Once a Jailbird

by Hans Fallada

  ‘Thinks he can say just what he likes!’

  ‘He can wait till we come.’

  ‘Whine, indeed—I know who’ll start whining first!’

  ‘You ran him out properly—couple of cops couldn’t have done it better.’

  ‘He won’t come back.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. Of course he will. Three hundred thousand—he’d wear his heels out for that.’

  ‘Perhaps Jauch will come next.’

  ‘Oh God, when he starts bellowing, I laugh fit to burst.’

  ‘Marcetus won’t send Jauch, he knows he’s only a windbag.’

  ‘Suppose Marcetus himself comes—?’

  Long and gloomy silence.

  A rather uncertain voice said, ‘No, he’s much too grand.’

  ‘Possible, though.’

  ‘Everything’s possible, but I don’t believe it.’

  ‘We’ll just sit tight, he’ll soon go if no one answers him.’

  But there was misgiving in their faces: ‘Marcetus—hope not, he’s a sly bugger.’

  ‘To work, gentlemen,’ said Maack. ‘No time to lose, we’ll have to work like fury.’

  The tap-tap of the machines began, rattled on, faltered and—stopped.

  They all looked round at one seat, a seat at one of the typewriters, and it was empty.

  They all looked round the room, but there was no one to fill that empty seat.

  Someone whistled—a long-drawn-out whistle.

  ‘Ahoy! Ahoy! Man overboard!’

  ‘Where’s Sager?’

  ‘Gone out to fetch beer.’

  ‘Assistant typing room manager!’

  ‘Typing room assistant manager!’

  ‘Bloody swine—we’ll show him!’

  ‘Ahoy! Ahoy! Man overboard! Ahoy! Ahoy!’

  ‘Comrades—’ Maack began, and swallowed painfully. ‘Comrades, my arse!’ shouted Jänsch brutally. ‘There’s no comrades here. This is a bunch of old lags and crooks. There’s the door! Kufalt, open it, and leave it open—wide open. Right; now all of you go and stand against the wall with your backs to the door. Wide apart, so you aren’t touching. Now put your arms up to your eyes. Anyone that looks will get a sock in the jaw from me; now!’ he roared. ‘Get along out, you blinking crooks, you cowardly scabs—out with you, no one’s going to see your nasty mugs, you can clear out, nobody’s looking, go on tiptoe. Go!’

  A pause, a long pause; they stood unseeing with their faces to the wall. Was that a plank creaking? Was someone creeping to the door? Oh vanished childhood, vanished faith in fellow men! Jänsch snorted: ‘Are you off, Monte? They’ll give you a nice cushy job, I dare say.’

  ‘Stupid old brute!’ squeaked Monte.

  So he was still there, at any rate.

  And Jänsch growled in his deepest bass, but with an intonation of relief: ‘Do you want me, pretty boy?’

  Roars of laughter—eyes opened, looked once more into the sunlight, and into each other’s faces: they were all there.

  ‘Ah,’ growled Jänsch. ‘We’ll see what happens in the morning, when you’ve all slept on it. I don’t trust one of you.’

  ‘Trust? I never did.’

  ‘All men are shits.’

  ‘Look,’ said Maack to Jänsch. ‘I think you’d better take charge of the agency from now on. You manage it much better than I, Jänsch.’

  ‘You’re too nice a bloke, Maack,’ said Jänsch disapprovingly. ‘Nice blokes are sure to be weak, I always think. Well, what’s the bloody odds? All right then. Kufalt, you’ve got to type, do the best you can, eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kufalt.

  ‘And what about me?’ wailed Monte; ‘I can’t fill ten thousand by myself.’

  ‘Why didn’t you nip out just now?’ said Jänsch. ‘Now then, my lad, don’t you get worked up about nothing. We’ll all help you this evening. Get down to it!’

  And they did.

  Kufalt, once more at the machine, a fine new machine, was happy. Happy, but uneasy.

  Happy, because his fingers danced upon the keys; scarcely had his eyes caught the address than they danced on, with no mistakes. Where was last night? Swallowed and forgotten; he would simply move his lodging, and so farewell to Liese. That was the best of life; something else always came along, there was no need to cling to the past; let it go.

  As with the others, packets of envelopes were piled in hundreds at his side. He tore off the band of a bundle; his neighbour, Fasse, had broken into his bundle three or four envelopes before him; but when Kufalt was through with his hundred, Fasse was still a few envelopes behind. Kufalt was at the top of his form; it’s an odd thing, you never can tell, it looked like being a bad day—but it was a good one.

  Still, he was uneasy. And all the others were uneasy too. They kept on clearing their throats, pausing in their work, whistling meditatively and humming tunes in a way they had not done before. True, Seidenzopf had been there and thundered on, but that did not mean that the storm was past; the lightning had not struck. Sager was no lightning. Nor was Seidenzopf . . . The storm was still overhead—when would the lightning strike?

  At exactly thirty-five minutes past five the thunderbolt fell. At exactly thirty-five minutes past five there was a violent knocking at the door. Maack (Maack, of course, as though he were still the manager), called out, ‘Come in,’ all turned their faces towards the door, and Pastor Marcetus entered.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said, advancing three or four steps into the centre of the room.

  ‘Good evening,’ said one or two in an obsequious undertone, swallowed, and were silent.

  Four of them (Maack, Kufalt, Jänsch and Deutschmann) turned to their work again, the machines began to rattle and . . .

  ‘Stop!’ said Marcetus. ‘Stop!’

  Three (Maack, Kufalt, Jänsch) went on typing.

  ‘Stop!’ said the pastor a third time. ‘You will have the decency to stop, while I speak to you for five minutes.’

  One (Jänsch, of course) went on typing, made a slip, stopped and started off again; but the tap-tap sounded very faint and desolate in that large room, so recently filled with the rattle of machines. ‘Oh shit!’ said Jänsch savagely; and his machine fell silent too.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the pastor sharply to Jänsch; ‘you have described it quite correctly. You have indeed got yourselves into a pretty mess.’

  He was silent; Jänsch growled. The pastor looked round the room and said, very politely: ‘Herr Monte, lend me your chair for five minutes—I am an old man.’

  Monte jumped at once, blushing slightly; Jänsch growled again, but he did not prevent Monte putting the chair in the middle of the room.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Marcetus genially, and sat down. He sat down quietly and looked about him. It seemed to Kufalt that he was singled out for especially intent and frowning scrutiny.

  ‘Well . . . ’ said the pastor slowly.

  But nothing followed.

  The pastor held his hard black felt hat in one hand, and a fine large linen handkerchief in the other, which from time to time he passed lightly over his face. A ruddy, full face with an expressive mouth and a strong chin. (The men sitting round him all had weak chins, excepting Jänsch, who had another sort of strong chin, more of a boxer’s chin.)

  And it was Jänsch who at last murmured angrily: ‘Beg pardon, Herr Pastor, we must work, we haven’t as much free time as you have.’

  The pastor ignored this and merely replied: ‘Are you in charge here? Or is it Herr Maack?’

  ‘Sager lied,’ grinned Jänsch. ‘I am manager here.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the pastor meditatively. And once again: ‘Ah.’ And he seemed to ponder deeply. Then he said; ‘So you are responsible for everything here: payments, accounts, and so on?’

  Jänsch also pondered. He glanced quickly across at Maack, but the pastor followed the look with such attention that they could not reach an understanding.

  ‘Yes,’ snapped Jänsch, ‘I am.’
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  ‘Then,’ said the pastor softly, ‘I assume that this business is properly registered with the police.’

  Silence.

  ‘And that the deductions for income tax have been duly calculated.’

  Silence.

  ‘And that notice has been given to the health insurance authorities, and the stamps stuck on, eh?’

  A longer silence.

  The pastor was no longer looking at the faces round him, he was gazing thoughtfully and mildly at the blue summer sky, now tinged with gold.

  The seven men threw a fleeting glance at each other—there was something in the air.

  ‘We are much obliged to you, Herr Pastor,’ said Maack politely. ‘There is still time to deal with all that. Today is only our third day.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the pastor.

  ‘Three days’ grace are allowed,’ said Jänsch politely. ‘And without your reminder I might perhaps have forgotten.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the pastor once again. And it was noticeable that he did not look quite so pleased.

  ‘My business,’ began the pastor once again, ‘is a thankless one. Every one of you is always imagining that he has been imposed upon by me. You merely observe that we take eleven and give you only six . . . ’

  ‘Four fifty,’ said Jänsch.

  ‘Four fifty,’ agreed the pastor. ‘You never remember that we have to pay the rent of the office, the heating and the light, and that typewriters wear out, and that we carry you through lean times—your earnings, God bless my soul!’ he laughed bitterly. ‘You think I do nothing but come and bellow at you once or twice a week. And I am sitting all day writing begging letters for you, I collect patrons and founders and members. One gives five marks, another ten—eight hundred or a thousand such contributions every year—that’s how the work is kept up . . . ’

  ‘And the pastor too,’ added Jänsch.

  ‘And the pastor,’ agreed Marcetus. ‘You who insist so strongly that all work shall be paid for at its proper value, would surely not have me work without reward?’

  ‘Listen, Herr Pastor,’ said Maack slowly; he was very pale, his glasses had slipped and he jerked them back onto the bridge of his nose. ‘That’s all very fine, what you’ve been telling us, and we don’t want to quarrel with you, but . . . ’ and Maack grew warmer; ‘but why don’t you let us go our own way? We have got our own work, we bear the risk, and we certainly shan’t come running to you again—so leave us alone. We are now enjoying ourselves, which is what we never did with you. So don’t come along here and threaten us; we’ve heard “Halves, or I’ll split” just a bit too often. Let us go our own way, we aren’t doing you any harm.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Jänsch, and one or two others murmured approval.

  ‘I will not refer to the fact,’ said the pastor, ‘that it was we who trained you to become efficient typists. I will not mention how unfair I think it of you to have spied out our customers’ addresses; nor how reprehensible it was to underbid our tariff prices. I will merely tell you that not one of you will achieve his object; that for all of you this act of ingratitude will only lead to ruin and further crimes . . . ’

  ‘And how?’ sneered Jänsch, unimpressed.

  ‘Because you . . . ’ Here the pastor broke off and stood up. ‘These are beautiful new typewriters . . . How were they bought, hey? How were they bought?’

  A moment’s silence.

  ‘On the never-never system, I think,’ said Jänsch.

  They nearly burst out laughing, but the pastor burst out in a fury: ‘By fraud, that’s how they were bought, by common criminal fraud.’

  There stood Kufalt, the eyes of the others turned on him—flaming, evil, anxious, deadly eyes . . .

  Then the pastor continued: ‘When Herr Seidenzopf came back from here with a report about these new typewriters, we naturally put the matter into the hands of the police at once. The inquiries are not yet complete, but it has already been established that several typewriters have been bought by the same destitute young man, and three of the dealers have already decided to prosecute . . . ’

  A long, long silence.

  The pastor glared at Kufalt. ‘Yes, you’re frightened now, you would like to escape, but it is too late. I warned you, Kufalt, I have always warned you.’ And he called out: ‘Herr Specht, please—Herr Specht!’

  The door opened and through it came a man, a broad, squat figure of a man, with a greyish white policeman’s moustache, thick, bushy, white eyebrows and a completely bald head.

  ‘That is Kufalt, Superintendent Specht,’ said Pastor Marcetus. ‘You come along with me, Herr Kufalt,’ said the superintendent pleasantly. ‘I’m sure you’ll come quietly and not give us any trouble.’

  He grasped Kufalt lightly by the forearm, the pale faces of his companions looked into his, then they vanished, and the door came nearer and nearer (‘Would none of them speak?’)—the door opened, the door closed, then the staircase—and from within boomed a strong, firm voice: ‘Now, my young friends . . . ’

  The game was over: he had lost.

  XIII

  When Kufalt awoke, he at first thought he was in a dream. A loathsome, evil dream that had come to visit him. All night he had been pursued, and he had fled and hidden himself foolishly, where all could see him. Or he was accused of something, and had to defend himself, and as he grew more and more imploring, they just sniggered and did not listen . . .

  Kufalt felt as though he had been weeping, as though his bolster were still wet with tears, and . . . and hadn’t he shrieked ‘Let me go, let me go!’? Yes. Yes, he had. But now he was awake, a pallid grey light glimmered in the narrow cell, and right in front of him, almost above his face, he saw two terrible, primeval beasts, armed as though ready to attack him. Brownish-red, their bodies encased in flat shells, their antennae and their greedy beaks outstretched towards him, they crouched above him like beings of another world, like threatening demons—and his mind, just emerging from the dark abysses of dream, strove to understand; what could they be . . . ?

  Then he felt a burning itch all over his arms and legs, he moved his head a little, the coverlet slipped, and the beasts upon it vanished . . .

  Bugs, he thought. Bugs, of course, that was the last straw. All was as it once had been—was there ever a police cell without bugs?

  He jumped up and washed. He inspected his body, which was once more marked as it used to be . . . he began to reckon . . . how long had he been outside? A hundred and two days. A hundred and two days, and now inside again. Better so. What was the sense of struggling?

  He paced up and down in the grimy police cell, its walls stained brown by squashed bugs. He could now start hunting bugs, so that his next night would at least be quieter—but what was the good of hunting bugs? What was the good of a quiet night?

  None—poor fool.

  Herr Specht, Superintendent Specht, had taken down a brief statement the previous evening, grinning as he did so: ‘Yes, of course, my boy, you had no criminal intent—eh? What was that? Six typewriters, and you were going to pay 180 marks every month out of what you earned . . . I believe you, I believe every word of it! Like a cigarette? Well, you can hardly expect one, if you tell me that sort of yarn; you’ll have to cough up a thing or two, my boy, if I’m to give you a smoke. You know that from old days, when you got that five-year stretch. Cigarette? Nothing comes of nothing, eh?’

  Yes, he knew it all by heart—and now it was beginning all over again—very likely Beerboom was locked up here too, ten cells away, and he too would be brought before the investigating magistrate, he too would be tormented by bugs, and be hanged or get life . . . and be quite pleased about it all, the poor fool . . .

  And Liese. They were certain to have searched the house long ago and turned all his cherished belongings upside down, and she had probably thought they had come about the other business. And she would have given it all away; but they hadn’t come about that, but on his account, and she would have poured out the whole
of Beerboom’s story. Then that hullabaloo would all be out, and they would keep him here and question him for ever . . .

  And God Almighty, it’s enough to make a bloke crawl up the walls, or hang himself from the leg of a bed, I never thought I’d have to endure all I’ve had to suffer these last four months; when a bloke swallows a spoon so as to get into hospital and have a nice little operation, and it hurts like hell—I can understand it. When a man’s yelling with a pain in his belly, he can’t have any troubles in his head . . .

  How dry his eyes were, and how they burnt.

  The bolts clashed back; three times the key clicked in the lock.

  He leapt to the window and stood there alert.

  A grey warder’s face. ‘Your name?’

  ‘Willi Kufalt.’

  ‘Wilhelm Kufalt.’

  ‘No, Willi Kufalt.’

  ‘Come with me.’

  The corridors and the iron staircases and the iron doors, the clashing locks, the hurrying warders and the orderlies scouring and polishing—just like old times!

  A large, gloomy room, with whitewashed windows and hideous yellow shelves for files. At a desk sat a large, powerful, fresh-faced man with a couple of duelling scars on his cheek, a stiff, fair hairbrush growing on his head, smoking an enormous black cigar.

  ‘Thank God, not a bully like Specht,’ thought Kufalt. ‘Thank God, the investigating magistrate himself.’

  ‘Wilhelm Kufalt, under arrest,’ reported the warder.

  ‘Right,’ said the large man. ‘I’ll ring later on, Warder. Sit down, Kufalt.’

  Kufalt did so.

  The man turned over some papers. ‘You know what you are charged with, Herr Kufalt. And now tell me how a practically penniless man like yourself came to buy six typewriters in six different shops, on the security of your registration card. What did you want six typewriters for?’

  And Kufalt began to tell him. He spoke falteringly at first, and with difficulty, he had to keep on going back; he realized that he must begin right at the beginning, from the time of his discharge, and even before that, to make the whole matter clear.

  But here was a man to whom he could talk. In the first place, he made no notes, he listened. Secondly, he really did listen; Kufalt observed that he had not yet made up his mind. Specht had already been convinced that Kufalt was a criminal; this man—not yet.