Little Man, What Now?

by Hans Fallada

  Suddenly: ‘Is it getting very cold out there?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Pinneberg hastily. ‘Not very. The little stove heats very well. The rooms are only small, so it’s cosy most of the time. Here’s the rent.’

  ‘Oh, right, the rent. Is it time already?’

  Heilbutt took the note and folded it, but didn’t put it in his pocket. ‘You tarred the roof, Pinneberg, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes indeed. I did. And it was a very good thing you gave me the money to do it. I didn’t realize until I started, but it wasn’t watertight at all. When it started raining this autumn it would have come in in buckets.’

  ‘Is it watertight now?’

  ‘Yes, thank heaven, Heilbutt. It won’t let a drop in.’

  ‘You know,’ said Heilbutt. ‘I ought to tell you something that I read … Do you have heat on all day?’

  ‘No,’ said Pinneberg hesitantly, not quite sure what Heilbutt was driving at. ‘We have the stove on in the mornings a bit, and then again in the afternoon so that it’s warm in the evening. The weather’s not that cold yet.’

  ‘And do you know how much briquettes cost out there?’ asked Heilbutt.

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Pinneberg. ‘Since the last emergency decree they’re supposed to have got cheaper. Perhaps one mark sixty. Or one mark fifty-five? Really, I don’t know.’

  ‘I read in a building journal recently,’ said Heilbutt, playing with the note, ‘that you can easily get dry rot in that sort of weekend home. And I’d advise you to heat it properly.’

  ‘Yes, we can …’ said Pinneberg.

  ‘That was what I wanted to ask you,’ said Heilbutt. ‘I wouldn’t want the house to deteriorate. If you’d please be kind enough to have the heating on all day, so that the walls dry out thoroughly, I’ll give you this ten mark note back to start with. Then you could perhaps bring me the coal bill as a receipt on the first of next month?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Pinneberg hurriedly, swallowing hard. ‘You mustn’t, Heilbutt. You’d just be giving me the rent back every time. You’ve helped us enough already, starting at Mandels.’

  ‘But Pinneberg!’ said Heilbutt, seeming perfectly astonished. ‘Help you—it’s in my own interest to have the roof tarred and the place heated. You can’t call it help. You’re helping yourself.’ And he shook his head as he looked at him.

  ‘Heilbutt!’ exclaimed Pinneberg. ‘I understand what you’re saying, but …’

  ‘Oh, now listen to this,’ said Heilbutt. ‘Have I told you who I met from Mandels?’

  ‘No,’ said Pinneberg. ‘But …?’

  ‘No? You’ll never guess. I met Lehmann, our former boss and head of Personnel.’

  ‘And?’ asked Pinneberg. ‘Did you talk to him?’

  ‘Of course I did, that’s to say he talked to me. He poured out his heart to me.’

  ‘Why’s that? He’s surely got nothing to complain about.’

  ‘He got the chop,’ said Heilbutt emphatically. ‘Sacked by Mr Spannfuss. Just like us.’

  ‘Good grief,’ said Pinneberg, in bewilderment. ‘Lehmann sacked. Heilbutt, you must tell me all about it. If you don’t mind I’ll help myself to another cigarette.’

  PINNEBERG AS THE CAUSE OF THE TROUBLE. THE FORGOTTEN BUTTER AND THE POLICEMAN. NO NIGHT IS DARK ENOUGH

  It was getting on for seven when Pinneberg stepped out onto the street again. The conversation with Heilbutt had livened him up and saddened him all at once. So, Lehmann had fallen, the mighty Mr Lehmann who Pinneberg remembered so well sitting grandly behind his shiny desk, and saying, ‘We don’t deal in fertilizers.’

  Lehmann had tormented Pinneberg when he was in his power, then along came Spannfuss and did the same to him. And Spannfuss, for all his combat-training, would go the same way. That was the way of the world, and it was small consolation that it happened to everyone in the end.

  What had brought about Mr Lehmann’s fall? According to rumour, and if you accepted the official reason, the cause of his dismissal had been that man Pinneberg. Mr Spannfuss, efficient as ever, had sniffed out that the head of Personnel had been exceeding the authority given to him by putting in his own favourites—at a time of staff-cuts! He had claimed that they came from branches in Hamburg, Fulda or Breslau, and Spannfuss had discovered these claims to be false.

  In truth everybody knew that had only been the official reason for his dismissal. Favourites were always put in, and now Mr Spannfuss was sowing his own favourites throughout the business. But a precondition for being able to do so in peace was the sacking of Mr Lehmann. What had for twenty years been common knowledge, in the twenty-first filled the cup to overflowing. He’d committed actual forgery, hadn’t he?’

  ‘Comes from the Breslau branch’, he had written in Pinneberg’s personnel file, when in fact he had come from Kleinholz’s in Ducherow. Lehmann could in fact be grateful to Mr Spannfuss; criminal prosecution was by no means beyond the bounds of possibility. Now he just had to keep his mouth shut.

  But, oh, how he opened his mouth when he encountered his exsalesman Heilbutt! Hadn’t he been friends with that man—stocky little chap, what was his name? Pinneberg. They’d stuck their knife into him too, the poor fool. Because he hadn’t sold enough? That was a joke. After Heilbutt had left, Pinneberg had been the only one in the department who had got anywhere near the quota. No doubt that was why he had particular ‘friends’ among the other salesmen, no doubt that was why there was a letter in his personnel file—anonymous of course—saying that he was a member of a Nazi storm troop!

  Lehmann had always thought it was rubbish, otherwise how could Pinneberg be a friend of Heilbutt of all people? But it was useless to argue, Spannfuss only believed his own men, Jänecke and Kessler, apart from which it was widely accepted that Pinneberg was the one who had persistently drawn swastikas and ‘death to the Jews’ on the walls of the employees’ toilets, and a gallows with a fat Jew hanging on it with ‘The New Improved Mandel’ written underneath. It had stopped when Pinneberg left, the loo walls now remaining spotlessly white. And that was the sort of man whom Mr Lehmann had installed on the pretence that he came from Breslau!

  Pinneberg had been Lehmann’s downfall, and Kessler had been Pinneberg’s downfall. So much for being a good salesman, and loving the job, putting as much effort into selling a pair of cotton trousers for six and a half marks as an evening suit for a hundred and twenty. Oh yes, there was solidarity among white-collar workers, the solidarity of the envious towards the capable!

  He was the man it had all happened to, and he was angry still, but that anger, he sensed as he went along Friedrichstrasse, was growing old. You could rage about it, but finally what was the point? That was the way things were.

  In former days Pinneberg had often strolled along Friedrichstrasse, it was his home ground, and so he noticed that there were many more prostitutes than there used to be. Of course they weren’t all prostitutes, there was a lot of unfair competition these days. He’d heard in the shop a year and a half ago that many unemployed men’s wives walked the streets to earn a few marks.

  That was plain to see; many of them were such hopeless cases, utterly charmless, or else if they were pretty they had such greedy faces: greedy for money.

  Pinneberg thought of Lammchen and the Shrimp. ‘We aren’t so badly off,’ she was always saying. And she was certainly right.

  The police seemed to be still on the alert. There were two at all the places where one usually stood, and you kept meeting pairs of them patrolling the pavements. Pinneberg had nothing against the police in principle. They had to exist of course, especially the traffic police, but he did find that their well-nourished and well-dressed appearance was a provocation, and so was their behaviour. They walked around among the public as his teacher had used to walk among the pupils: you behave properly or else …!

  Oh, let them!

  This was the fourth time that Pinneberg had strode up and down the stretch of Friedrichstrasse in between the Leipziger and Lin
den intersections. He couldn’t go back home yet, he simply couldn’t. Once he was home, everything was finished again. At home the ashes of life smouldered hopelessly on, but here something could happen! The prostitutes weren’t giving him a second glance, though. He was out of the question for the ones round here, with his faded coat and his dirty trousers, and his collarless shirt. If he wanted one of their kind he’d have to go down to the Schlesische Station, where the girls didn’t mind how a man looked provided he had money. But did he want a prostitute?

  Perhaps. He didn’t know. He didn’t think about it.

  What he was sure he wanted was the chance to tell someone what it used to be like, and what nice suits he had had, and how wonderful the Shrimp was.

  The Shrimp!

  So he had gone and forgotten his butter and bananas after all, and it was nine o’clock, too late for the shops. Pinneberg was furious with himself, and even more sorry than angry. He couldn’t go back without them, what would Lammchen think of him? Perhaps he could still get into one of the shops by the back door. There was a big delicatessen, brilliantly illuminated. Pinneberg pressed his nose flat against the window, perhaps there was someone still there whose attention he could attract by knocking. He had to get his butter and bananas!

  A voice beside him said, in a low tone: ‘Move along there!’ Pinneberg started, alarmed, and looked around him. There was a policeman standing beside him.

  Was he was speaking to him?

  ‘Move along, d’you hear!’ shouted the policeman.

  There were other people standing by the shop window, well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, but the policeman wasn’t talking to them. There was no doubt that it was Pinneberg he meant.

  Pinneberg was thoroughly confused. ‘What? Why? Aren’t I allowed to …?’

  He was stammering. He simply didn’t understand.

  ‘Are you going to go now?’ asked the policeman. ‘Or shall I …?’

  He had the strap of his rubber truncheon over his wrist. His grip tightened on it slightly.

  Everyone was staring at Pinneberg. More people stopped to look, a regular crowd of spectators. They looked on expectantly, they weren’t taking sides; shop windows had been broken here and in Leipzigerstrasse yesterday.

  The policeman had dark eyebrows, keen bright eyes, red cheeks, a decisive nose and small black moustache.

  ‘You going to move?’ he asked calmly.

  Pinneberg tried to speak; he looked at the policeman, his lips trembled; he looked at the people. They were standing right up to the shop window, well-dressed people, respectable people, people who earned money.

  But reflected in the window was another figure: a pale outline without a collar, in a shabby coat, with trousers besmirched with tar.

  And suddenly Pinneberg understood everything. Faced with this policeman, these respectable people, this bright shop window, he understood that he was on the outside now, that he didn’t belong here any more, and that it was perfectly correct to chase him away. Down the slippery slope, sunk without trace, utterly destroyed. Order and cleanliness, gone; work, material security, gone; making progress and hope, gone. Poverty is not just misery, poverty is an offence, poverty is a stain, poverty is suspect.

  ‘Shall I help you on your way?’ said the policeman.

  Pinneberg complied abjectly; his mind a blur, he turned to go down the pavement in the direction of Friedrichstrasse Station. He only wanted to be on the train and on the way home to Lammchen.

  He received a blow on the shoulders. It wasn’t a hard blow, but enough to knock him into the gutter.

  ‘Clear off, you!’ said the policeman. ‘Get a move on, will you.’

  And Pinneberg started to move. He trotted along the gutter at the side of the road; he thought about a lot of things: arson, bombs, assassination. He thought that this was the end with Lammchen and the Shrimp, that it was the end of everything … but then he thought of nothing at all.

  He came to the intersection with Jägerstrasse. He wanted to cross over to the station, to Lammchen and the Shrimp, the only place where he was somebody …

  The policeman gave him a shove. ‘That way, you!’

  He pointed into Jägerstrasse.

  Once again Pinneberg tried to object: he had to get to his train. ‘But I have to …’ he said.

  ‘That way, d’y hear,’ repeated the policeman, pushing him into Jägerstrasse. ‘Now you clear off and sharp, young fellow-my-lad!’ And he gave Pinneberg a hefty swipe.

  Pinneberg began to run, he ran very fast. He noticed that they were no longer following him, but he did not dare to look round. He ran along the road he was on, straight ahead into the dark night, which isn’t absolutely dark anywhere.

  After a long, long time he slowed down. He stopped, he looked round. There was no one there. No police. Gingerly he raised one foot and put it on the pavement. Then the other. He was off the road and onto the pavement.

  Then Pinneberg went on his way, one step at a time, through Berlin. But nowhere was completely dark, and going past policemen was particularly difficult.

  A VISITOR IN A CAR. TWO PEOPLE WAIT IN THE NIGHT. LAMMCHEN IS OUT OF THE QUESTION

  On road 87a, in front of allotment 375, stood a car: a taxi from Berlin. As for the driver, he had been sitting in the Pinneberg’s summer house for some hours, filling up the entire kitchen.

  The man had drunk a pot of coffee, then smoked a cigar, then walked for a while in the garden, but there was nothing to see out there in the darkness. He had then gone back into the kitchen, drunk another pot of coffee and smoked another cigar.

  But the people in the room were still talking, in particular the big fair man who jawed and jawed. The cab driver could have listened in if he’d wanted to, but he wasn’t interested. In a taxi there’s almost always a gap in the glass panel separating the driver’s seat from the interior, and one can hear enough intimate conversations in the course of a week to last a lifetime.

  After a while the man decided to act. He stood up and knocked on the door. ‘Aren’t we leaving soon, sir?’

  ‘Why!’ shouted the fair man. ‘Don’t you want to earn some money?’

  ‘I do,’ said the cab-driver. ‘But the waiting costs a lot of money.’

  ‘It’s my money that it costs,’ said the big man. ‘You sit right down again on your backside, and see if you can still recite the Catechism. That’s the kind of thing it’s almost impossible to forget. Try it.’

  ‘Well, all right,’ said the driver. ‘In that case I’ll have a nap.’

  ‘All right by me,’ said the fair man.

  Lammchen said: ‘I really can’t understand where Sonny has got to. He’s always here by eight at the latest.’

  ‘He’ll come soon,’ said Jachmann. ‘How is the young father then, little mother?’

  ‘Lord,’ sighed Lammchen. ‘It’s not easy for him. When you’ve been unemployed for fourteen months …’

  ‘That’ll change,’ declared Jachmann. ‘Now I’m back on the scene, something will turn up.’

  ‘Were you away on a trip, Mr Jachmann?’ asked Lammchen.

  ‘Yes, I’ve been away a little.’ Jachmann stood up, and went to the Shrimp’s bedside. ‘It’s a mystery to me how a father can stay out when he has something like that lying here at home.’

  ‘Ah, Mr Jachmann,’ said Lammchen. ‘Of course the Shrimp is wonderful, but you can’t build your whole life round a child. What happens is that I go out sewing in the day …’

  ‘But you shouldn’t! That must stop now.’

  ‘… I go out sewing in the day and he looks after the house, and the meals, and the child. He doesn’t complain, he even gets pleasure out of it, but what sort of a life is it for him? What d’you think, Mr Jachmann? D’you think it’s going to be like this from now on with the men at home doing the housework while the women work? It’s impossible!’

  ‘Oh come, how d’you work that out? During the war the women did the work while the men killed each other, and everybody
thought that was all right. It works better this way round.’

  ‘Not everybody thought it was all right.’

  ‘Nearly everybody, young lady. People are like that. They don’t learn from experience, they keep on doing the same stupid things. Me too.’ Jachmann paused. ‘I’m moving back in with your mother-in-law.’

  Lammchen said hesitantly. ‘Well, you must know what’s best, Mr Jachmann. It may not be so stupid. After all she is clever and amusing.’

  ‘Of course it’s stupid,’ said Jachmann angrily. ‘It’s damn stupid. You don’t know the half, young lady! You have no idea. But let’s say no more about it …’

  He sank into thought.

  After a long while Lammchen said. ‘You mustn’t wait, Mr Jachmann. The ten o’clock train has gone through now. I really believe that Sonny’s got up to mischief tonight. He did have rather a lot of money on him.’

  ‘What? A lot of money? D’you still have a lot of money?’

  Lammchen laughed. ‘What we call a lot of money, Jachmann. Twenty marks. Twenty-five marks. He can go out on that.’

  ‘He can,’ said Jachmann sadly.

  And after that there was another long silence.

  Then Jachmann lifted his head and said: ‘Worried?’

  ‘Of course I’m worried. You’ll see what two years and those people have done to him. And he’s such a decent chap.’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘It wasn’t necessary to walk all over him like they did. And now if he begins to drink …’

  Jachmann thought about it. ‘He won’t,’ he said. ‘Pinneberg has always had a freshness about him. Serious drinking is a squalid business; he won’t go in for it. Maybe the odd night on the tiles but not real drinking …’

  ‘The half-past-ten train has gone by,’ said Lammchen. ‘Now I am getting worried.’

  ‘You mustn’t,’ said Jachmann. ‘He’ll struggle through.’

  ‘Through what?’ asked Lammchen angrily. ‘What will he struggle through? None of what you’re saying makes sense, Jachmann. It’s just to comfort me. The worst thing is actually that he’s stuck out here with nothing to struggle for. All he can do is wait, but what for? There is nothing. It’s a life spent waiting.’