by Hans Fallada
It’s dark and quiet in the room, nothing stirs, no moonlight comes in through the broken panes, because the moon has not yet risen. Some darker patch of darkness is leaning against the wall, listening for sounds from inside, quickly pulls back.
A sudden noise, someone comes running. He crashes into the garden fence, gropes for the gate, finds it open, hurries up the garden path, tries the front door. It’s locked, and won’t give. For a while Wrede stands there, thinking. Then he goes to the window to rap on it, knocks against a pane, which breaks in a thousand jingling pieces. He gets a start, stands there listening, listening to the room, where nothing stirs. A long, stubborn silence seems to be coming from the room, something sticky and malignant.
He takes the plunge. Softly he calls out: ‘Utesch!’ Nothing. And another time: ‘Master Utesch!’ Nothing at all. Only a little stir of wind in the rustling autumn leaves.
Another time, in fear, he calls out: ‘Martha! Martha Utesch!’ and he falls to his knees as a hand is laid on his shoulder, and a voice whispers: ‘Be quiet! Ssh! Can’t you hear?’
With his knees in the cool garden loam, under the mysterious hand, he listens, and he has a sense of something moaning inside the house, a series of brief moans.
Suddenly he gets it. ‘The plane! Is that Utesch in the workshop?’
The other: ‘He’s probably making her coffin.’ And with a terrible curiosity: ‘Do you think he killed her?’
Wrede gets up. ‘Listen, Hinz. Run for the nightwatchman as fast as you can. I’ll stay here and make sure Utesch doesn’t try and make a break for it.’
The other hesitates.
‘Go on, run!’
Hinz disappears, he’s gone, dissolved in the dark.
Slowly Wrede approaches the window. Gropes. One half is open. He leans into the room, a match flares.
He sees … he sees … something white, all alone, stretched out, something no more able to grasp, something slack that would like to grasp but can’t. Oh my God, it’s a hand! A severed hand!
And further, a dark form swathed under a cloth, a viscous pool … the match goes out.
Wrede reaches into his pocket and throws the ring into the dark room, he hears it go ching!, with the soft, bright sound that only gold makes.
Then Wrede plunges into the night, into the silence of the fields, where the only noise is the wind, or from time to time the rustle of a small beast. No humans. Where there is silence, long silence.
And now here come lights, and people, and the police.
Passion
(1925)
1
He walked in, and Ria understood right away that she was wrong, and her father right, to invite this junior scribbler, as she contemptuously called him, into the house to keep them company on some of his solitary evenings.
He bowed to her mother and kissed her hand, he spoke a few quick, smiling words to her father, and now he was in front of her, their hands brushed against each other, their eyes met. She looked down in a strange confusion, and when she looked up again the others were talking, something to do with the farm workers, of course, and of course he was of the same opinion as her father.
Somehow Ria felt disappointed, and while confusion and embarrassment compacted into a sort of irritation in her, she studied the speaker beside her, thought his shaved, beardless head looked ridiculously small, his form too thin and lanky and his hands and knuckles exaggeratedly bony, and with a pout she mouthed her words: ‘Junior scribbler!’
He happened to be looking across at her, and the eyes behind the large spectacles were creased with mirth, so that it was obvious he had understood her. He hitched his shoulder and went on talking to her father about eviction orders that might be served upon obstinate workers, and suddenly his voice and choice of words seemed to be suffused with a puzzling ambivalence: he was saying one thing and meaning something else, and this something else was for her, and perhaps for all those who were without shelter and work, but above all for her. She didn’t understand.
Later on they faced each other over the chessboard. He played quickly, lightly, with impetuousness and abruptness, so that she never could guess what he was planning. Before she moved, he said: ‘If you do that, you’ll be checkmate,’ and she felt his foot alongside hers. He was pressing himself against her, quite unmistakably, she could feel the warmth of his leg against her calf, and a blush mantled her cheek.
Confused, she asked: ‘Excuse me, what should I not do?’ and pulled her foot away.
‘This,’ he said, made the move she had been going to make, and caught her foot between his two. He looked at her full on; his eyes were cold, cruel, knowing, and they frightened her.
‘I’m too tired to play,’ she said, knocking over some of the figures on the board. A few rolled to the floor, and he stooped to pick them up. His hand grasped her leg.
Never had anyone touched her so shamelessly. She was angry now, half-aloud she said: ‘You stop that or I’ll tell my parents.’
‘Perhaps you’d like me to tell them?’ he retorted, and made a move in the direction of her mother and father, who were laying patiences.
She looked at him, and once again she had the sense he had said something completely different, way beyond the sound of his actual words, a deeper, hidden meaning beyond the words, something that concerned her and perhaps the whole of life, its doubtfulness, its uncertainty, its transitoriness.
She raised her hands in protest, and dropped them. ‘Mama, Herr Martens wants to say good night,’ was all she said.
2
For a long time Ria lay awake in her girl’s bed. Now that he was far off, now that his eyes, his hand and his smile were no longer working on her, her fury grew. What did he take her for, to treat her so outrageously? Some sort of prostitute? Never ever had a man dared to look at her that way, or touch her like that. She thought of the kisses she had once – and only once – permitted a friend of her brother’s, after a dance. Those kisses had been mild and childish compared to the way this man eyed her up, touched her, trampled all over her.
She had grown up in the country, she had watched animals, she knew the village girls had their beaux, and an illegitimate child was neither a rarity nor a mystery. But that was village girls! Did he take her for one of them? She, the daughter of an estate owner, letting herself be treated in such a way by a simple secretary of her father’s!
She would tell him! Never again would he permit himself to flutter his eyes at her like that. She would sort him out, by herself, without her parents, she would go to his office and tell him in plain terms that his days here in Baumgarten were numbered, should he ever again …
Waking up in the morning, she put off her resolution. But when her father clambered into his hunting wagon after lunch, and her mother went upstairs for her nap, she suddenly saw herself crossing the farm. She was hesitating at his door, and knocking, and his ‘Come’ summoned her.
He wasn’t alone. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might find him with someone else. He was standing by the window, smoking, with the village schoolmaster, and he didn’t turn his head to see who it was, just said, ‘Well?’ and there was no answer, and after a time he turned to her, still standing in the doorway.
There was no trace of confusion, he didn’t appear in the least surprised. ‘What can I do for you, miss?’
He took a step or two towards her, didn’t take her hand, only bowed to her.
‘I need a couple of bills of lading,’ she said.
He went to a cupboard. ‘What kind would you like? Express or ordinary?’
She hesitated, she was ill at ease. Was this the same man as last night? After a bow the schoolmaster had turned away, he had his back to her, and was looking out of the window.
‘Oh, just give me one of each!’ she called out impatiently. All this felt so ridiculous, so shameful, so wrong.
‘There you are,’ he said, and gave them to her and looked at her. She took them, was about to go, and he asked gently and innocen
tly: ‘Just so you have the complete set, wouldn’t you like one for livestock as well?’
She felt her fury return, and looked at him. And in the same instant saw that she was lost, that nothing could stifle her laughter, and already it burst out of her and, crumpling the lading bills in her hand, she called out, through her laughter: ‘The complete set!’
He laughed too, and she heard his voice say: ‘Be gone now, pedant. Take yourself off somewhere else.’
The door closed, and they were alone together and in silence. The last traces of smiles slipped out of their faces, and with trembling voice she said: ‘How can you send Wille packing like that? What will he think of us?’
He leaned forward and whispered into her ear: ‘You silly little girl.’ She flinched and took several paces back from him, murmured beseechingly: ‘Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare touch me! I won’t have you touching me!’
His arm was wrapped around her, his lips brushed hers, under their pressure her mouth opened. ‘Oh, darling,’ she whispered.
3
They met wherever they could, in various places, behind the greenhouses, in the arboretum, on the farm, in the store, by day and at night in the park. Once they thought they saw Ria’s father away in the distance, and fled through waterlogged alders and willows to stop breathless in a potato field, through whose blackish-brown autumnal tops a hunting dog was stalking. Often it was just for the exchange of a rushed word or two, their hands brushed against each other in passing, their eyes hailed each other, but again and again there were hours in which his kisses overwhelmed her, left her breathless, his hand travelled … She freed herself from his embrace, for the hundredth time she repeated that no man would have her without promising her marriage.
He was beside her, telling her about the women who had passed through his life; he sent them smiles, he saluted their memory. They moved on, vanished. Others came, and her pride was outraged at being one of a long series. He smiled, he measured out the brief duration of passion in the length of a life, he held his hand aloft, he was touchingly proud that not one of all these women had broken with him in anger, and suddenly the laughing happiness of his words had a dim, dry smell of rose petals tied up in packets of letters. A vague sadness caught her, the man at her side was never out for this one particular moment, but all the others too, never to love just her but all her predecessors just as much, and those that would come after. She reached for his hand, to persuade herself that he was here now, at least physically, and dropped it discouraged, thinking how little meaning this flesh had.
And then the fresh onslaught of his kisses.
4
One night he knocked on her door.
He was standing outside, demanding to be let in, not asking, no, demanding. Trembling, she listened for sounds from her parents’ bedroom, asked him through the door how he had managed to get into the locked house, begged him to go away.
Then she thought she caught a sound downstairs, she unlocked the door, he crept in and took her in his arms. She fought him off with the crazed fear of a maiden, scolded him, screamed that she would hate him for ever and ever.
And a moment came when the world seemed to stand still, everything listened and held its breath, and she felt herself sinking and sinking. Suddenly she was drifting, adrift on a blissful, festive stream of life: so many bannerets, so much happy waving of green twigs, purple tents and joyous birds. She threw her arms around him, pulled him down to her, and the least thing had its meaning now, and the long waiting and resisting and torment – all had their meaning.
After that they met every night. He would come late to the back door, where she was waiting, she would lead him by the hand up the dark staircase, in stockinged feet, then there was the sweet white brightness of her girl’s room, and the festivities began. Often they would stop and listen to the house, follow the footfall of a servant girl who seemed to hang about for ever outside Ria’s door, and then they would breathe a sigh of relief and look into the glowing, happy face of the other.
Lying together, her head pillowed on his arm, they would tell each other stories. He opened the expanses of his varied life, with cities and foreign lands, he had travelled on board ship, he had known poverty and then become rich again, before finally longing for rest, finding her in this little backwater.
She asked questions, she let nothing go. Hadn’t she seen all his various testimonials before he was taken on, and personally advised her father to take him? Hadn’t he – as she had too – lived all his life in the country?
He just smiled, suddenly the streets were full of endless columns of automobiles, they made their way through them, took refuge in a quiet restaurant, music struck up, exotically beautiful women dancing, and a gaudily clad Negro paced solemnly up and down with a marshal’s baton.
Ria felt fear for the man who was lying beside her, something was not quite right. Who was he really? And she saw the deep, contented peace in his features, she understood that he had suffered for this love as much as she had; how could the rough suitor of yore, the pitiless exploiter, the lover of so many women have become so altered? He was a happy child, and his love was so new to him, it was as though he had never loved before. There was nothing in him of any yesterday or tomorrow; to make her happy today was as far as his thinking went.
Each time they parted they promised to forbear the next night, to allow the other to sleep, and then she would lie awake full of desire for him, till at last, at midnight, a pebble would strike her window, and she hurried downstairs to let him in, every night, for two whole weeks.
5
A telegram came for him, he had to go to Berlin. He asked her father for the day off, they met up as they did every night, they didn’t sleep, but the day after next he would be back. Hidden behind the curtain she watched his carriage drive past, she agitated the white material, and saw the happy delight on his face.
In those days she rested deeply. When she awoke, something lightsome had blown through her featureless dreams, a taste of some sun-dappled summer’s day filled her mouth, her whole form swayed and danced.
The carriage came back empty from the station. Had he missed his train? One or two days passed in anguished expectation, her father began to get anxious, had Martens met with some accident perhaps? No news, nothing, not a line, not a word of him.
She remembered exactly the morning hour when her father came to the breakfast table, looking pale and stooped. It was raining outside, a fine rain slanted across the windows when her father told her the rural constable had asked after Martens. There was a possibility that he was a notorious swindler, with a warrant out for his arrest, who had gone to ground in the country with them. The mystery was how he managed to time his departure to the very day the authorities planned to nab him. It was all a little up in the air: perhaps his staying away was a matter of chance, a similarity in the names, the descriptions.
‘I never trusted him,’ Ria said quickly, and it was possible she spoke the truth. The man she loved had remained a stranger to her, the one who fulfilled her being had come from some other, richer world which he had only wanted to show to her, never would she set foot on its lighter roads.
She wasn’t even angry with him. It was just the way he had to do things, and not easy for him at that, just as it was her way to remain in a life of constancy and silence and quiet work.
No, she was angry with him. Not for leaving her, for being a confidence trickster, what was there to be angry about there? But sneaking away from her without a word, not trusting her, that was wormwood, and that rankled.
Then there was a telegram from him, from a small southern city, he wasn’t coming back, the keys would be returned in a separate envelope. They arrived, and now the familiar office, the very thought of which made her gasp a little, was occupied by an auditor, going through the books.
It turned out that the book-keeping had been exemplary right up until a fortnight before the man’s flight; thereafter there was nothing, no entries, receipts r
andomly stuffed in different drawers, the complete cessation of any work. Chaos.
When her father, shaking with rage, told her this, Ria had to turn away and smile to herself. How alike they were! Hadn’t she too put off every kind of work for two weeks, with happiness floating on the crest of the crystalline wave, on the lookout for fertile shores?
But even now it was uncertain whether he was a bounder in love or purely and simply a lover. Funds might have been embezzled or not, it wasn’t possible to say for sure. And once again she was angry with him that this too was left uncertain; perhaps he was honest, perhaps a thief, she would never know.
When the embezzler’s belongings were to be bundled up – her father persisted in referring to him as that – she insisted on going along. For the first time she entered his room – there on the wash-table was the nailbrush he had just put down – all the many little bottles caused her father to snort with derision. Then the suitcases snapped shut, the things were carried up to the attic and his successor moved in.
And now the grey monotony of uneventful country living resumed in which she had formerly been so contented. Before he had come, before there had been any happiness. She counted the hours, she looked intently at each new day, and none promised even a minute of the bliss she had enjoyed; the winds blew to no end, the sun shone for nothing. Gladly she would have forgotten herself, but there was no man in reach who might have plausibly offered her such forgetting; his successor was fat and had a limp and sniffed incessantly.
The dreariness of it all!
6
Then there was a letter from him. She held it in her hand, uncomprehending, the possession of the little paper rectangle caused her to blush, as though he himself leaned down over her and pressed his mouth to hers.
He was writing from some faraway city. She read what he wrote, and the signature, she sat there, had she read anything, had he put his name to anything? Very good, he was thinking of her. And what else? He was missing her. And then? Not a word about why he had gone, not a word about what he was doing now. She pushed the letter away, she wouldn’t write back, she hid it in a mass of her old papers, she would dig it up years hence, and barely remember who it was from.
