After Midnight

by Irmgard Keun

  “Pütz,” said Aunt Adelheid, “I hope you realize you should be thankful to me? But for me you’d have been done for in a moment of serious danger.” “Just let me die in my bed,” Pütz whimpered in a voice like a mouse’s squeak, “just let me die in my bed.” “Pütz,” said Aunt Adelheid sternly, “you have failed to understand the new Germany. You have failed to understand the Führer’s will for reconstruction. Old folk like you must be either ignored or forced to see where their welfare lies!” Later on, Aunt Adelheid campaigned successfully to be made warden of the building. That means that if there’s a genuine air raid she gets a gun, and everyone in the building is under her orders. And she has the right to shoot anyone who disobeys her.

  A thousand enemy aircraft wouldn’t frighten me as much as Aunt Adelheid with a gun and the power to give orders. There will be no need for any enemy airman to drop a bomb on Aunt Adelheid’s building in order to kill the people inside, because Aunt Adelheid will do the job for him in advance. Unless Schauwecker murders her first, that is. He’s another enthusiastic Nazi, and lives on the first floor. He looks like a great fat, yellow sponge, and he is the stage manager at the City Theatre. He used to be a member of some sort of organization which got him his job. Then he was going to be sacked, because he was always feeling up the actresses with walk-on parts—he was in charge of them, and could go into their dressing-room—and doing really disgusting things, and he wouldn’t even leave children alone. I know him; he’s an old pig. I was always afraid of meeting him out in the street at night on my own. He wasn’t sacked, just given a warning. But on account of all he’d suffered he became an anti-Semite.

  He has a tearful wife, and three children who are all in the Hitler Youth movement. He’s much respected in the Party because he knows a whole lot about the actors and the other people working at the theatre. And he was dead set on being warden of the building, and he would have been too, but for Aunt Adelheid. However, Aunt Adelheid had witnesses to the fact that when a man came round selling lottery tickets in aid of the Winter Relief programme, he had said, behind the man’s back, “I’ve no intention of buying any of that fool’s trash.” This amounted to sabotage of the Winter Relief effort, and Aunt Adelheid had only to inform on him, so she was well able to scare Schauwecker into letting her be warden. He’ll get his own back when the war comes and everything’s in confusion.

  Then Aunt Adelheid did something really horrible, something which might have been the death of me. After that I wasn’t going to stay on at her place, and I went to Algin in Frankfurt. He’d been to see me in Cologne, and he’d always been nice to me. Thank goodness he was glad to have me, and I stayed.

  Algin’s been all over the place, even Berlin, where he wrote for the newspapers. Then he began writing books, and one day he became really famous. There were reviews of his books in all the papers. They’re novels. One is about a woman who steals things from a department store, but she’s a good person all the same, it was just that there wasn’t anything else she could do. She gets badly treated by one man, he’s a cashier, and then she has an affair with a waiter, but that doesn’t turn out well either.

  Algin used to send copies of his books to Lappesheim, and we looked at them too. When November came and the vintage was over and the tourists had gone home, my father used to read half a page every evening. But I don’t think he ever got to the end of any of the books.

  They even made a film of one of Algin’s books, and it was shown in Koblenz. Father and I and six other people from the village went to Koblenz specially to see it. When we were in the cinema we felt just as if the place belonged to Algin, and all the film actors too, and he was responsible for the whole thing. Even the little torches the usherettes carried. The posters outside said, in big, bold letters, “SHADOWS WITHOUT SUN. FROM THE CELEBRATED NOVELIST BY ALGIN MODER.” We never really stopped to think if we liked the film, we just felt pleased and very proud, particularly my father. He didn’t say anything, but you could tell how proud he was because he took us all into the Königsbacher Bar afterwards and spent quite a lot of money.

  After that he put the book on the little table by the counter in the pub, where he always puts the newspapers, so that his customers could see it. There was an article about Algin in one newspaper, with a photograph of him, and Father had it handsomely and expensively framed and hung it over the settle in the bar.

  Algin sent home suits and dresses, and woolen waistcoats and expensive cognac for Father, who knows a thing or two about liquor. Father sent Algin the biggest salmon he caught in the Eltzbach, and the best vintage years of our wine. All the villagers envied us Algin, and the old Forest Supervisor went so far as to tell Father, “Moder, you should be a proud man! Your son’s made good.” Perhaps my father would have been even prouder if Algin had made good as a general, Father himself being a veteran of the Stahlhelm corps, but obviously the times just weren’t right for Algin to get to be a general.

  So my father had to content himself with the splendid things the newspapers printed about Algin, all down there in black and white. He was content, too, and proud. He even made some sharpish remarks about Father Bender, the only person in the village who had read Algin’s book, and who said that when God had endowed Algin richly with gifts and talents it was poor thanks to Him to deny the giver of such gifts.

  Father Bender’s in protective custody now, for thrashing the parish council chairman’s son because the parish council chairman’s son made use of the church wall instead of a tree or a lavatory. The boy is high up in the Hitler Youth, and as well as being parish council chairman, his father’s an old campaigner, and used to lead a detachment.

  Algin’s book is not on the little table by the counter any more, because the National Socialists put it on a black list. Its trouble is that it’s demoralizing and offends against the basic will for reconstruction of the Third Reich. That’s what they said in the Nazi newspaper in Koblenz. My father wasn’t a National Socialist to start with, but he was all for a basic will for reconstruction.

  Also, he had to think of his customers, so he hung a picture of the Führer over the settle instead of the framed article about Algin. It annoyed my father to think of Algin writing banned books, after he’d laid out good money on his education. After all, said my father, you have to show respect for the Führer, and the national emblem, and if Segebrecht, who keeps another local pub, has landed himself in a concentration camp, then it’s entirely his own fault. Segebrecht can certainly carry an amazing amount of drink, but he will keep putting it back, and it was one day when he was drunk that he painted a swastika on his lavatory floor. When Pitter Lambert came into the bar and asked what the idea was, he shouted at the top of his voice, “To show all the arseholes what they’ve gone and elected, that’s the idea.” Well, no good’s going to come of that kind of thing.

  Anyway, Algin had made good, as everyone had to admit. I used to think it must be wonderful, and I’d have loved to be brilliant and successful too, but now I wouldn’t really, not any more, because things can go wrong so quickly, and you never get much fun out of any of it in the long run, either.

  When Algin was first famous he thought he’d go up in the world a bit, and he did, and now it’s a burden to him, one he can’t shake off. Since the new government banned one of Algin’s books, he has to be scrupulously careful what he writes, and he doesn’t earn much money any more. His entire life, his whole working day from morning to night, is spent making enough to pay for his apartment and the furniture. Because when he was first famous he rented an apartment with lovely big rooms on the main Bockenheim Road, where the most prosperous people in Frankfurt have always lived, and lovely lush magnolia trees bloom in the front gardens in spring.

  Then Algin married Liska, because she’s so tall and lovely that even women who don’t like her say she really is quite something. He also married her because she admired his divine gift for language, and because you need a wife as well as an apartment if you’re going up in the worl
d. They furnished the apartment with expensive rugs and cushions, and furniture which is so low it makes you feel somebody sawed the legs off the chairs and tables one cold winter and fed them into the stove. Although the apartment has central heating. Alcoves have been built into some of the walls for books. Algin saw this apartment as a magnificent stage setting for a theatrical show performed by himself. He wanted people to come and applaud, and be aware that Algin was playing a leading part.

  Algin isn’t happy any more. Liska isn’t happy any more. I love them both. When I came here they gave me board and lodging just like that, and now I’m running the household for them. All Liska can do about the house is create chaos and stuffed toy animals. She used to work with handicrafts in Berlin, and she still does. It even earns her a little money. Her soft toys are silly, daft—but amusing and appealing too.

  Oh dear, now Herr Kulmbach’s ordering yet another round of kirsch. And I’ve got an incredible amount of work to do tomorrow, because tomorrow evening is Liska’s big party.

  Gerti called for me at noon today, because she was going to buy a pink blouse and wanted me to come along to the shops and tell her which suited her best. Even Liska says I have good taste in clothes, and people are always wanting me to knit them sweaters. Actually I can knit fast, and well. If I really do marry Franz, I can always earn us a little money by knitting. However, here in Frankfurt I’ve been moving in circles which are quite different from anything Franz is used to. I mix with high-class, rich, intelligent people here. Franz wouldn’t know what to say to them.

  Well, anyway, we were out in search of a blouse, Gerti and myself. We looked in Goethe Street and the Zeil. Then Gerti said why didn’t we go and have a coffee in the café in the Rossmarkt, so we did. Jews sometimes use this café, because unlike nearly all other bars and restaurants, it doesn’t have a notice up saying JEWS NOT WELCOME.

  The better class of Jews mostly stay at home anyway. If they do want to go out in public there are still three cafés in Frankfurt they can visit. These happen to be the three best cafés, which is hard luck on Aryans, who are afraid of going there too, with good reason. The good reason is that the Nazi paper, the Stürmer, will write about them if they do and call them lackeys of the Jews. And if they have official positions they get sacked. Only a very few brave Aryans dare go in, people without jobs to lose.

  Similarly, a few brave Jews venture into the Rossmarkt café. They drink light beer which they don’t really like, so as to look inconspicuous and Aryan. Whereas in this particular café Aryans don’t happen to drink beer.

  Gerti said why didn’t we have a vermouth with our coffee, and then another one, and I was her guest. She kept looking at the door. Her neck must have hurt from all that turning to look. She was hoping Dieter Aaron would come in.

  Goodness knows how often I’ve told her, “Gerti, don’t make yourself and Dieter unhappy.” Dieter is what they call a person of mixed race, first class or maybe third class—I can never get the hang of these labels. But anyway, Gerti’s not supposed to have anything to do with him because of the race laws. If all Gerti does is simply sit in the corner of a café with Dieter, holding hands, they can get punished severely for offending against national feeling. Still, what does a girl care about the law when she wants a man? And if a man wants a girl, it’s all the same to him if the executioner’s standing right behind him with his axe, so long as he gets one thing. Once he’s had it, of course, it is not all the same to him any more.

  I don’t mean that Dieter Aaron is a totally unacceptable sort of mixed-race person. He’s polite, and nice, and young, with soft, brown, round, velvety eyes. He’s never been very energetic or competent, and his father has never been happy about him. Old Aaron is very competent, and rich, and he has a fine, grandly decorated detached house with a garage. He sells curtains and furnishing fabrics abroad. Gerti says it’s an export business, and Jews can run export businesses; they aren’t banned. So old Aaron has no problems with his business although he is a full Jew. However, he doesn’t like people to call him a Jew. He says he’s not a Jew, he’s a non-Aryan.

  I’ve sometimes been invited to the Aarons’ with Algin and Liska, and Algin almost always quarrels with the old man. Because Algin is against the National Socialists and old Aaron isn’t. Old Aaron thinks the Nazis have put the German mentality in order and saved him from the Communists, who would have taken away all he has. He never has any trouble in big, grand hotels; indeed, he gets excellent treatment, and they even offer him a chair at the Revenue offices. There are some very inferior riffraff among the Jews, he says, so he can understand anti-Semitism, and as for the armed forces, there are some fine fellows among them, it’s a pleasure to look at them. Frau Aaron is not Jewish. She is dry and hard as old straw, and she dominates her husband. Young Aaron is of mixed race because of his non-Jewish mother, who loves him so madly it’s practically indecent.

  Dieter is in love with Gerti, but he’s scared stiff of his mother. He used to work in a chemicals factory, a job obtained by much effort and expense on his father’s part, but now he can’t do it any more. Nobody knows what will become of him. For the time being, he drives his father to business meetings and takes the Dobermans out for walks. He also goes looking for Gerti, and she goes looking for him.

  And then the pair of them sit in a bar looking at each other, the air around them positively quivering with love-sickness. Everyone in the bar must notice; no good can come of it. They just live for the moment, and cause the air to quiver, and don’t stop to wonder what next. Gerti thinks the good Lord will help them, because she’s so beautiful, and the good Lord is a man. Dieter thinks, by turns, what his mother thinks and what Gerti thinks. Also, he is afraid of his father.

  Sometimes Gerti and Dieter do try to plan for the future, but then they look into each other’s eyes, and all thought fades away. Sometimes I keep them company, so that the impression they make in the bar won’t be quite so dangerous. I don’t like doing this, and I always feel very foolish. I could weep with the worry of it. They’re both so pretty and so nice, and they may be hauled off to jail tomorrow. Why are they so crazy? I can’t understand it. Other people dance, but they can’t. The radio is playing string music, soft as a feather bed. Bright light shimmers in the wine. The wine is sour, but they are drinking hot, bright radiance. I long for Franz, and Gerti’s voice grows thin and faltering. The proprietor of the place keeps glancing at us—perhaps he knows Gerti from her parents’ shop and he’ll inform on her tomorrow. Dieter’s well known in Frankfurt too, through his father. There are people wearing Party badges at the next table—oh, dear God, we must get out of here! We must find another bar, and yet another, and some time disaster will strike.

  Perhaps the two of them wouldn’t love each other so much if they were allowed to. However, there’s nothing more idiotic than wondering why people love each other when they are in love. So when Gerti and I were sitting in the Rossmarkt café this afternoon, she thought Dieter might turn up because she’d been there with him once or twice, around this time in the afternoon. They hadn’t made a date. All the same, Gerti was nearly weeping with fury because Dieter didn’t come in. Now she won’t see him again until tomorrow, at Liska’s party; the Aarons are invited. And then they will have to be very careful, because of the old Aarons and because of Betty Raff. And I’m not sure that all the other guests are entirely safe, either.

  Gerti wanted to have one more vermouth. She suddenly looked dead and drained. The way a woman looks when she’s been waiting with all her might, waiting and longing, and all for nothing. Gerti did not want to buy a pink blouse any more, and anyway there wouldn’t have been enough money left. We decided to go home without the blouse. It was five in the afternoon. There was turmoil around the Opera House. People, and swastika flags, and garlands of fir, and SS men. The place was in confusion, all excited preparations, much like preparations for the handing out of Christmas presents in a prosperous family with quantities of children. You get used to feverish c
elebrations of something or other going on all the time in Germany, so that you often don’t stop to ask what it is this time, why all the fuss and the garlands and the flags?

  Suddenly we felt cold. We were in a hurry to get home. But the SS wouldn’t let us cross the Opera House Square to get to the Bockenheim Road. We asked why not; what was going on? But the SS are always arrogant and inclined to put on airs. This lot had nothing better to do than stand around, but they still couldn’t find time to answer us. Possibly their minds were working away so frantically that they could only manage to give a contemptuous shrug of their military shoulders.

  Gerti’s eyes went dark as coal with rage. I know her in that mood: it makes her dangerous, and then of course she’s the greatest danger of all to herself. So I asked one of the SS men again, sweet as sugar, very humbly, as if I thought he was one of the greatest rulers of Germany—well, that’s the way men like a girl to treat them.

  So then the SS man said the Führer would be coming down the Mainz Road to the Opera House at eight. If we wanted to get to the other side of the square we’d have to go round. Yes, of course the Führer was coming! How could I have forgotten? After all, little Berta Silias was due to break through the crowd with flowers, and Frau Silias had talked of nothing else for days.

  It was beginning to rain. People were gathering in the square, more and more of them all the time. It looked quite dangerous, as if they’d crush each other to death. Everyone wanted to see something, some of them may not even have known what there would be to see, but all the same they were risking their lives.

  Possibly the Führer thought, afterwards, that the people had come flocking up out of love for him. No, being the Führer he’ll be too clever to think that. Thousands more people join the carnival parade in Cologne, and clamber up on lampposts and high rooftops, breaking arms, legs, anything—they don’t mind. It’s just a kind of sport: they’re proud to have got a good viewpoint, so they can say, and believe, they were in the carnival. And classy people always want to have been at something classy—like Press balls and first nights. But as those things cost a lot of money, there isn’t usually such a dangerous crush as in the enormous crowds of people who don’t have any money and can only go to shows that don’t cost them anything.