by Hans Fallada
“But my dear Herr Sommer,” he cried pleadingly. “You would have to go to prison for twelve months, for at least twelve months. You would come out a dishonoured man. Everybody would point you out!”
“Even so,” I insisted as Mordhorst’s faithful disciple. “Even so, I would far sooner have one year in prison than an unlimited number in an asylum …”
“Unlimited! You’ll have to stay half a year, perhaps a year there, Herr Sommer …”
“Would you give me that in writing, Herr Doktor Husten? Backed by your word as a lawyer … ?”
“Of course I can’t do that, my dear friend,” said the lawyer.
He also seemed rather cross now, and his fingers drummed nervously on the table.
“I’m not a doctor, only a doctor can judge how far your alcoholism has gone, and how much time is necessary for a complete cure without fear of relapse—But my dear Herr Sommer,” he cried, pulling himself together and letting his studied triumphant optimism gain the upper hand once more, “give up this dark mistrust of yours. Put yourself utterly into the doctor’s healing hands. Remember too, that psychologically as well as physically, you are scarcely equipped to meet the demands of a long imprisonment. And I hardly think, moreover, that this solution would be according to the wishes of your dear wife …”
This was the wrong word at the wrong moment!
“Herr Doktor Husten,” I cried, jumping up indignantly. “Whose interests do you represent: mine or my wife’s? How do you know what my wife’s wishes are? Have you been to see her before consulting me?”
I was trembling all over with excitement.
“But my dear Herr Sommer,” he said soothingly, and put his hand on my shoulder, “what are you getting so excited about? Naturally, I’ve been to see your wife. As your lawyer, that was a matter of course. And I can tell you that your wife bears you no grudge, although she is upset. I am convinced that she very much regrets what has happened to you …”
“Yes, she shows her regret very clearly in that statement of hers which is among the papers,” I cried, more and more indignantly. “Haven’t you read her statement, Herr Doktor Husten?—No, I find it simply unforgiveable that you, as my lawyer, should have been talking to the chief witness for the prosecution, without consulting me.”
“But I had to do so, my dear friend,” replied the lawyer, smiling gently at my lack of worldly knowledge, “I had to inform myself about who was to pay my fees. At the moment you are, so to say, without means …”
“You are mistaken, Herr Doktor Husten,” I said quite coldly. “Everything there, the business, the bank account, the outstanding bills, the house, all belong to me, and to me alone. Not to my wife. I’m not in any asylum yet, I’m not put away yet …”
“Of course, of course,” said the lawyer soothingly, “that is absolutely correct. Unfortunately I expressed myself wrongly. I shouldn’t have said ‘without means’. Let us put it this way: that you are at present somewhat impeded in the disposal of your assets, while your wife, as your faithful trustee …”
“I’m going to see to it, Herr Doktor Husten,” I said finally, “that my wife does not continue for much longer in the position of trustee. Then perhaps her interest in getting me shut up for life in a lunatic asylum may diminish a little more rapidly. I shall tell my wife that your visit has absolutely convinced me of the necessity for an immediate divorce.”
“My dear friend,” said the lawyer sonorously, shaking his great actor’s head. “How young you are for your forty years! (You are forty, aren’t you?) Always beating your head against the wall! Always throwing out the baby with the bath-water! Well, well, you’ll be calmer once you come under the appropriate medical care!”
Now there was something unspeakably sarcastic about his sickening friendly grin.
“Apart from all that, I am probably not incorrect in assuming that I am not to regard myself as your confidential lawyer?”
“Quite right, Herr Doktor Husten.”
“I am truly sorry. I am not sorry for my sake (yours is only a small case for me, Herr Sommer, a very small case), I am sorry for you and your wife. You are running blindly into trouble, Herr Sommer, and by the time your eyes are opened, it will be too late. A pity.”
He quickly took my hand and shook it.
“But let us not part as enemies, Herr Sommer. We have met, we have talked, now we part. ‘Ships that pass in the night.’ You know that excellent book of the Baroness? I wish you all good luck, Herr Sommer!”
With that, Herr Doktor Husten left my cell with his head in the air; I only followed some distance behind, and returned to my sawing in the wood-yard. There I reported our discussion to Mordhorst down to the smallest detail, was praised by him for the first time, and was strengthened in my determination to hurry on my divorce from Magda as much as possible, and to deprive her of the management of my property.
33
But I was unable to get on with any of this for the time being. Other things intervened, which seemed to me more important. On the morning after Dr Husten’s visit, when the warder unlocked our cell and I hurried towards the latrine with my full bucket, I suddenly stopped short in amazement. I could not trust my own ears, and yet there was no deception: from a cell which had just been opened, came a soft, insinuating, whispering voice, a voice that was inextricably bound up with my drunkenness, a voice that I destested from the bottom of my heart—Lobedanz’s voice!
I hazarded a quick glance. Yes, there he stood with his gentle, sallow face, with the dark beard and dark slashed-back hair with its red-gold sheen, there he stood, talking softly to his cell-mate, and pulling at his fingers till they cracked. He was trying to get something out of the other fellow, for sure, the poor honest working-man!
I hurried past the cell as quickly as I could, emptied and cleaned out my bucket, and crept back into my own cell, taking care not to be seen. That morning Duftermann had to do the “outside work” of cell-cleaning; however much he grumbled, he had to fetch the broom and cloth and the clean water; I had no desire to be seen by Lobedanz.
But inwardly I was filled with triumph and malicious joy. They had caught the sly hypocritical Lobedanz, they had put him in gaol, and only one thought still bothered me; whether they had managed to recover the loot, or a substantial part of it, from Lobedanz. But I was not to remain long in uncertainty about that. As usual we went out into the wood-yard, but without Lobedanz, either because he had not volunteered for work, or because the governor knew that we were mixed up in the same affair. In such cases, care is taken not to allow the accomplices to come into contact with each other.
Mordhorst and I placed ourselves at our saw-bench and began our day’s work, this time of a most agreeable kind—soft smooth pine-logs, child’s play for such practised men as we were. The first log was sawn up, and while I was putting the second one into position on one bench, I asked my workmate the question that was repeated every morning: “What’s new about the place?”
“Mhm!” murmured Mordhorst, and set the saw on. Then: “A new arrival. A con man, it seems.”
We began to saw. Then I stopped again. “What has he done?”
“Who? Done what?” asked Mordhorst, whose thoughts were miles away, probably still revolving around that bitter fate by which he had been caught in such a mud-hole, and over such an undignified little job.
“Who? Done what?”
“The new man!” I reminded him.
“Oh, him. What do those fellows have the nerve to do?”
And he tried to start sawing again, but I held tight to the saw-handle. “No, tell me, Mordhorst, it really interests me. I think I saw the fellow this morning.”
“That may be. He’s in your block. What has he done? Robbed a stiff of course, what else would a geezer like that have the pluck for? Just lifted some stuff from some drunken old soak, you know.”
“I know,” answered the drunken old soak, “and had he managed to put his loot away safely?”
“No idea. I sup
pose so—even he is not so daft!”
“Find out, Mordhorst. I’m very interested to know.”
“Why are you so interested? It seems funny.”
“Not to me. Because I was the drunken old soak the fellow robbed. You remember, Mordhorst, he’s that landlord who did me down when I was drunk. I told you about him.”
“Ah, that’s him,” said Mordhorst, grinning with delight. “There’ll be a fine old rumpus when he finds you’re here, seeing it’s you who got him in chokey.”
“Well, find out, Mordhorst, whether he managed to put the stuff away. He’s got two gold rings and a gold watch of mine, table-silver for twelve people, a cowhide suitcase with some things in it, a leather brief-case, and four thousand marks.”
“Not bad,” grinned Mordhorst. “Far too much for such a lousy rogue. Well, I’ll let you know.” And we went on sawing, silently now—the warder was looking at us.
It was some days before I got to see Lobedanz or heard his voice again. In the mornings, when I went bucketing, his cell-door was always shut, and was only opened after we had finished, a sign that they knew we were concerned with the same case. I heard nothing more from Mordhorst either. Whenever I insisted, he only answered, “Wait a bit, mate, I’ve got to spy around a bit first. Mordhorst never cracks a safe until he has spied around a bit.”
However, at last he was ready.
“He had over six thousand marks on him when the coppers nabbed him,” said Mordhorst. “And that’s straight up. Not only because he says so himself, but I got it from the orderly who cleans the office. They’ve got the money in there.”
“Then he must have sold all my things and I’ll never see them again,” I said, and suddenly I was very sad about the loss of all my gold and silver things. “He only took four thousand in cash from me, no more.”
“He might have had some money of his own,” replied Mordhorst. “It’s not sure that he flogged your stuff. He may have parked it somewhere.”
“That’s possible,” I admitted, “but I can’t quite believe it.”
For a long time we sawed in silence, one beech log after another.
Then Mordhorst suddenly said: “What would you give, mate, if I found out where that fellow has hidden the boodle?”
“Boodle—what’s that?”
“Your stuff, of course. What would you give?”
“What can I give, in clink? I haven’t got anything myself.”
“You have outside.”
“But I can’t touch that, my wife won’t let me near it.”
And we went on sawing. Next day, Mordhorst said to me. “You’ll be coming up before the beak soon, and you’ll be questioned about this fellow. You’ll have to say that you claim the stolen money that’s here, as your own.”
“You can rely on me saying that, Mordhorst,” I said grimly.
“And the Public Prosecutor will have to release the money to you, that’s certain,” said Mordhorst.
For a while he was silent again. Then he said: “Would you make out a draft, for five hundred marks payable to bearer, if I find out where he has hidden your stuff?”
I thought it over.
“The whole affair is worth five hundred to me,” I said at last. “But I should have to get everything back, the gold things as well, and I can’t believe that.”
“If you get back less, you’ll only have to pay less. I’m a squaredealer,” replied the incorrigible safebreaker.
“But Mordhorst,” I said, and I pitied his ignorance. “Do you really think they’ll pay out money to you or anyone from the gaol, just because I write out a draft?”
“Let me worry about that,” he replied, quite unmoved. “You’ve got a corn-chandler’s business haven’t you?”
“Yes, I have,” I replied. “How did you come to know that, Mordhorst?”
“I know everything,” he answered, with all the bumptiousness of the little man. “And if someone comes from outside with a bill for grain that he delivered to you three months ago, and asks for his money, and you acknowledge the bill, I’ll bet the fellows in the bank will pay up.”
“Possibly,” I replied. “But who’s going to come from outside with such a bill?”
“Let me take care of that,” answered Mordhorst with equanimity. “The main thing is, I’ve got your word, you’ll acknowledge the bill.”
“That you have,” I said, “and I keep my word.”
“You’d better,” replied Mordhorst, and he began sawing again. “You can be sure I’ll get you if you do the dirty on me, I’ll get you tomorrow or in five years’ time, inside or out, myself or someone I tip off for it.”
That is how the game began, a game such as is only played in prison, underground, with many intermediaries, with the whispering of orderlies at locked doors, with infinite subtlety exercised by many brains during many hours: and the cunning hypocritical Lobedanz was the target.
I was never quite able to see how it was done, I have never understood how Mordhorst, who was particularly closely guarded, was able to maintain constant contact with all the prisoners, even with the outside world. But he could. Sometimes half a word would be dropped, out of which I could construct a whole paragraph. For example, there were four carefully selected prisoners who dragged the wood we cut. through the town and round to the houses, in an outsized handcart, under the supervision of a warder of course. And there was the trusty prison-cook, an old prisoner who was sometimes taken by the governor to dig and hoe and water his garden on the outskirts of town. Perhaps these prisoners were not quite so trustworthy as the prison administration allowed themselves to imagine. And then there were the hatches, the openings in our cell-doors through which our food-bowls were handed in to us. When meals were being taken round there was always a lot of secret whispering and furtive passing of things to and fro at these hatches. As I have said, I know next to nothing about the game they were playing, otherwise I would have more to say about it here. I was a novice, and in particular, in the eyes of the others, I was not a “real criminal” because I had committed no offence against other people’s property.
Mordhorst was careful not to tell me too much about it. I only got to know that pressure was being put on Lobedanz. They managed to cut down his food under the eyes of the warder. They let him starve a bit. And his cell-mate had as much as he could eat and never gave away a mouthful. That was one thing. And the other thing was that Lobedanz really had a wife and children at home, and he had been arrested so unexpectedly that they were left without food or money. It was put to him that a prisoner was going to be released in a few days’ time, who could take the hidden things and dispose of them and give the proceeds to his wife—after the deduction of an appropriate commission, of course. I can well imagine that the cunning and suspicious Lobedanz had a hard struggle with himself, but they softened him up. They put the screws on him, they would slip him alarming messages, and then leave him entirely without any news, and when he asked them, they would say “It’s all off. You wouldn’t do it.” And probably even Lobedanz loved his wife and children and did not want to see them starve and beg. The day came when Mordhorst said to me: “So I’ve got your word?”
“You have. Do you know anything yet?”
“I know everything. Your stuff …” Mordhorst looked at me sharply, “… is in the barn in the first field on the road to Kehne. There’s a few planks broken at the back, and it’s there in the straw. So now you know. Your gold wedding ring is missing, he’s got rid of it, but otherwise everything’s there, just as you said. That’s worth five hundred marks, mate?”
“That’s worth five hundred marks,” I answered. Curious, how illogical the heart is. I was almost delighted that Magda would get her silver back, and yet I hated her with all my heart.
“Yes,” I said, “but what can I do with my knowledge? I can’t very well tell anybody I got it from you.”
“When you get your bread today,” said Mordhorst, “you’ll find a slip of paper inside with what I’ve told y
ou written on it. You show that to the warder and let things take their own course.”
“And who’s suppose to have written this note?”
“You don’t know that. Just somebody you don’t know, who hates Lobedanz and wants to do the dirty on him. Don’t worry your head about that.”
34
It was all thought out with real ingenuity and carried through with endless patience. The only pity was that this affair, like the majority of such affairs conceived in prison—great robberies and hold-ups, blackmail and swindles—turned out otherwise than we had expected, and Magda never got her silver back again.
Everything happened just as Mordhorst had foretold. I found the slip, gave it to the warder when he unlocked the cell, I was taken down to the prison governor and questioned. Then they took me back to my cell and I heard them unlocking another cell-door further up the corridor: they were fetching Lobedanz. I heard no more about the affair that night, nor during the next two days, and this time Mordhorst heard nothing either. Then I was summoned by the governor and informed that the police had searched the barn; the planks at the back were loose but there was nothing under the straw, and in fact nothing was hidden in the barn at all. I went back to my cell deeply disappointed. So Lobedanz had been cleverer than the lot of them, and either he no longer had the things or else he had hidden them in some quite different place. But Mordhorst shook his head at this.
“Just wait,” he said, “there’s more in this than meets the eye, and I’ve already got an idea what it is. Just wait, I’ll get to the bottom of it, and if it’s as I think it is, somebody’s going to have nothing to laugh about.”
He really did find out, at least I believe that what he told me was the truth.
“The fellow who was released had picked it up and sold it. He took it just before the coppers got there—the fools, why couldn’t they move a bit faster! But I tell you, I’ll get the rotten dog, he’ll turn up in clink again, and then he’ll have something to holler about!”
