Iron Gustav

by Hans Fallada

  ‘That I should live to see this day!’ cried old Hackendahl amid the surge of enthusiasm. ‘Everything’ll be all right now.’

  Heinz was clinging to one arm and Eva to the other; they let themselves drift along with the people, laughing. In high spirits Eva was kissing her hands to the officers in the cars.

  ‘Oh, Father!’ cried Heinz pressing his father’s arm.

  ‘What is it, Bubi?’ In the turmoil Hackendahl had to bend down to hear.

  ‘Father!’ Bubi was quite out of breath. ‘Father …’ At last he managed to speak. ‘Couldn’t I go too?’

  ‘Go where?’ Old Hackendahl did not understand him.

  ‘Go to … the war … to the Front. Please, Father!’

  ‘But, Bubi,’ said old Hackendahl teasingly and yet with pride, ‘you’re only thirteen. You’re still a child.’

  ‘It would be possible, Father, if you gave permission. If you sent me to your old regiment. They do have drummer boys, I know that.’

  ‘Drummer boys! And you the son of an old soldier! We Germans never have drummer boys – perhaps the Frenchies do.’

  ‘Father!’

  ‘Hold tight, Evchen, hold tight! We’ve got to get home now, to tell Otto – he won’t know yet. If they’re mobilizing today, he’ll have to present himself tomorrow at the latest. Or even today … I don’t know. Quick, let’s get home, I’ll have to see what it says in his papers.’

  It was a stiff battle to make any progress at all against the human tide and they had to clutch one another so as not to be separated.

  Heinz looked cautiously at old Hackendahl. ‘Father …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t be cross – but won’t Erich also have to join up?’

  ‘Have to?’ The father answered freely, as if Heinz were an adult. He’d just been thinking about it. ‘No, he doesn’t have to. He’s only just seventeen. But he could volunteer.’

  ‘Erich volunteer?’

  ‘Why not? You mustn’t think badly of your brother, Heinz, there’s an end to that now. From now on we must all stand together. Everyone feels a new sense of unity – Erich will, too.’

  ‘Yes, Father. I also believe everything has changed.’

  ‘Yes, absolutely. You mark my words – Erich will come back now. He’s compelled to, I’ve got his papers, he needs them. But even so he would have to come back anyhow. Bubi, he’ll know now that no one can live just for himself. Each belongs to the other, and all belong together – we Germans!’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘That we’ve been looking for him in vain all these weeks had to be the case. He had to learn what it’s like to be quite alone, without anybody. Now we all belong together. See how Eva laughs and speaks with that man?! They didn’t know each other from Adam a moment ago; and now they’ve never heard of each other. But now they feel they have one thing in common – they’re German! You wait, by the time we get home perhaps we’ll find Erich sitting with Mother and waiting for us. Well, not a word about the past, you understand, Bubi? All is forgotten and forgiven! It just never happened. And, of course, you’ll be so kind as to behave yourself like a brother. From now on we’re all … Stop, where’s Eva? There she is! … Eva, we’re here! Would you believe it? The girl doesn’t see us. Eva!’ He shouted with his hands round his mouth. ‘Eva … Eva Hackendahl! Hac … ken … dahl! Over here!’

  A troop of young men was coming along linked arm in arm, trying as far as possible to march in step through the crowds. They were singing: ‘Victoriously we will vanquish France …’

  One of the marchers laughingly made a grab at Eva, who was battling her way through the people, and she too laughed as she evaded him.

  Hackendahl shook his head. ‘She’s gone, I can’t see her. Can you, Bubi? No, you’re much too small, of course. Well, come along, Eva will find her way home. We have to hurry. Otto must be told and perhaps Erich is waiting …’

  § III

  Gleefully Eva mingled with the crowd going along Unter den Linden in the direction of the Brandenburger Tor, away from her home, quite content to be separated from a father and brother who had talked nothing but a lot of boring rubbish about war and unity. So now they were expected to pig together more than ever, a real loving family! Why should there be war, anyway? This was only mobilization – she had managed these last few days to grasp that mobilization did not necessarily mean war.

  But if the war turned out to be like the mobilization, then it was pretty magnificent. Never had she seen men in such high spirits, and with such shining eyes. A little fat man, an old boy with a turned-up moustache, forty at least, suddenly took her round the waist. ‘Well, my dear, you’re pleased, aren’t you, I am!’ And before she could protest he was gone.

  A young man shouted: ‘Urgent – war bride wanted to darn my socks,’ and everyone laughed.

  Splendid, to drift with a crowd in such festive mood!

  A hand fell on her shoulder. ‘Well, missie, still goin’ strong?’ a somewhat hoarse voice enquired.

  She wheeled round, startled, to meet a face she had once seen for a few minutes and had not forgotten – a dark, impudent face with a black moustache.

  ‘What do you want?’ she cried. ‘I don’t know you. Please let go.’

  The young man smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter; if you don’t know me now, you soon will.’

  ‘Leave me alone or I’ll call a policeman!’

  ‘Call one, missie, call one. I’ll help you. Or what about goin’ together, eh? I don’t mind the bluebottles meself – blue’s my fav’rite colour. You’ve got a nice blue costume on yourself, missie.’

  Eva had always been a real Berlin child, pert and self-confident; it wasn’t easy to frighten her. But she was frightened now. Faced with this fellow’s assurance her own nerve vanished. The impudent manner in which he was patting her frock, just on the breast! And between her breasts hung …

  ‘Please let me go,’ she begged. ‘There must be some mistake.’

  ‘Of course I’ll let you go,’ he laughed. ‘Going’s good for you in this heat. Come on, my dear, I’ll go with you.’ And without further ado he took her arm. ‘Look at this pack of fools,’ he went on, ‘dying of joy because they’ve been given a war. As if it wouldn’t be a sight easier with a razor in front of a mirror. But no,’ he said, finishing, ‘that’s not for us. We’re more for the life beautiful.’

  ‘Let me go,’ she implored. ‘Let me go, I don’t know you.’

  ‘Girl,’ he whispered, ‘don’t you kid me.’ His smile had changed into a cold anger. ‘A whole month I’ve been traipsing all over Berlin looking for you and now I’ve found you, d’you think I’m going to let you off the string again? D’you think I put them things into your ruddy shopping bag, with its photo stuck up everywhere, just to have you keep ’em? No, my girl, I’m not so cracked as all that. You’ve got to shell out.’

  He looked at her and she, against her will, nodded.

  ‘And when you’ve shelled out, that won’t be all. I’ve been looking for a girl like you for a long while – a girl fresh from home. Be a great help to me. You’ve no idea how I’ll put you up to things. You’re going to be something classy an’ the cops will put you in a frame at headquarters – that’s the girl what started off with a jewel robbery at Wertheim’s!’

  ‘Please don’t. People …’ Her brain was working feverishly. Surely she could tear herself free and disappear in the crowd, once his grip slackened for a moment.

  ‘Well, what’s your name?’

  ‘Eva,’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘Well, and what else, Eva, my pet?’

  ‘Schmidt.’

  ‘Yes, of course! Schmidt! Just what I thought. Meier’s too common, I must say. And where d’you hang out, Fräulein Schmidt?’

  ‘In the Lützowstrasse.’

  ‘Ah, in the Lützowstrasse. Posh district, eh? And where d’you keep the stuff, you know what I mean, the sparklers? At home, I bet.’

  ‘Yes,’ she sa
id boldly, resolved now to scratch at his eyes with her free hand when the right moment came, and so get away.

  ‘Oh, at home!’ he sneered. ‘And where d’you keep ’em? Under the pillow?’

  ‘No, in the lamp-weight.’

  ‘In the lamp-weight,’ he repeated thoughtfully. ‘That’s not at all bad. You’re smart, I can see that. Don’t tell me you thought of that hide-away just for this. You’ve been pinching things before, eh?’

  Furious at her blunder, she did not reply and once again there was the abrupt change from mockery to threat. With his swarthy face close to her pallid one, he whispered: ‘And now I’ll tell you what’s what, Fräulein Schmidt from the Lützowstrasse. Do what you’re told – that’s what you’ve got to do. And turn up whenever I whistle, understand? D’you understand? Eh? Look at me, you – whore!’

  Trembling, she looked at him.

  ‘You whore an’ thief!’ he hissed. ‘You nice young lady – Eva Hackendahl!’ He was savouring her terror now that she realized there was no escape, that he knew her name.

  But when he saw her so utterly subjugated, deathly pale and trembling, his rage went. The victor became magnanimous. ‘Yes, surprised you, what?’ He laughed. ‘Well, you shouldn’t cart round an old buffer who bawls out your name right across the street. You see, I’m not the sort to pretend I know by magic. That was your father, wasn’t it, who called you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘When I ask you something, you answer, see. Say “Yes”.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Say: “Yes, Eugen”.’

  ‘Yes, Eugen.’

  ‘Good – and now where d’you really hang out? But no more lies or I’ll give you something to worry about, you can depend on that.’

  She was convinced he would keep his word and racked her brain for an escape and found none.

  ‘Where d’you live?’

  ‘Frankfurter Allee.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘The cab yard.’

  He whistled. ‘Oh, that’s him, is it, him with the taxicabs? So I’m getting a swell sort of girl, I’ve clicked somethin’ first-class. Fine.’ Suddenly he was very good-humoured. ‘And now listen, my dear … me Evchen. Don’t you look so worried, you needn’t be afraid of me. I’m the kindest chap in the whole of Berlin. I’m a real mug, I am, if you do what I tell you, that is. Well, you be at the corner of Grosse and Kleine Frankfurter Strasse at nine this evening. Savvy?’

  She nodded. But when he made a gesture she said quickly: ‘Yes, Eugen.’

  ‘As for the sparklers you needn’t bring ’em with you specially – because you’ve got ’em on you already. Don’t be so stupid another time and tell an old friend that they’re in the lamp-weight when I c’n see the cord in the neck of your blouse.’

  She turned pale.

  ‘But I’m a decent chap. I’ll take the swag off your hands. What use is it to you anyhow? You can’t wear ’em or you’d get caught. But I’ll give you somethin’ you can wear, something nice – I got enough for that … And anyhow, my girl,’ and he pressed her arm affectionately, ‘we’re going to have a swell time together. You needn’t be afraid. Oh, we’ll have some grand times.’ He gave a short laugh. Her arm was lying quietly in his. ‘There’s only one thing. You got to do what I tell you, make no mistake about that – even if I say jump off the roof. Otherwise I’ll get mad.’

  He let go of her arm and observed her closely. ‘Got the wind up, eh?’

  She nodded slowly, tears in her eyes.

  ‘You’ll get over that, Evchen,’ he said brightly. ‘At first every girl’s frightened, but they get over it. And don’t be fool enough to bolt off to the police – or I’ll kill you, now or in ten years’ time.’

  He laughed curtly, nodded, and then: ‘Clear off home!’ he commanded.

  And before she understood what was happening he had gone.

  § IV

  In a first-floor room of a house in Jägerstrasse, a swarthy, thickset man in shirt and trousers walked up and down whistling the ‘Marseillaise’, his leather-shod feet lightly treading the linoleum floor. Now and again he went to the window and looked into the street, which also caught something of the disturbance that reigned on Unter den Linden on this first morning of mobilization. The man shook his head, went on lightly whistling, but continued to walk up and down.

  The door was jerked open and on the threshold stood Erich Hackendahl, panting and flushed.

  ‘Well?’ enquired the swarthy, thickset man.

  ‘Mobilization!’

  The man, taking his waistcoat from the chair and putting it on, continued to look at Erich. ‘That was to be expected,’ he said slowly. ‘But mobilization doesn’t mean war.’

  ‘But, Herr Doctor,’ cried Erich, still breathless, ‘all the people are so enthusiastic. They were singing “Now praise we all our God”. I sang as well, Herr Doctor.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they be enthusiastic?’ asked the Herr Doctor, slipping on his jacket. ‘It’s something new. And probably their glorious Kaiser has spoken again about gleaming arms and enemies all over the world …’

  ‘But no, no! Nothing of the kind,’ shouted the young man. ‘You’re quite wrong. A policeman came out of his cabin, an ordinary bobby, and announced the mobilization. It was magnificent.’

  ‘He’s a great impresario, your hero-emperor. Now he’s putting on some old Prussian simplicity, copying Frederick the One and Only. But, Erich, surely you realize you’ve been taken in – you know his love of pomp and circumstance. And now all of a sudden just this policeman! It’s all humbug.’

  ‘But it wasn’t humbug when we were singing,’ countered the lad.

  ‘And didn’t you look at the singers? They weren’t the people, my boy, they weren’t the workers who create the wealth but the fat bourgeoisie, and when they thanked their God for the mobilization they were really thanking Him for the big profits they smell in the offing, the biggest of all profits, war profits derived from their brother’s corpse …’

  ‘Shame, shame, Herr Doctor! You weren’t present. Those people weren’t thinking of business, they were thinking of Germany threatened by Russia, France, perhaps even by England.’

  ‘Just think a bit, Erich,’ said the swarthy man. ‘You have a good brain and you might use it! If we mobilize now, doesn’t it mean we threaten the others, and the workers on the Neva and the Seine feel they’re threatened at the same time, but now by us?’

  Erich stood perplexed. ‘The others …’

  The man smiled. ‘Now you want to say that the others started it – just like children complaining about one another to their mother. But we’re no longer children. The worker, Erich, has no other fatherland but that of the working class of the entire globe.’

  ‘But Germany …’

  ‘Germany even today is a land where the worker has no rights. “Work and obey” is the password here. The German worker has only one friend in the world and that is the French worker, the Russian worker. Shall he shoot these?’ Impetuously: ‘There are 110 Social Democrats in the Reichstag – we’re not going to grant war credits, we shall refuse. In our persons almost one-third of the German people refuses also.’

  ‘I was standing near the Schloss. I heard them singing, I joined in, too, and the workers joined in. Nothing bad could have inspired us to that.’

  ‘But it is something bad! You’re intoxicated, Erich, intoxicated with evil. You don’t know what a war means, when one mother’s son kills or mutilates some other mother’s son.’

  ‘And do you know what a war means?’

  ‘I do. From my youth I have fought for the workers. That’s a war, too – every day we have our dead and wounded … But I know what I’m fighting for, which is that the German worker and with him the workers of the world should have a little more happiness, a little more comfort. What are you fighting for? Tell me.’

  ‘For the defence of Germany.’

  ‘But what is your Germany? Does it give its sons a home and daily
bread, or even the right to a job? Is the worker to defend his bed infested with bugs or the policeman who dissolves his meetings? He can have all that anywhere else in the world, without Germany.’

  ‘What you say must be wrong. I can’t put it into words, but I feel it. Germany is something more than that. And if the workers really only had flea-ridden beds, as you say, in Germany they would be happier with them among Germans than in a completely different world.’

  They stood silently for a while. In the streets the shouts and the rejoicings rose and fell, rose and fell like waves on a shore …

  The big man moved as in a dream. ‘You must go, Erich,’ he said quietly. ‘I can’t have you here any longer.’

  Erich made a movement.

  ‘No, I’m not sending you away in anger. But I’m a Social Democrat and I can’t have a warmonger as secretary. That’s impossible. When you came to me in such a pitiable state four or five weeks ago, I thought I could help you. You would be one of us, part of the great movement of workers’ liberation …’

  ‘You were very good to me, Herr Doctor,’ faltered Erich.

  ‘You had done wrong, Erich, and you wanted to do worse – lie down in the mud deliberately and perish. I knew your alert, critical mind which made you dissatisfied with a comfortable home, and you seemed to me a rebel – we need rebels.’

  Erich made a hasty movement, thought for a moment, and said nothing.

  ‘You want to say you’re still a rebel. But you’re not one, when you fight to defend the bad existing social order. You want to join up, don’t you? A volunteer?’

  Erich nodded defiantly. ‘I feel that the people want this war, not only me.’

  ‘Really! And I thought we were defending ourselves! Anyway, we Social Democrats didn’t want it. We’ll vote against the government and the war credits. The workers throughout the whole world will too – and your war will be finished!’