Once a Jailbird

by Hans Fallada

  Kufalt looked at him, but said nothing. ‘No,’ said Beerboom. ‘Or rather—yes. Until quite a while ago. And now it’s all different . . . ’

  He stopped. They sat, the two of them, and waited silently to see if he would speak. The room seemed filled with a dry, sultry haze. They stared into vacancy, neither looking at the other.

  ‘You know . . . ’ Beerboom began again, and once more came to a halt.

  Kufalt ventured a glance. The wizened yellow face had brightened, it was smooth and shining and serene. Like a landscape—with mountains and valleys and broad fields. Was this happiness? Could such a thing be happiness?

  ‘I’ve got a sister,’ said Beerboom slowly. ‘When I . . . left home, she was still quite small, ten or twelve years old.’

  He fell silent, and then began again: ‘I know all about children—I mean about little girls, you know, from having had a sister. It started in prison—always thinking about her. And now . . . ’

  Once more a pause, and silence. Beerboom got up, paced quickly up and down, sat down again, and said: ‘The children, the little girls in the gardens, you understand . . . ’

  Pause: all stared into vacancy.

  Why couldn’t someone get up, fling open the window and let in the fresh night breeze to blow away this horror? It was a horror not of this world, it was witchcraft; and there she sat, the witch and the tormentress . . .

  ‘I stand there and look, when I’m allowed out of the Home, I just look. It’s awful what a bloke can think of. It wasn’t so awful inside, because I thought it was just because I was locked up and it would all be different afterwards.’

  Again a long silence. Kufalt made an effort, moved, cleared his throat and said: ‘Well . . . ’

  ‘Women,’ said Beerboom, ‘know all about it. Or rather, I know all about them. But these . . . You see, any one of them might be my sister, it’s so new to me . . . ’

  He brooded. His long yellow hand, hairy and lined with thick blue veins, came creeping across the table, extended its fingers and then closed them with a jerk, as though to crush and to destroy . . .

  ‘I thought,’ he whispered, ‘they’d done for me in prison, once and for all, but now it’s all starting over again . . . ’

  He sobbed, almost for joy: ‘The children,’ he whispered; ‘the little girls with bare legs . . . It’s hard for me, I see so few, but perhaps, perhaps . . . ’

  He stopped and looked at the other two. His lips quivered.

  ‘Go away!’ shrieked Fräulein Behn. ‘Go away at once!’

  She stood quivering. She clutched the chair and muttered: ‘You murderer—go!’

  Beerboom collapsed. Gone was all his radiance and joy and eloquence. ‘I . . . ’ he stammered. ‘You yourself . . . ’

  ‘Get out,’ said Kufalt; and pushed him to the door.

  ‘With your bloody perverse talk! Here’s my house key: clear out at once. I’ll come and fetch it tomorrow.’

  ‘But I . . . Fräulein, you asked me to . . . ’

  ‘Go away!’ Kufalt pushed him out.

  The outer door slammed behind him. Kufalt went back into the room and lingered in the doorway . . .

  Very likely she was just a whore, cold and rather perverted, perhaps she needed the thrill of corruption and the stench of blood . . .

  She had flung herself across his bed and she was crying; as he came in, she raised her tear-stained face and stretched her bare arms towards him. ‘Oh come to me, come quickly! He’s an awful man, your friend. Come quick!’

  VI

  Was it deliverance? And did it bring relief?

  During the nights when he had tormented himself over Liese, he had thought that everything would be easy and his troubles over if only she would come to him. And now she had come—and was he at ease, or happy? Once again he sat at his typewriter; it was two weeks—or was it three?—since that night, and everything was just as difficult as ever. Or even more difficult?

  There he sat and tapped. For a few days, immediately afterwards, he had got on better; so much so that Jauch had given up standing behind his chair; he left him alone.

  Then he began to give way again. He pulled himself together, determined he would no longer be treated as a scapegoat; Maack had been called to the dictating room two or three times already. Was he to be kept on these addresses for ever?

  But it was as if his strength was paralysed from within; he used to feel alert and energetic and sometimes positively cheerful; now it seemed as though his brain had failed, as though there were nothing but a void within him, and the man called Kufalt had disappeared. Could there be a prison cell within a brain, a narrow room with bars and lock, and within it a formless entity, pacing up and down, up and down, a prisoner that never can escape?

  ‘Look out, mate,’ whispered Maack.

  It was Jauch. ‘Here are five original testimonials, Herr Kufalt. I want copies with four carbons, normal spacing, to be called for in an hour. But no mistakes, please, no corrections, no shaky “S”s!’

  ‘No,’ said Kufalt.

  ‘Yes, you say no, of course, but we shall see. Anyhow, it’s your last trial.’

  Kufalt was much gratified, it was his first skilled work; he would show them what he could do, Jauch would be astonished. And yet Jauch’s words—no mistakes, no corrections, no shaky ‘S’s, every word seemed to set up a barrier in his mind.

  He felt harassed at every turn. Four copies: how easy it would be to miscount. Was the carbon paper properly adjusted? Original testimonials—he mustn’t make the slightest mark on them—his thumb was a little blackened by the carbon paper, he must go and wash—three minutes’ typing time lost. Get on with it!

  ‘Testimonial of apprenticeship. Elmshorn, 1 October 1925. Herr Walter Puckereit, born 21 July 1908, son of Master Baker Puckereit of this place, as from 1 October 1922 has served his apprenticeship in my old-established ironmonger’s business . . . ’

  Etc., etc.

  ‘Will you soon be finished, Herr Kufalt?’

  ‘Yes, very soon.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it. I would rather you said if you can’t manage to get it done. I’m sure you can’t.’

  ‘Oh yes I can.’

  ‘Well, we shall see. Anyhow, you must type much harder for four carbons—let me look; yes, just as I thought, they’re quite faint and grey. You must start again . . . ’

  While Kufalt was arranging his sheets afresh, Maack whispered: ‘Keep your head; don’t get nervous, he only wants to confuse you.’

  Kufalt smiled an anxious, grateful smile, and began to type: testimonial . . . he found himself wondering if he spelt the word right—oh well, it must be right in the original—Puckereit, not Packereit—oh God! Should he type the ‘u’ above the ‘a’? No, that wasn’t allowed. Or rub it out on all five sheets? Or begin all over again? Oh well, start again then. But this time he must get it right!

  Maack no longer looked up. Jauch had gone into his room, no one was looking. Or were they all secretly looking at him?

  This time he got to the third line of the first testimonial, but the shaky ‘S’ (it was a shaky ‘G’ on this occasion) proved his undoing. While he was adjusting the copying paper against the carbons, he glanced across at Maack, but Maack saw nothing, he was typing like a man demented.

  He pulled himself together and went on successfully line after line, without a mistake, immaculately neat and regular, the first page would be finished in a moment—when he was seized by a sudden foreboding. He looked. Yes! He had put in the carbon paper the wrong way round; looking-glass writing on four sheets, and the fifth sheet blank!

  He sat and stared; it was useless to struggle, there was a devil within him that beat him down. They had fed that devil for five long years, and now he was helpless. ‘Go,’ they had said to him; ‘Do this and that’; they had ordered him about; and now he was on the outside, he simply collapsed, he could no longer cope; it was no use.

  It was the third evening after; he had run into the corridor and
when the door of the flat opened he had said: ‘Oh, my darling, I have so wanted you!’ He had flung his arms round her neck—‘What do you think you’re up to?’ she had retorted, as she broke away and hurried into the kitchen to her mother . . . It was no use . . .

  ‘Chuck that stuff here, Kufalt,’ whispered Maack. ‘I’ll type it for you. Quick! Be careful no one sees you, any of these lads would split. Thanks. You go on with addresses.’

  The machine yonder rattled, hammered, ting-a-ling, on again, fresh line, ting-a-ling, on again, fresh line, ting-a-ling . . .

  Anxiously he watched the hated door. Eleven minutes more. Maack had just finished the third page—no, the door wasn’t opening, barely half a page more . . .

  ‘Now then, hand it in, Kufalt!’

  A gasp of astonishment. ‘What is this? Why is Herr Maack typing this? Did I give it to him or to you?’

  ‘I . . . I,’ stammered Kufalt. ‘I asked him to do it, I was so nervous, I made some mistakes . . . ’

  ‘In-deed,’ said Herr Jauch. ‘Indeed! And why didn’t you consult me? Am I in charge of this typing room, or are you? In any case I shall report the matter to Herr Pastor Marcetus. I won’t stand any tricks of that kind—a man getting credit for work he hasn’t done. Give it me, Herr Maack.’

  There he had to sit, and tap and tap, as hard as he knew how; it only brought in fifteen marks a week, this week only twelve perhaps, but today was Tuesday, and it was not till Friday that Marcetus held his weekly inquisition in the Presto Typewriting Agency. A man couldn’t sit and do nothing, he must go on typing—tormentress!

  ‘Now don’t get worked up, Kufalt. I’ll have a word with the pastor. And if we do get the boot, I’ve got a good idea. No, not a bit what you think, but something really solid. Well, we’ll see . . . ’

  ‘And, Herr Pastor,’ said Maack to the white-haired doctor honoris causa, ‘it is my opinion that nothing can be done by intimidating people. My friend Kufalt here, for instance . . . ’

  ‘One moment,’ interrupted Pastor Marcetus, raising a fat white hand. ‘One moment, please. You know quite well, gentlemen, that I do not approve of these friendships between ex-convicts. Permission was given to both of you to live outside the Home so that you might again get in touch with respectable society. And here you are saying—“My friend Kufalt.” ‘He looked sternly at the pair. ‘Besides, as you very well know, talking is forbidden in the typing rooms. How, then, did you know . . . ?’

  He eyed them; they said nothing.

  ‘Intimidation,’ growled the pastor. ‘I have known Herr Jauch for the past ten years, and I have never found him anything other than kind, conscientious and devoted to his duties. But perhaps it is exactly that of which you complain as intimidation, his insistence on conscientious work . . . ’

  ‘But . . . ’ interrupted Maack.

  ‘One moment, please. When Herr Kufalt came to us, he was far from being a good worker, but—I have particularly noticed this—he earned eighteen, twenty and once or twice twenty-two marks a week. After a certain date his work steadily deteriorated. As I am informed by Herr Jauch, he will barely earn ten marks this week. And so, Herr Kufalt . . . ’

  Kufalt made an effort. It was not so long since he had stood up to Pastor Marcetus, indeed he had him more or less at his mercy; but at that time he had had energy and courage. Where had it all gone?

  ‘Herr Pastor,’ he said in a hesitating voice; ‘you think it’s because I’ve left the Home, that there’s something else on my mind. But believe me, Herr Pastor, I’m trying, I’m trying as hard as I know how. But suddenly something seems to snap, however hard I try; it’s as if I was ill, not really ill, you know, but all this sitting down makes me feel as if I just can’t go on any longer . . . ’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the pastor. ‘Indeed. Your suggestion is that now subsequently you are suffering from a sort of prison psychosis—it does not sound very convincing. In fact, we understand from Herr Petersen that your landlady has a very pretty daughter, a young lady of none too good a reputation. Yes, Herr Kufalt?’

  Kufalt stood silent. If only Maack would speak! But Maack stood silent too, fidgeted with his glasses and said nothing. He was, of course, furious with Kufalt for not mentioning this daughter, and letting him offer suggestions while the situation had actually been quite different.

  ‘Very well, then,’ said Marcetus, after a long pause. ‘We will try you for another week. And if your work is not satisfactory—if you don’t earn at least eighteen marks a week—we shall have to desist from further employing you, Herr Kufalt. I will also tell Herr Jauch that he is not to worry you in any way, so there shall be no further question of intimidation. Good morning, gentlemen. Ah, one moment, Herr Maack. No, you may go, Herr Kufalt.’

  VII

  Not until work was over was Kufalt able to speak to Maack again; there were too many spies and go-betweens in the typing room. Slowly they walked down the Alsterdamm in the bright sunshine, crossed the Bell Founders Quay and reached the outer Alster, which was already scattered with a summery array of white sails and small steamers.

  ‘What did he want of you?’ asked Kufalt.

  ‘Oh,’ said Maack; ‘the usual thing; tried to set us against each other; like they all do, those bastards . . . ’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Kufalt, a bit shaken; then he suddenly realized what the typing room would be like without Maack.

  ‘I’m to go as temp to an export company tomorrow. And if I do well they’ll keep me on. So he says.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Kufalt; ‘I suppose you’re glad?’

  ‘Turn round quick,’ whispered Maack. ‘Quick, quick.’

  He gripped Kufalt’s elbow and dragged him towards a man who, with his straw hat in his hand, half hidden behind a tree, was contemplating the busy scene at the Hamburg waterside.

  ‘Good evening, Herr Patzig.’

  The tall, lanky youth looked up with an embarrassed expression, waved his straw boater and said: ‘Oh, good evening . . . ’

  ‘The main condition of my getting the job, Kufalt, was that I should give up hanging out with you. It isn’t right that criminals should hang out with criminals, they do each other no good, you see.’

  The pair looked steadily at the youth, who grew redder and redder.

  ‘I really only came out for a walk,’ said Patzig, pilferer of petty cash.

  ‘And now you’ll see that Herr Patzig will get the temp job in the export company.’

  With a jerk of his forefinger Maack straightened the glasses on the bridge of his nose and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Though Maack’s clothes were old, he always looked neat, he shaved every morning, his hands were well cared for and his trousers creased.

  ‘Well, bum-sucking will get our young friend into trouble one of these days, don’t you think?’ said Maack.

  Kufalt said nothing. He was looking at Patzig; the flush on his face had faded and he was now very pale.

  ‘I really only went for a walk,’ he protested again; ‘really and truly.’

  ‘Of course,’ sneered Maack; ‘just behind us, all the way from the office, eh . . . ?’

  ‘Look out!’ shouted Kufalt.

  But the blow had already landed on Maack’s chin, not a bad effort at all for a puny little creature like Patzig.

  ‘You can all go to . . . !’ he said, eyeing Maack with satisfaction, who was vigorously rubbing his jaw. Then he clapped on his straw hat, said, ‘Good evening,’ and was about to go.

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Maack. ‘Just a moment, Patzig—did you really only go for a walk?’

  ‘Do you want another sock in the jaw?’

  ‘Didn’t Jauch or the pastor send you after us, so that you would squeal on us?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Patzig; ‘I’ll tell you something you don’t know. You old crooks always think you’re somebody. You spit around the place, just because you’ve done a five- or ten-year stretch—and because I only did six months . . . ’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said
Maack.

  ‘Oh no I won’t. Six months, or ten years—it’s just as hard for me to get going again as for you; no, it’s even harder, for your kind sticks together, and I have nobody.’

  ‘Oh, come on. What about this squealing?’

  ‘Have I ever squealed on you or on that soppy friend of yours, eh? You be careful he doesn’t squeal on you, he looks just the sort . . . ’

  ‘Look, if you get fresh again, Patzig . . . ’

  ‘I’ll get another one, eh?’ said Patzig, with a grin. ‘Of course, I have to crawl to Jauch and the pastor; but squeal, that’s what I’d never do. And I never have, neither in the clink nor outside. But you always think everyone’s a wrong ’un, and only you old lags know how to stick together. I tell you you’re just a rotten little bunch, and you think you’re the boss and you can do what you like; but you only know your own little clique, and as for sticking together, you don’t know what it means!’

  In the excitement of his speech, he had snatched the hat off his head and was brandishing it in Maack’s face.

  ‘Well, you needn’t poke my eyes out,’ said Maack genially. ‘But I understand; you want everyone to be happy and you’re all for justice, and all that. Can’t say I go in for politics much, I look after myself and my girl, and perhaps I’ll need Kufalt and a few blokes who can be trusted—I’m keeping my eyes open . . . ’

  ‘Keeping your eyes open, indeed. There’s a big job on the table, and you’ve never smelt it, eh?’

  He looked expectantly at the pair, and laughed when he saw he had really embarrassed Maack.

  ‘A big job?’ muttered Maack. ‘I’m never going to touch anything crooked again, and you can pass that on to Jauch.’

  ‘Oh, come off it,’ said Patzig. ‘This is all OK, a big contract coming along; haven’t you noticed Jauch telephoning and running around all morning these last few days?’

  ‘Well?’ said the other two, still at a loss.

  ‘Two hundred and fifty thousand addresses, perhaps three hundred thousand. A textile export firm. Catalogues for the autumn and winter season?’

  ‘It would be good if the agency got that. At least a month’s work,’ agreed Kufalt.