Once a Jailbird

by Hans Fallada

  ‘Of course I’m drunk. Only I can’t get drunk like you young blokes now. I’m free when I drink. You’re slaves when you drink. I can do anything when I drink. You can do nothing. Guys, I’ve got a great idea. One of you—you with the brown hair, you look pretty innocent, go and tell Teddy that you’ve got to go out again, and fetch a bottle of schnapps.’

  ‘Oh, bollocks,’ said Beerboom. ‘He won’t let us out of the house after eight. And where’s the money coming from?’

  ‘Money? Money! You guys are just out of jail, you’ve got some money. You earn money. I—look at my hands, I can’t hold anything, they shake so.’

  ‘Are you proud of it, you old soak?’

  ‘No,’ sobbed Berthold. ‘It’s torture. And now I’ll do something to please Teddy. I’ll go back to the Blue Cross. I’ll take the pledge. And I’ll keep it too. A man must be able to do what he wants to do. And if I don’t keep it, I’ll only begin to drink very, very gradually . . . ’

  ‘Tell us,’ asked Beerboom; ‘were you ever in prison?’

  Berthold grinned again. ‘No, my boy, I wasn’t. I’m just a drunkard and work-shy.’

  ‘Then what are you doing here?’ roared Beerboom. ‘This place is for discharged prisoners. You won’t work, but you want to eat. Do you expect us to work for you?’

  ‘Now don’t start a row,’ wailed the drunkard. ‘I can’t stand a row. I’m so glad to be back with old man Teddy. Look, I’ve got a great idea. Wait, I’ve got something in my pocket.’ He fumbled and produced a wedge of paper. ‘Prescriptions. Prescription forms. I pinched them from a doctor today.’

  ‘How did you get to a doctor?’

  ‘I just went along in his consulting hours; you can, you know. And when I got into his room I asked him for the loan of five marks. He said it was impertinence and told me to get out. I said I wouldn’t go till I got the five marks. He ran around like a headless chicken, and I just sat calmly. At last he went to fetch some people to sling me out and I pinched the prescriptions and slipped out quietly.’

  ‘Well? And what are you going to do with them?’

  ‘Ah, that’s the big idea. We’ll fill them in with morphine and cocaine and nice things like that, and then sell the stuff at nightclubs.’

  ‘That’s not bad. Do you know how to write them out?’

  ‘I used to know a medical student; that’s how I found out. It’s a good scam.’

  ‘So that’s how you get your money, you drunken pig. Well wait, if I . . . ’

  A cowbell clanged.

  ‘Supper! Are you coming along?’

  ‘Let me stay here, kids. When I think of what I’d have to eat, my belly turns over; it feels as though it’s made of glass.’

  ‘All right, stay where you are. But if you touch our things, you dirty old swine, you . . . !’

  ‘As if! What should I want with them? I haven’t needed anything for a very long time.’

  IV

  Next morning at half past eight Kufalt was sitting in the typing room. He was still idle; the others were at work. Quite a number had arrived—ten, twelve men—and sat down at their tables. They were all hard at it, some writing, and some typing, nothing but addresses. Even the pallid Beerboom was sitting at a table beside Kufalt and writing busily.

  ‘Four marks fifty a thousand,’ he whispered. ‘I mean to do at least fifteen hundred today. Board and lodging two marks fifty, I shall have five marks over. Not bad, eh?’

  ‘But can you do fifteen hundred?’

  ‘Of course I can. Yesterday I did nearly five hundred, and I’m in better practice today.’

  Father Seidenzopf then appeared in his alpaca jacket, followed by a man with a smooth egg-like cranium and a grey pointed beard. Seidenzopf walked up one gangway and down the other, said good morning twice, and disappeared, with Egg-head silent behind him.

  Kufalt sat and looked into the garden. It was beautifully green, and the grass looked so fresh.

  ‘Does it belong to us?’ he asked Beerboom.

  ‘It does, but we can’t use it. It’s just there for show, when visitors come . . . ’

  Kufalt grinned knowingly.

  A tall man said in a low voice: ‘When the addresses are finished, there’ll be no more work again.’

  ‘How many are there left?’

  ‘Thirty thousand.’

  ‘Enough for two days at most. Then there’ll be nothing to do.’

  ‘There’ll be new work in before that.’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  Egg-head appeared again with an envelope in his hand. ‘Herr Kufalt, write your address on this. Just your address: Herr Willi Kufalt, Hamburg, Apfelstrasse, Home of Peace. Can’t you do better than that? Well, we’ll see.’

  He disappeared with the envelope and Kufalt again looked out into the garden.

  Someone asked: ‘What will you do if there’s no more work here?’

  ‘I don’t know, apply to Welfare, I suppose.’

  ‘I might get a job selling vacuum cleaners.’

  ‘You can ditch that one right away, vacuum cleaners are worse than margarine.’

  Another voice: ‘There might be something doing with floor polish, or garden sprays.’

  ‘Might have been once. All wiped up long ago.’

  Again Egg-head appeared, with an air of huge astonishment. ‘Did I hear talking? I must really insist—’

  ‘No one was talking, Herr Mergenthal.’

  ‘I must insist on silence. You all know the consequences of breaking the Typing Room Regulations. If any of you gentlemen prefers the street?’ Pens scratched and typewriters rattled. ‘Herr Kufalt, Herr Seidenzopf wishes me to tell you that you ought to have been a doctor.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Your handwriting, it’s quite hopeless. Have you ever in your life been in an office? Indeed? It must have been a funny sort of office. But you can use a typewriter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you say. But that’s no reason for me to believe it.’

  ‘Of course I can type. And very well too.’

  ‘Ten-finger system?’

  More doubtfully: ‘Not quite. But six for certain.’

  ‘Just as I thought. When it comes to it you will take two fingers and be lucky if you hit the right key. But first you must put one of these typewriters in order. Take it to pieces and clean it and oil it. Can you do that?’

  ‘Depends on the make.’

  ‘It’s a Mercedes. Right, get on with it.’

  ‘I’ll need benzine, and oil, and rags.’

  ‘Go to Herr Seidenzopf, he’ll give you a penny for benzine. And Minna has rags and sewing-machine oil.’

  Half an hour later Kufalt was seated in front of a tin pie-dish, in which all the typewriter levers lay soaking in benzine, his hands coated with violet ink from the ribbon and black grease from the oil.

  He was just beginning to brush the levers clean when Minna appeared at the door: ‘The new man is to come and wax the floors.’

  ‘No really!’ protested Mergenthal. ‘He’s just on a job he can’t leave. Herr Beerboom can go.’

  ‘Frau Seidenzopf says the new man is to do it. Beerboom doesn’t do it properly. And if he doesn’t come, I’ll tell her you won’t let him.’

  ‘All right, go and polish the floors,’ said Mergenthal. ‘Wipe your hands on the rags. You won’t be long.’

  It took him an hour and a half. Kufalt had to wax all the bedrooms, the hall, and the stairs, under the strict supervision of the maid, Sister Minna.

  ‘Why aren’t you doing this?’ demanded Kufalt.

  ‘Clean your dirty floors? I only work for the Seidenzopfs.’

  When he had finished, Frau Seidenzopf appeared, a slovenly figure in a nightgown, whom Kufalt greeted by saying: ‘Good morning, my lady, I hope you slept well.’

  As Frau Seidenzopf had no sense of irony, she answered almost graciously: ‘Not bad for a beginning. But the man must do the corners better, Minna.’

  Afterw
ards Kufalt sat down to his typewriter levers once more and brushed the joints clean of dirt. He had almost finished this job when Mergenthal, who seemed to oscillate between the manager’s office and the typing room, suddenly appeared and shouted: ‘Herr Kufalt and Herr Beerboom to see Herr Seidenzopf.’

  The Father of them all was seated in his alpaca jacket at a large desk. ‘Well, my young friends, we have started work, and I hope it may be a blessing to you. How much money have you, Kufalt?’

  ‘You know quite well. Three marks,’ answered Kufalt sullenly, for this was a very sore point.

  ‘Show me your purse a minute. Yes, quite correct. Honesty in money matters means a clear conscience. And you, Beerboom? Show me, don’t explain. Empty? Where are your three marks?’

  ‘They dropped down the toilet early this morning.’

  ‘Beerboom! Herr Beerboom! Son Beerboom, am I to believe that?’

  ‘I don’t eat money,’ said Beerboom. ‘And as I never go out of this hole, what should I do with the money? Do you think I gave it to Minna?’

  ‘No; to Berthold.’

  For one instant Beerboom was at a loss: ‘Berthold? Berthold? Oh, that old fraud? I don’t give away my little bit of money to boozers. It fell down the toilet, I tell you. I tried to reach it, you can see for yourself, my arm’s all scratched to the elbow by shoving it down the pipe.’

  He began to pull up his sleeve.

  ‘That will do,’ said Seidenzopf angrily. ‘I’m no fool. You won’t get money from me again in a hurry. Well, Kufalt and Beerboom, I am going to send you both out into the city alone . . . ’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It will be your first excursion into freedom . . . ’

  The door opened and a fair young man appeared.

  ‘Ah, excuse me, Herr Seidenzopf, I am disturbing you . . . ’

  ‘No, on the contrary, Herr Petersen, may I introduce you to our two new guests? This is Herr Beerboom, who has been with us since the day before yesterday, and this is Herr Kufalt, who has been our guest since yesterday. Berthold has been here again; I let him in, and again he deceived me. Early this morning, I was waiting for him to turn up to try and borrow a bit of money as usual, and at the moment when I was just—when I had to—in short when I was forced to relieve a natural need—he seized the opportunity and bolted. And, I am afraid, with our young friend Beerboom’s money.’

  ‘Do you mean he stole it?’

  ‘My money fell down the toilet.’

  ‘That will do. My friends, this young gentleman, Petersen by name, is your friend and brother, your protector and adviser. He is’—Seidenzopf got into his stride, as though he were repeating something carefully learnt by heart—‘he is a young man of wide social interests, strong convictions and high character, whom you are to receive among you; he will live in common with you, take his meals with you, and act as your friend and adviser in every respect. The evenings and free Sundays he will spend in your company; he will try to inspire you with a sense of good fellowship and, so far as you will allow him, help you to improve your mind. He has passed his qualifying examinations as a teacher in an elementary school and is now in his fourth term as a student of economics, for which he has ample time in addition to his activities in our Home. Shake hands with him, gentlemen.’

  They shook hands.

  ‘Herr Petersen, it is my intention to send these two men into the city alone. Do you see any objections?’

  ‘May I ask why they are going?’

  ‘They are to report at the appropriate police station.’

  Petersen smiled: ‘No, Herr Seidenzopf, I see no objections.’

  ‘And you don’t think Herr Pastor Marcetus will have anything to say about it? That I am too trusting?’

  ‘No, certainly not. You may safely let the men go out alone. They will not betray your confidence.’

  V

  ‘Do you know,’ said Beerboom to Kufalt in the street, ‘Petersen, or whatever he calls himself, is just a spy put on to watch us. He can go and get lost, the dirty nark.’

  ‘I rather liked him, there was a nice twinkle in his eye while Father Seidenzopf was saying his piece.’

  ‘Oh, Woolly Teddy can go and clear off too. He didn’t believe me about the money.’

  ‘Did you really lose it, then?’

  ‘Of course not. I gave it to Berthold. Do you think I’ll get it back?’

  ‘But what did you give it him for?’

  ‘As working capital. He’ll buy morphine with it, and we’ll share the profit.’

  ‘You’ll have a long time to wait for profits.’

  ‘I must have money, Kufalt, I must have money in my pocket. Could you lend me a mark?’

  ‘What do you want money for now?’

  ‘Just for that. I need to have money in my pocket. We might drink a glass of beer out of it, I’ll stand you one.’

  ‘But you must have a pot of money with Seidenzopf. After eleven years in the clink.’

  ‘Yes, a good bit, ninety marks.’

  ‘What! Only ninety marks for eleven years in the clink!’

  ‘It was the inflation to begin with, we only got the value of thirty marks for all those years. And then later on I lost interest, I always thought there’d be an amnesty, and then there wasn’t, and I cared even less.’

  ‘Ninety marks are soon gone.’

  ‘Ninety marks is a good round sum. I wish I had it, I’d go on the loose. Have you any idea what the girls want here? Not for a whole night, but for a quick one.’

  ‘No idea.’

  They walked on. There was a pleasant breeze, and the green of the trees was deliciously fresh. Then they turned down a side street, strolled along the road and looked at the long, lively thoroughfare stretching into the distance. Right in front of them was a petrol station painted scarlet.

  ‘That girl looked at me.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t she? You look quite nice.’

  ‘Think so? Do you reckon I’d be popular with the girls? I’m dark really, and people always say that women like dark men. It’s only my complexion; do you think I should ask Woolly Teddy for money for some artificial sunlight treatment? They told me in prison that I could alter my complexion that way.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that. You’re living quite a different life to what you did in prison, your complexion will alter naturally.’

  ‘That looks like a nice café, Kufalt. There’s sure to be waitresses. Lend me two marks, we’ll go in. My treat.’

  ‘Let’s go and report first,’ said Kufalt, feeling very sensible and grandfatherly. ‘Two marks won’t go very far among the girls in a café like that.’

  ‘But perhaps one of them will fall for us, and we shan’t have to pay anything.’

  ‘God forbid!’

  ‘Have you got a girl already? Take me with you when you go to see her?’

  ‘I haven’t got one.’

  ‘Then why don’t you want one of them to fall for you?’

  ‘Not from a café like that. I think of something quite different.’

  ‘Think! You can think what you like. I want a girl: and as quick as possible.’

  In the police station two policemen stood at two high desks and looked at each other. One of them suggested a slightly ruffled bird, with his pointed bristly beard, hooked nose and glittering eyes; the other was small and pale.

  ‘Well,’ said the pale man, ‘I’ve got an allotment by the Horn race-course. That’s half my life. Gardening’s my hobby.’

  ‘Gardening!’ said the ruffled bird with disapproval; ‘I never heard such rubbish! You aren’t a gardener. That’s a load of rubbish. And if you did manage to grow a turnip or two, the greengrocer would throw ’em in your face.’

  ‘I don’t do it for money,’ said the pale man. ‘I do it for pleasure, you know.’

  ‘Eyewash,’ said the bird; ‘just eyewash. Look, I play skat. I do nothing but play skat. Every evening I bring two or three marks home. I know all about s
kat; I don’t mess about with it. No eyewash there.’

  ‘Ah well, if you’ve got a gift for it,’ agreed the pale man.

  ‘And when there’s a skat drive for a carp or a sausage or a goose, I’m onto it; I go somewhere different every day. Last winter I won six geese. When the landlords catch sight of me, the beer turns sour on ’em. “You get out,” they say; “you just take the money out of our customers’ pockets.” “What is this place?” I ask. “Is it a public house or not? Can a police officer get his glass of beer here? Is this a public skat drive, or only for regular customers?” Then they dry up, but they don’t half look at me, I tell you . . . And what may you want?’ he snapped savagely at Beerboom, who had drawn attention to his presence by repeated coughs.

  ‘Excuse me, Sergeant,’ said Beerboom. ‘We just came in to report.’

  ‘Don’t you see the notice? Can’t you read what it says: you have to fill in the forms first.’

  ‘That doesn’t apply to us,’ said Beerboom, with a grin at Kufalt, for he was proud of his way of dealing with subordinate officials. ‘The notice doesn’t apply to us, Inspector. We aren’t like the others.’

  ‘Ah,’ intervened the pale man; ‘they must be two more from the . . . ’ He jerked his head round the corner. ‘You know . . . ’

  ‘Well, hand over your papers and let’s have a look . . . ’

  ‘But is that the regulation, Mr Secretary sir? Is that the practice here in Hamburg? I never knew that.’

  ‘What didn’t you know? What’s all this about regulation and practice?’ The bird grew more and more furious, his voice rising to a shriek.

  ‘That people like us, from the . . . ’—Beerboom mimicked the pale man’s jerk of the head—‘may be addressed in this way? I will ask the Station Superintendent about it. I will just go and see him, in his office.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Then: ‘Please let me see your discharge sheet.’

  ‘Certainly, Mr Secretary sir,’ replied Beerboom, in high good humour. ‘I don’t want to stand around here. I don’t care for the place. Nor do you, eh? You too prefer skat?’

  ‘I have no time for private conversations.’

  ‘No, certainly not. I just happened to hear you say so.’