Once a Jailbird

by Hans Fallada

  The man, who has to pass the policemen to get to Kugelsplatz, is forced to stop. The pair plant themselves in front of him and look him up and down as though he were a pretty girl.

  ‘Can one go in there?’ asks the man casually, jerking his head towards the light from Lütt’s Tavern.

  ‘Why do you want to go in there?’ asks the policeman affably, in the soft Holstein dialect.

  ‘It would interest me,’ says the man. ‘I’ve heard so much about the Alley Quarter.’

  ‘You’d better not,’ whispers the policeman, softly but with emphasis. ‘They might—mess you up a bit.’

  And he laughs at his own remark.

  ‘Oh!’ says the man, disappointed. ‘Then where can one go at this time?’

  ‘Home!’ roars the other policeman unexpectedly. ‘Straight home! We don’t want any extra trouble in a place like this.’

  Before he can finish the man hastily says, ‘Goodnight,’ raises his hat again, hurries across Kugelsplatz, runs down the Ebräergang, turns off into the Amidammachergang and emerges for the third time on the Wexstrasse. The girl isn’t there any more. He goes quickly down the Wexstrasse and only four minutes later he’s again at Kugelsplatz, approaching it this time from the other side.

  Kugelsplatz is empty; the red glow from Lütt’s window lies peacefully across the cobbled pavement.

  For a moment or two the man recovers his breath, wipes the sweat from his face with a handkerchief, feels again for the steel object in his hip pocket, transfers it to his coat pocket and then resolutely presses the worn brass latch on the door of Lütt’s Tavern.

  III

  A voice cried shrilly: ‘Look out—cops!’

  Silence fell upon the room.

  The man closed the door behind him and blinked into the haze. All eyes were upon him.

  He took off his hat and said: ‘Evening.’

  The portly landlord, whose fat, bluish face was distorted by an absurd, shapeless, purple nose, said thickly: ‘Evening, Heideprim,’ and jerked his head faintly towards a far corner of the room.

  ‘Evening, Mister Policeman,’ said a youth. ‘Give us a share of the doings.’

  ‘I’m a predator myself like you,’ said the man sharply, and tried to smile.

  Behind him—he was now standing at the bar—two youths had got up and were brushing against him.

  ‘Back off!’ said the man briskly.

  ‘You leave the lad alone,’ ordered the landlord. ‘He’s all right.’

  The young men stood irresolute.

  ‘You old crimp,’ said one of them. ‘We don’t want a new mug. There isn’t enough to go round.’

  ‘Back off—go and sit down. If you don’t sit down, I’ll put you on the street. This isn’t a paupers’ shelter.’

  The young men sat, whispering angrily.

  The man at the bar had drunk a double brandy. And another.

  The young men looked at him enviously. He’s got what it takes!

  From the far end of the room came a tall, sinister man, large-boned, with hands like battens.

  He walked slowly up to the man at the bar, planted himself in front of him, and looked him up and down. It was an evil and malignant look, the low forehead under the black hair was gnarled and wrinkled, the thick-lipped mouth was half open and revealed black, rotten teeth.

  ‘Evening, Batzke,’ said the man at the bar, putting a finger to his hat.

  Batzke looked at the man, his lips moved. Then he slowly raised his huge hand . . .

  ‘No go,’ said the man lightly, but his voice quavered slightly; ‘got a gun.’

  And the hand in his pocket lifted, so that the outline of the barrel was visible.

  Batzke burst out laughing. ‘A lad like you—with a gun! I’d have you down before you could shoot.’

  The hand came up again.

  ‘I’ve got the four hundred for you,’ said the man quickly.

  The other’s face changed, the hand dropped. Once more Batzke looked at the man.

  Then, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, he went back to his corner without a word.

  The man looked after him. Then he wiped his forehead, which was damp with sweat, and said to the landlord: ‘Another brandy.’

  He felt that all eyes in the place were on him, though with a different expression in them now. He swallowed some brandy and looked inquiringly at the landlord, who shook his head.

  ‘Not now,’ he whispered. ‘He’s got someone there.’

  The man finished his brandy, paid, laid a finger to his bowler and said once more: ‘Evening.’

  ‘Bye, Heideprim,’ said the landlord, and the man departed.

  IV

  Outside, the girl was waiting.

  ‘Was he there?’ she asked.

  ‘Here’s your three marks,’ said the man. ‘Wait till he comes out. Don’t mention any name, tell him the four hundred’s waiting for him. Understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the girl. ‘The four hundred’s waiting for you.’

  ‘Then bring him along.’

  ‘And what do I get?’ asked the girl. ‘It’s cold, and my shoes are soaked through.’

  ‘Three more marks,’ said the man. ‘Take it or leave it.’

  ‘Right,’ said the girl.

  The man walked quickly to the Wexstrasse, looked to either side of him (he did not want to meet the policemen just then) and then hurried down it to the Fuhlentwiete.

  He went a little way down the Fuhlentwiete, looked carefully about him, not a soul in sight; he opened a door, stepped into the house and carefully shut the door behind him. He made his way up an unlit staircase, opened a landing door, switched on the light and said in an undertone: ‘It’s all right, Frau Pastorin. Don’t wake up.’

  He heard the woman rustle in her bed, and then a shrill elderly voice replied: ‘All right, Herr Lederer. What was the theatre like?’

  ‘Quite good,’ said the man, hanging up his overcoat and hat in a cupboard. ‘A friend and his wife may be coming in—please don’t disturb yourself; I can heat the water for the grog.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the old woman. ‘Sleep well. Breakfast as usual?’

  ‘Breakfast as usual,’ said the man. ‘Goodnight.’

  He switched off the light in the entrance hall and went into his room. There he stood for a moment in the darkness and pondered.

  The wind roared round the house, whirling great flurries of snow against the windows.

  ‘Nasty night. Nasty weather. Nasty neighbourhood,’ he repeated to himself, and sighed.

  He stood for a while there in the darkness, listening to the wind and the snow. ‘Perhaps he won’t come,’ he thought.

  ‘Yes he will. He’ll come tomorrow. If he’s only got twenty marks—four hundred are sure to fetch him.’

  He switched on the light.

  It was a neat and pleasant room, dark oak furniture, large dark armchairs, an old gun-cupboard and a stag’s-horn chandelier. The bed stood behind a large green silk screen.

  The man took a packet of cigarettes and a box of cigars off a bookshelf and put them on a small table. He produced a bottle of brandy, and a bottle of rum from the sideboard, and set them also on the table, together with three tumblers, three tea glasses and a sugar bowl.

  He stood for a moment in thought, and listened. ‘These old houses are too quiet,’ he thought. Then he got out three teaspoons.

  Again he pondered, and walked slowly towards the door.

  Then he turned back, took his wallet out of his coat and counted out eight fifty-mark notes. He folded them together, put them on the small table and set a heavy marble ashtray on top of them. He made quite sure that the notes were not visible beneath the ashtray.

  Once more he pondered. He disappeared behind the screen and emerged in slippers and a smoking jacket, carrying a pistol in his hand.

  He surveyed the two armchairs, but was not quite satisfied; he pulled a wicker chair up to the table. The chair had arms, and cushions on the
back and seat; he placed the pistol by the bottom cushion and covered it with a handkerchief.

  Then he stepped back two paces and surveyed the scene. It looked all right; there was no sign of the pistol and the handkerchief lay as though forgotten.

  He sighed softly, looked at the clock (it was quarter past one) and went into the kitchen, where he put a saucepan over a small gas jet.

  Then back into the sitting room; he picked up a book and began to read.

  Time passed; it was deathly quiet in the house, but the wind seemed to be rising. He sat and read; his pale, drawn face, with its weak chin and sensual mouth, was weary, but he went on reading.

  Then he looked again at the clock (fifty-seven minutes past two), glanced dubiously at the array on the small table, got up and listened in the entrance hall. Not a sound. He went softly across the entrance hall, looked into the kitchen, poured some water into the now half-empty saucepan, opened the flat door and listened down the staircase.

  Not a sound.

  When he got back to his room he was shivering with cold; he poured himself a glass of brandy, a second, and a third . . .

  He laid the book over the pistol and began to pace up and down. He walked with a light and restless step: a floorboard creaked when he trod on it, and so deeply was he immersed in his thoughts that after the third creak his foot unconsciously avoided that particular board.

  There was a faint sound outside in the entrance hall, he opened the door and said in a low voice: ‘Here. Don’t make a noise.’

  Batzke appeared, followed by the girl; he looked in better humour than before.

  ‘Well, Kufalt, old codger . . . ’

  ‘No names, please,’ said the man quickly. ‘Ilse, get the water for the grog, it must have boiled long ago.’

  And when she was outside he said: ‘By the way, I call myself Ernst Lederer . . . ’

  ‘Do you?’ said Batzke. ‘Well, pour me out a glass of brandy, Lederer. Or may I take the bottle?’

  V

  The widowed Frau Pastorin Fleege had never had such a nice lodger as the actor Ernst Lederer, who had been with her since the end of January. Not only was he generous, and had himself said that fifty marks was much too little for such a fine room, with heating and breakfast included, and had offered seventy-five; he was also very lavish with flowers, boxes of chocolates and theatre tickets. And all that for an old woman of seventy!

  But the most delightful thing of all was that he liked to sit and talk to her. She was old, her dear husband had now been dead for more than twenty years and her daughter was married to a squire up in Danish Flensburg. She seldom came to see her, and the old lady had hardly any friends left; those she did have were just as old and frail as she was and could no longer pay visits.

  She had sat for so long alone in her little room and she had, too, so often been afraid of her various lodgers, male and female. They were loud and rude, paid irregularly, spoilt the furniture and were always wanting things done for them . . . But Herr Lederer, the actor!

  At first she had not liked him very much. He had been loud and over-familiar when he took the room, he had laughed a great deal for no apparent reason and looked at her in a way she did not care for; then he had suddenly grown quiet and taciturn . . .

  But later on she had got to know him better. Frau Pastorin Fleege had a little grey cat called ‘Pussi’, quite an ordinary house cat which, as a little half-starved kitten, had walked into her flat one day. She had got used to Pussi, a nice, friendly little cat; you could talk to it in the twilight and it would purr so prettily as if in answer . . .

  But as it had once been a street cat, it kept its roving instincts and could not shed them. However careful Frau Fleege might be, Pussi managed to slip through an open window, or dart between her legs at the door when she was talking to the milkman—and was off.

  Then followed hours, often days, of anxiety for the Frau Pastorin. So far as her old legs allowed, she would go round to all the neighbours and inquire after the cat. But so many of them were rude, laughed at her, and called her a ‘silly old fool’ or ‘crazy-cat’. They did not understand how anxious she was; there were so many nasty big dogs round about. She knew quite well that you should not get too deeply attached to dumb animals, but her husband had been so long dead, and her daughter Hete lived so very far away.

  On these occasions she cried a great deal, big, shining tears ran noiselessly down her face, for she did not sob. But life was so difficult all alone, and the good Lord might have taken pity on her long ago.

  Herr Lederer had only been living with her three or four days when Pussi got out again. At first she did not mean to mention it. Pussi had always come back, but when, exhausted by her first inquiries, she was sitting by the window and a motor car screeched so shrilly outside and she started out of her chair, thinking it might be Pussi crying—then she went to him.

  At first he had not understood; he had been sitting at his desk with his head in his hands, she thought he was not well . . . But then, when he lifted his head, she saw he was in trouble. She wished she had not come, but he nodded at once and said: ‘Let’s see what we can do . . . ’

  She tried to stop him, and said it wasn’t serious, and she was sure Herr Lederer had to study his part for the evening . . .

  She was wearing an odd little black cap, a flat object made of black glass pearls, a relic of past days, and Herr Lederer could not take his eyes off it. It had slipped askew.

  So he went out to look for the cat.

  He reported back to her every quarter or half an hour. He had seen Pussi in such and such a place but had not been able to catch her . . . He had bought a dried herring to attract her if he ever caught sight of her again . . . Frau Lehmann, at the greengrocer’s shop, had said she had seen Pussi by the refuse bin in the yard . . .

  And then Frau Pastorin Fleege had had to remind him that it was high time he went to the theatre. He was such a strange, reckless person; he had shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘Oh, the theatre!’, but then he pulled himself together and went.

  He was back at half past eleven—never had he come home so early—and knocked at her door—she was not yet asleep—and had just said: ‘I’ve got Pussi.’

  She had come out, with a lace nightcap over her thin white hair, and wearing a bedjacket and a slip, just as her dear husband had seen her for the last time, but she had not felt embarrassed; the tears were still pouring down her cheeks.

  ‘Now please, Frau Pastorin,’ he said. ‘Here’s Pussi. She was just sitting by the front door. I had nothing to do with it.’

  And he would not hear of any thanks, he never would. He went to the police station for her and reported his own arrival (‘they’re often so rude to an old lady’); he ordered the briquettes for her, and got up at eight in the morning when they were delivered, so that for the first time she got the full amount and none of them were broken; he put up the net curtains for her and carried the refuse bucket down to the yard . . .

  And never a word of thanks. No, when she tried to thank him he was quite embarrassed and slipped into his room. Or he was angry, and said sometimes: ‘Nothing to thank me for, Frau Pastorin, one should never thank, until the end . . . ’

  She often wondered whether that might mean he was going to leave her again soon.

  Yes, he was an obliging, quiet, pleasant man; but best of all, in the afternoons when it grew dark he sat with her and listened to her stories about her husband and the lovely rectory in the Wilstermarsch, where her daughter Hete had been born, and where her happiest days had been spent.

  He either sat silent in his chair, or paced softly up and down smoking a cigarette. (She did not usually care for cigarettes, but she thought his cigarettes smelt good.) He liked to listen, he never seemed bored, now and again he asked a sympathetic question, and they seemed to agree about everything.

  In her high, clear old voice, which sometimes rose into a sort of lilt, she would talk about the rectory, with its sixty acres of land. Her
dear husband had known nothing whatever about farming, but it had given him so much pleasure to till the soil himself, with a man to help him of course. He always insisted on doing his own ploughing and afterwards, utterly exhausted but tremendously happy, he would say: ‘Hete’ (her own as well as her daughter’s name was Hete), ‘Hete, now I shall preach a much better sermon at the harvest festival.’

  ‘Was there water there?’ asked Herr Lederer.

  ‘Of course, we had everything.’

  And she told him how one day in January, when little Hete was just five years old, she had fallen into the pond. And quite by herself and without crying she had got out and crept into the coach house, and there sat in the dusty old landau, taken all her clothes off and carefully hung them piece by piece up to dry: she had not meant to go home until they were all dry.

  ‘And she was wearing her black velvet dress that wouldn’t have dried for weeks. But she didn’t even catch a cold. Now she has her own children; they must be quite big by now . . . That is the eldest, Ingrid—do you like the name Ingrid? They are Danish now, the children live in Copenhagen, you see, Herr Lederer.’

  But now and again the Frau Pastorin remembered that she was always talking about herself; she blushed and asked pardon, and said it was time Herr Lederer told her about his own life.

  But there was not much of it; he had not much to tell. He was just an actor, he went to the theatre every evening, and after that spent half the night rehearsing. No, he was not an important person, just about halfway up the programme; she had seen him on the stage . . .

  Yes, she had, he often gave her tickets. She had not recognized him at first, but he explained that that was just the art of disguise. Once he had been a general and once, in a fairy story, a water spirit—so it was clear he had to look as different as possible; and, after all, it was natural she should not recognize him, as her eyes were not what they had been. His name, Ernst Lederer, had duly appeared on the programme, and she was very proud of her lodger and put every programme carefully away. But Kufalt . . .

  When Kufalt arrived in Hamburg he had not gone to lodge with Frau Pastorin Fleege straight away; not until a few days later, when he had determined on a definite plan, and the unsuspecting Frau Pastorin had been a part of that plan.