Once a Jailbird

by Hans Fallada

  ‘It’s no good, Rosenthal,’ said the instructor resignedly. ‘We’ll have to cough up if you don’t want to get at least eight weeks’ solitary. I know Kufalt.’

  ‘It’s cold in the solitary cells, young man,’ grinned Kufalt. ‘When you’ve dossed on stone for three days, the marrow in your bones will turn to ice. Well, how about it?’

  ‘It’s up to you, Herr Rosenthal,’ urged the instructor.

  Two strokes of a bell boomed through the building. The whole landing leapt to life, bolts began to rattle . . .

  ‘Quick, or I’ll go straight to the chief.’

  ‘Please, Herr Rosenthal!’

  ‘I’ll put Batzke on to you, you fat swine, he’s my mate. He’ll knock your head off.’

  ‘Herr Rosenthal, please . . . ’

  ‘All right, give it him . . . but you’ve got to stand in with me, Instructor.’

  ‘On account,’ said Kufalt, and spat on the hundred-mark note. ‘I’ll be outside the day after tomorrow, fatty, and I’ll think of you when I’m with the girls. Now, Uncle Nets, you put my bucket in my cell while I’m at recreation. And some hydrochloric too, or there’ll be trouble. Morning!’

  And Kufalt darted down the corridor to his cell.

  IV

  Eighty noisy, chattering prisoners clopped down the four iron staircases leading to the ground floor. There, at the door into the yard, stood two warders, repeating mechanically: ‘Keep your distance. No talking. Keep your distance. Anyone talking will be reported.’

  But the prisoners did talk. Only when near the warders were they silent; once they had passed, they dropped into that loud whisper that carries just further than five paces, though the speaker’s lips must never move or he would be reported at once.

  Kufalt was in high form. He conversed simultaneously with the man in front of him and the one behind, who were anxious to get anything they could out of the category three man.

  ‘It’s all balls that category two are to hear the wireless. Don’t you believe a word of it, mate.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be out the day after tomorrow . . . Don’t yet know. Perhaps I’ll pull off a job again, perhaps I’ll go into my brother-in-law’s office.’

  ‘How are they going to get 125 category two men into the schoolroom? There’s only room for fifty at the most. You’re a twerp. You’ll believe anything.’

  ‘My brother-in-law? I don’t mind telling you. He’s got a felt slipper factory, if you must know. I might get you taken on there.’

  ‘Hold your tongue, Kufalt,’ said the warder. ‘It’s always you category three men that give trouble.’

  ‘I didn’t speak, sir, I was only breathing hard.’

  ‘You’d better hold your tongue or I’ll report you.’

  ‘All my things are with the storeman. All immaculate, silk-lined tails and patent shoes. Hey, I wonder what it’ll feel like after five years!’

  ‘Oh, let that ape of a warder gibber if he wants to. I know something that’ll keep him quiet. He had me make a shopping bag and a hammock for him.’

  ‘There’s only one thing I’m anxious about . . . How long have you been in? Three months? Tell me, do the women still wear such short skirts? I heard they were wearing long ones again . . . ’

  ‘Can’t prove it, eh? I’ll just say to the governor: you’ll find a double mesh in the fourth row of the net bag, and he’ll be for it.’

  ‘Well, thank God. So you can see their thighs when they sit down? And bare flesh when they’re bicycling?’

  ‘Step out, Kufalt, I don’t know what’s up with you today. Do you want to spend your last days in solitary? Get over to the wall—that’s our reserved box for category three gents.’

  Kufalt went, and stood alone. Those in the circle jeered at him as they passed: ‘What about category three now! Grafters! Wireless and all, eh? Proud of your three stripes, aren’t you? Bum-suckers!’

  ‘You can all . . . ’ he began, and then he thought: ‘Hundred marks. Fine. Now I’ll have at least four hundred marks, and if Werner Pause writes today and sends me some money . . . ’ ‘Hey, Warder Steinitz, how much is a third-class ticket to Hamburg?’

  ‘Are you talking to me? Hold your tongue, or I’ll have you put in solitary.’

  ‘Oh, please not, sir! Well, I should have plenty of time today to make you another shopping bag.’

  ‘Insolent, eh? I’ll clip you with these keys if you aren’t careful.’

  ‘I really should have time for it today, sir. And the pound of margarine you promised me for the hammock hasn’t turned up.’

  ‘You young scab! Trying a little blackmail on your last day, are you? Sneaky little rat—oh well, get back into line, why should I bother about you any more. Five paces’ distance—and keep your mouth shut, Kufalt.’

  ‘Very well, sir, I won’t say a word.’

  It is May; the sky is blue beyond the wall, and above it the chestnuts are in flower. The circular yard round which the prisoners are marching has been planted with swedes, which are just coming up—a patch of meagre yellowish green against the melancholy bleak background of cinders, dusty earth and cement.

  They walk in a circle and whisper. They walk in a circle and whisper. They walk in a circle and whisper.

  V

  Back in his cell, Willi Kufalt collapsed. That was what always happened. When he was with other people he prattled on and threw his weight about, and posed as the old experienced lag who could never be fooled; but alone with himself, he was very much alone, and grew timid and despondent.

  ‘I shouldn’t have acted like that to Warder Steinitz,’ he thought. ‘It was mean. Just to show the new blokes I had him in my pocket. It’s not worth it, I do everything wrong—how will I get on outside?’

  If only his brother-in-law would write . . . Outside was the world, full of towns, and the towns full of rooms, one of which he would have to rent: and looking for jobs, and the money that would too soon be spent—and what then?

  He stared into vacancy. Scarcely eighty-four hours until the moment of his release, for which he had so yearned during five long years. And now he was afraid. He had liked being here, he had soon adapted himself to the atmosphere and ways of the place; he had quickly learnt when a man should be humble and when he could speak up. His cell was always spotless, his bucket lid had always shone like a mirror, and he had washed the cement floor of his cell twice a week with graphite and turpentine until it gleamed like an ape’s arse.

  He had always made his allotted amount of net, sometimes twice and even three times as much, so that he had been able to buy little luxuries for himself and tobacco. He had reached category two, then three: a model prisoner, whose cell was visited by committees and who always gave a sensible and modest answer to their questions.

  ‘Yes, sir, I feel very well here.’

  ‘No, sir, I’m sure it is doing me good.’

  ‘No, sir, I have no complaints.’

  But sometimes—and he grinned as he recalled how the girl students training to become welfare workers had asked him so inquisitively what his crime had been; and instead of answering, ‘Embezzlement and forgery,’ he had said humbly: ‘Incest. I slept with my sister, I’m sorry to say.’

  He recalled the face of the police inspector, grinning delightedly at the joke, and the eager-eyed girl student who came up closer to him. A nice girl, who had often brought him pleasing thoughts as he fell asleep.

  It had been a good time, too, when he had to arrange the altar for the Catholic priest, even though he had strongly objected to Kufalt as a Protestant. But there were no ‘reliable Catholics’ in the place—it was really a dig by the Protestant officials at the Catholic priest.

  He had stood behind the organ and pumped air into the bellows and the choirmaster always gave him a cigar; and on one occasion the choir of the Catholic church had come, and the girls sent him chocolate and some good toilet soap. Rusch, the chief warder, had taken it away from him afterwards. ‘Brothel, brothel!’ he had said when he c
ame into Kufalt’s cell and sniffed. ‘It smells like a brothel here.’ And he had rummaged around until he found it, and the old soda soap had to be brought out again.

  No, he had had a good time, all in all, and the prospect of release rather bewildered him. He felt quite unprepared, and he would gladly have stayed inside another six or eight weeks to get ready to leave. Or was it that he was beginning to get a little crazed? He had often noticed that the quietest and most sensible prisoners cracked up just before their release and acted crazily. Had he reached that stage?

  Perhaps he had; never before would he have risked that business with the nets instructor and the fat Jew, entering the cell like that, nor spoken up to Warder Steinitz as he had done.

  If only his brother-in-law would write. Had the chief warder given out the post that day? He was a pig you couldn’t trust; if he didn’t feel like it, he wouldn’t give out any post for three days.

  Kufalt walked a step or two and stopped. He had always set the wash-basin on the top of the cupboard so that the edges met within a millimetre; and now it stood at least a centimetre back.

  He opened the cupboard door.

  ‘So old Nets, the dirty dog, has been going through my cell. Hasn’t given up hope of his hundred marks. All right, my lad, just you wait.’

  Kufalt threw a suspicious look at the peephole in the door, and grabbed his scarf. Something crackled encouragingly in its folds. But it then occurred to him that in half an hour at most he would have to appear before the doctor and undress, and must not have a hundred mark note on him. The nets instructor would know that, and search his cell again . . .

  Kufalt frowned and pondered. He knew of course that there was no hiding place in the cell of which the officials were not well aware. Indeed they had a list, a warder had once told him; there were 211 ways of concealing an object in a cell; and he cursed the thought.

  But what he had to find now was a hiding place that would serve for an hour and a half. The inspection by the doctor would not last longer, and that’s all the time Nets would have to search his cell.

  In the back of the hymn book? No, that was a bad place. In the mattress? That would do, but he did not have enough time to slit it and sew it up again in the half-hour before his examination. Besides, he would first have to get the proper thread from the saddler’s room.

  What a pity he had emptied his bucket; it wouldn’t have damaged the note to slip it into the muck at the bottom for an hour and a half, but unfortunately the bucket was empty.

  Should he stick it to the underside of the table with bits of bread?

  He began to roll the pellets of bread, and then he stopped; the trick was too well known, and one glance under the table was enough.

  Kufalt was growing nervous. A bell was ringing for the end of the last recreation period; in a quarter of an hour he would have to go before the doctor. Should he take the note with him? He could roll it up very tight and push it up his behind. But perhaps the nets instructor might tip off the head screw in the infirmary, and they would search him properly—they might very well examine him for cancer of the rectum!

  He was at a loss. This was what would happen when he got outside. There were so many possibilities, and a ‘but’ to all of them. A man must make up his mind, but that was just what he could not do. How should he? In these five years he had been deprived of all power of decision. They had said, ‘Eat,’ and he had eaten. They had said, ‘Go out,’ and he had gone; and ‘Write,’ and he had written his letter.

  The ventilator was not a bad place. But too well known, much too well known. There was a crack in the planking of his bed—but a single look would catch the glint of paper. He could stand the stool on the table and put the note on the electric light shade, but that was a common trick; besides, anyone might see him through the peephole in the door when he got onto the table.

  He turned quickly round and looked at the peephole. Ah! There was a goggle eye, a fishy eye that he knew well.

  In a fury of feigned rage he leapt at the door and hammered on it, shouting: ‘Get away from the peephole, damn you!’

  A sudden crash, the door flew open, and there stood the chief warder, Rusch.

  Now for a bit of acting, for Rusch liked none but his own jokes. You had to be humble to the chief warder, and Kufalt played his part to perfection as he stammered: ‘I beg your pardon, sir, I do beg your pardon, I thought it was that rat of an orderly who’s always sneaking after my tobacco.’

  ‘Eh? What’s that? Don’t make a racket. You’ll have all the paint off the door.’

  ‘There’s never a speck of what there shouldn’t be in my cell, you know that, sir,’ said Kufalt in an ingratiating tone; ‘not a scratch in the varnish.’

  The chief warder—a rather stubbly Napoleon, the real ruler of the prison, curt, always springing something unexpected, embittered enemy of every reform, of the grading of prisoners, of the governor, of the officials, and of every prisoner—made no reply but marched up to the little cupboard on which hung a list of personal effects and special privileges.

  ‘How about the birds?’ he asked.

  ‘Birds?’ said Kufalt, with a bewildered grin.

  ‘Birds! Birds!’ snarled the despot, and tapped the list. ‘There are two canaries down here. Where are they? Swapped already, eh?’

  ‘But, sir,’ said Kufalt reproachfully, thinking anxiously of the hundred-mark note still hidden in his scarf. ‘They died when the central heating went wrong this winter. I told you about it.’

  ‘That’s a lie, a damn lie. Maass the shoemaker has two too many. They’re yours. You swapped ’em.’

  ‘But, sir, I told you they were dead. I went to the glass cubicle and reported it.’

  The chief warder stood beneath the window. His back was turned to the prisoner, who could see only his fat white hands fumbling with the keys.

  ‘If he would only go!’ prayed Kufalt inwardly. ‘At any moment I’ll have to go to the doctor, and with the note in my scarf. I shall get rumbled, and hauled up.’

  ‘Category three,’ growled the chief. ‘Always category three. All the trouble in the place . . . About your money . . . ’

  ‘Yes?’ said Kufalt, as the other paused.

  ‘Welfare Office. You can draw five marks a week.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ implored Kufalt, ‘you won’t do that, sir, I’ve always kept my cell so tidy.’

  ‘What’s that? Oh, won’t I? Tidy, eh? What about those birds? Hahaha!’

  ‘Haha!’ laughed Kufalt obsequiously.

  ‘What’s up with the nets instructor and the new nets orderly?’ asked the chief, with a sudden change of tone.

  ‘New orderly?’ asked Kufalt. ‘Is there a new one? I’ve never seen him.’

  ‘Liar! You can’t fool me. You were with them in the cell for ten minutes.’

  ‘I was not, sir, I was only out of my cell for recreation today.’

  The chief warder passed a finger meditatively over the top of the cupboard. He examined his finger with an air of satisfaction, and then sniffed it. No; not a speck of dust. He walked briskly to the door. ‘So you’ll draw your money through the Welfare Office.’

  Kufalt reflected feverishly: ‘If I say nothing now, he’ll go, and I can hide the hundred, but I’ll be tied to the welfare people. If I squeal, I’ll lose the hundred, but I’ll get my pay in cash. Though not for certain.’

  ‘Sir . . . ’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘I was in the cell with them . . . ’

  The other waited. Then—‘Well?’

  ‘He gets letters for the fat Jew. You have him searched and see.’

  ‘Only letters?’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t do it for love.’

  ‘Do you know anything?’

  ‘Have him searched, sir. This very day—you’ll find something.’

  The door opened: ‘Kufalt for the doctor.’

  Kufalt looked at the chief warder.

  ‘Get along,’ said the other indulgently. ‘Al
l birds die in this place.’

  ‘Well, I’ve stitched up that bastard of an instructor,’ thought Kufalt as he shuffled downstairs. ‘He won’t have time to go through my cell now, though it wouldn’t matter, God knows! The note’s still on me, damn!’

  VI

  The warder stood by the balustrade and watched Kufalt depart. ‘Get a move on, Kufalt. Acts as if he doesn’t know all about it. You’ve been to the doctor often enough.’

  ‘That isn’t true,’ thought Kufalt. ‘Since he reported me for shamming, when I sprained my thumb and couldn’t weave, I haven’t been near him more than three times. And I wasn’t kidding, my thumb really was sprained.’

  No, it looked bad for shifting the note. All the corridors were crowded with men reporting to the governor, the police inspector, the work inspector, the doctor, the chaplain and the schoolmaster—on all the landings bolts were rattling, keys clicking, officials running about with lists and prisoners slouching along in their blue dungarees.

  ‘I’m always messing up. And when I do get a bit feisty and try to pull off anything, I muck it up. I’ll never make a real crook . . . ’

  Below he was greeted by Senior Warder Petrow, an East Prussian, who had been a warder before the war and was very popular with all the prisoners.

  ‘Well, Kufalt, old man, time’s up, eh? You see it’s gone like lightning. Did the chief give you solitary? You could have done the last bit on your head! How long? Five years? Time passes like an express train, mate; and won’t the girls be pleased with what you’ve saved up for them!’

  Fat Petrow snorted amiably, and the prisoners grinned agreement.

  ‘Well, fall in, Kufalt. No, not beside Batzke, he talks, and the old man’s always peering out of his glass cubicle. Here—and three paces apart. Now then, you with the specs, you’re a new hand, aren’t you? Think you’re walking to Hamburg, eh? Stop here, my boy, put in a little time with us . . . Don’t go any further.’

  The thirty prisoners already waiting for the doctor’s inspection were joined by more and more from all landings. Kufalt noticed the little carpenter, Emil Bruhn, and waved to him from where he stood.