Once a Jailbird

by Hans Fallada

  Beerboom held it up; it did not close, he had clearly tied something round it, and . . .

  And they both looked at him—the wicked, drawn, defiant face of a child that may not have its cake—dark hair and bushy brows . . .

  ‘Away with it,’ said Beerboom suddenly, and flung the knife into a bush. It gleamed and flashed through the night like a ribbon of silver. They heard it fall.

  ‘I’m done,’ said Beerboom, with a gasp of relief. ‘I thought I could. But they’ve spoilt me even for that. Come on.’

  They walked in silence towards the building, Liese clinging closely to Kufalt. He felt the weight of her, and felt her quiver inwardly with fear and self-abandon.

  Of course there was a night bell. They rang; still all was dark. They rang once again; still all was dark . . .

  But Beerboom did not again say that they had better go, nor did he ask for money; he waited patiently.

  At the third ring a light appeared, a sleepy keeper shuffled out, and said through the grille in the gate: ‘What is it?’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Kufalt hurriedly. ‘My brother-in-law here went raving mad this evening, he smashed up everything and tried to kill us too. He’s quiet now, but he has a feeling that it will come on again—could you possibly take him in for one night, please?’

  The keeper behind the gate was a tall, lanky, pale man, with a skull-like, fleshless head; he looked remarkably like an inmate of the establishment himself.

  ‘Don’t give him anything more to drink,’ he said, after brief reflection. ‘Let him sleep it off.’

  ‘He hasn’t drunk anything,’ said Kufalt. ‘He suddenly started raving.’

  Beerboom stood by in silence.

  ‘Who is his doctor?’ asked the keeper suspiciously.

  ‘He hasn’t been to one yet,’ said Kufalt eagerly.

  ‘It came on quite suddenly, I tell you.’

  ‘That never happens,’ said the keeper. ‘What is the man’s job?’

  ‘Unemployed—at the moment,’ said Kufalt.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Beerboom quietly and calmly, and turned to go.

  The keeper looked after him intently through the grille.

  ‘My dear sir,’ he said to Kufalt, ‘I’m sure you mean well by the man, but if you knew how many unemployed come along here and think they can get a meal and a good bed by acting like lunatics . . . What’s he doing there? What’s he looking for?’

  ‘Oh God!’ cried Kufalt as he swung round; ‘Keeper, come along quick, he’s looking for his knife, he’s just thrown it away . . . ’

  ‘Hurry up . . . ’ screamed Liese.

  ‘I can’t come outside,’ said the man doubtfully; ‘I’m the night-watchman . . . ’

  But he unlocked the gate. The other two ran off, and Kufalt said—to whom did he say it?—‘He’s been in jail eleven years, or thereabouts, and he’s only been out six months . . . and he’s mad . . . ’

  The dark shadow in front of them sped across a stretch of grass, and slipped round a bush . . .

  ‘Quick, Liese! Where’s the keeper? He knows how to deal with madmen . . . ’

  ‘You run and fetch a policeman, sir. I can’t leave the door, it’s open . . . ’

  They came to a path; beside it sat a couple. ‘Did you see a man run past you?’

  They started apart . . . ‘Eh? . . . What? . . . ’

  At that moment they heard a shriek. It was a crazy, high-pitched shriek that suddenly broke off, followed by a deep, choking gurgle.

  ‘There! There . . . !’

  It came from behind a bush—even in that night, at that second, they smelt the fragrance of the garden . . .

  They pushed the branches apart . . .

  It was something white that lay there, a white bundle of clothes, so white, so very white . . . above it there was darkness, from the head, from the neck, darkness welled forth—streaming darkness, thick and clotting blood . . . a stain, a larger stain—so dark . . . so dark . . . And that strange gurgling . . .

  ‘Help! Police!’ a shrill voice screamed.

  And Kufalt saw the face of Liese Behn, the shorthand typist Liese Behn, her panting parted lips, her head thrown back—

  And he was filled with horror at this thing called life. ‘Come along quick,’ he whispered. ‘Quick! We don’t want to be mixed up in this . . . ’

  ‘Let me see . . . I must see . . . ’ she whispered breathlessly.

  He dragged her through the throng of people running up from every side.

  X

  There are good days and bad days in every life—everyone knows that. Kufalt knew it too. He had the feeling that this 16 August was to be a dark and evil day for him; what lay hidden in its womb?

  He had begun by telling Liese at once that he would give up his room, on the first of the next month at the latest.

  He could not forget her face, her lovely face, with the panting parted lips, and thrown-back head—and those greedy eyes!

  ‘Oh,’ Liese had said. And once more: ‘Oh.’ And then after a pause: ‘I’m sure I don’t care . . . ’

  She had gone out of the room, and the door had shut behind her. Well, that had come to an end, he wanted no more of love like that. She would certainly have been willing to sleep with him, under the patronage of Beerboom the sex-murderer: declined with thanks.

  It was all over.

  Then Kufalt had bought a newspaper on the way to the office, a morning paper, and in it he saw a long and detailed account of Beerboom’s case. He found a good deal to amuse him, as for example the statement that Beerboom had now really been admitted to Friedrichsberg (provisionally, as being the most effective method of rescuing him from the infuriated crowd, who wanted to lynch him); Friedrichsberg, where Kufalt had so vainly implored that he might be taken in . . .

  ‘And there he would stay—for the rest of his life,’ said Kufalt to himself.

  Farther on, however, Kufalt found a paragraph to the effect that Beerboom’s victim (who had died in the night) was a thirty-seven-year-old seamstress, an old maid in fact, who had very likely visited the Friedrichsberg gardens every night, to get from the spectacle of those kissing couples that little share of love for which Beerboom too had yearned . . .

  Beerboom—the great evil and savage sex-murderer!

  No; a poor wretch, damned for ever to futility, a crazy dolt, inflated by the newspapers into the semblance of a bestial and diabolical murderer—this hopeless freak from the shadow side of life!

  Parted, while unhinged by adolescence, from his little sister, for eleven long years he had been turned into a monk against his will, with all his instincts perverted and only the flesh still alight; he had then come out into the world, incapable of sleeping with a woman and so finding deliverance, his brain filled with the wildest fantasies, and had bemused himself in a mad desire for girls and children, in dreams of naked children’s bodies . . . and then, of his own free will, he had been willing to surrender, to crawl with his unfulfilled imaginings into a madhouse, a cell, and there remain, unsatisfied, all his life long . . .

  But he had been rejected, and, almost against his will, flung back into a desperate life that offered him no home, no work, no food, no chance of happiness, not a kind word, nor a friend, and had no place for him at all . . .

  And so he dashed out, knife in hand, to seek the one, the one remaining fulfilment of his life . . .

  And he had come upon his counterpart, no virgin child, but a desiccated old maid, his female counterpart . . .

  And Kufalt pictured to himself how this poor fool Beerboom would spend the rest of his long, or short, life in a barred stone cell, and how his mind would circle round and round one sole point: ‘If only I had found something young that night . . . if only it had been a child . . . if only I could have found happiness once in my life!’

  Happiness. And in the hot August sunlight, on his way to the Cito-Presto Typing Agency, Kufalt shuddered: happiness, what men call happiness, what is truly happiness in this world .
. .

  Happiness: instead of an old maid of thirty-seven, a little twelve-year-old girl, in socks . . .

  That was happiness.

  XI

  At the Cito-Presto no one knew anything about all this. Newspapers were not among the needs of ex-convicts, and even the most alluring headlines could hardly tempt them to sacrifice the ten pfennigs that would buy three cigarettes—not likely!

  ‘Pack up what’s finished and take it along,’ said Maack to Kufalt and Monte.

  ‘And don’t bring back twenty-mark notes this time—how are we to share out the money?’ said Jänsch.

  ‘No, we’ll bring it back in thousand-mark notes,’ replied Monte, and both went out, each grappling a load of five thousand addresses . . .

  ‘Here are the next ten thousand, Fräulein,’ said Kufalt. ‘We don’t need to disturb Herr Bär, it’s all perfectly in order. Just a little order on the cashier, if you will be so kind.’

  ‘No, Herr Bär wants to see you, Herr Meierbeer,’ said the young woman. ‘You can leave the addresses here, and the other gentleman can wait. Herr Bär wants to see you personally. You know the way.’

  Yes, Kufalt knew it, and as he went along the corridor his heart was heavy.

  Perhaps it had really been Jablonski yesterday . . . and all this talk of Beerboom’s about what he had overheard . . . perhaps they ought to have given him twenty marks. Was he never again to be at peace!

  Herr Bär was sitting at his table smoking a cigar and turning over papers; he did not look up when Kufalt came in and politely said, ‘Good morning.’

  He did not even answer . . . Yes, at last he answered. ‘Good morning, Herr Meierbeer. Your name is Meierbeer, isn’t it?’ he asked.

  Kufalt stood, and said nothing. But his heart sank.

  Bär threw a fleeting glance at his visitor. ‘Your name is Meierbeer, isn’t it?’ and there was almost a menace in his voice.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Kufalt obediently.

  ‘And your Christian name?’

  ‘Willi.’

  ‘Ah, Willi Meierbeer, not Giacomo. Right.’

  Herr Bär looked thoughtfully at his cigar. ‘And if I rightly understood you, you are unemployed.’ He corrected himself: ‘I mean you were unemployed until you got this work from us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A long, meaningful pause.

  ‘And that’s all? Only unemployed?’ asked Herr Bär, suddenly.

  ‘That’s all,’ answered Kufalt obediently.

  It is right and proper that men behind desks should sit and ask questions, and that men in front of desks should stand and answer them. It was quite unthinkable that Kufalt himself should start asking how and why it was any business of Herr Bär’s.

  He had to stand and wait until Herr Bär had slowly looked him up and down and said: ‘Everything you have told me is quite correct, Herr Meierbeer?’

  Kufalt stood for a moment, silent. He wondered—but what was the sense in a confession? None at all; every old lag knew that from all his interrogations by the police.

  ‘Quite, Herr Bär,’ said Kufalt.

  ‘Very well,’ said Herr Bär, and returned to his papers. ‘All correct. All exactly as you told me, nothing to add!’

  ‘No,’ said Kufalt. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Right. Thanks. You will get your money at the cashier’s office, Fräulein Becker has the order. Good morning, Herr Kufalt.’

  Not until the door was shut and Kufalt was already ten paces down the corridor did he realize that Herr Bär had addressed Herr Meierbeer as Herr Kufalt. What should he do? Perhaps Herr Bär had actually meant it kindly, as a sort of warning. Now he must keep his chin up, the bomb was ready to explode . . . and yet . . . and yet, they can’t do anything to us.

  The worst of it was that he could not talk about these things to Monte. There he was, trotting along at Kufalt’s side, really quite a handsome lad with his wavy, fair hair, but nothing in his head except his own nasty little notions. He did not share in anything, he hated regular work, he was always trying to shirk for one reason or another . . . Kufalt slouched along beside him. A grim, disastrous day; what did it still have in store?

  When he opened the door of their attic office, he stood dumbfounded—who was it, in the middle of the room, with the typewriters rattling all round him?

  Who else but Father Seidenzopf, their beloved Woolly Teddy!

  He swung round as the pair came in. ‘Ah, there you are, my dear Kufalt, I’ve been wondering when you would come back.’

  He dashed up to Kufalt, holding out a hearty hand. ‘Don’t you shake hands with him,’ roared Jänsch. ‘No talking there,’ said Maack warningly.

  Kufalt could just withdraw his hand, which had nearly touched the tips of Seidenzopf‘s fingers. He went with Monte to his place, sat down without looking up, and started folding prospectuses.

  On . . . and on . . . and on . . . without a pause . . .

  ‘My dear young friends,’ began Woolly Teddy, standing quite undismayed in the centre of the room . . .

  And the typewriters rattled and tinkled, and once again Jänsch was wearing neither coat, nor waistcoat, nor shirt . . .

  ‘My dear young friends, I think it greatly to your credit that you are devoting yourselves with so much energy to honourable labour. I have heard some unpleasant suggestions, especially against you, Kufalt . . . But I am thankful to know that they are unfounded—quite unfounded . . . ’ Father Seidenzopf stood in the middle of the room and rubbed his hands slowly and with relish. He looked round to see whether anyone was looking at him, but no one was doing so. They were all typing, or folding, or inserting.

  The master of the Home of Peace stepped behind one of the typists. He looked over the man’s shoulder, across the clicking keys, and said reflectively: ‘All new machines. Fine new machines . . . Mercedes . . . Adler . . . Underwood . . . AEG . . . Remington . . . Smith Premier . . . A pleasure to use, eh? . . . Wonderful, wonderful . . . ’

  Maack’s and Kufalt’s eyes met for an instant.

  Seidenzopf went on: ‘Three hundred thousand addresses—a very good commission—a lot of work, six weeks or so, I suppose—and what then?’

  No one answered.

  ‘A commission like that comes along in Hamburg twice, or maybe three times a year, and the rest of the time? Oh, my dear young friends’—his voice swelled until it boomed like a bell, his black beard was matted and dishevelled—‘oh, my dear young friends, we of the Home of Peace, we of the Presto, took you in when you came out of prison, when you were helpless and in despair, and almost penniless. We gave you food, good plentiful homely fare, a roof over your head and a decent life.’

  Warming to his work: ‘We of the Home of Peace first taught you to work, with unwearied patience we trained you to the habit of regular work once more—and is this your gratitude?’

  His voice shook with anguished emotion, and in that moment—God knows—the old Pharisee may really have believed in what he was saying . . .

  Seidenzopf paused. And as he began again, a profound and honest indignation filled his heart: ‘And at what rate have you undertaken this work, I ask you, at what rate? Ten marks, I dare say, perhaps only nine fifty, perhaps only . . . ’

  He scanned their faces: ‘ . . . perhaps only nine—and we would have got two marks more; six hundred marks in all, flung away through your inexperience. I do not reproach you, but what a calamity! This will bring prices down for years.’

  His audience was growing uneasy, but Seidenzopf went on undeterred: ‘And what is to become of you at the end of these six weeks? No work—and the care associations, the welfare offices and the homes, if you apply to them you will find yourselves dealing with us; we work in conjunction with them and they come to us for the information and details that they need . . . ’

  He shook his head, and suddenly roared like an infuriated lion: ‘You’ll come whining to us on your knees: give us shelter, Father Seidenzopf, give us a warm meal! For God’s sake help us, Father Seidenzopf
, you can’t let us starve! But then we shall . . . ’

  What they would do was lost in a general uproar. Almost all of them leapt up from their work, yelled at him and flung abuse into his face:

  ‘You, you lived on us!’

  ‘Four marks fifty a thousand was what you paid us!’

  ‘We could take it or leave it—plenty of unemployed, eh?’

  ‘Sock him in the jaw, the sneak!’ (Jänsch.)

  ‘Hang him out of the window by the legs!’ (Oeser).

  ‘Yes, then he’ll do a bit of whining!’ (Kufalt.)

  ‘Be quiet!’ shouted Maack, and then repeated once or twice—‘Be quiet!’

  He shouldered his way through the gesticulating throng that had gathered round Seidenzopf, who was pale but did not seem much alarmed. ‘Now go, Herr Seidenzopf!’

  ‘Oh no, I shan’t,’ bellowed Woolly Teddy. ‘I must bring you to your senses. You must realize what you are doing; come back to us and all will be forgiven . . . ’

  ‘Come on,’ said Maack to Jänsch.

  And they both took Father Seidenzopf by the arms and ran him to the door. But Seidenzopf went on bellowing: ‘Whoever comes back to us within three hours will be received without questions asked. And the first will be made assistant manager of the typing room under Herr Jauch!’

  The door slammed, and only a confused roar could be heard on the stairs. Then Maack and Jänsch came back.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ said Maack, his white face twitching. He looked round him, and said, ‘To work. We must do our ten thousand. Get on with it! No talking!’

  He looked round the room once more. He looked at Jänsch and nodded. Then he said softly, but there was menace in his voice: ‘Or does anyone want to accept Herr Seidenzopf‘s offer? If so, will he please speak at once?’

  They all returned to work.

  XII

  Of course they inevitably discussed this momentous event in the midday break. They were very proud of having ejected the great Herr Seidenzopf, who had, such a short time ago, been master of their destinies . . .

  ‘He’d have been delighted if we’d let ourselves be drawn into a row!’