Iron Gustav

by Hans Fallada

  She pulled herself together. I’ve done nothing, she reassured herself. ‘Where is the lavatory, please?’ she asked the salesgirl.

  She went in the direction the girl told her, then changed her mind. The stairs, the good old stairs of the Food Department had saved her once before – and she went back to them. They were thronged with people going up and down but she did not show any hurry. Putting her foot on a tread, she tied and retied her shoelace …

  When at last she felt she was unobserved she picked up the shopping bag. She knew, of course, that the name of Hackendahl was written in the lining and that she must tear it out. But she stopped. Something gleamed inside, something flashed and sparkled.

  She laid the bag down – that scoundrel had turned her into an accomplice – he had dropped part of his robbery into it. Supposing they caught her! She could never explain it away, never. Oh, if only she had him here, the swine, with his slick talk about shopping bags and making a dash for it!

  Somebody was coming down the stairs in a hurry. She peeped; it was a man in the brown uniform of the Stores, and she at once busied herself with her shoelace, having quickly covered the bag with her skirt … The man gave her a side glance – was he suspicious? In any case it was high time to leave the building. At least ten minutes had passed since the theft and it was very likely that police were now posted at the exits … No sooner had she heard the swing door clicking to below than she stuffed the jewels into the pocket of her white petticoat, spending no time in examining them but smiling when she saw the ring set with the yellow diamond. A cool customer, that chap!

  Tearing the name out of her bag, which she left behind, she went through the ground floor past counters whose glamour had waned, walked by a commissionaire and, mingling with the flood of customers, stepped into the street …

  Stepped into safety and freedom.

  § XVI

  When the boys entered the school playground for the eleven o’clock break they saw a smart cab stop outside. Nobody took any notice except Porzig, who could not resist a spiteful, ‘See the rival of our beloved Heinz. Hackendahl, decline equus, a hack.’

  ‘Don’t you start a row, Porzig,’ warned Hoffmann.

  ‘As a matter of fact, it’s my father’s cab,’ said Heinz Hackendahl. ‘Did you think I’m ashamed of it?’

  ‘Behold!’ said Porzig, mimicking the teacher of Greek. ‘Forsooth, Hackendahl, and is there verity in the street rumour that the Imperial stables are negotiating with your honourable father anent the purchase of yon shining steed?’

  The grey, old Hackendahl’s favourite, looked uncommonly pitiable; after that morning’s misadventure she was only the wreck of a horse. The Upper Third boys looked first at the grey and then at the two antagonists. Heinz Hackendahl and Hermann Porzig were sworn enemies, their skirmishes a recurring treat for the class.

  ‘Don’t bray, Hermann,’ said Heinz calmly. ‘The Porzigs are stinking coyotes – on hearing the war cry they hide in the wigwams of the squaws.’ (This was a memory from the beloved author, Karl May.)

  ‘We see nowhere the shining pot hat of our Patris equorum, the badge of the Cabmen’s Guild,’ resumed Porzig with assumed apprehension, his imagination greatly stimulated by the circle of listening boys. ‘Why does he tarry? Why does he not protect his steed against the slings and arrows of the sausage-makers? Is he putting down, forsooth, a spot of Kümmel in some cheap bar? Speak, legitimate offspring of a cab!’

  Current in the school was the never-to-be-forgotten story of how old Fritz, the Great Frederick, had once presented a silver chamber pot to the Court of Appeal as a mark of his annoyance at its judgment against him in a certain case. Hermann Porzig was the son of a magistrate of that Court of Appeal. Hence the reply of Heinz: ‘The shining pot-hat of my father pales before the glitter of the silver chamber pot. Is it true that your father has to scrub out this gracious gift every Saturday, and that you, my lord, are permitted to spit on the scrubbing brush?’

  A shudder went through the audience on hearing this deadly insult. Porzig, one who bestowed gibes more easily than he received them, turned crimson.

  ‘Retract the chamber pot,’ he screamed. ‘It’s an insult to the whole Court of Appeal.’

  ‘Never!’ cried Heinz Hackendahl. ‘You insulted my father.’

  ‘But you insulted the entire Court of Appeal. Will you retract?’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Fight it out?’

  ‘Fight it out!’

  ‘Windy?’

  ‘Not me!’

  ‘To the death?’

  ‘To the death – till one side begs for mercy,’ said Heinz, thus completing the traditional challenge. He looked round. ‘Hoffmann, you’re my second.’

  ‘Ellenberg, you’re mine.’

  ‘Let’s leave it till later,’ suggested Hoffmann soberly. ‘We’ve only got three minutes left.’

  ‘And in one he’ll start whining!’

  They had already removed their jackets, burning for the fray.

  ‘One – two – three!’ shouted the seconds. The combatants approached, tested each other’s defence, gained their grip, leaned breast to breast and forehead to forehead – then a moment later were rolling in the dust.

  In his study the headmaster was telling an anxious father: ‘You mustn’t take a youthful indiscretion too seriously, Herr Hackendahl. The saying “Youth and folly go hand in hand” is truer today than ever.’

  ‘Stealing is hardly an indiscretion, it is a sin,’ contradicted Hackendahl.

  ‘The youth of today has a craving for amusement, a craving unknown to our generation,’ declared the headmaster. ‘A long peace has made the young soft …’

  ‘Yes, we want a thoroughgoing war,’ cried Hackendahl.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, no! Have you ever thought of the proportions a modern war would assume?’

  ‘About a small nation in the Balkans? It would be over in six weeks and have done the young a lot of good.’

  ‘The whole world’s full of high explosives,’ replied the headmaster. ‘Everyone’s looking enviously at Germany as it grows ever stronger, and at our heroic Kaiser. The whole world’s going to attack us.’

  ‘For a few Serbs you can hardly find on the map?’

  ‘No, because we’re growing richer and richer! Because of our colonies! Because of our fleet! Pardon me, Herr Hackendahl, but is it not almost sacrilege to wish for a war merely because one’s son has committed an indiscretion?’

  ‘He needs military discipline.’

  ‘Within a year he will have passed his final, then you can let him serve at once,’ said the headmaster persuasively. ‘Don’t take him away now and deprive him of a course of study which will open up for him all sorts of opportunities.’

  ‘I’ll think it over,’ said Hackendahl reluctantly.

  ‘Don’t hesitate – say yes now!’

  ‘I must see him first …’

  ‘That’s just what you mustn’t do. If you see him in his present mood of obstinacy you will change your mind again. But why on earth lock him in a coal cellar – do you call that pedagogy?!’

  ‘I wasn’t treated with kid gloves when I was young, and I never stole money.’

  ‘Well, are you a criminal judge or a father? You’ll have fulfilled forbidden desires yourself at one time or another. We are all weak, and crave fame. You know it very well. Do please agree now.’

  ‘Only if he asks my forgiveness.’

  ‘Herr Hackendahl! Do you think he will say he is sorry the moment you release him? One must ask only for the possible.’ From the playground there drifted in the sound of conflict. ‘It is within the bounds of possibility that Erich may pass his final at the top of his class – primus omnium, we call it. “First of all” – that is a great achievement.’

  Hackendahl smiled. ‘A bait, I see. All right, I’ll walk into the trap for once. The boy shall come to school tomorrow.’

  ‘Splendid, Herr Hackendahl,’ said the headmaster, looking please
d and shaking hands. ‘You won’t repent it … What behaviour is this?’ He swung round and hurried to the window, where he was met by a roar from the playground.

  ‘Evoe, Hackendahl! Go to it, Hackendahl!’

  Heinz was victor. Caught in a wrestler’s grip, the strangled Porzig could only gasp for mercy.

  ‘You retract the pot-hat? The steed? The sausage-maker? The spot of Kümmel? Everything?’

  Porzig acknowledged each item with a grunt, while the ring of boys roared applause.

  ‘It seems’ – coughed the headmaster at the window – ‘to be the other Hackendahl boy in a misunderstanding. No, we’d better not be seen at the window. It’s often wiser to appear to have seen and heard nothing.’

  ‘The rascal has torn his trousers,’ grumbled Hackendahl behind the curtain. ‘He’s always tearing his clothes and his mother has to mend them.’

  ‘The talents of your son Heinz lie in another direction to Erich’s,’ said the headmaster, ‘and I should say he is the more practical of the two. It might be considered whether a non-classical secondary school wouldn’t be more suitable for him. Both your sons are talented …’

  ‘It’s extraordinary that my eldest isn’t,’ said Hackendahl. ‘He’s just a nitwit; put him where you like, he stays there.’

  ‘He too is sure to have his special gifts,’ said the headmaster consolingly. ‘One must just keep searching. Search and support.’

  ‘He’s a mere nitwit,’ Hackendahl repeated. ‘He doesn’t bring me any trouble, but no pleasure either. He’s just a cross to bear.’

  § XVII

  Otto Hackendahl handed over the two horses to the smith’s journeyman and hurried away, although he knew that by doing so he was breaking one of his father’s commandments, which was to keep a sharp eye on the smith at his work, since a hoof was so easily cut too deep or a nail driven in too far.

  But Otto had his secret life also and if he was indeed somewhat dull he was by no means as dull as his father believed. He handed over the horses to the smith. There shouldn’t be any trouble with nails today.

  He hurried down the street and by his manner and the way he kept close to the wall it was clear that everything was not well with him. He was a tall, finely built fellow, the strongest of the brothers, stronger even than his father, but he carried himself badly and lacked energy, self-confidence, a will of his own. Perhaps it’s just as he told his mother. His father spent a lot of time drilling him, and in doing so broke his will. But it’s also probably the case that his will was never strong. A strong tree grows against the wind; a weak one is blown over by it.

  He was dangling a small packet in his hand until he noticed what he was doing, when he hid it under his arm as though it were stolen. Looking furtively round, he entered a doorway, crossed a courtyard, passed through another doorway, crossed a second courtyard and climbed swiftly upstairs.

  He seemed to know where he was going, for he gave not a single glance at the names on the many doors, nor did the people he passed take any notice of him. Otto Hackendahl had a kind of natural camouflage and mimicry; no attention was paid to one so colourless.

  He stopped before a door with the nameplate: Gertrud Gudde, Dressmaker. Once, twice, he pressed the bell. Inside, someone moved, he heard a voice, a child laughing. Otto smiled.

  Yes, he could smile now, for he was happy. And he smiled still more when the door opened and a small child stumbled against his legs, joyfully shouting ‘Papa! Papa!’

  ‘You’re rather late today, Otto,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Is anything the matter?’

  ‘And’ – he kissed her – ‘I have to leave in a quarter of an hour, Tutti. I left the horses at the blacksmith’s, I’ve got to return immediately. Yes, yes, Gustäving, Papa’s here. Did you sleep well?’

  The child was overjoyed; Otto tossed him in the air, the little boy laughing and shouting. The woman too smiled, Gertrud Gudde the dressmaker, with her sharp features, unequal shoulders and that gentle dove-like glance so many hunchbacks have. She knew her Otto well – his weakness, his irresolution, his fear of his father, but also his wish to give happiness.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ve brought you some carving,’ he said. ‘Templin will give you about ten marks for it.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t sit up half the night, whittling away – I’ll manage all right. I had four fittings today.’

  ‘Gustäving, haven’t we a wonderful mummy?’

  The child shouted in glee and the mother smiled.

  ‘Well, you can sit down for a moment, anyway. I’ve some coffee left and here are rolls. Come along now, do eat! Gustäving will show you how well he can do his physical jerks.’

  Otto did as he was told. She always had something ready for him and he could come at any time he liked, as if they were really husband and wife. And he understood that this was how it should be; he ate what she gave him and never refused it even if he had already eaten more than he wanted.

  Gustäving set about his little tricks, of which the mother was even prouder than the son. She, who had hardly known a day free from pain, took pleasure in the child’s straight back and strong legs.

  ‘And now tell me what is the matter.’

  Slowly and clumsily he told her. But Gertrud Gudde understood him, could read him. And apart from that she knew them all very well indeed – Mother, Erich, Eva and the stern father – for she had been dressmaker to the Hackendahls many years now; that was how Otto and she had become acquainted and had learned to love each other without anyone noticing it, not even the astute Eva. Gertrud’s vivacious face mirrored every word he said, she accompanying his story by exclamations of ‘Very good, Ottchen!’ – ‘What you said was right!’ – ‘And you broke open the door? Splendid!’

  He – the man ground between two millstones – had the feeling that he had achieved something. ‘And what will Father say now that Erich has gone? And Eva who is so miserly – what a scene she’ll make!’

  ‘Eva? She can’t say anything – at least not to your father. The money was stolen.’

  He nodded. ‘But Father – about Erich?’ he asked, hoping that she would relieve his mind about this too.

  She looked thoughtfully at him, her look as soft as a dove. ‘Your father,’ she said – and the form of Iron Gustav, who had overshadowed her modest life, towered above them – ‘Your father’ – she smiled encouragingly – ‘he’ll be very hurt. He’s always been so proud of Erich. Don’t say a word against Erich, particularly about taking Eva’s money. Your father will be upset enough as it is. Admit quite calmly that you forced the lock and tell him – listen, Otto – “Father, I’d have got you out of a cellar, too.” Can you remember that?’

  ‘Father, I would have got you out of a cellar, too,’ he repeated awkwardly. ‘But that’s really true, Tutti.’

  ‘You see, Otto, I’m only saying what you yourself think.’

  ‘But what will Father do then, Tutti?’

  ‘One can’t tell.’

  ‘Perhaps he’ll throw me out. And what then?’

  ‘But you could always get work, Otto. Overnight you could go in a factory as an unskilled hand or a builder’s labourer.’

  ‘Yes, I could do that all right. Yes, that’s possible.’

  ‘And we could then live together quite openly. Your father would have to give you your papers and we could …’

  ‘No, not that! I mustn’t marry against his wish. It says in the Bible …’ Strange that this weak man is adamant in one respect – he will not get married against his father’s wish! At the beginning she had told him many a time that he could get the necessary papers without old Hackendahl’s knowledge and that she would put up the banns. What difference would a civil marriage make? How could it hurt a father who was ignorant of it? But Otto would not be moved. From the religious instruction at school, the confirmation course by Pastor Klatt, and the depths of his being arose the conviction that it would be unlucky to marry without his father’s consent.<
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  She had understood. She realized that, to the despised son, his father was not only the God of Wrath but the God of Love; this son loved his father more than the other children did. Nonetheless she continued to hope for the marriage, not for her own sake but for Gustäving’s who, already named after his grandfather, had still to receive the family surname.

  ‘Couldn’t you give your father a hint, Otto?’ she had often asked. ‘For instance, if you were to speak of me in his presence sometime when I’m working at your place.’

  ‘I’ll try, Tutti,’ he had replied, yet had never made the slightest attempt.

  This question of marriage was the one point on which she was not in agreement with him. She always mentioned it, although she knew it tortured him. She didn’t really want to, but it always came to her tongue, just as it did now, entirely without her wanting it to.

  So she said quickly: ‘No, you’re right. Just when Father has so many other worries, it would be wrong.’

  She looked in front of her. His hand came nervously over the table to hers. ‘You’re not angry, are you?’ he asked worriedly.

  ‘No, no,’ she assured him straight away, ‘only …’

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ he now asked, noting her silence.

  ‘I was thinking of the assassination and that people think there will be a war …’

  ‘Yes?’ he murmured, not understanding.

  ‘You would have to join up, wouldn’t you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Otto,’ she urged, gripping his hand, ‘Otto, tell me you wouldn’t join up without having married me. It isn’t for my sake, you know that. But Gustäving would never have a father if anything happened to you.’

  He looked at the child. ‘If there’s a war I’ll marry you. I promise it.’ And, seeing the hope in her eyes, he muttered: ‘But there won’t be a war.’