Little Man, What Now?

by Hans Fallada

  ‘Twenty-four marks,’ said the tram-conductor, with a glance at his wife.

  ‘It’s really as good as new,’ said the wife. ‘And the low prams aren’t nearly so practical.’

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Lammchen, still hesitating.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You can’t go searching about.’

  ‘No …’ said Lammchen. ‘Well, all right then. Twenty-four marks with pillows and mattress.’

  They bought the pram and took it with them at once. The little boy cried his eyes out at seeing his pram being taken away. His obvious affection for it reconciled Lammchen a little to its out-of-date appearance.

  As they walked along the street, no one could tell from the look of the pram that it had only some pillows in it, it might equally well have contained a child.

  Pinneberg rested his hand every so often on the side. ‘Now we’re a real married couple,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said she. ‘We’re going to have to leave the pram down in Puttbreese’s furniture store all the time. That’s a pity.’

  ‘It is,’ he said.

  When Pinneberg came home on Monday evening from Mandels he asked: ‘Have the Insurance sent the money?’

  ‘Not yet,’ replied Lammchen. ‘It’s bound to come tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course it may not even be there yet.’

  But on Tuesday the money still hadn’t arrived, and it was coming up to the first. All his salary had gone, and there was only a fifty-mark note left out of their hundred mark reserve.

  ‘We simply mustn’t touch that,’ said Lammchen. ‘That’s our last.’

  ‘No,’ said Pinneberg, beginning to get vexed. ‘The money ought to be here by now. I’ll go tomorrow lunchtime and try and speed things up.’

  ‘Why not wait till tomorrow evening,’ counselled Lammchen.

  ‘No, I’m going at lunchtime.’

  So he went. Time was short, he had to miss his midday meal in the canteen and the journey cost forty pfennigs, but he recognized that anyone who has to pay out money is not generally in so much of a hurry as the person who is due to receive it. He didn’t want to raise the roof, just speed things up a bit.

  So there he was, at the headquarters of the Health Insurance Fund. It was one of those extraordinarily impressive head office buildings with a porter, a giant entrance hall and artistically designed counters.

  So, along came the little man Pinneberg, and entered the huge, resplendent, luminous building, wanting his hundred marks, or maybe it was as much as a hundred and twenty. He had no idea how much was left over after the hospital charges had been deducted. He stood in the mammoth hall, as small and shabby a figure as you could wish for. Pinneberg, my dear man! Are a hundred marks really so important to you? We deal in millions here, and your hundred marks are of no importance to us whatever. They have no role in our scheme of things. That’s to say, they do have a role, but let’s not talk about that at the moment. True, this building was erected from the contributions of people just as small as you, but we’d rather you didn’t think too much about that. We use your contributions exactly as we are permitted to do by law.

  It was something of a comfort to Pinneberg to see employees very like himself sitting behind the counter: they could be his colleagues. Otherwise he would have been quite overpowered by all this noble wood and stone.

  Pinneberg looked keenly around. Over there was the right counter: initial P. A young man was sitting there, thankfully not behind bars, just on the other side of the counter.

  ‘Pinneberg,’ said Pinneberg. ‘Johannes. Membership number 606 867. My wife has had a baby, and I’ve come about the Confinement and Nursing Mothers’ …

  The young man was busy with a card-index. He didn’t have time to look up. But he stretched out a hand and said ‘Membership card.’

  ‘Here,’ said Pinneberg. ‘I wrote to you …’

  ‘Birth certificate,’ said the young man, stretching his hand out again.

  Pinneberg said mildly: ‘Excuse me, I wrote to you. I sent you the forms I got from the hospital.’

  The young man looked up. He looked at Pinneberg: ‘So what d’you want then?’

  ‘I want to know whether it’s been dealt with. Whether the money’s been sent. I need it.’

  ‘So do we all.’

  Pinneberg asked, even more mildly: ‘Has the money been sent to me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the young man. ‘If you applied by post it will be dealt with by post.’

  ‘Could you perhaps find out whether it has been dealt with?’

  ‘Everything’s dealt with promptly here.’

  ‘But it ought to have come yesterday.’

  ‘Why yesterday? How do you know?’

  ‘I worked it out. If it’s been dealt with promptly.’

  ‘You worked it out! How could you know the way things are handled here? There are various sections.’

  ‘If it’s been dealt with promptly …’

  ‘Everything’s dealt with promptly here, you can be sure of that.’

  Pinneberg said gently but firmly: ‘So please could you find out whether it’s been dealt with or not?’

  The young man looked at Pinneberg. Pinneberg looked at the young man. Both of them were smartly dressed. Pinneberg was obliged to look respectable in his job. Both of them had washed and shaved, both had clean nails and both of them were white-collar workers.

  But they were enemies, deadly enemies, because one of them was sitting behind the counter and the other was standing in front. The one wanted what he considered to be his rights; the other regarded it as an imposition.

  ‘Lot of fuss about nothing,’ grumbled the young man. But as Pinneberg continued to fix him with his eye he got up and disappeared into the background. There was a door there, and the young man went in. Pinneberg watched him go. On the door there was a sign, and Pinneberg’s eyes were not good enough to be able to read the writing on it for certain, but the longer he looked, the more convinced he was that it said ‘Toilets’.

  Pinneberg was enraged. A yard away sat another young man, under the letter ‘O’. Pinneberg would like to have asked him about the toilets, but it would have been no use. O would be just the same as P. They were on one side of the counter: he was on the other.

  After a fairly long time, actually a very long time, the young man reappeared through the same door, which Pinneberg was fairly certain had ‘Toilets’ written on it.

  Pinneberg looked eagerly at him, but the young man did not look back. He sat down, picked up Pinneberg’s membership card, laid it on the counter and said: ‘Dealt with.’

  ‘The money’s been sent? Yesterday or today?’

  ‘I told you. It’s been dealt with by post.’

  ‘When, please?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  Pinneberg looked at the young man again. It was very fishy; that had definitely been the toilets. ‘If I don’t find the money at home …’ he threatened.

  But the young man had finished with him. He was speaking to his opposite number, the man at ‘O’, about ‘funny people’. Pinneberg looked at his fellow-employee once again. He’d always known that something like this would happen, but it still annoyed him. Then he looked at his watch; he’d have to be really lucky with the tram if he was going to make it back in time.

  He was out of luck, of course. First of all the man on the door spotted him, then Mr Jänecke caught him as he rushed breathlessly into the department. Mr Jänecke said: ‘Well now, Mr Pinneberg. Not very keen, are you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ panted Pinneberg. ‘I’ve only been to the Health Insurance. About my wife’s confinement.’

  ‘My dear Pinneberg,’ said Mr Jänecke firmly, ‘you’ve been telling me about your wife’s confinement for a month now. I think it’s a great achievement, but next time try to find another excuse.’

  And before Pinneberg could bring out a word in reply, he was off, at a stately pace, leaving Pinneberg staring after him.

/>   But in the afternoon Pinneberg did manage at least to have a little chat with Heilbutt behind the big coat-racks. They hadn’t had one for a long time, things were not as they used to be between them. There was a barrier. It must have been because Heilbutt had never had a word from Pinneberg about the evening at the baths, let alone an application to join the club. Naturally Heilbutt was too polite to act offended, but there was no longer the same camaraderie.

  Pinneberg poured his heart out. First he told him about Jänecke, but at that Heilbutt only shrugged his shoulders: ‘Oh, Jänecke, if you’re going to take what he says to heart …!’

  So all right, Pinneberg would stop taking what Jänecke said to heart, but those people at the Health Insurance …

  ‘Charming,’ said Heilbutt. ‘Exactly what you’d expect from those people. First things first though: would fifty marks be a help?’

  Pinneberg was moved. ‘No, no, Heilbutt. Certainly not. We’ll get by. It’s just that we’ve got a right to that money. The birth was three weeks ago now.’

  ‘I wouldn’t take any action over the incident you just told me about,’ said Heilbutt, thoughtfully. ‘The man would just deny it. But if the money isn’t there when you get home tonight, I’d complain.’

  ‘That wouldn’t help either,’ said Pinneberg despondently. ‘They can do what they like with us.’

  ‘Oh no, it would be no good complaining to them. But there’s a regulatory body for private insurance which they’re answerable to. Wait, I’ll find their address in the phone book.’

  ‘Ah, now, if there’s something like that …’ said Pinneberg more hopefully.

  ‘You’ll see. The money’ll be there in a flash.’

  When Pinneberg got home to Lammchen his first inquiry was about the money.

  Lammchen shrugged her shoulders. ‘Nothing. But they’ve sent us a letter.’

  He could hear that insolent voice saying ‘Dealt with,’ as he tore open the letter. If he had that fellow here now, he’d show him …!

  It was a letter, plus two nice forms, but no: no money. Money takes time.

  Paper. A letter. Two forms. But not the sort you could just sit down and fill in on the spot. Oh no, we aren’t going to make it that easy for you. First you need a birth certificate from the town hall, for ‘office use’; the ordinary certificate given out by the hospital won’t do. Of course. Then you have to sign the form and fill it in properly. The questions are about things which we have in our card index already: how much you earn, when you were born and where you live, but a form is always nice.

  Now comes the best part however. All the above could easily be done in a day, but now you have to produce evidence as to which health insurance funds you and your wife have belonged to in the past two years. We know that doctors incline to the opinion that women are generally pregnant for nine months only, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, so please could you tell us about the past two years. Perhaps we can then offload the cost onto another establishment.

  Please understand, Mr Pinneberg, that this matter cannot be resolved until the relevant documentation has been processed. Thanking you for your patience …

  Pinneberg looked at Lammchen, and Lammchen looked at him.

  ‘Don’t get so worked up,’ she said. ‘They’re like that.’

  ‘Oh God,’ groaned Pinneberg. ‘The swine. If I could lay my hands on that fellow …!’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Lammchen. ‘We’ll write to the insurance places at once. And we’ll put in stamped addressed envelopes …’

  ‘Another expense!’

  ‘And in two or three days we’ll have got everything and we can send it off to them.’

  Finally Pinneberg sat down and wrote. It was easy for him, because he had only his one insurance in Ducherow to write to. But Lammchen had unfortunately been with two different places in Platz. Well anyway, those people have got to write to us sometime …

  ‘… until the relevant documentation has been processed.’

  When all the letters had been written, and Lammchen was sitting there peacefully in her red and white dressing-gown, feeding the Shrimp, who drank, and drank, and drank, Pinneberg dipped his pen in the inkpot once again and in his best handwriting wrote a letter of complaint to the supervisory body for private insurance funds.

  No, it wasn’t exactly a letter of complaint, he wouldn’t presume to go that far, more an inquiry: was the Health Insurance really within their rights to make the payment of the Confinement and Nursing Mother’s Allowance dependent on the production of those forms? And was it really necessary to go back two years?

  The inquiry was followed by a request: Could they please ensure that I get the money soon? I need it.

  Lammchen did not hold out much hope for this letter. ‘They’re not going to put themselves out for us!’

  ‘But it’s unjust!’ cried Pinneberg. ‘The nursing mother’s allowance has to be paid while she’s nursing. Otherwise there’s no sense to it.’

  And for once it seemed as though he was going to gain his point: just three days later he received a postcard saying that his communication had been the subject of an inquiry, the conclusions of which would imparted to him in due course.

  ‘You see!’ he told Lammchen triumphantly.

  ‘Why do they need an inquiry?’ asked Lammchen. ‘It’s as clear as crystal.’

  ‘You’ll see,’ Pinneberg assured her.

  Then followed silence. The fifty-mark note was of course broken into, but then came pay-day, and a hundred mark note was put back in. The money would surely come any day now.

  But the money did not come, nor did the inquiry seem to have led to any conclusions. What did come were the certificates from the health insurance offices in Ducherow and Platz. Pinneberg put everything together: certificates, forms, the birth certificate which Lammchen had long since got from the town hall, and took it all to the post office.

  ‘I’m keen to see what happens now.’

  But in reality he wasn’t that keen, he had been so indignant, he hadn’t been able to sleep for anger, it had all been so useless. You couldn’t change anything, it was like banging your head against a wall: it was never going to change.

  And then the money came. Very promptly, in fact: straight after the forms had gone in.

  ‘You see!’ he said, once again. Lammchen did see, but she preferred not to say anything, as that only made him lose his temper. ‘Now I’m keen to see how that Supervisory Body’s inquiry turned out. I’ll bet those people at the Insurance Office get torn off a strip.’

  ‘I don’t think they’ll write to us again,’ said Lammchen. ‘After all, we’ve had the money.’

  And it looked as though Lammchen was right. A week went by, then another week, then a third; it was nearly a month. From time to time, Pinneberg said: ‘I don’t understand these people. I told them I needed the money, and yet they’re taking all this time. There’s no sense in it.’

  ‘They’ll not write again,’ repeated Lammchen. But she was wrong there. In the fourth week they sent a brief, dignified letter to the effect that they regarded the matter as closed since Pinneberg had already received his money from the Insurance.

  But was that all? Pinneberg had also queried whether the Insurance were within their rights to demand documents that were so difficult to get hold of.

  To the Supervisory Body that was the end of it. They didn’t need to answer his questions now he had his money.

  But it wasn’t the end of it for the big bosses of the Health Insurance. One of the lowliest employees at their resplendent headquarters, a young man behind the counter in the public hall, had already seen Pinneberg off very smartly; now they took it upon themselves to see him off in person. They had written a letter about this Pinneberg (job-category: salesman) to the Supervisory Body. And that body now forwarded a copy to him.

  What did it say? That his complaint was unfounded. Well, of course they were bound to say that. But why was it unfounded? Because this Pinneberg was
a dawdler. Proof: he had received the birth certificate from the town hall on such and such a day, yet he sent it to the Insurance one week later. ‘It is clear from the documents who was responsible for the delay,’ concluded the Insurance.

  ‘But they don’t say a thing about wanting the papers from two years back!’ groaned Pinneberg. ‘They asked for all the forms to be sent in together and the others took that time to come!’

  ‘You see,’ said Lammchen.

  ‘Yes, I do see!’ cried Pinneberg wildly. ‘They’re swine. They tell lies, they falsify things, and make us look like trouble-makers. But now I’m going to …’ He fell silent, pondering.

  ‘What?’ asked Lammchen.

  ‘I am going to write again to the Supervisory Body,’ he said, solemnly. ‘I’m going to tell them that as far as I’m concerned the matter isn’t settled, that it isn’t about money, but about the way they’ve misrepresented the case. That that has to be put right! That we have to be treated decently, like human beings.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ she asked.

  ‘But should they be allowed to do what they like?’ he asked, wildly. ‘They sit there in their palaces, warm, rich, safe, and run our lives, don’t they? And on top of that, are they going to be allowed to put us down and make us look like trouble-makers? I’m not going to let them get away with it. I’ll defend myself. I’ll do something!’

  ‘No, there’s no point,’ repeated Lammchen. ‘It’s not worth it. Just look how worked up you are again. You have to work the whole day. They get to the office feeling perfectly rested, they’ve got plenty of time to sit and phone the Supervisory people. They’re much closer to them than they are to you. In the end you’ll just wear yourself out and they’ll laugh at you.’

  ‘But you have to do something!’ he cried in despair. ‘I just can’t stand it any more. Do we have to take everything lying down, just let them walk all over us?’

  ‘The only ones we can get at are the ones we don’t want to get at,’ said Lammchen, taking the baby out of his cot to give him his evening feed. ‘I know all that from listening to father. One person on their own can’t do anything. All they do is watch him jumping up and down till he’s exhausted and laugh.’