Once a Jailbird

by Hans Fallada

  But Patzig laughed. ‘If they got it! Jauch is asking twelve marks a thousand inclusive of inserting, and stamping the envelopes, and the Cito Agency in the Grosser Burstah would maybe do it for eleven. But they’re no good. If someone came along and offered to do it for ten or even nine . . . ’

  He stopped and reflected. ‘Three hundred thousand addresses,’ he said dreamily.

  ‘Three thousand marks for the job,’ said Kufalt ecstatically. ‘Just think, guys . . . ’

  ‘A month’s work for ten men—three hundred marks each,’ reckoned Maack. ‘Oh boy, Patzig,’ he burst out. ‘If we could get it, I’d take you in with us. You wouldn’t need to go on about sticking together, you’d be earning money.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Patzig. ‘I just told you so you could see I’m not what you thought. So you could understand what idiots you are, you never notice anything. I’ll go back to Jauch, I think the clergy are the safest.’

  ‘All right,’ said Maack. ‘Every man must know what sort of fool he is. Well, we won’t forget you if we bring it off. You can eat your fill for once, on us.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Patzig. ‘Can I really? And you don’t even know the name of the firm. And you haven’t got any typewriters; or the contract. I’d likely go hungry if I waited for what I’ll get from you . . . ’

  And he turned to go.

  What a change in their attitude to little Patzig! They fell upon him, and begged him for the address. ‘Just the name and the address, that’s a good bloke. We’ll give you a hundred marks.’

  ‘You can keep your hundred marks, I’d have to wait for them long enough. Klemmzig & Lange, Hamburger Strasse 18, Barmbeck.’

  At last! What a pig to torture them like that! And they made up their minds it would be quite a while before that little brute saw his hundred marks.

  VIII

  They would have to act at once, and act in secret, so much was clear. They must go on sticking it out in the agency, for they might not get the contract, and they must not lose their only means of support. They must find out about buying typewriters, on an instalment system of course, and they must look round for an office; and they must work all day at the Presto Agency.

  Kufalt and Maack ran around until they nearly dropped; and, on that memorable evening, they had succeeded in mustering five reliable men from the Presto Agency: the explosive Jänsch, Sager, Deutschmann, Fasse and Oeser.

  They were sitting in Maack’s attic room, on the bed, the window sill, the washstand and the solitary chair. They had turned Maack’s girl out. ‘You go on the street for a bit, Lieschen, see if you can’t once do something for your sweetie.’

  ‘And so I will,’ she laughed, her little cherry eyes twinkling under her fringe.

  ‘Here, let’s each give her a groschen. You can go to a café, Lies-chen.’

  ‘Fat chance! When I’ve got a day off! When am I to come back?’

  ‘Get along now. You needn’t come back at all . . . Say about twelve,’ said Maack.

  At first they were all dazzled by the prospect of independence and so much money. They all talked at once—of course they were going to succeed; seven men would be quite enough; work would seem quite different when they were on their own; nine hours a day was nothing, they would do twelve, fourteen, and work on Sunday too; Maack must keep away from Lieschen for a month, and Kufalt must pull himself together; and should they share the proceeds, or pay by the thousand as at the Presto?

  ‘But we haven’t got the contract yet!’

  ‘Yes, and who will go and get it?’

  ‘You’ll have to give notice at the agency, Kufalt, you’ll be getting fired soon anyhow.’

  ‘Fired, eh? No, I shall hold on to it. I need the job at least as much as you do.’

  Not one of the seven was inclined to let go the bird in the hand for the two in the bush.

  ‘Well then, we’ll have to find someone to represent us.’

  ‘But he’ll have to look respectable.’

  ‘And not a crook, of course, we all know that.’

  ‘And he’ll need to talk properly.’

  ‘And well dressed.’

  ‘Yes, who knows of anyone?’

  No one did.

  ‘It will have to be a bloke they can inquire about.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  Rather an awkward business.

  It was really absurd: here were seven men who needed someone to act for them, someone with a clean waistcoat, someone from the other—the bourgeois—world.

  And they could think of no one.

  Plenty of unemployed, plenty of ex-convicts—but such men could not be sent on such an errand.

  ‘Couldn’t it all be done by telephone?’

  ‘Of course not. They’ll need to trust us with the stamps and circulars and envelopes; there must be someone decent they can interview.’

  There were many suggestions, each more fantastic than the last.

  ‘Nonsense! I know your brother-in-law! He stutters when a dog barks at him!’

  ‘Otsche? He never had a decent pair of trousers on his arse, they’d put him in charge at once.’

  They sat there and surveyed each other in silence. At last Jänsch got up slowly. ‘Well, we’d better go home, lads. We’ll never get on anyhow. We must stick at typing addresses for Jauch and the fat pastor for five marks a thousand. Five marks for the two, and the other five for all of us—that’s the fair way to split the profits, eh?’

  They stood there, still undecided; it was so hard to abandon that dream. Their own work, their own contract, their own money, their own office, their own machines—and prospects for the future, perhaps even a large typing agency of their own . . .

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ said Jänsch.

  ‘Do you know,’ said Kufalt slowly; ‘I didn’t like to say so, but I believe I know someone. He’s an utter soak . . . ’

  ‘Well then, he’s no good.’

  ‘But he’s an educated man, he’s been to university, and he might manage it . . . ’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘How do you know him?’

  ‘Can you get him at once?’

  But there were difficulties ahead: Beerboom alone knew Berthold’s address, quite apart from the fact that Kufalt had sworn never to have anything to do with Beerboom again: it was then nine o’clock, he would have to go to the Home to check whether Beerboom was there, and then see whether Berthold was in, whether he would come, and whether he was sober enough . . .

  ‘I think we’d better drop it,’ said Kufalt, discouraged by so many obstacles.

  ‘What? Drop it? You get along, we’ll give you an hour to collect Berthold and bring him round!’

  ‘Go or we’ll sling you downstairs!’

  ‘Get a move on! Will you go quietly, or do you want a little help from behind?’

  Kufalt went: it was mad, but he went; it was hopeless, but he went . . .

  The Home of Peace, the good old carefree Home of Peace, in the Apfelstrasse . . .

  ‘Evening, Minna! Is Woolly Teddy at home? No, I don’t want to see him. Petersen there? In the sitting room? No, I don’t want to see him. Beerboom there? No, I’m not pulling your leg, I never did, now did I? Beerboom there? Up in the bedroom? Crying? Good, then let me go up to him. You mustn’t? Oh, Minna, darling Minna, let your old friend go up, I’ve just got something to ask him, Minna, I’ll go away at once and I’ll give you a . . . ’

  ‘Who’s that at the door, Minna?’ came Frau Seidenzopf ‘s peevish tones. ‘I’ll thank you not to start talking to strange men in my house.’

  ‘It’s only Kufalt, Frau Seidenzopf. He wants to see Beerboom, but I shan’t let him in, Frau Seidenzopf . . . ’

  And Minna slammed the door.

  Kufalt stood outside.

  ‘Oh God, what am I to do? I daren’t go back without Berthold. Shall I ring again? Seidenzopf will tell Marcetus, and I’ll be fired at once . . . ’

  He stood irresolute. Finally he slipped through
the front garden, through which Berthold, whom he now so badly wanted, had once crawled, hat in mouth. Kufalt peered through the window bars and rapped on the sitting room window.

  It was indeed Petersen who looked out; there were two or three heads behind him.

  ‘Good evening, Herr Petersen. Would you be so kind as to call Herr Beerboom to the window. It’s something very important . . . ’

  Kufalt and Petersen had never really made up their quarrel since the evening of that unfortunate excursion. So Petersen replied with a doubtful look: ‘You know the regulation, Kufalt—Herr Kufalt—I will first have to ask Herr Seidenzopf.’

  ‘Oh, please don’t do that, Herr Petersen. You know what Father Seidenzopf’s like, he always makes such a storm in a teacup. I promise you it’ll only take two minutes; and you can all listen . . . ’ And as he caught Petersen’s expression, he added: ‘It’s very important for me and my future prospects . . . ’

  Petersen, student Petersen, friend and adviser to the ex-convicts, shook his head. ‘No, my dear Herr Kufalt, it’s against the rules . . . Of course I’ll gladly go to Herr Seidenzopf if you like . . . ’

  ‘OK, don’t then, you dope,’ roared Kufalt in a sudden fury—mainly because he had begged, and begged in vain; and he made off.

  Suddenly Petersen called after him in quite a different voice: ‘Kufalt! Herr Kufalt!! Listen a moment . . . ’

  ‘Damn him!’ thought Kufalt savagely. ‘He’s just such an arsehole as I am. Talks very big, and then he’s all over you. If I go back to those blokes they’ll sling me downstairs—pot full of soup and no spoon. If I go home, I’ll think of Liese—another pot full of soup, and so it goes on . . . but—if—I go . . . ’

  An idea suddenly came into his head; he turned, ran past the Home of Peace (the sitting room window was still open), jumped onto a tram and went down to the Lange Reihe.

  The Lange Reihe is not a very long street, but not a particularly short one, and to inquire at every house would have been something of an undertaking. But there would be taverns of which Berthold was certainly a good customer, especially as his affairs, so Beerboom had said, were prospering.

  ‘Berthold?’ asked the man behind the counter in the second tavern he entered. ‘I suppose you mean Herr Doctor Berthold? What do you want him for? Money?’

  ‘I also am a doctor of political economy,’ said Kufalt reproachfully.

  ‘Indeed, I beg your pardon, Herr Doctor. Herr Doctor Berthold is in the back room; right through.’

  ‘Berthold! Herr Berthold!’ said Kufalt imploringly to the pallid, hawk-nosed creature. ‘Do try to sober up for a minute. There’s money in it! A lot of money. We’re talking about three thousand marks.’

  ‘Idiots!’ said Berthold, who was very drunk. ‘No money. You trying to sting me? If you are, the lad behind the counter’ll chuck you into the street.’

  ‘Do listen, Herr Berthold . . . ’ said Kufalt again; ‘it’s like this . . . ’ And he told the whole story over again, slowly, word for word; Berthold seemed to listen, nodded and said, ‘Your health!’ from time to time: ‘Filling envelopes and licking stamps, eh? Hah! Have a rum grog?’

  ‘So you see, Herr Berthold, we mustn’t let a thing like that go, when there’s so much money in it.’

  ‘No money at all,’ persisted Berthold, and went on drinking. ‘But I have explained it all to you, three hundred thousand addresses, perhaps ten marks a thousand, makes three thousand marks. And you’ll get your share, Herr Berthold.’

  ‘Morons,’ grinned Berthold. ‘There’s no Hamburger 18 in Barmbeck.’

  ‘But I tell you there is! You needn’t go there now, I want you to come round and see my friends to discuss the matter.’

  ‘Hey, Adi!’ shouted Berthold. ‘Bring a map of Hamburg. This bloke here still believes in print.’ And to Kufalt: ‘You’re an idiot, you’re a pack of idiots, you’d fall for any confidence man. Crooks, eh? Oafs, idiots, fatheads, that’s what you are . . . ’

  He stood there, fairly steady on his legs. ‘Name of firm?’

  ‘Klemmzig & Lange,’ said Kufalt breathlessly, as Adi appeared with a plan of the city, grinning.

  ‘Klemmzig,’ said Berthold, gesturing with his hand. ‘Klemmzig means snatching, don’t you see, you fathead? Lange,’ went on Berthold, and made another snatch with his hand. ‘Haven’t you heard of the famous firm of “Snatch and Grab”, idiot? And Barm-beck, everyone knows that’s where the crazies are sent, you poor mutt! Give my compliments to the other idiots, with love from Berthold. My best love.’

  But Kufalt had long since rushed off, his brain illuminated by ten-thousand-kilowatt lamps.

  IX

  The seven dupes had only one consolation, and that was a reckoning with Herr Patzig next day. Alas, Herr Patzig was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘He’s got your export job, that’s dead certain,’ whispered Kufalt to Maack.

  ‘That’s why he was so above himself, the mean bastard . . . ’

  ‘Well, we’ll catch him one day,’ said Jänsch to the others as he passed them on his way to the ribbon box.

  ‘My ribbon’s worn out too,’ said Maack to Kufalt, and went towards the box.

  ‘I think I’d better . . . ’ said Kufalt to himself, and joined them.

  ‘Perhaps he’s been talking to Jauch,’ said Jänsch to Maack.

  ‘Look, we don’t want you as well,’ protested Maack to Kufalt. And to Jänsch: ‘I hope not. Oh God, here comes Deutschmann. If Jauch sees us all here . . . ’

  ‘My ribbon’s worn out,’ growled Deutschmann. ‘And Jauch keeps on telephoning. I can hear it through the door from where I sit. About a big contract. I can’t help thinking . . . ’

  ‘Nor can I,’ interrupted Maack. ‘That pig Patzig wasn’t pulling our leg at first. It was all true about the three-hundred-thousand contract. It was when we needled him for the address that he got the idea of taking us for a ride.’

  ‘Could be,’ agreed Kufalt. ‘Perhaps he’s after the big contract for himself?’

  ‘But he can’t do it on his own?’

  ‘He’ll have got someone else on the job.’

  ‘Job? What is this I hear about a job?’ Jauch’s rasping voice startled the little group. The four men, in their zeal for new ribbons, had not noticed the profound stillness that had suddenly fallen upon the room, broken only by the rattle of typewriters, nor Sager’s warning cough.

  Beside them stood Jauch, flushed, almost trembling with rage. ‘What kind of criminal conspiracy is this, gentlemen? I don’t know what the place is coming to, I . . . ’

  His voice rose to a shriek. The door of the adjacent room opened, the heads of the two girls appeared, and the taller of the two said: ‘Not so much noise, please, Herr Jauch. There are customers waiting in the dictating room.’

  And they surveyed the scene dispassionately.

  ‘We were talking about Herr Patzig,’ said Maack; ‘and how well he’d done for himself. I was to have had that job in the export company. But what you say about criminal conspiracy and all that—I shall complain to Herr Pastor Marcetus.’

  Maack picked up a ribbon and went calmly to his place.

  ‘So will I,’ said Jänsch. ‘You have no business saying such a thing in the presence of the . . . ’

  He jerked his head towards the door where the girls were standing, picked up a ribbon and went back to his place.

  ‘I’ll bring an action against you, Herr Jauch,’ said Deutschmann indignantly, and disappeared to his seat.

  ‘Really, gentlemen,’ said Jauch, breathless and bewildered. The eyes of the whole typing room were on him. Kufalt tried to slip away in silence.

  ‘This is all since you’ve been here, Herr Kufalt,’ roared Jauch in a fresh outburst of rage. ‘Stop! Come with me! Come into my room.’

  ‘Don’t you stand any nonsense from him, Willi,’ whispered Maack, in an audible tone.

  And Kufalt, helpless and shattered, wondering why every bit of trouble always came his way, shambled
obediently behind Jauch into his room, the door of which he politely shut behind the typing room manager.

  But the dreaded outburst did not come at once. Jauch paced up and down the room like an infuriated bull. But he soon slackened his pace, looked up, glanced at the figure by the door, went to the desk and picked up a piece of paper.

  Finally he stopped by the window and said, to the window, not to Kufalt: ‘Hoppensass, the banker, is getting a great many begging letters from ex-convicts. It seems to have got round that it’s his hobby to help such men.’

  He paused for a while; Kufalt waited.

  ‘Hoppensass, the banker,’ said Jauch, no longer to the window, but this time to the desk lamp; ‘Hoppensass had an idea on which I venture no opinion. He wants inquiries made, through an ex-convict, as to whether the ex-convicts that apply to him are deserving cases or not. He thinks that such a man would know best. Yes?’

  Kufalt faced the pseudo-sympathetic scrutiny of those evil little piggy eyes. ‘An excellent job for me,’ was his first thought. ‘I shan’t get it.’ ‘A sprat to catch a mackerel,’ was his second.

  ‘We ought to recommend him some reliable person—yes, Herr Kufalt?’

  Silence.

  A long silence.

  Then Kufalt cleared his throat, and said with desperate resolve: ‘We were only discussing why Patzig had got the export job. Patzig’s work is hardly any better than mine.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Herr Jauch dryly. ‘That’s your opinion,’ he remarked unpleasantly. ‘Now I’ll tell you something,’ Jauch continued, but he never got to what he was going to say to Kufalt, for the telephone rang. ‘Presto Typing Agency. Yes, Herr Jauch himself speaking. What? We must give a definite answer? But of course! Eleven marks is really a very low rate. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s for three hundred thousand, we should charge you twelve, as usual. Your address lists are very easy to copy? Yes, but I should have to see them first. Very well, if that’s so, perhaps half a mark less, I’ll speak to Herr Pastor Marcetus at once. No . . . no . . . we’ll let you have a definite decision this afternoon. All right, I’ll come at once, I’ll be round in a quarter of an hour.’

  Jauch hung up the receiver. He had forgotten Kufalt. Suddenly he noticed him by the door, attentively studying the backs of the commercial directories.