Once a Jailbird

by Hans Fallada

  ‘Yes, Chief Warder,’ came a voice from the store, and Bastel, the orderly, appeared with a large sack in which prisoner Kufalt’s things were neatly arranged on a hanger.

  ‘Wait a bit,’ said Bastel to Kufalt. ‘I’d rather take your stuff out myself. You’d only crumple it.’

  It was the dark blue suit with the white needle stripe, and Kufalt’s heart rejoiced, for he had only worn it five or six times at the most.

  ‘A nice suit,’ said the storeman. ‘What did you give for it?’

  ‘A hundred and seventy-six,’ said Kufalt, at random.

  ‘Much too much,’ said the storeman. ‘Worth ninety at most.’

  ‘But it was almost six years ago,’ Kufalt pointed out.

  ‘You’re right, suits were dear at that time. It wouldn’t be more than sixty-seventy marks today. You can get some for twelve or fifteen.’

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Kufalt, in obsequious surprise.

  ‘You must keep on your underclothes. Your day shirt isn’t back from the laundress, anyway—we must see about that this evening, Bastel. Yes, you’ll be a treat for the girls when we’ve done with you.’

  The storeman was indeed well known for keeping everything in tip-top order; it was his pride that not a thread was ever missing. His assistants had a hard job.

  ‘Very nice. You look a different man, Kufalt. Bastel, come and look at Kufalt for a moment . . . ’ He broke off angrily. ‘What’s Batzke doing here? Herr Steinitz, I won’t have that bloke down here unless it’s absolutely necessary. He does nothing but make trouble. I know you’ve come to kick up a fuss, Batzke.’

  ‘I haven’t opened my mouth yet,’ said Batzke, looking round for Bastel. He paid no attention to Kufalt.

  ‘Governor’s order,’ said Warder Steinitz. ‘Batzke may try on his things to see if they fit.’

  ‘This isn’t a dressing room. The whole prison will start trying on next. The governor should know better. Well, you clear out anyway, Kufalt. Your shoes? Oh your shoes’ll fit all right.’ Then in a milder tone: ‘Very well, try them on if you like. Bastel, Batzke’s things: number twenty-four nineteen!’

  Bastel appeared with another sack and Batzke whispered hurriedly to him; he nodded and then shook his head. From the cap that Batzke held in his hand suddenly emerged, one after the other, four packets of tobacco which vanished in Bastel’s hands.

  Bastel drew back; the two officers stood talking by the window.

  Kufalt struggled with his shoes. He just could not get them on, probably because of his thick woollen socks. And his own socks were still at the wash. But surely his shoes had not been as tight as this? Could a man’s feet grow when he was nearly thirty?

  Suddenly Batzke was heard to exclaim loudly: ‘Here’s a moth hole!’

  The storeman took three steps; then he stopped. ‘Ah, Batzke, of course. He’s started his games already. A moth hole, indeed! Seventeen years I’ve been storeman of this prison, and never had a moth hole yet.’

  He went back to the window.

  ‘And here’s another moth hole. And under the lapel here the stuff ‘s all eaten away.’

  ‘Let me see it—you’re crazy . . . There’s never been a moth . . . ’

  ‘Well, there are moths in my clothes,’ Batzke persisted, calmly eyeing the infuriated storeman.

  The latter grabbed the jacket and held it to the light. ‘It’s impossible . . . oh bloody hell . . . Bastel, you bloody idiot, why didn’t you tell me there were moths in Batzke’s clothes?’

  Bastel acted stupid: ‘Didn’t like to, sir.’

  ‘And why didn’t the tailors say anything?’

  ‘Didn’t like to either, sir.’

  ‘And why didn’t you get it mended?’

  ‘I thought I’d get into trouble.’

  ‘There are moth holes in the trousers too,’ Batzke went on, unmoved.

  ‘God damn it! I tell you, I’ve never had moths . . . But you shan’t get away with it, Batzke . . . ’

  An idea flashed across his mind: ‘They were there when you came in. You brought them with you, Batzke.’

  ‘Then it’ll be in the inventory. And I must have signed it, sir.’

  ‘And I’ll bet you did sign it. Just you wait.’ The storeman snatched a bundle of documents out of a pigeonhole. ‘How long have you been in? When were you admitted?’

  ‘How should I know, sir?’ said Batzke genially. ‘I always seem to be in and out. But it’s all down in your books.’

  The storeman had already found the entry, and was reading it with a frown. He read it again. And a third time. Then he said with ominous calm: ‘Very well, I’ll have it invisibly mended, Batzke.’

  ‘But I brought a perfectly good suit in with me, sir; I want one to take out with me. A mended one’s no use.’

  ‘But no one will notice if it’s properly mended. The places will be stronger than they were before.’

  ‘I don’t want any stronger places, I want an undamaged suit.’

  ‘But where do you suppose I’m to get you one, Batzke? Be sensible. The tailors couldn’t finish one before Sunday.’

  ‘Then let’s go out into town, sir, and buy one. I don’t mind a ready-made suit.’

  ‘And the money? Do you really expect me to go to the chaplain and beg some out of the Prisoners’ Welfare Fund? Hello, you still there, Kufalt? Hop it now, will you!’

  ‘It’s my shoes, sir.’

  ‘Well, what’s up with your shoes, hey? Got the moth in them, I suppose? Well, Herr Steinitz, let Kufalt pass. That’s how my fine gentleman came, all on his own.’

  ‘But my shoes—I can’t . . . ’

  ‘Nor can I . . . God in heaven, Steinitz, take the man away. Now listen to me, Batzke . . . ’

  Kufalt was in the corridor. Warder Steinitz let him through into the prison. ‘Go straight back to your cell, Kufalt. No, you’d better report first to the chief warder in the glass cubicle that you’ve come back.’

  VI

  When Kufalt reached the glass cubicle to make his report, he found it empty. No chief warder to be seen. Kufalt looked up and surveyed the building. There were, of course, orderlies in the corridor, scrubbing and waxing and polishing the linoleum, and warders here and there, but no one was looking in his direction.

  Kufalt peered into the glass cubicle. The sliding door was half open. The post must have just come: a whole pile of letters lay on the table, and on top of it a longish yellowish envelope with a white registration receipt.

  He looked round. No one seemed to be noticing him. Then he read what he expected to find: ‘Herr Willi Kufalt. Central Prison.’

  The long-awaited letter from his brother-in-law, Werner Pause; the letter that contained money, or the offer of work.

  A quick sleight of hand, and the letter and the registration slip were in his pocket. Slowly Kufalt mounted the steps to his cell.

  He stood at his table under the window, his back carefully turned towards the peephole in the door, so that no one could see his hands.

  He fingered the envelope. Yes, there was something inside it, an enclosure. They had sent him some money! It did not seem to be a very lengthy letter, but there was a thickish enclosure inside.

  So Werner had come to his rescue. In his heart of hearts he would never have believed it. However Werner was a decent sort, all things considered. He had been pretty savage when it happened, but that was natural enough.

  Life in the world—how good it was going to be! He would have all he needed, though of course he would be very, very economical. But he could go into a café, perhaps even into a bar . . .

  They could not send less than a thousand marks, to give him any sort of start. And in five or six weeks he might ask for a larger sum, three or four thousand, to set himself up in a nice little business, a tobacconist’s perhaps . . .

  No. No.

  The enclosure was not money, it was a key, a flat key, the key of a trunk. Pity . . . And the letter:

  HERR WILLI KUFALT.

 
; At CENTRAL PRISON, CELL 365.

  By the instructions of Herr Werner Pause, we have the honour to inform you that he has received your letter of the 3.4., together with your previous letters. Herr Pause regrets to state that there is at present no position vacant for you in his office, and furthermore that if one were vacant, he would feel bound from the social point of view to give it to one of the numerous unemployed who have not been in prison, many of whom are in the deepest distress. As regards the financial assistance for which you have asked, Herr Pause regrets that he must refuse this request also. According to information before us you should have earned, during your term of imprisonment, a not inconsiderable sum in wages for work done, which should serve to keep you during the period im mediately subsequent to your release. Herr Pause desires to draw your particular attention to the numerous welfare organizations which exist to deal with such cases as yours, and will certainly be glad to do something for you.

  Herr Pause expressly requests that you will address no further communications to himself, or his wife, your sister, or her mother. The distress of the past has only been partially and with difficulty overcome, and any action on your part that might revive it would lead to even more definite estrangement. Herr Pause has, however, had despatched to you by passenger train a portion of your personal effects; you will receive the remainder when you have led a respectable life for at least a year. The key of the trunk is enclosed with this letter.

  We beg to remain,

  Your obedient servants,

  PAUSE AND WAHRHOLZ

  pp. REINHOLD STEKENS.

  The May day was still bright and radiant, and the cell was full of light. Outside, it was recreation period; he could hear the shuffle of many feet.

  ‘Five paces apart! Keep your distance!’ shouted a warder. ‘And keep your mouths shut, or I’ll report you.’

  Kufalt sat with his letter in his hand, staring at nothing.

  VII

  Kufalt remembered very well what had happened when Tilburg had been released three or four years ago. Tilburg had been quite an ordinary prisoner who kept his head down. His crime had not been anything very bad and he had served a normal stretch of two or three years. What he had experienced and thought during that time, no one of course could know. No one in the jail could know, not even the man himself.

  The day came when Tilburg was released. He did not do what most prisoners do, he did not get drunk or go with women the first night, he did not look for a room, or for work; Tilburg just went to Hamburg and bought himself a revolver.

  Then he came back, surveyed the jail from outside, and walked along one of the streets leading out of the town.

  When he had gone some distance and reached the open country, he met a man. Some casual passer-by whom Tilburg had never seen before.

  Tilburg drew his revolver and fired at the man. He hit him in the shoulder and broke the shoulder blade, and the man fell. Tilburg went on.

  Then he met another man and fired at him too, and this time he hit him in the stomach.

  Half an hour later Tilburg saw some policemen on bicycles. He dashed off the road across fields and into a farmyard. He fired a few shots, and shouted that all in the house were to stay where they were. Then he held the yard against the policemen. He had the chance of being what he had perhaps come to regard himself as during those last years: a savage beast. The only explanation that he gave at his trial later on was: ‘I just loathed everybody.’

  He shot three policemen until they shot him down. But he was patched up again for the trial, and for another sentence: a long one this time, of which he was never likely to see the end.

  ‘It’s quite easy to understand Tilburg,’ said Kufalt to himself, over his letter in the cell.

  And then: ‘I’m an idiot. I could perfectly well have left this letter in the glass cubicle. What shall I do if it’s missed?’

  VIII

  ‘You’re wanted for final interviews, Kufalt,’ a warder called into the cell.

  ‘Right,’ said Kufalt, and got up slowly.

  ‘Get a move on, man, there are twenty more to come.’

  ‘Busy man, aren’t you?’ said Kufalt.

  ‘Hurry along down to the Central Hall. I’ll just . . . ’

  Once more Kufalt passed the glass cubicle. Chief Warder Rusch looked up and gawped at him through his spectacles. His lips moved, but he did not utter Kufalt’s name.

  ‘I’ll be for it this time. The trunk will turn up, and no key. I’ve got the key in my pocket, but I oughtn’t to have it. And I oughtn’t even to know that there’s one on the way. What a fool I am. The new life’s starting well. How nice and quiet it was in my cell, with a pile of netting on the table.’

  ‘Oh boy, oh boy,’ whispered Batzke to him in the Central Hall. ‘Did you see the storeman? He really exploded over those moth holes, didn’t he?’

  ‘Are you getting a new suit?’

  ‘Well, what do you think? I’m going with him into town this afternoon to buy one. Welfare’s paying. And my old one’s to be invisibly mended, so I’ll have that too.’

  ‘What made him so soft?’

  ‘It was so I shouldn’t split about the moth holes. They’d have been livid up there if they’d heard there were moths in the clothing store. They’d give him hell, the commie bastard.’ Batzke grinned. ‘And he can’t find any moths.’

  ‘Can’t he then?’

  ‘You didn’t believe it was moths, did you? You’re pretty green. Moths out of a bottle, they were.’

  ‘Out of a bottle?’

  ‘Didn’t you see when I gave Bastel the tobacco? We fixed the job together. I thought it out. The trousers were nearly through, and I wanted to come out in decent togs. So Bastel sprinkled a few drops of acid on the suit, and jagged the edges of the holes a bit with a knife, and rubbed a bit of cobweb into them, and they looked the real thing—take anyone in.’

  ‘But the storeman . . . ’

  ‘Oh, him! He’s a fathead. He goes over the top when anything goes wrong. I’d reckoned on all that. I couldn’t have conned Rusch, he’d have got a magnifying glass and nosed it all out in the end, and I’d have been for the clink again. But the storeman . . . ’

  ‘If the category three gentlemen have quite finished their conversation, I suppose we might go along to the cashier, shall we?’ said the warder.

  IX

  ‘Where do you want to be discharged to, Kufalt?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘Hamburg.’

  ‘Have you work there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘To whom are you going?’

  ‘I don’t yet know.’

  ‘Enter him as “on the road”, then,’ said the inspector to the clerk.

  ‘I’m not going on the road. I’m going to take a room.’

  ‘Perhaps you will let us manage our own business in our own way.’

  ‘But it’s not right. I’m not going on the road. I’m not a tramp . . . ’

  ‘Off on a little holiday, I suppose. Listen, Ellmers, Kufalt’s going on a holiday. No doubt his car will be waiting for him at the gate at seven o’clock tomorrow.’

  Kufalt glared suspiciously across the counter: ‘You aren’t going to date my registration card from the prison?’

  ‘Listen to the man! I suppose you want it dated from the Four Seasons Hotel, eh?’

  ‘I won’t accept a registration card with the prison address. It says in the Prison Regulations that the card should not reveal the fact that the bearer has been released from prison.’

  ‘We shall act in accordance with our instructions.’

  ‘But here it is: “Central Prison”. I won’t accept it. How am I to show that to a landlady? I must have another.’

  ‘This is the only one you’ll get. We’ve had just about enough of your lip, Kufalt.’

  ‘But it says in the Prison Regulations . . . ’

  ‘Yes, you’ve told me that before. Hold your tongue or I’ll have you removed.’

  ‘I demand
to see the governor!’

  ‘Hold your tongue! Besides the governor’s away.’

  ‘That’s not true. I was with him only an hour ago.’

  ‘And half an hour ago he went away. If you aren’t quiet . . . ’

  ‘Batzke, Bruhn, Lehnau—are you going to stand for this? You know it says in the blue book in the cells . . . ’

  Kufalt’s fury rose.

  The inspector came round the counter: ‘Kufalt, I warn you! I warn you! Your behaviour just now, Kufalt, was mutiny. Tomorrow morning, when your term’s up, I’ll have you detained on a charge of inciting a riot.’

  ‘You? You! Only an investigating magistrate can do that, you can’t. Tell that yarn to the new hands, not to me, Inspector.’

  ‘Well, Ellmers, what do you think of the lads due for discharge?’

  ‘Am I going to get a registration card according to the Prison Regulations?’

  ‘You will get the usual card issued here.’

  ‘Does it say that I’ve come out of prison?’

  ‘Of course. Where else do you come from?’

  ‘Then I demand to be brought before the deputy governor.’

  ‘Warder, take this man to the police inspector. Now for you, Batzke. I suppose you won’t insist on your registration card being dated from the nearest hotel?’

  ‘If my money’s all right, sir, you can put me down as a matricide for all I care.’

  ‘There you are, Kufalt,’ said the inspector triumphantly.

  X

  The police inspector was a mild, white-haired gentleman, a fat man, a soft man, a silent man, a man who might almost be overlooked, so soft he was, so silent and so quiet. And yet he was perhaps the most detested official in the place. The prisoners called him Judas.

  Kufalt could not forget that the inspector had visited him in his cell during the first month of his sentence; he was sympathetic and kind, and before he went he had said: ‘And if you have any request to make, Kufalt, you must let me know personally. I visit your cell every month.’

  Kufalt had requests to make, and waited for the inspector. Now it is the rule that prisoners may only make requests once a month, on a certain day and at a certain hour, and if that hour is missed, they must wait another month.