Once a Jailbird

by Hans Fallada

  Brödchen sat on the kitchen chair and looked appraisingly from Kufalt to the woman, and from the woman to Kufalt.

  ‘Now, now, young man,’ said the old woman tearfully. ‘You’re just trying to confuse me. And the officer told you to hold your tongue. You should be ashamed to steal an old woman’s savings out of her cupboard, and the smug way you said, “You see to the stove so your dinner doesn’t get burnt, I can wait” . . . ’

  Suddenly Kufalt trembled, a memory came into his mind, as though he had really sat somewhere, and really had said something of the kind . . .

  But Brödchen said sternly: ‘No, Frau Zwietusch, it isn’t as simple as all that. And you mustn’t start making up stories, please. There’s a good deal to suggest that you didn’t recognize the man.’

  ‘But I tell you I did, sir,’ she wailed. ‘Of course I recognized him. That’s the man.’

  ‘But I’ve never been in the place,’ cried Kufalt bitterly.

  ‘And he was wearing a gold ring just like that on his left hand; I noticed it specially when he was holding his book to write in it.’

  ‘You never mentioned that before, Frau Zwietusch.’

  ‘It has only just come into my mind, sir. I’m certain he was wearing a ring like that.’

  At that moment they were interrupted.

  A large, stocky man in yellow bricklayer’s overalls dashed into the room; in his hand was a blue enamel can, which he brandished like a weapon. His face was splashed with lime, and his long black hair was matted and dishevelled.

  ‘Where’s the bastard that stole my wife’s savings?’ he roared. ‘Come here, you shit, I’ll break all the bones in your body . . . ’

  And he sprang at Kufalt and clutched at his chest.

  ‘Gently, Zwietusch . . . ’ said Brödchen. ‘Gently,’ in no great hurry to step between the two.

  ‘Let me go, please,’ shouted Kufalt. ‘I’ve not stolen anything from you.’

  And he struck the hulking creature with his fist.

  All the women neighbours crowded into the open door.

  It was not a powerful blow, for Kufalt was not a very powerful man. But his huge adversary at once lost his balance, staggered backwards, slipped and collapsed on the floor.

  Sympathetic murmurs from the kitchen door.

  The bricklayer’s black, blazing eyes opened wide in blank astonishment, then he burst into a roar of laughter.

  ‘Drunk! Drunk again!’ wailed Frau Zwietusch. ‘He’s drunk every evening now!’

  ‘That’s the trouble about the money!’ cried a shrill female voice from the door.

  ‘They ought to be knocked on the head, the young brutes!’

  ‘Wasting a poor man’s money on their girls!’

  Brödchen had observed the scene attentively. ‘You’d better get up, Zwietusch. When did you start drinking again?’

  ‘Mind your own business,’ growled the man, laboriously hoisting himself to his feet with the aid of a kitchen chair. ‘But if I catch that lad again . . . !’

  ‘You’d better not be drunk again,’ broke in Brödchen dryly. ‘Come along, Kufalt. We might perhaps call about this again tomorrow, Frau Zwietusch, when you can see the man by daylight. Good evening.’

  And he walked with the accused through an avenue of abusive women.

  V

  For a while they walked side by side down the street in silence.

  Then Kufalt said: ‘If you take me round again tomorrow, Inspector, I’m done for. She’s certain to recognize me next time.’

  And as Brödchen did not reply, he added: ‘Now that she’s been gawping at me the whole evening.’

  ‘Ah!’ observed Herr Brödchen.

  Then, after a while: ‘You seem to have odd ideas about our job. You think you’re the only ones with their wits about them.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘I’m beginning to think you’re a fool. And fools always make the most work.’

  A pause. They walked on side by side.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Kufalt.

  Brödchen merely growled.

  ‘I suppose you’ll let me go now? What that old woman said wasn’t evidence.’

  Once again Brödchen did not answer.

  They made their way to the centre of the town, across the market square, into the town hall, through the police room, in which a few constables were lying on plank beds, up a dark staircase—and Brödchen pushed open the door of a small office. Here a policeman was sitting at a typewriter, a sergeant; Kufalt recognized the stripes.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Brödchen to Kufalt. ‘Sit down,’ he added impatiently. ‘Wrede, this man is not to . . . ’

  ‘Right you are,’ said Sergeant Wrede indifferently, and went on typing.

  ‘I’m going in to see the boss for a moment,’ said Brödchen, and vanished through a padded door.

  For a while Kufalt sat there brooding. He would have liked to listen to the voices in the neighbouring office, but the padded door was too thick and the typewriter rattled too loud—so there was nothing to do but brood. Would they let him go? Of course they would, there was no evidence against him.

  Time passed, and finally Kufalt got up and began to pace up and down.

  ‘Get away from that door! Sit down!’ shouted the man at the typewriter, and Kufalt sat down and went on brooding. ‘Of course they’ll let me out, then I can go straight along to Hilde.’

  Again an endless wait, then the padded door opened, and with Brödchen appeared a large, imposing man in police uniform.

  Kufalt jumped up, and assumed the watchful attitude he had learnt in jail.

  But the police officer only glanced at him.

  ‘Put him in the cells for the time being,’ he said.

  ‘But . . . ’ began Kufalt, and his voice rose to a shriek.

  ‘Take him away,’ said the officer sharply, and vanished through the padded door.

  The sergeant got up from his machine and took some keys off a board.

  ‘Herr Inspector!’ shouted Kufalt. ‘You know it wasn’t me. Let me go, I won’t run away. Look, sir,’ he added confidentially; ‘I have to see . . . ’—lowering his voice—‘my fiancée tonight. Don’t mess everything up for me.’

  ‘Now then, what’s all this, Kufalt?’ said Brödchen. ‘One night in the cells won’t do you any harm. If you really didn’t do it, you’ll be out tomorrow. And it’s much better to have the thing cleared up once and for all.’

  He stopped and then added in a businesslike tone, ‘Besides, in such a doubtful case we must have our man in our care. Take him away, Wrede!’

  ‘Come along,’ said Wrede. ‘Get a move on. I’ve got some more work to do tonight.’

  They went across a dark yard, an iron gate clashed, the officer switched on a light; a stone floor, the familiar window bars, a cell door . . .

  ‘It’s not heated,’ said Wrede dubiously. ‘Well, I dare say you’ll be all right for one night. I’ll get you another blanket. Do you want anything to eat? I can give you a slice of bread. The soup’s all gone. Empty your pockets. Right. I’ll come for your braces and tie in five minutes. Now get a move on.’

  It was not quite dark in that icy grave of a cell. The yard lamp threw a pale reflection on the ceiling. Kufalt crouched on his bed, quivering with the cold, and stared at the grey wall.

  A night in the cells won’t do you any harm! A night in the cells won’t do you any harm! A night in the cells won’t do you any harm!

  An indescribable fury possessed him. It was not only the cold that made him tremble.

  ‘Just wait till I get out again, I’ll show you . . . !’

  And again, and yet again, ‘A night in the cells won’t do you any harm!’

  Later on he heard the bells of fire engines.

  That would be the thing to do, Bruhn was right; burn the place down . . . and smash their bloody heads in! A night in the cells won’t do you any harm . . .

  VI

  The fire engine that Kuf
alt had heard was on its way to the timber works. They were on fire—on fire at last—and that kindly little sealheaded Emil Bruhn had had to suffer many things before the works were fired—on his account, but not by his hand.

  He had been wrong when he said the managers had marked him down for remarking how easily timber works caught fire. That sort of thing was very often said; dogs that barked didn’t bite, and the place was heavily insured.

  No; they kept him on simply because he really was an uncommonly skilful workman and a grafter who knew how to keep the men at it; indeed, he liked to call himself a robot. It would be a long while before they found such a good slave-driver, and one so cheap.

  The first cause for concern was when his room began to turn out bad work and the management were confronted with Bruhn’s organized sabotage.

  At that time Bruhn was on the verge of dismissal. But again and again he was saved by the fact that they did not want to lose him. There must be some means of bringing him into line.

  It was a bookkeeper, a caustic, yellow, elderly wages clerk, who suggested that Bruhn’s career should be revealed to his fellow workmen, so as to isolate him and make him dependent on the management for his protection. To the credit of the firm of Steguweit it must be said that this proposal was rejected. It was well known that the bookkeeper, who was very poorly paid, was consumed with hatred for every workman who earned good wages—especially as he had to calculate them. They laughed at him and kept him on because it was certain he would never pay anyone a pfennig more than his due. But they had no use for a proposal of that kind.

  They turned instead to a Polish seasonal worker by the name of Kania, who was wasted at the planing machine. Kania, obsequious, humble, ready for any job or any unpaid overtime, loathed his fellow workers, whom he regarded as stupid, unambitious and unskilful. Always ready to denounce them and get them into any sort of trouble, he was a born foreman who thought of nothing but his factory, and thus his own advancement, until he attained his ideal of a well-furnished two-roomed flat with a wireless.

  The best scheme, in the interests of the firm, was obviously to put him beside Bruhn and rouse them both to frantic rivalry.

  Unfortunately both schemes were carried out, that of the wages clerk first. The number cruncher was irritated by the rejection of his admirable plan. Secretly he set the workmen against Bruhn. But Bruhn did not yield. Indeed, he even succeeded in forming a little group in his own section who took his side and did all they could to undermine the slandering majority. The foreman’s actual presence was now needed to keep them busy with their nest boxes. Scarcely was his back turned than hostilities began afresh. Lockers were broken open and the contents destroyed. Transmission gear was damaged so that the enemy would be caught by the whirling belt and dragged into the machinery. Hammers flew unexpectedly through the air and the muttered insult ‘murderer’ was enough to unleash a fight.

  There were constant petitions from the more powerful group to the management, demanding the instant dismissal of the ‘murderer’. Wounds were displayed—he was responsible. Money was missing—he had stolen it. Clothes were ruined by acid—he alone possessed an acid bottle.

  Then Kania appeared. Kania was no ordinary workman, employed making nest boxes; his presence implied some scheme on the part of the management, that was obvious. What it might be, was a matter of dispute; but that it concerned Bruhn they were all agreed.

  Kania’s arrival induced a lull which the management had so long desired. Both factions waited. Was Kania merely a spy, to report to the authorities all that was said and done? Or was he more? He was certainly a modest man. He came from the planing machine, he understood nothing about nest boxes and was unfamiliar with the art of nailing planks together. He fumbled about, squinted to the right, squinted to the left. ‘He’ll do about one a day,’ shouted one of the men, and they all laughed. Kania laughed too. By the midday interval Kania had finished his first nest box. But the foreman rejected it; Kania smiled discreetly.

  It was then agreed that there was no mystery about Kania, and by the next day he aroused no comment. Willi Blunck and Ernst Holtmann collided by the nail shelf.

  ‘You needn’t step on my toes!’

  ‘Who’s stepping on anyone’s toes? You or I?’

  And he stamped on the other’s toes.

  ‘You filthy murderer!’

  ‘You filthy adulterer!’ Blunck had indeed been involved in a divorce case, which he enjoyed recounting with a good deal of unsavoury detail.

  ‘Hello, Bruhn!’

  ‘Hello, Stachu!’

  ‘You let Willi alone, or I’ll smash your head in . . . ’

  ‘If you want your own head smashed in . . . !’

  ‘You filthy murderer!’

  A sound like the roaring of wild animals filled the room. Into the brawl, where fists had begun to fly, leapt Kania, bare-armed and bare-chested.

  ‘Hah! Who’s a murderer? You? And you? Take that! Want any more? Then take that. Get out, you dirty Pole! (This to Stachu—with the impartiality of the future foreman.) I’ll take on the lot of you! Come on—you there, what’s-your-name.’

  In three minutes he had flung the scuffling mob apart. There were many bloody faces and swollen eyes. Stachu’s cheek had been ripped open as though by a knuckle-duster; Bruhn had emerged unscathed.

  Kania was shouting in a frenzy. ‘Come on, the lot of you; I’m ready. Murderers, eh? I’ll murder you! Hey there, you little baby, I’ll crack your skull for you!’

  Then, more calmly, ‘Come, Bruhn, you show me how to do the job. I know my work is shit! You put me right, see?’

  It never happened again. There was no more brawling. The slightest friction, the briefest exchange of words, and Kania’s formidable ‘Hah!’ rang out and he bellowed: ‘Now then, you little prick, come along here, I’ll crack your skull!’; and quiet reigned once more. The word ‘murderer’ disappeared from the room’s vocabulary; the alliance between Kania and Bruhn was plain for all to see.

  Kania was quick to learn, and as long as he remained so, peace prevailed. Perhaps Kania had hoped to do better than Bruhn, once he had got to grips with the work, and so slip into the place of foreman. But in this he was mistaken. Here physical strength, in which Kania was twice or three times Bruhn’s superior, was not the decisive quality; a natural aptitude, an unerring eye and a skilful hand were even more essential.

  So long as Bruhn was teaching Kania, they did their work side by side; but when Kania saw he had nothing more to learn he shifted his place to the other end of the room, saying it was too cold by the window. They still called each other Josef and Emil, and chatted during the lunch interval; but the atmosphere had cooled. Bruhn was aware that Kania never took his eyes off him, that every nest box he turned out was reckoned up against him, and that Kania was working as hard as he knew how; while Bruhn tapped in his nails with smiling ease, and even helped the others, Kania’s output never came near his. When Bruhn sat down to eat his meal, or went out to smoke a quick cigarette in the lavatory, Kania went on working doggedly at his bench. Bruhn came back, chatted a little, stood and watched Kania, picked up his hammer, and before half an hour had passed Kania was left behind.

  The brawling and abuse had certainly ceased, but everyone in the room felt that something much worse was afoot. Bruhn sensed the hatred in the atmosphere, but took little notice of it. He relied on Kania. He had not understood that Kania had only stopped the attacks on him to convince the management of his authority and therefore his suitability for the post of foreman. For Kania the defeat of Bruhn was vital, and he quite understood the management’s tactics in setting them against each other. He also realized that the time had come to change his methods and play his own game.

  One day Bruhn, having gulped down his lunch, went as usual to the lavatory to smoke a cigarette. He had locked the door and was comfortably smoking, when he heard a shuffling at the door; then some crashing hammer blows; it was too late when he flung himself against the door; he was
nailed in.

  For two or three hours he yelled himself hoarse; when he stopped to draw breath, he could hear the whirr of the machines, the rattle of the driving belts and the rasping hiss of the great saws, but no one seemed to hear his shouts. Finally he lost patience, and flung his short, stocky person against the door until he broke it down.

  When he entered the room, no one seemed to notice him, and he went straight back to his place. His tools had of course vanished, the foreman was not to be found, and when Bruhn at last ran him to earth in the boiler room and fetched him to the room, the tools were neatly laid out in their usual place. In the meantime it had been reported that a lavatory door had been broken down, and Bruhn’s protestations were ignored and the damage was deducted from his weekly pay.

  A few days afterwards, Bruhn had been working rather later than usual and the others had long since gone home. As he was walking along the dark corridor from the engine room to the porter’s lodge a log of wood, flung with all the force of a powerful throw from a darkened upper window, struck him on the right arm; frailer bones than Bruhn’s would have been broken. For three or four days he could not move the arm, and when he came back to the factory it was two weeks before he could do his usual day’s work.

  Those were two weeks of triumph for Kania; he began to talk to Bruhn again, and peace seemed to have returned.

  Then it all started afresh. He was no longer one man’s victim; there were clearly several after him, perhaps the whole section was in league against him. It was a hunt; their hunting instincts were awakened and they harried him at every turn.

  Nowhere was he safe. At home, in the workshop, at the cinema or in the street, he was vulnerable to attack. His windows were broken, an unknown passer-by knocked his hat into the gutter, needles pricked him in the dark, his shirts disappeared, his hammer head was always loose, his front-door steps were covered with black ice when he came home at night. He could not enter a tavern without feeling an invisible hostility. It was now he needed Kufalt, but Kufalt he had lost. He thought about fleeing, to Hamburg, or Berlin, where no one knew anything about him and where he could plunge beneath the surface; but he must not throw away his chance with the governor, and his own pride would not let him give in.