Nightmare in Berlin

by Hans Fallada

  Not that one could really blame the writer all that much for pausing so often in his labours. He is only writing out of a sense of duty, without any real enthusiasm or belief in what he is doing, perhaps in part just to prove to himself and others that he is capable of finishing what he has started. Begun six months or so earlier, this piece of work at first seemed to be going well. Then came various interruptions, due to personal disagreements, illness, or simply a lack of appetite for work, and the more he delayed final completion, the less interest the writer himself took in the work he was doing.

  But the situation on this fifth of July was a little different. On this morning, the man had awoken from a sound night’s sleep and had suddenly realised how to steer the little ship of his writing out of the sea of facts and into a tranquil harbour at last. He could not yet say with certainty whether he would reach this harbour in two days, eight days, or twelve days, but even a voyage of twelve days held no more terrors for him, since he now knew that a safe harbour awaited. When he paused in his work today, he was just continuing the bad habits of previous days; he was not deliberately looking for excuses to be lazy.

  The man glanced again at the wall clock with the faded blue face, and saw that it was late enough for him to stop writing with a clear conscience. He gathered up pen and paper, put them away in the wall closet, and picked up a block of wood with a key hanging from it. With this key and some toilet things, he crossed a forecourt towards a door on the far side, on which was hung a sign that said in large, clear letters: ‘Not to be used by gon. or syph.!’

  The man made to open the door when he saw that there was already a key in the lock, attached to a block of wood exactly like the one he was holding in his hand. He muttered something about ‘bloody cheek!’ and was about to place his hand on the door handle when the door was opened from the inside and a girl or young woman, dressed only in a very short shirt, brushed past him, obviously feeling guilty, and disappeared through the door of a nearby room.

  The man gazed after her for a moment, in half a mind to kick up an almighty fuss over this unauthorised use of his toilet. The sign was clear enough, after all. But then he thought better of it. He had never yet sounded off since he had been living in this place, and he would adopt a different tactic. He withdrew the key from the lock, went into the toilet with both keys, and bolted the door behind him.

  As he was having a thorough wash in there, he wondered whether he should complain to Mother Trüller about this blatant disregard for the no-entry sign, or whether it would not be simpler just to commandeer this second key, which was supposed to be for the sole use of the nursing staff, and had only been left in the door as a result of someone’s carelessness. He decided on the second course of action: Mother Trüller had enough on her plate, and the effect of even the most severe dressing-down from her would last only for a day at most. As for the so-called patients here …

  Yes, as for these so-called patients, who for the most part were not actually ill at all, as for these sixty women, with whom he shared this madhouse at No.10 Elsastrasse as the only male occupant, all warnings, tongue-lashings, pleas, and prohibitions were completely lost on them. On the contrary, they were all imbued with the best of bad intentions, determined to break all the rules and make trouble wherever they could.

  When the man moved in here a good eight weeks previously, and suddenly found himself in the company of sixty women who were mostly young and pretty, he had expected to be living a highly entertaining and also instructive life. Not that he had any designs on these ladies, not at all: the nature of the diseases that had landed them in this place — usually under gentle pressure from the police — was such as to deter him from any such designs. The women had picked up these diseases, the names of which were spelled out with brutal clarity on the no-entry sign on the door of his toilet, out there in the city of Berlin, recklessly, knowingly, or — in a few cases — unknowingly. They had been diagnosed by doctors and put on a course of treatment.

  But these women had given up on the treatment, either failing to turn up for their appointments at the doctor’s surgery or choosing to ignore the doctor’s instructions, so that they posed a constant threat to anyone who had anything to do with them. That’s when the gentle police pressure was applied, and they were deposited at the door of this institution, which they were not allowed to leave until they were fully cured. Some of them had proved difficult to find; they knew what awaited them. They had changed their address, avoiding their treatment by devious cunning, only to be scooped up eventually in some police raid.

  Well, despite all this, or perhaps precisely because of it, the man had hoped to derive some entertainment and instruction from these ladies, and hear some colourful life stories. Instead he soon realised that all these girls were hopelessly stupid and dishonest. To hear them talk, they had all ended up in this place through the dirty tricks of the doctors, the public health authorities, and the police, and it was only when they got here that they had been infected by the immoral women they had to share a room with!

  It didn’t take great powers of discernment to see that they were lying, and as for their laziness, it beggared belief. Although they were not confined to bed by illness, except on the days when they were given their injections or a crash course of pills, there were many among them who hardly got out of bed during the whole eight or twelve weeks of their treatment. There they lay, young and blooming, with strong, healthy limbs, but bone idle and not prepared to do any useful work. They were so lazy that if one of them felt sick from the large intake of pills, none of the others could be bothered to hold out the sick bowl for her. For all they cared, she could vomit all over the floor — that’s what the nurse was there for, to clean it up afterwards. So they would ring for the nurse, and if she didn’t come at once, the mess stayed where it was. The filth and smell didn’t bother them, but the idea of doing any work at all was anathema to them.

  That wasn’t what they were here for, living in a world where it is so easy for a pretty young girl to clean a man out, like a nicely fattened Christmas goose! And they would boast to each other of their triumphs, telling of pockets daringly picked, of their magnetic charms as barmaids, of their whole wasted, useless lives — and the more useless, the more glorious in their eyes. And then they went and stole cigarettes from each other, and tossed their medical prescriptions out of the window or dropped them down the toilet (being too ‘smart’ to let themselves be poisoned by these doctors!); and when their relatives came to visit them on Sundays, they complained bitterly about how bad the food was here, and how they had to go hungry. Yet according to their regular weekly weight checks, they were growing steadily fatter from idleness and gluttony.

  No indeed, the man’s expectations had not been fulfilled. There was nothing romantic about these women; they were not bathed in some redemptive glow. He was not very patient with them, it is true. There had been great excitement among them when this man came to live in a house of women; they had been friendly and welcoming towards him, and in the first few weeks there had been no shortage of visitors who sought him out in his room under all manner of pretexts. But he had soon given up chatting to them. It annoyed him every time that they thought him stupid enough to believe their cock-and-bull stories.

  And they were greedy. He could tell from the way they looked at the food on his plate, comparing it with their own portions. As a private patient of the senior consultant, who had not been able to find room for him anywhere else but here, he did enjoy something of a special position, but by and large he was given exactly the same food as they had. Mother Trüller could hardly cook separate meals for one man! But they eyed the size of his bread slices, gauged the thickness of the topping, and said: ‘It’s all right for some!’ Or else: ‘I couldn’t care less!’

  And then they always wanted something from him: a cigarette, or a light for a cigarette, or a book or a newspaper or fuel for their lighter — they took it to such ext
remes that he would refuse them the simplest favour.

  Then came a stand-off period, when they no longer visited him and hardly gave him the time of day; after that, open war was declared on him. One day, a drunken lout had tried to climb over the garden railings and get into the house, whereupon the man declared that it could hardly come as a surprise to anyone who had observed how they shamelessly accosted or taunted every passing man from the balconies of their rooms, after the manner of whores, which of course is what most of them were. This had driven them to extremes of indignation at this liar and traitor. None of them had ever called out to anyone from their balcony — not so much as a word — and when the doctor gave instructions for the balcony doors to be locked anyway, they swore to the man that they would beat him one night until every bone in his body was broken!

  Well, they hadn’t beaten him. In fact, they had soon abandoned the silent treatment they gave him during the first few weeks following this incident. They were unreliable in everything — even their dislikes. They started speaking to him again, every now and then one of them would come and scrounge a cigarette, and if he couldn’t spare a cigarette, then a couple of butt ends would do. But the man didn’t forget so easily; he was finished with them for good, even if that meant casting out a few righteous souls for the sake of the many unrighteous.

  The man finished his ablutions some time ago, and now he has tidied up his room a bit and locked the two keys to the toilet away in his wall closet. He grinned a little at the thought of Nurse Emma and Nurse Gertrud, who would soon be searching frantically for this key!

  He now put on a coat, despite the blazing sun: he was ashamed to be seen on the street in his stained and crumpled suit. He went downstairs and made for the kitchen. In the kitchen, Mother Trüller and her acolytes were busy preparing lunch for the eighty or so residents. Her face was flushed a deep red; her stout chest, invariably covered by a yellow or lilac lace ruffle, heaved mightily as the heavy cooking pots became as light as feathers in her hands. She was working so hard that the sweat stood out on her brow in bright little beads, but she was in an excellent mood.

  She smiled radiantly when she caught sight of the man, and said: ‘Mr. Doll, are you leaving so early? You want to sign out now, I expect?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like to sign out, Mother Trüller, I’m in good health, and ready to roam! And if the truck and trailer really do turn up today, I won’t be back for lunch, either. I hope they do turn up.’

  ‘I hope so, for your sake. But I won’t hear of you missing lunch. I’m glad to think I’ve put twenty pounds on you! If you’re not back by three, I’ll send out some lunch for you — and enough for the whole family!’

  ‘No, don’t do that, Mother Trüller!’ said the man. And in a quieter voice, so that the others wouldn’t hear: ‘You know I’m already too deeply in debt to you. Who knows when I’ll ever be able to pay it all off again!’ And he sighed deeply.

  ‘Oh, you’ll have paid it all off in six months!’ announced Mother Trüller with a broad smile. ‘A man like you — healthy again, full of energy, all you have to do is sit down and start working, and you’ll be rolling in money! So what is there to sigh about, on a nice summer’s day like this?’

  While she was administering this good-natured rebuke, she had shepherded Doll to the door of the building, stopping at the threshold that the girls and women who lived here were only allowed to cross when they were fully recovered. ‘Well, all the best, Mr. Doll! Maybe the truck really will come today. And if you should hear anything — you know what I mean — you’ll let me know at once?’

  ‘But of course, Mother Trüller’, replied Doll, and stepped out onto the street, into the brilliant sunshine.

  That’s her all over, he said to himself as he walked on, and she’ll never change. She’ll never forget to remind anyone leaving the house that they must tell her at once if they hear any news. It doesn’t matter what they’ve been talking about — she always thinks to give them this reminder as a parting shot.

  In actual fact, she is always thinking about it, even when she’s having a conversation about something completely different. The worry about her missing son is constantly eating away at her, underneath it all — the thought of him, her love for him. As the director and proprietor of this somewhat crazy hospital in Elsastrasse, an institution for women run by a woman, she thinks all the time only of her son, and thinks of herself only as his trustee. She has had no news of him for fifteen months now; Erdmann disappeared at the time of the battle for Berlin. He might have become a POW, or he might be lying somewhere on the streets of this vast sea of ruins, hit by a stray bullet, crushed under falling masonry, buried under rubble. And this might have happened a while back, fifteen months ago.

  But his mother is still waiting for him, and she will carry on waiting if she has to, for years on end. And many other mothers and wives are waiting with her for their sons, their husbands — waiting for loved ones who may never return. Meanwhile this farmer’s daughter from Hanover, who has worked her way up in the world by her own efforts, is tirelessly busy. She keeps her female patients, who are always up to mischief, on a tight leash, she works day and night, she has a friendly word for everyone, she has a sympathetic ear for everyone’s troubles, and tries to help wherever she can. She really doesn’t have time to feel depressed and fed up with work. With her plain, no-nonsense approach to life, she is an example to us all.

  But she never forgets to say to anyone who is going out: ‘If you hear anything — about my son Erdmann, that is — you must let me know at once.’

  The outside world, beyond the neighbouring streets where all her tradesmen live, is a remote, alien world for Mother Trüller, who is always in her little hospital, constantly under pressure to keep people fed and attend to their other basic bodily needs. For her, the big wide world, where miracles can happen every day, begins a leisurely five-minute walk away from her front door — a world where one might run into her missing son Erdmann in the street, and say to him: ‘Look here, Erdmann, it’s high time you called in on your mother again. She’s been waiting for you constantly, day and night, for fifteen months. She’s still living at No. 10 Elsastrasse.’

  Not that Erdmann is the kind of son who needs to be told to go and see his own mother. Quite the contrary: Erdmann would have got in touch with his mother without being told.

  But the world out there, this vast, sprawling, chaotic Berlin, is so weird and wonderful, so full of wondrous things. The visitor might run across someone who has heard of the son, who has perhaps seen him somewhere. He might have heard news of the repatriation of POWs, the most astonishing and incredible rumours — Mother Trüller is ready to hear anything and everything. Her stout heart is not apt to flutter at the smallest thing; she is not that easily discouraged. Her hopes are kept alive by the story of one home-comer who turned up out of the blue.

  So she waits and hopes. And waiting and hoping along with her are hundreds, thousands, of women that nobody talks about. In the war they were good enough to offer up their sons and husbands, and then quietly step into their shoes in the workplace. Now they are quietly waiting, getting on with their work, wherever they are. It’s just that they say to anyone who is going out: ‘You will let me know if you hear anything, won’t you?’

  Good, capable, indestructible Mother Trüller, mother of the people, eternal mother, eternal believer, who waits and faints not, who seeks to help wherever she can …!

  As he was thinking these thoughts, the man in the shabby, crumpled, stained clothes under the pale summer coat, which was not exactly in pristine condition itself, walked past quite a few pubs, where — as he very well knew — cigarettes could be bought on the black market. He was dying for a smoke, but he restrained himself. Dear American cigarettes costing eleven marks apiece had been off-limits for a long time now in the Doll household — as he had rightly predicted to his wife. But even so-called ‘cheap’ German cigarettes a
t five marks each were strictly rationed to one a day, at most; one German cigarette only in the evening after supper, the smoke drawn deep into the lungs with sensuous relish — and then that was all for the next twenty-four hours.

  All? Well, not quite. The Dolls were smokers; they would always be smokers. Even now, Doll had his pockets filled with something he could smoke. They collected the rose petals from Mother Trüller’s garden — not just the ones that had fallen off, but the ones that were in full bloom as well — and dried them. They reasoned thus: ‘This rose will drop its petals in the next few hours anyway!’ and then they would pluck them, stuff Doll’s pockets with the petals, and turn his room into a drying and curing plant. So the room smelled constantly of roses. They had also smoked the leaves of cherry trees, and, when they were really desperate, even a vile-tasting blood-cleansing tea, from which they first had to pick out the juniper berries and stalks.

  That’s how frugal they had become, even the young wife, who was so determined never to deny herself anything. They once owned a car — one each, in fact — and money, and all the things that money can buy; such commodities, the good things of this life, were no problem for them. But now the mantra that they were a defeated nation had become engrained in their thinking. They laughed at their foul-smelling ‘tobacco’, they were apt to cover up their stained clothing, but they were not ashamed any more. What do people expect? We are a defeated nation, we have lost an all-out, total war, and now we are reduced to total beggars. The suburb through which Doll was now walking had survived the war relatively unscathed. Here and there a roof had been blown in, even the odd house reduced completely to rubble, but by and large everything appeared intact and not too run-down amidst the abundant summer greenery. It was just the people on the streets: they could all have done with twenty pounds more weight on them, and fifty fewer wrinkles on their faces. They were still enduring unimaginable poverty, wearing rags instead of clothes, and shoes that were forever falling apart and being mended, held together with string, shoes that looked as if they had trailed the length and breadth of Europe.