Berlin Alexanderplatz
Page 31
“I just don’t understand,” she says, standing in the middle of the room, “there he went and had all that trouble with Pums and that gang of criminals, but he doesn’t lift a finger. He’s nicely fixed now, sure enough, but an arm is an arm, after all.” “That’s what I think.” “He don’t like to talk about it, that’s as sure as you’re alive. Now I’m going to tell you something, Herbert. Of course, Mieze knows the story about his arm. Only where it happened and who did it, that she don’t know. I’ve asked her already. She don’t know nothing and wouldn’t like to rake it up. She’s a bit soft, that Mieze. Well, maybe she worries about it now, when she sits there all alone waiting, wondering where our Franz is, and, of course, he might easily come to grief again. Mieze cries quite enough as it is; of course, not when he’s around. That man just looks for trouble. He ought to look after his own affairs better. Mieze should make him get a move on in this Pums business.” “Wow!” “That’s better. That’s what I say. That’s what Franz ought to do. And if he took a knife or a pistoL wouldn’t he be doin’ right?” “As far as I’m concerned; I’ve always thought so. I certainly asked around enough myself. Those Pums people keep mum, all right; there’s not one of ‘em seems to know anything.” “Certainly somebody knows all about it.” “Well. what can you do?” “That’s what Franz ought to be thinking about, and not about Willy and those anarchists and communists and the whole bunch of lousy bums that don’t get him any money.” “Say, Eva, mind out your fingers don’t get burnt with that.”
Eva’s gentleman friend has gone to Brussels, and so she can invite Mieze to her place and show her all about how smart folks live. That’s out of Mieze’s line, so far. The man is so crazy about Eva that he’s even fixed up a little nursery for her, where two monkeys are kept. “You think ,all that’s for my little monkeys, don’t you, Sonia? Yes, well, not on your life. I only put ‘em there because it’s such a pretty little room, ain’t it, and those monkeys, well, Herbert just dotes on ‘em, and he always has such a lot of fun when he comes here.” “What? You bring him here?” “What of it? The old boy knows him, of course, he’s mighty jealous, but I guess it’s ilist as well. D’you think if he wasn’t jealous he wouldn’ta canned me long Jgo? He wants a child by me, imagine it, and that’s what the little room is for!” They laugh, it’s a cozy, gayly painted, beribboned little room with a low baby’s cot. The little monkeys climb up and down the bars of the bed, Eva clasps one to her breast and stares mistily into space: “I mighta done him that little favor all right, about the child, but I don’t want one from him. No, not from him.” “Yes, and Herbert don’t want a baby.” “No, but I’d like one by Herbert. Or by Franz. Are you angry, Sonia?”
But Sonia does something quite different from what Eva expects. She gives a little scream, her features seem to crumple up, as she pushes the little monkey away from Eva’s breast and embraces Eva Violently, happily, beatifically, tenderly. Eva can’t understand and turns her face away, when Sonia tries to kiss her again and again. “Look here, Eva, why, of course I’m not angry, I’m only happy you like him. Tell me how much you like him? You’d like to have a child by him, why not tell him that?” Eva frees herself from the girl’s embrace. “Are you crazy, kid? But just tell me, Sonia, what’s wrong with you? Tell me truly, now: do you really want to hand him over to me?” “No, why should 1, I want to keep him, of course, he’s my Franz. But you’re my Eva.” “What am I?” “My Eva, my Eva.”
Eva can’t prevent Sonia from kissing her on the mouth, the nose, the ears, the nape of her neck; Eva keeps quite still, but then when Sonia nestles her face on Eva’s breast, she abruptly lifts Sonia’s head: “Listen, girl, are you queer?” “Not a bit,” she stammers, and frees her head from Eva’s hands, resting against Eva’s face. “I love you and I never knew it before! Until a minute ago when you said you’d like to have a child by him-” “What’s that? Did you suddenly go crazy?” “No Eva, I really don’t know.” Sonia’s face is as red as fire as she looks up at Eva. “You’d really like to have a child by him?” “No, I only said it.” “Yes, you would like one, you only said it; but you really do want one, you really do.” And again Sonia nestles on Eva’s breast, and pressing Eva to her, murmurs happily: “That’s lovely, that you should want a child by him, oh, it’s just lovely! I’m happy, ever so happy.”
Eva leads Sonia into the next room and lays her on the sofa. “Sure, you’re queer, Sonia.” “No, I’m not queer, I never touched a girl before in all my life.” “But you’d like to touch me.” “Yes, it’s because I love you so and you want a child by him. And you shall have one, too.” “You’re crazy, kid.” She has been carried off her feet, and when Eva tries to get up, she clasps her hands tightly: “Don’t say no, please, you do want one by him, you must promise me that. Promise me you’ll have a child by him.” Eva has to use force to tear herself from Sonia, who lies there limply, eyes shut, moist lips a-quiver.
Sonia gets up and sits beside Eva at the table, on which the maid has set a luncheon with wine. She brings coffee and cigarettes for Sonia, who is still dreaming, enchanted, with swimming eyes. As usual, she has on a simple white dress. Eva is in a black silk kimono. “Well, Sonia, kid, can I talk reason to you now?” “There’s no law against it.” “How do you like it at my house?” “Swell.” “You do? And how about Franz, you like him, don’t you?” “Yes.” “Well, what I mean is, if you love Franz, you better look after the boy. He’s running around where no good can come and always with that lousy bum, Willy.” “Yes, he likes him.” “And how about you?” “Me? Oh, I like him, too. If Franz likes him, then I like him too.” “That’s the way you are, girlie, you simply haven’t got any eyes, you’re too young yet. That’s no company for Franz, I tell you, Herbert says so too. He’s a louse. He’ll lead Franz into trouble. Hasn’t he got enough already with that one arm of his?”
Sonia grows pale instantly, lets her cigarette hang from the corner of her mouth, puts it down, and asks softly: “What’s the matter? For God’s sake, tell me.” “Who kin tell what’s the matter. I don’t run after Franz, nor you either. Well, I know, you ain’t got any time. But get him to tell you sometime where he goes. What does he tell you, anyway?” “Oh, only politics, and I don’t understand that.” “So y’see that’s what he’s doin’, politics, and nothing but politics, with those communists and anarchists and such low people who ain’t got a decent pair of pants to their behinds. That’s what Franz is running around with. And you like that, Sonia, is that what you’re working for?” “But I can’t say to Franz he must come here and go there, Eva, a girl can’t do that.” “If you weren’t so little and not yet twenty, I’d box your ears for you. All of a sudden you can’t say anything. You want him to get caught under the wheels again?” “He won’t get caught under the wheels again, Eva. I’ll watch out for him.” Strange, little Sonia has tears in her eyes and her head droops. Eva looks at the girl but can’t make her out, does she really love him as much as that? “Here, take some red wine, Sonia, my old man’s always swilling red wine, come on!”
She measures out half a glass for the girl, but the tears continue trickling down the child’s cheeks, and her face remains as sad as ever. “Another little sip, Sonia.” Eva puts down the glass, strokes Sonia’s cheeks and says to herself, she’s going to get worked up again. But the girl continues staring in front of her. Then she gets up, stands before the window and looks out. Eva now stands beside Sonia, can’t make her out for the life of me, damn it. “You mustn’t take that business with Franz so much to heart, little Sonia, what I just said, you know I didn’t mean it that way. But you shouldn’t let him run around with that slob of a Willy. Franz is such a good-natured fool, y’see, he’d do better to go after this Pums feller, or whoever it was ran over his arm and do something about it.” “I’ll watch out,” says little Sonia softly, and without raising her head she puts an arm around Eva, and thus they stand for almost five minutes. Eva thinks: I don’t begrudge this one Franz, but I would any other.
Once there roved at Abrudpanta Brigands wild and daring, too. But their chief whose name was Guito Had a noble heart and true. Once he met in darkling forests Count von Marschan’s little lass. Soon there echoed through the branches: I am yours till death shall pass!
But they are discovered later, Hunters come with loud halloo. They’re awakened from their rapture, Ask themselves, what shall we do. And her father damns the maiden, Curses loud the chieftain grim, Oh, have pity, father, darling, I shall go to death with him.
Soon there lies in darkness Guito, Fearful is his woe and pain! Isabella seeks to shatter Her own sweetheart’s heavy chain. And she does succeed - oh wonder, He is once more safe and free, Hardly rid from ghastly shackles, He can stop a murderer’s glee.
To the castle then he hastens With the woman he released, But already she is kneeling, Ready for the wedding feast, Forced to say “yes” to the union Which she loathes with all her might, But the crime’s revealed by Guito, And his lips are pale and tight.
Swoon of death grips Isabella, And she lies so sweet and pale, Ah, there is no kiss can wake her, Nobly then he tells his tale. To her father he has spoken: Yours the guilt that she be dead, You, alone, her heart have broken. You made pale those cheeks once red.
When the chief again beholds her Lying on the silent bier, He bends down, her face descrying, She still lives, Death is not near. Off he bears her, gently crooning, Struck with fear the people stand, And she wakes up from her swooning, He’s her mate and helping hand.
And they flee by love’s wind carried, Peace and quiet have left them now, By the courts pursued and harried, Solemnly they take this vow: Freely let us both surrender, When the poison cup we’ve drained, God his judgement then will render, Up in heaven our love we’ve gained.
Sonia and Eva know it’s only a common little song from the street fair; the kind they toot as an accompaniment to illustrative posters; but both have to weep when it’s finished, and they’re unable to relight their cigarettes right away.
Enough of Politics, but this eternal Far-Niente is still more dangerous
Franz Biberkopf muddles around in politics a bit longer. The smart boy Willy has not much cash; but he has a sharp bright mind, even though he is only a beginner in the pickpocket business, and that’s why he exploits Franz. He was once an inmate in a house of correction where somebody had told him all about communism, to the effect that it’s nothing at all; and that a reasonable man believes only in Nietzsche and Stirner, and does what he pleases; all the rest is bunk. So the sharp, ironical lad gets a lot of fun out of going to political meetings, and heckling the speakers. At the meetings he fishes up people with whom he wants to do business, or whose legs he simply wants to pull. Franz goes about with him for a while only. Then it’s all over, finished with politics, even without Mieze’s and Eva’s intervention.
Late one evening, he is sitting at table with an elderly carpenter whom I hey got to know at a meeting; Willy, in the meantime, is standing at the bar talking with another man. Franz has his arm propped up on the table, his head in his left hand, as he listens to what the carpenter says. “Y’know, mate, I only went to the meeting because my wife is sick, and she don’t need me at home at night. She needs her rest; at eight o’clock sharp she lakes her sleeping tablets and tea, and then I’ve got to put out the lights. What can I do upstairs? That’s what drives a man to the saloons, when a man’s got a sick woman.”
“Put her in a hospital, why doncha? It’s no good at home.”
“She’s already been in a hospital. I took her out again. She didn’t like the meals there, and besides she didn’t get any better, either.” “Is she very sick, your wife?” “Her womb has grown onto the rectum or something like that. They’ve operated on her once, but it don’t help any. Something internal. And now the doctor says she’s only nervous and there’s nothing the matter with her. But she’s got pains all right, she groans all day long.”
“The hell she does.”
“He’ll write her down as cured, just you watch. She was supposed to go twice to see a specialist, get me, but nothing doing. He’ll write her down as healthy, sure enough. If a person’s got sick nerves, then he’s healthy.”
Franz listens, he’s been sick, too, his arm was run over, and he was in the Magdeburg Hospital. He can get along without that, it happened in another world. “Another beer?” “Sure.” “One beer.” The carpenter looks at Franz: “You don’t belong to the parry, do you?”
“Used to, in the old days. Not any more now. It’s no use.”
The proprietor comes and sits at their table, greets the carpenter with a “g’d evening, Ede,” and asks about the children, then he whispers: “Gee whiz, are you talking politics again?”
“We just been talking about that. Don’t pay no attention to it now.” “Well, that’s the stuff. I tell you, Ede, and my boy says the same thing as me, you don’t earn a penny with politics, politics don’t help us to get ahead any, only the others.”
The carpenter looks at him with narrowed eyes: “Is that so? Little August already has that idea, too?”
“The boy’s good, I’m telling you, you can’t fool ‘im. I’d like to see anybody try it. We want to make money. And-things are goin’ pretty well. Only no grumbling.”
“Well, here’s how, Fritze. I don’t begrudge you nothin’.”
“Me, I don’t give a damn for all that Marxism or Lenin and Stalin and those guys. Whether somebody’ll give me credit or not, the dough, I mean, and how much and how long-get me, that’s what makes the world turn round.”
“Well, you’ve got somewhere.” Whereupon Franz and the carpenter grow silent. The proprietor goes on chattering, but the carpenter gets himself all worked up:
“Me, I don’t understand nothing about Marxism. But watch out, Fritze, it’s not as simple as you paint it here in your skull. What do I want with Marxism or what those fellows say, those Russians, or Willy with his Stirner. Maybe it’s all bunk. What I need, I can figure that out on my fingers every day. Sure, I can understand when a fellow beats hell out of me, what that means. Or when I’m up at my place and tomorrow I’m kicked out, because there ain’t no orders comin’ in, the boss stays, and the big foreman stays too, of course, only me I’ve got to go out into the street and look for the dole. But-I’ve got three kids and they go to the public school, the eldest girl has got crooked legs from the rickets. I can’t send her away, but maybe the school will do it some day. Maybe my wife can go to the Children’s Aid or something like that, the wife’s got to work, but now she’s sick, otherwise she’s a good worker. She peddles fish, but as far as learning some thin’ is concerned, the kids don’t learn a lot, you can imagine that. So y’see how it is. And I can’t understand either, how other folks learn their children them foreign languages, and in summer they go to the seaside, and we ain’t even got the cash to pay our fare out to Tegel. And the swell children, they don’t get crooked legs so easy, either. But when I’ve got to go to the doctor, with my rheumatism, there’s thirty of us sittin’ in the waiting-room and afterwards he asks me: that pain in your legs, well, you had it before most likely, and how long have you held this job, and have you got your papers: he don’t believe me, not on your life, and the next thing, off I go to the specialist, and if I want to be sent on a trip
by the state insurance people, they’re always docking your pay for that, well I tell ye, you gotta carry your head under your arm before they’ll do that. I tell ye, Fritze, ye don’t need no glasses to see that. A fellow sure has to be a jackass from the Zoo if he don’t get it. We don’t need no Karl Marx to tell us that. But, Fritze, but - yea, that’s the gospel truth, s’help me God.”
The carpenter raises his gray head and stares, wide-eyed, at the proprietor. He puts his pipe back into his mouth, then puffs and waits for someone to answer. The barkeeper grumbles, purses his lips, and looks fed up. “Yep, you’re right. My youngest girl’s got crooked legs, too. I ain’t got any money for the country. But there’s always been rich and poor, and that’s all there is to it. And us two won’t change it, either.”
The carpenter calmly puffs away: “Only the ones that likes it ought to be poor. Let the others have a try at it first. I ain’t got no liking for it. A fellow gets tired of it after a while.”
They are talking quite calmly, Slowly sipping their beer. Franz listens. Willy comes over from the bar. Franz decides to get up, he takes his hat and goes out: “No, Willy, I want to hit the hay early. You know how it was yesterday.”
Franz tramps alone along the hot dusty street, marching along, bumbledly, bumbledy, bumbledy, bee, tumbledy, rumbledy, tumbledy, bee. Wait awhile, my little beaver, soon will Haarmann come to you, with his little chopping cleaver, he’ll make sausage out of you, wait a while, my little beaver, soon will Haarmann come to you. Damn it, damn it, where am I walking to? He pauses, can’t get across the street; he turns around, marches back along the hot street, past the cafe, where they are still sitting, where the carpenter sits with his beer. I won’t go in. The carpenter told the truth. That’s the truth. What do I want with politics, it’s a lot of tripe! It don’t help me any. Don’t get me anywhere.