ‘Straight ahead. The last building.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Pinneberg.

  He threaded his way between the buildings. In every window there was a light. Under every light stood four, six, eight beds. There they lay. Hundreds, thousands, dying slowly, or quickly. Some got better, only to die later on: life was a sad story.

  It was dark in the corridor of the maternity block. No one in the sister’s office. He stood indecisively. A nurse came along: ‘Yes?’

  He explained that his name was Pinneberg, and that he would like to know …

  ‘Pinneberg?’ said the nurse. ‘One moment please …’

  She went through a door, the door was padded. Immediately behind it was another door, that too was padded. She shut it. Pinneberg stood and waited.

  Then a nurse burst through the padded door, a different nurse, dark, stocky, energetic.

  ‘Mr Pinneberg? It’s all going fine. No, it’s not time yet. Perhaps you could call around twelve. No, everything’s all right.’

  At that moment a yell sounded from behind the padded door, no not a yell a shriek, a wail, a series of agonized cries wrenched out of the depths of somebody’s being. It was inhuman, no human voice sounded like that. Then it ebbed away.

  Pinneberg had gone as white as a sheet. The nurse looked at him. ‘Is that,’ he stammered, ‘is that my wife?’ ‘No,’ said the sister. ‘That’s not your wife. She hasn’t reached that stage yet.’

  ‘Must she …,’ asked Pinneberg, with trembling lips. ‘Will my wife cry like that …?’

  The nurse looked at him again. Perhaps she was thinking that it was a good thing for him to know; men today weren’t all that nice to their wives. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The first one is usually hard.’

  Pinneberg stood and listened. But the building was quiet.

  ‘Around twelve then,’ said the nurse, and went.

  ‘Thank you, nurse,’ he said, still listening.

  PINNEBERG PAYS A CALL AND IS EXPOSED TO THE CHARMS OF NUDITY

  In the end he had to go. The screaming didn’t come back, or was absorbed by the padded double-doors. So now he knew: Lammchen was going to scream like that. It was to be expected after all. You paid for everything. Why not for that?’

  Pinneberg stood indecisively on the street. The street lights were on already. The UFA cinema was festively bright, everything was going on as usual and would go on, with or without Lammchen, with or without the Pinnebergs. It wasn’t so easy to get that clear in your brain, almost impossible.

  Was it possible to go home with such thoughts? The flat was empty, so terribly empty, precisely because everything in it reminded him of Lammchen. There were the two beds, each evening they’d held each other’s hands across the gap between them, that had been lovely. That wasn’t going to happen tonight. Perhaps it would never happen again. But where was he to go?’

  Have a drink? No, that wouldn’t do. It cost money, and then he had to call at eleven or twelve, and it would be shameful if he was drunk. It would be shameful to get drunk while Lammchen was going through this ordeal. He wasn’t going to shirk his part of it, he would at least think of Lammchen screaming as she screamed.

  But where was he to go? Walk the streets for four hours? He couldn’t do that. He walked past the cinema which had their flat above it, he walked past the end of Spenerstrasse, where his mother lived. No, all that was out of the question.

  He walked slowly on. There were the law-courts, and there were the cells. Perhaps there were other tormented souls behind those lightless barred windows. You ought to know about such things; perhaps life would be easier if you did. But you were so terribly ignorant. You went on your way, thinking your own thoughts, horribly alone, and on an evening like this you didn’t know where to go.

  Suddenly he knew. He looked at his watch. He would have to go by tram or the street door of the flats would be closed before he got there.

  He travelled a stretch on one tram, then changed onto another and went a bit further. Now he was looking forward to his visit, with every kilometre further away from the hospital, Lammchen and the baby she had to bear receded further into a state of semi-unreality.

  No, he was no hero, in any respect, either on the attack or in his self-torturing; he was a totally ordinary young man. He did his duty; he would have considered it a disgrace to get drunk. But a visit to a friend: that was all right, you could even look forward to it. That wasn’t a disgrace.

  Chance was on his side: ‘Yes, Mr Heilbutt is at home.’

  Heilbutt was eating his dinner, and he would of course not have been Heilbutt if he had been in the least surprised by this late visit. ‘Pinneberg. How nice of you to come. Have you had dinner yet? No, of course you haven’t. It’s not eight yet. Come and have some.’

  He asked no questions. Pinneberg was annoyed that he didn’t, but he didn’t.

  ‘What a good idea of yours to come. Look around. It’s just the usual sort of den, hideous really but I don’t mind. It doesn’t worry me. It’s nothing to do with me.’

  He paused.

  ‘Do you see the nude photos? Yes, I’ve got quite a collection. Thereby hangs a tale. Whenever I move in anywhere, and put the pictures up on the wall, the landlady is always horrified. Some want me to move out on the spot.’

  He paused again. He looked around him. ‘Yes, there’s always trouble to start with,’ said Heilbutt. ‘These landladies are mostly incredibly narrow-minded. But then I convince them. One simply has to reflect that in itself nudity is the only decent state. That’s how I convince them.’ Another pause. ‘My landlady here, for example, Mrs Witt. She was in such a state! “Put them in the chest of drawers,” she said, “excite yourself with them as much as you like, but not in front of me …”.’

  Heilbutt stared earnestly at Pinneberg: ‘I convinced her. You must realize, Pinneberg, that I’m a born naturist, so I said to Mrs Witt: “All right, sleep on it, and if tomorrow morning you still want me to take the pictures down, I will. Coffee at seven please.” So at seven o’clock in the morning she knocks at the door with the coffee tray, and I�
�m standing here, completely naked doing my morning exercises. I say to her: “Mrs Witt, look at me, look closely at me. Does it disturb you? Does it excite you? Natural nakedness is without shame, and you aren’t ashamed either.” She’s convinced. She’s stopped grumbling about them. She thinks I’m right.’

  Heilbutt stared into space: ‘People only need to know, Pinneberg; it hasn’t been properly explained to them. You should do it too, Pinneberg, and your wife. It would be good for you both, Pinneberg.’

  ‘My wife …’ began Pinneberg.

  But Heilbutt was unstoppable. Heilbutt, so dark, so reserved, so distinguished, had his hobby-horse like everyone else. ‘Take these nudes for instance. There’s not a collection like it anywhere in Berlin. There are companies that send nude photos by post,’ he curled his lip, ‘dozens of them, but they’re no good, ugly models with ugly bodies. These that you see here were all privately taken. There are ladies here,’ Heilbutt’s voice grew solemn, ‘from the highest society. They subscribe to our principles.’ Raising his voice: ‘We are free people, Pinneberg.’

  ‘Yes, I should think so,’ replied Pinneberg, embarrassed.

  ‘Do you imagine,’ whispered Heilbutt, bending very near, ‘that I could stand this eternal selling, and the silly people who work with us, and the odious bosses,’ he gestured towards the window, ‘and all that out there, the nasty mess that Germany’s in, if I didn’t have this? It’d be enough to make you despair, but I know it’s going to be different one day. That helps, Pinneberg. That helps. You ought to try it too, you and your wife.’ But he didn’t wait for an answer. He stood up and called out of the door: ‘Mrs Witt, you can clear away now.’

  ‘Books,’ said Heilbutt, coming back, ‘sport, theatre, girls, politics, everything the people at work do; they’re just a drug; they’re not the real thing. The real thing …’

  ‘But …’ began Pinneberg, but got no further as Mrs Witt came in with a tray.