Tales from the Underworld

by Hans Fallada

  Autumn came, and they dug up their potatoes, and the garden became damp, gloomy and dead. Their neighbours moved back into the city. They stayed, there was a by-law that permitted people to winter in their summer houses, and where else could they have gone anyway? Things got very lonesome for Minnie. Kubsch did overtime, and only got home at eight or nine at night. ‘Just wait, you’ll be surprised how soon winter’s over,’ he promised. ‘Wait till you see how beautiful the spring is here.’

  Spring came, and it was beautiful. They had fruit trees, half a dozen each of cherry, apple, pear and plum. The gooseberries and currants flowered like mad. Of their thousand square yards, at most three hundred were unplanted, and they planned to take them into cultivation next year. Everything was so much nicer than it had been their first year. Kubsch got the hang of napping on the train, and never missed his stop. And he would go on working in the garden till he couldn’t see the hand in front of his face.

  The next winter, admittedly, was bad. It seemed not to want to end; spring simply refused to come. And then there were pay cuts, and even short-time working. He was expected to put eight hundred marks into a road fund because they were going to asphalt their track, as well as the usual taxes and fees; sometimes they just sat there and looked at each other. By mid-March they were out of coal, and no possibility of buying more. Just enough for Minnie to cook by. Kubsch came home with accounts of polar explorations from the library, and they read about Mikkelsen and Nansen, and pretended to be two polar explorers in their tent.

  Finally, at the beginning of May, spring arrived, if hesitantly. Slowly, painfully slowly, the buds thickened and burst, first the currants then the gooseberries. And, long after they had greened, finally the trees. Now, today, everything is in flower chez Kubsch, twenty-four fruit trees in full bloom. He has put in so many potatoes they’ll be able to sell the surplus; he will trade with the coal merchant.

  Sometimes, for a quarter of an hour in the evening, he takes Minnie on a walk around their garden. There isn’t really a conversation as such, because he keeps stumbling upon new things to show her. ‘Look, the parsley’s sprouting at last. Well, well.’ He straightens up and surveys his estate. ‘Everything comes good, you just need to wait for it sometimes. I’m not worried.’

  And then Minnie takes him by the hand.

  Mother Lives on Her Pension

  (1931)

  She is seventy-six years old, withered from a hard-working life, with a little bird’s head her loose skin bunches and bags over. Her voice has grown lighter and higher in the last decade, and she screams because she can’t judge volume any more: her deaf ears no longer pick up anything.

  Even though she has seven surviving children she lives with strangers, who have rented her the attic for four marks a month. She gets a pension of thirty-five marks, ‘more than enough’ to live off, only the winters feel terribly long, and coal is unaffordable. She doesn’t calculate by marks and pfennigs, but by the price of a loaf. When her pension is reduced by two marks, she says: ‘Just imagine, that’s four loaves of bread! Four whole loaves!’

  Bread has always been the cornerstone of her existence; everything has always revolved around bread. She knows better than anyone else what it is: bread – and she knows what it is to be without it. There were times when it came easily and willingly into her house and was never finished, there was always another slice to be cut from it. And there were other times when she could only see the gleaming brown loaves in the windows of bakers’ shops; everything was topsy-turvy and the children fretful. She managed to get through those times, she can no longer say how. Bread returned, not suddenly but gradually, and there was again enough to go round.

  Then they invented a wonderful substance called margarine, which was so much better than beet syrup or the plum mush of yore. Yes, the world was making progress, poor people were no worse off, they muddled along, God only knew how.

  She was never really envious of the rich – and rich for her began a long way down. Shop windows, dresses, fur coats, bright, happy, attractive women with soft, snow-white hands – that was another world, remote and unattainable, it was nothing to do with her. Her fingers, yellowish and rough like the claws of a bird, are crooked now, she can no longer straighten them. For the whole of an endless life they were always grasping some utensil, the handle of a tool, the handle of a paring knife. How many thousands of tonnes of potatoes she must have peeled in the course of her life!

  And she is still at it today, day after day, month after month. At eight in the morning she slips out of her garret, walks ten blocks to the restaurant of her son. She sits there until noon, peeling potatoes and washing up, and in return she gets a meal. Her daughter-in-law is loath to give it to her, the old woman doesn’t deserve it for the work she does. But here it’s as well that she’s deaf and doesn’t hear the griping and cursing. Her son’s place is going well, he has an Opel, he is well fed and contented, often a little tipsy. ‘You leave Mama alone,’ he says, ‘she’s got an appetite like a sparrow anyway.’ She feels grateful to him, never having heard the proverb, ‘Who gives bread to their children and later falls upon hard times has no one to blame but themselves.’ She is glad her children have come to something.

  None of the others want to know. If she visits, she’s sat down in a corner or told to go away. ‘Mother has her pension.’ But the seventh, the one she never thought much of – because of course she had her favourites – the seventh is the best of them. She hasn’t seen him now for twenty years – or is it thirty? – but he still sends her postal orders from time to time. Five marks, or ten. She puts them by. They’ll give her a wonderful send-off that way. A good boy, even if she never cared for him much.

  At least once a month, she takes the long trip out to the graveyard to visit her old feller. He’s been dead eleven years, but she still tells him everything, shares her life with him. On visiting days she begs her neighbours for a couple of flowers. They tease her: she’s to convey the regards of Frau Rohwedder, is that right, or Toni Menzel. As if! She wouldn’t even tell him the flowers were a present, he’s to think she bought them for him. Men don’t need to know everything. She doesn’t feel sad, she doesn’t cry, with her light chirruping child’s voice she tells him stories. Why should she be sad? Her children have grown up, she has a roof over her head and bread. Is there any more you can ask for from this life?

  A Burglar’s Dreams Are of His Cell

  (1931)

  He has two years of penitentiary behind him in Hamburg, and five more in Prussia, and the bottom line is that he doesn’t much care for the Prussians. Their penal system is rubbish, a well-behaved convict doesn’t even get to enjoy a kickabout, you have to crawl to obtain such privileges. When he goes to work now he always takes a map with him, so as to make damned well certain he doesn’t do a job somewhere in Prussian-administered Altona instead of Hamburg. Each time he passes the Nobis Gate on the Reeperbahn, he reminds himself: ‘Commit a murder here, it’s fifteen years; one more step, and it’s off with your block.’

  When you see him, he’s bound to make a decent impression on you. He’s polished and polite, because in the course of his life he’s had to negotiate many difficult situations. He’s a sharp dresser, because he mustn’t arouse suspicion by looking shabby. He has strikingly dextrous hands, quick hands, clever hands, he needs those for his line of work. He’s alert, how else would he ever have got to be thirty in that line of work, with only seven of them spent behind bars. He is, if called upon to be so, brutal: caution and regard aren’t much help when it comes to cracking safes.

  He has two passions, and two only. And that’s his strength: most people have more. One is breaking and entering, he’s done that from when he was a nipper. Even today he thrills to the memory of first cutting a window pane with a diamond at thirteen, climbing in and standing in his uncle’s bedroom, listening to the easy rhythm of his sleep, and fumbling for the dresser and taking his wallet. It was an impressive show of nerve for a thirteen-ye
ar-old. Sure, it got him a place in a young offenders’ centre, but that wasn’t so bad, and he learned lots of useful things while he was there.

  Today he disdains such crimes of opportunity, he doesn’t mind taking up to six months patiently scoping out a job. Ideally he works alone, use a leg man and you always end up as the mug. He’s popular with his fences, they give him sweetheart deals, up to twenty per cent of the value of an item: he’s yet to shop one of them.

  His second passion is women: an inclination, admittedly, he shares with most of his sex. Only that he won’t stick to just one. The girls on the Reeperbahn and the harbour district all know him. He’s never seen, or tried to find, other girls. He can’t be doing with the fuss. He needs women, but they’re all the same to him, he doesn’t distinguish between them. They’re all stupid, all money-hungry, untrustworthy, loose-mouthed, only good for one thing. He’s like a Muslim in that regard; he would laugh if you tried to tell him women were more than flesh.

  He reserves his hatred for the cops, but even more for traitors in his own ranks. If he happens to run into one the world goes red, he will knock him down on the street, bite and kick and rip his ear off, smash his nose, till he comes to his senses in some station holding pen – his senses, yes, but never remorse. He’s big on professional ethics: don’t attempt stupid jobs, do good work, cover your fence come what may, don’t shop anyone or anything. He’s a reliable fellow till it comes to divvying up the goods, where his watchword is: get more than your fair share. Afterwards, everything is sorted out. He’s a sworn enemy to the respectable world.

  And so he goes through life, almost silent in the human crush, with little sense of participating in its needs and joys. But sometimes, in his off hours, when the police are on his tail, when he doesn’t have an hour to himself day or night, or when he’s just simply blue, he rides out to Ohlsdorf and tours the prisons at Fuhlsbüttel. He looks up at the barred windows and dreams of being inside again. In there is quiet, sleep without fear, regular meals, his own sort. Behind those lit-up windows he’s worked in the carpentry shop and made roll-top desks, nice, demanding work, and not without its little touch of irony.

  Finally he goes home to the big city, which has no home for him. Enemy to all, enemy to himself, with the dream in his heart of a barren cell.

  Why Do You Wear a Cheap Watch?

  (1931)

  My father’s a watch-maker – that’s right, my old man has a watch shop, I could say he’s awash in watches, and that’s not just a way of speech – but I, his only son, wear a nickel watch that cost two eighty-five, chain included, with a one-year guarantee. I bought it for myself, and not at my father’s shop either.

  My friends ask me: Why do you wear a nickel watch? Are you down to that?

  I could answer them: Hush, friends! Times are hard, it’s a struggle for everyone. Or I could say: I’m giving the two-eighty-five mechanism a try-out. I may be a law student, but watches are in my blood, I’m studying this mechanism for my father.

  No, I hate diplomatic lies! I tell them: The reason I’m wearing this nickel watch is because my father is mean, stingy, selfish. He doesn’t have a gold watch for his only son, he deals in watches, he doesn’t give them away, that’s what he’s like. That’s what I tell them, and it’s true.

  My friends say: Oh dear, poor lad, with such a stingy father.

  But then I ask them: Don’t you think my father’s behaviour is correct?

  It was my big day: I had passed my school exams. Since I don’t have any children yet myself, I can be frank: it was a mediocre pass, I just about scraped through. When I come to have my own children, then I’ll say to them that I passed with distinction, the education ministry sent an official specifically to congratulate me, he shook me by the hand, tears of emotion welled up in his eyes: Young man, that was the best exam ever taken in these cloistered halls …

  So, no, for the time being anyway it was a moderate exam, but my father went ahead and gave me a gold watch. It wasn’t from his shop, no it was an heirloom from an unpleasant and happily long-deceased godfather, who used to call me ‘little monkey’ and ‘howler’ by turns.

  Perhaps his dislike of me had transferred itself to the watch, which didn’t accompany me so much as keep its distance from me. My friend Kloß keeps a sailing boat on the Wannsee. We sail out, we bathe from the boat; our clothes are left on deck.

  I’ve had enough of swimming, I want to get back in the boat, I pull myself up the side, the boat tips and all our things glide into the water. Kloß was there, and we fished everything out of the water, only my gold graduation watch had plummeted fifty feet straight to the bottom.

  My father is a tidy man, my father is a methodical man, it’s an occupational disease with him. It’s not possible to tell him that the watch I inherited from my godfather wound up in the drink. No, we were in the public baths, and from the water we saw someone going through our things. We swam back as fast as we could, and gave chase, but he got away.

  ‘Hmm,’ went my father. He let things rest for a week, then he gave me a gold watch from his shop, a Glashütte, flat as an oyster, gorgeous.

  That watch and I got along, it was the most dependable of watches, it never let me down.

  Nor was it easily parted from me … This time it wasn’t Kloß, it was Kipferling with whom I went on a trip to Munich. Munich is a fine city, there are many things to do there; both Kipferling and I ended up wiring our parents for travel money home. By the time we were actually ready to leave, our travel money had melted away.

  We had only one object of value: my Glashütte watch. Kipferling set off with it, I begged him only to pawn it so that I could redeem it once we were back in Berlin; nothing doing, he came back with the watch, it was outright sale or nothing. So we took the plunge.

  All the way home I was racking my brain for a plausible story to tell my father. But my imagination had seized up, I couldn’t think of one. Finally I was left with a thief on Munich station, heaving crowds, suddenly my watch was gone. Those international pickpockets …

  My father remarked, a trifle dryly: ‘Well, you’d be the best judge of that, son.’ I thought it didn’t sound very nice. I was left waiting quite a long time for my next watch. In fact, I had to help get it; I was always late for everything, every appointment, the theatre – what could I do, without a watch …

  Finally, I got one. It wasn’t so flat, but it had two lids, and a loud tick. It was what we call in the trade a potato – reliable, gold, nothing spectacular, but in the end we are at the mercy of the feelings of our makers, and I was reasonably happy with it.

  Well, so I go to play tennis, I play tennis, I get dressed afterwards, and what do you know? Eh? Yes, my watch has disappeared! Imagine my despair! My dependable potato – gone!

  So now imagine my situation: what do I tell the old man? Yes, what do I tell him? Go on, tell me, give me a way out … That older generation is so suspicious!

  Well, the upshot is that ever since then I’ve worn a two-eighty-five nickel watch, with a one-year guarantee.

  I tell everyone perfectly truthfully that my father’s stingy. Or do you think he’s behaved well?

  He simply won’t believe that my watch was stolen. Won’t believe it. Now you say something!

  On the Lam

  (1931)

  How Sänftlein came to be called Sänftlein, he can no longer recall. In the files of a series of German prosecution authorities he appears under divers other names, but that doesn’t concern us. Sänftlein doesn’t accord with the general picture of notorious villains that you get from reading thrillers. He has watery-blue, earnest eyes, a pear-shaped head, a thatch of blond hair, a clumsy, puppyish sort of body; he looks like a good boy.

  Our interview took place in a prison yard, he and I were both wearing blue. Sänftlein was unimpressed with the professionalism of one or two of our fellow inmates: ‘Those are occasional workers. They were unlucky. Their hands slipped.’

  I said I thought there were a cou
ple of gifted characters among them.

  Sänftlein was all contempt. ‘Them? Gifted? Well, maybe by your lights. I’d like to see them get by without clothes, in winter, in an unknown city, without a penny piece, hunger in their bellies and the cops on their tail. Because that’s when you sort the wheat from the chaff.’

  I asked him what he would do in such a situation. And he told me what he had done, and I remembered it, I even wrote it down.

  In Hamburg they’d given me eight years, now I had a court appointment in Kassel, for begging while armed. My only chance was to give the whole occasion a miss.

  I had two cellmates, one was solid, the other was a crooked bank employee, not our sort at all. I broke off a piece of iron fitting from the bed frame and bent it so that it would lie snug and flat against my hipbone. Then we knocked a leg off the stool, I needed a lever. White-collar boy was leaned on not to tell and the guard searching us was half-asleep, I got the stuff on the train with me, no bother.

  Our express stopped in every cow-village. We weren’t due in Kassel until ten o’clock. After four was the best time to do a bunk because it would be dark. It was cold outside, just above freezing, with occasional flurries of snow. White-collar kept himself to himself, which was fine, so long as he didn’t squeal. I felt perfectly calm, I knew my plan would work.

  A little before five o’clock we stopped somewhere for a really long time. I got undressed, took out crowbar and stool leg, and was in shirt, trousers and socks. By the time the train got moving again I had knocked the glass pane out of the window without making a sound.

  The goddamned first bar made me break out in a sweat, I didn’t have room to insert my crowbar. There were a couple of loud cracks. We could hear the cops chatting in the corridor, but they didn’t hear us.