by Irmgard Keun
“Yes, yes, we know,” one of the men told Aunt Adelheid gently, all kindness. “It’s nothing to do with you.”
“If I’d known what I was taking into my home” cried Aunt Adelheid, looking at me as if I’d taken part in some dreadful jewel robbery.
The whole thing seemed to me utterly unreal; I thought maybe I was still dreaming. I hadn’t even been allowed to get dressed to go downstairs with the men, they just let me fling my raincoat on. And the silly thing was that Franz wasn’t there, because he went out to buy vegetables at the market before office hours. Then the two men let Aunt Adelheid go upstairs to fetch me some clothes, while they stood guard over me. They’d searched and searched and found nothing, and they were looking even grimmer than before.
Then they took me to police headquarters in a car, and I had to sit in the Gestapo room upstairs for hours on end.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to be there for. People kept coming in and making statements. Natives of Cologne had tales to tell of other natives of Cologne who had dealings with the Red Front. An old, old woman came in and went on for hours about her lodger, who didn’t pay his rent and was a Communist. She said he’d torn down the swastika flag she draped over the balcony. Well, no, she didn’t actually see him do it, but the swastika flag had been torn down all right, and she’d given the man her best front room, with her late husband’s armchair and all, her late husband had been a policeman—“I brought a picture to show you, Commissioner, look, that’s him”—yes, well, she’d put his armchair in that room. “And the lodger hadn’t paid any rent for three months … and the swastika flag on the balcony was ever so nice, Commissioner, oh, you should just have seen it—my brother’s a witness too, he’s out there in the waiting room …” And in comes the brother with a friend, both of them even more ancient than the old lady, shrivelled old men with their hats in their hands, and humble eyes. The policeman’s old widow begins crying over the swastika flag and the unpaid rent. “She’s a bit soft in the head, see?” says the brother. “And what with all the excitement, and the strain on an old woman—she’s got water on the legs, see? Hasn’t gone out in the street for years.” Then he says he’s due to inherit, and after his sister’s death he’ll have a right to the rent which the Communist isn’t paying now, and the man won’t move out of his room either. How do they know he’s a Communist? Well, everything about him shows it. The old folk go on about it for hours, and the officer takes all they say down on his typewriter. There are three typewriters in the room, clattering away steadily and inexorably. And people keep coming in the whole time to inform on someone or other. You’d think the whole of Cologne had made a date to meet in this shabby, grey Gestapo room.
An old man comes in with a fourteen-year-old boy. “Chief Commissioner, sir, it’s about my son. Father of my grandson here. Frau Fabrizius on the first floor—we live in Weyer Street, see?—well, Frau Fabrizius informed against him, said he fell downstairs drunk and said something rude about Herr Göring. Herr Göring the Minister. Well, Chief Commissioner, sir, here’s my grandson can swear to it, see?—come here, Pitter—now then, Pitter, when your father came home, did you open the door, eh? And heard him stumble a bit and let out a curse or so and that’s all, right? Can you swear to it, eh?” The lad nods. “See, it’s only because Frau Fabrizius is always quarrelling with my daughter-in-law, it started in the laundry room, see, and then …”
“Where is my husband?” There’s a woman standing among the typewriters all of a sudden, her face pale and her hair straggling. She is very pregnant. I jump up, all the people who have had complaints laid against them and are seated at intervals along the walls jump up, so that she can sit down. You can see she might go into labour any minute. “Where is my husband? He was taken away all of a sudden at nine last night, he’d got the dole book and the dole money in his pocket, I haven’t any money and I’m about to have my baby, where is my husband?” The typewriters clatter and clatter away. “Give us your address, my good woman,” says the officer, “it will be all right, just calm down.” But the woman is perfectly calm and firm. “Where is my husband?”
And more and more people keep coming in. This Gestapo room seems to be a positive place of pilgrimage. Mothers are informing on their daughters-in-law, daughters on their fathers-in-law, brothers on their sisters, sisters on their brothers, friends on their friends, drinking companions on their drinking companions, neighbours on their neighbours. And the typewriters go clatter, clatter, clatter, all the statements are taken down, all the informers are treated well and kindly. Now and then mothers whose sons have disappeared turn up, wives whose husbands have disappeared, sisters whose brothers have disappeared, children whose parents have disappeared, friends whose friends have disappeared. People making these inquiries are not so well and kindly treated as the informers.… By the time my turn to be questioned came, after hours and hours, there was nothing in my head but confused thoughts and nothing in my ears but that constant clattering and questioning and talking and roaring of noise. I was so tired I hardly minded what happened. I was not afraid, not even curious as to what would become of me.
I had to give my name, age, place of birth and religion. Just the same as everyone else. Had I ever been an active Communist, what were my political views, what sort of people did I mix with, had I ever been a member of any political or religious association, what were my feelings about National Socialism—I was never asked so many questions in all my life! And then it began in earnest: I was said to have made subversive statements about Göring’s speeches on the radio, and disparaging remarks running down the Führer. I was not a bit surprised, because I had long since realized it was Aunt Adelheid who had landed me in this mess. I tried to explain it all, but the officer looked so stern and chilly that I thought explanation might only make matters worse. So I had to sign a statement saying I had said I didn’t want to listen to Göring telling me off over the radio. And the best thing about the Führer’s speech was the way he had been sweating.
After I’d signed this statement I was taken down to the magistrate who had powers of summary jurisdiction. He talked to me like a priest at a cut-price funeral. He was still a young man, and very full of his own importance.
“Now,” he said, “this question is strictly between ourselves—what did you vote at the last election?” I said I was only eighteen and not old enough to vote yet. He spent half an hour telling me he could take me into protective custody here and now, and what did I think of that? What on earth was I supposed to think of that? He had a sort of gleam in his eyes—if he’d tried to kiss me I’d have kicked him in the belly as hard as I could, he could have perished before my eyes for all I cared, the brute. But if he was going to take me into protective custody I’d have to put up with it.
The voice of this powerful little young man clacked on and on, the room was small and grey and like a prison—a handful of dim sunlight shone in on dust and grey files. I was desperate with weariness. Was I going to have to stay here all my life? Suddenly I remembered something Paul had said. I’ll never forget the evening when he told us about countries where you can say what you like, where you don’t have anything to fear as long as you don’t break God’s ten commandments. There are countries, he said, without any hidden dangers, where you can greet people any way you like—and you can weep on days of rejoicing and laugh on days of mourning, just depending how you feel at the time.
And suddenly it was all too much for me. Here I sat, going to be punished and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what was good any more, I didn’t know what was bad any more. I thought of those countries obeying God’s ten commandments, where good is good and bad is bad. I thought of the far-off foreign lands Paul talked about. I could not keep from crying harder than I’d ever cried in all my life before.
The young magistrate thought I must be crying for remorse or fear. He was pleased to see me crying in front of him, and he let me go.
Down by the big doorway I collided with a very ol
d woman hauling a big, shabby suitcase along.
“Don’t cry,” the old lady told me, “don’t you cry now, I’ll make sure he gets something to eat—here, look at this!” And she tapped the big case she had put down beside her in a mysterious way. A young policeman came along. His face was pale. You don’t really see anything of a policeman but his helmet, never his face. “She’s off her head,” he told me, pointing at the little old lady smiling away to herself. “Her son’s been in a concentration camp for seven months—used to be a mate of ours here. Nobody knows if he’s still alive. His mother went off her head, won’t eat, spends all day making sandwiches, it’s always sandwiches, and packs them in that case and brings them here. She’s afraid he isn’t getting enough to eat. Won’t rest until she’s got the case upstairs to the Gestapo office. They always send her and her case away again, and she always comes back. There’s no helping her, or not much anyway.” The young policeman picked the case up. “Come on, Granny dear, I’ll carry your case upstairs,” he said. The tiny little old woman beamed. “Oh, that’s good of you, sir, that really is. Now don’t cry, miss, he’ll get something to eat now.”
I rushed home. I must get away, I kept thinking, I must get away from here.
Outside the shop I met Franz. I dragged him upstairs to the attic with me. “I must pack a case. I must get away.”
Franz still had no idea of what had happened to me. I told him while I collected my things—it may have sounded a bit muddled, a bit hasty and confused. “But where are you going, then?” was all Franz asked, lips white and trembling, instead of rushing downstairs in a rage and slamming his mother into the wall so hard she’d stick there. “Stay here,” he said, “stay here, nothing else will happen, I’ll talk to Mother.” “You get out of here!” I shouted at him. What’s the point of talking to an idiot who doesn’t understand?
“Yes, but where are you going?” was all Franz kept asking. Where? Well, maybe to Lappesheim, or—and at this moment it occurred to me I might go to Algin in Frankfurt. He’d invited me several times. Anyway, I was practically beside myself, what with Franz failing to understand I’d be safer anywhere in the world than in his mother’s house. And I was in mortal danger living with a woman who hated me because she had to pay me money from the shop—and hated me because it was on my account Franz gave her only half his salary. That alone would have been reason enough for her to get me into a concentration camp, just to be rid of me. I suddenly saw it all, clear as day. What was more, she had plenty of other reasons to hate me too. She might well put poison in my food tomorrow. “Listen, have it out with her first, come downstairs and talk to her, I’m sure it can all be explained—it must all have been Fraulein Fricke’s fault.” At that moment Franz revolted me—revolted me so much I couldn’t even have brought myself to slap his face. His mother had tormented him for years, he’d never had a moment’s happiness with her, and now here he was suddenly standing up for her, protecting her. Why? Because she’d treated him badly? Because she was his mother? I ask you! Well, a man like that had just better live with his mother and do without all other women.
I still feel like throwing up when I think how Aunt Adelheid carried on because I’d stolen her only son. But she was all in favour of the war. She would have had no objection to her son’s falling in war. It was just that she didn’t want any other woman to have him. And Aunt Adelheid’s not the only mother of this sort; Gerti could tell a tale or so along the same lines. An old man never gets as nasty and venomous as an old woman.
Franz carried my case to the station. I wasn’t speaking to him. We sat over a glass of beer in the waiting room for fifty minutes. I still wasn’t speaking to him.
He handed my case up to me in the train, and I didn’t speak to him. When the train started, I looked out of the window without waving.
I saw Franz standing on the platform looking sad and lonely. A few minutes later I could have wept because I hadn’t waved. Honestly, I was out of my mind!
The further the train got from Cologne, the happier and more relieved I felt. I had the impression that at last I’d been saved from every danger that could threaten me.
I couldn’t help thinking of nice Frau Grautisch, and how right what she said was. I’d send her a postcard from Frankfurt.
Frau Grautisch lived near us in Cologne. She was at daggers drawn with Aunt Adelheid, and friends with me. I’d run into her only a couple of days before, when she was fetching a litre of beer from the Päffgen Bar. “For my Miebes,” she told me. “Once he’s put that lot inside him he’ll be ready for his bed. I don’t mind him drinking twice what he’s used to these days, just as long as he doesn’t go out to the pub. A woman who loves her husband and wants to keep him isn’t letting him out to the pub, not these days. Liable to shoot their mouths off, men are, here in Cologne. And when they’ve had a few they will start on about those stupid politics, cracking jokes and making filthy remarks, thinking it’s all among friends. Then they wake up next day with a thick head, and some jealous person or other whose business isn’t doing well will have gone chasing off to the Gestapo or some Party office or what-have-you to inform on them. When I get home now, Sanna, I’ll find my old man sitting there grumbling. ‘Elvira,’ he says, ‘this place is no better than a concentration camp.’ ‘Fancy you not noticing that before,’ says I. ‘We’re all in a concentration camp, the whole nation is, it’s only the Government can go running around free.’ ”
And then I began an entirely new life in Frankfurt, with Algin and Liska. Like nothing I’d ever known before. It was a pity there was always something political going on here, too.
I wrote to Franz, and Franz wrote to me. He writes exactly the way he talks—not much. And I didn’t really mind, because I was doing so many new things and meeting so many new people, who were all very nice to me—quite different from the crowd I’d had the bad luck to fall in with when I first came to Cologne. I wasn’t interested in getting married in a hurry any more either. Plenty of time for that. I’m still young, and so is Franz. And it’s four months since I heard from Franz at all. He suddenly stopped writing. I did notice, and I sometimes wondered why, but not often. There were always so many other things to occupy my mind. I wrote once, asking what the matter was, but I didn’t care much when I got no answer.
And now, today, this letter came! My heart beat fast when I read it, and I felt a bit guilty, though Franz did stop writing first. I’d always had a vague sort of feeling that something was wrong. But now he’s coming to Frankfurt. He couldn’t come to Frankfurt if he were ill. Anyway, I can’t think of anything but Liska’s big party till after tomorrow. The party’s tomorrow evening, and I’ll have to work like mad, flat out, from tomorrow morning onwards. We’re going to move all the furniture in the apartment round. And Liska’s given me a dress for the party, made of pink silk, with a dark red velvet ribbon round the waist. Dear Liska. She’s always so kind to me. And I promised her I’d go and talk to Heini.
5
“GOOD EVENING, HERR HEINI—THANK GOODNESS you’re here.”
“Evening, Sanna. Come and sit down, Dr. Breslauer will be delighted. And how’s our beautiful barbarian Liska, and that sourpuss Betty?”
The customers in here sit on narrow wooden benches at bare, brown, wooden tables. At least you can’t carelessly burn a hole in the tablecloth with your cigarette when you’re feeling tired. The place is full of buzzing voices and clouds of blue-grey smoke. Heini orders me a glass of beer and a Steinhager—“You can leave it if you don’t like it”—and goes on talking to Breslauer, who is a Jew and a doctor of medicine and a friend of Heini’s. Dr. Breslauer has rather weary, clouded brown eyes, and a bald patch with a very few fair hairs left over it. Even those few hairs can still give him dandruff, you wouldn’t think it possible. In five days’ time he’s going to Rotterdam and then on to America. But he’s coming to the party tomorrow.
“How can you be true? … Oh, the truth is not in you …” Toni the fat queer is sitting by the bar
playing his guitar and singing. He doesn’t sing all that well, but it’s exciting. At least, I like to hear him.
Heini is forty, and used to be a well-known journalist. He hardly writes at all these days—for political reasons, again. He hasn’t any money, but he can always find people who’ll give him something and feel pleased and honoured if he lets them sit with him. All his acquaintances are fond of him, though he can be very nasty and sharp-tongued.
He is forty years old, and not much taller than me, which makes him short for a man. He’s not exactly fat, but sort of square. His hair is soft and brown; his grey eyes have a silvery gleam in them, the kind you only see in a heavy drinker’s eyes. I know about that from people at home on the Mosel. It can look very attractive in the evening, and I’d like a gleam such as that in my own eyes, but I can’t take that amount of liquor. Everybody calls him Heini, or Herr Heini, because that was how he always used to sign his famous articles. Hardly anybody knows his surname.
He came to Frankfurt six months ago. He has all sorts of friends and acquaintances here, and they talk politics. He’s collecting material about the German nation. He knew Algin before too, and that’s how Liska got to meet him. We met several times a week for months on end, and it never occurred to Liska to fall in love with Heini. She was interested in any number of other people, not a bit in him.
And now she’s so deeply in love it makes her ill. She loves him madly. The entire party tomorrow is for Heini, so he can see her in a pink evening dress, with her arms and most of her bosom bare, wearing her best spangly jewellery. She thinks he’ll suddenly see her in a completely new light, and his eyes will finally be opened, and he’ll fall in love with her, something he has failed to do so far. She read somewhere that a woman in everyday clothes is a very different creature from a woman in evening dress, which I suppose may be true. Anyway, so far Liska hasn’t had any chance of letting Heini see her in evening dress, though she’s been wanting to for ages. But nothing on earth or out of it would persuade Heini to go to the opera or make a date to meet in an elegant bar. And you can’t go to the Squirrel or the Munich Taproom in evening dress—at least, if you did, I should think it would look very funny. So that’s why the party had to be arranged.
