A Small Circus

by Hans Fallada

  ‘You are! I’m surprised at your being so naive myself.’

  ‘That’s what made me so mad. But I thought, oh, farmers, how are they going to hurt me? And then they proceed to run me criss-cross-country for five hours till I land up back in the auction hall at home.’

  Gareis laughs heartily.

  ‘But you didn’t know that already, did you, Mayor?’

  ‘Of course I did. I only want you to understand how happy your fellow citizens will be to read about it.’

  ‘Don’t give me that! They would be just as happy to read about all sorts of other things, for instance you and Frerksen taking your hats.’

  ‘Could be. Certain other things would equally displease them. What would you do if I saw to it that none of the Altholm papers reported that farrago of yours?’

  ‘We’ll play ball with you. We’ll adopt your approach.’

  ‘My Lord!’ says the mayor. ‘Aren’t you the generous one! What other alternative do you have? One approach has failed, you can only try the other.’

  ‘You see,’ says Manzow tauntingly. ‘You don’t know everything, after all.’

  ‘What don’t I know?’

  ‘You don’t know about the telegrams, and you don’t know about the committee setting out first thing tomorrow morning either.’

  ‘My God, how earth-shattering is that! Tell me! Are you off to be conciliated again?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a tease, Mayor! If I break my solemn word of honour and tell you, will you at least see that it stays out of the newspapers?’

  ‘The local Altholm ones, yes. I can’t do anything about the others.’

  ‘All right. That’s a deal, is it?—This morning, when our people got wind of the fact that there was going to be no reconciliation, and the boycott was set to continue, they were all shit scared. In order to calm them down, all the businesses sent a hail of telegrams to Temborius, to get him to intercede, speed up the inquiry, punish the guilty.

  ‘And tomorrow a deputation is going out to see Temborius and to tell him just how bad the boycott is, because you go around everywhere saying it’s ineffectual.’

  ‘I see. And you’re going with them?’

  ‘Of course I am. I’m even going as spokesman.’

  ‘And what did you come here for, now?’

  ‘To tell you that we accept your recent proposals. We’re with you: boycott and counter-boycott.’

  The mayor was black as night and enraged as a bull. Manzow should have kept to polite replies, nothing more. He sends fearful, hurried, covert glances at the irate man, anxious to avoid his eye, dreading an outburst.

  Which comes, but not as expected. In loud rollicking laughter, the mayor dispels the tension and fury.

  ‘Oh, you bloody idiots!’ he yells. ‘You push-me-pull-yous! Accept my suggestions, and go to the president to demand my punishment! You veal calves! You morons!’

  ‘Not your punishment,’ says Manzow, apparently in earnest. ‘The punishment of the guilty parties.’

  ‘That’s enough, Franz, now mercy, please. I’ve had all the humour I can take. So let’s get this straight: You’re fighting—until further notice—on my side? The effectiveness of the boycott is to be denied? The farmers will be boycotted when they come to market? Silence on the 26th of July?’

  ‘Yes. All agreed and decided.’

  ‘Good. Very good. All right, Franz. All that’s left for me to say is good luck in Stolpe. I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it. Have to be in Stettin, there’s a meeting about the river. You can come and see me the day after and tell me all about it. Bye now.’

  ‘Bye, Mayor.’

  Gareis is left staring fatly into space. He has a feeling: This is all so stupid, so pathetic, so ignominious—it’s not worth it. Why do I keep throwing myself so whole-heartedly into it? I must be just as stupid.

  He has another feeling: This isn’t going to turn out well. This isn’t going to end well.

  And third, he knows he has to do something. Carry on down the chosen road, seeing as he doesn’t want to turn back, and, for example, sacrifice Frerksen. He has to ring the bell and send for Political Adviser Stein. Things need to be done fast, very fast.

  It’s not worth it. It’s not going to turn out well. But I need to act.

  He presses the bell. ‘Get me Political Adviser Stein, if you will. And come in with him.’

  When the two of them are there:

  ‘Fellows, things are starting to happen. I have to go to Berlin right away to see the minister. They are inciting Temborius against us. So I incite the minister against them. Officially, I’m in Stettin to see about the Blosse. The car will take me to Stettin. I’ll be back tomorrow evening.

  ‘Stein, twist, weave, duck for all you’re worth. Got it? And another thing: that snoop Tredup will be bringing in a letter, Piekbusch. Thank him. Make sure this one doesn’t get lost. Ideally, keep it on your person.

  ‘Now I hope to God I manage to catch the minister. Frerksen should try and keep out of sight, if he can, Stein. Be good, chaps! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’

  By the time he’s in the corridor, he’s already out of breath.

  IV

  ‘Hey, aren’t you going to stop for lunch today?’ Wenk asks Tredup, who’s prowling around the Chronicle offices in a particularly aimless and distracted way.

  ‘I’m waiting for Stuff. I need to talk to him about something.’

  ‘Stuff is out at the jury-court today. He won’t be back until four o’clock.’

  ‘Then he’ll call me. He knows I’m waiting for him,’ Tredup lies, and prowls off again, through the editorial office into the typesetting room, to the machine room, where the rotation presses are just spitting out the latest edition of the Chronicle.

  He fishes out a copy for himself and another one for Wenk, and turns up in dispatch.

  ‘There. Hot off the press.’

  But he is too agitated to read, and keeps asking Wenk about the paper: ‘Hey, Wenk, what does it really say on our certification? Is it seven thousand or seven thousand two hundred?’

  ‘Seven thousand one hundred and sixty. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Oh, the department-store geezer was thinking about putting out an insert, and needed to know the exact figure. You’re sure about it, are you?’

  ‘Seven thousand one hundred and sixty. Quite sure.’

  Pause. Wenk reads assiduously. Tredup racks his brain. He squinnies at the safe, where the keys are hanging, where the certification is. Unattainable. And the mayor’s waiting.

  ‘It’s a bit of a specious thing, that old certificate. Don’t you think, Wenk? Borderline dishonest, really. Did Gebhardt say he wanted us to go on using it?’

  ‘Yes, he did say that.’

  ‘Was anyone actually there to hear him say it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you think if it turns out that it was dishonest, and we’re in a courtroom, you or I, you think he really will hold up his hand and say he gave us that instruction?’

  ‘How’s it ever going to get out? Anyway, we are pretty near seven thousand.’

  ‘I’m not sure. The counter on the rotation machine has got a different number.’

  ‘Nonsense. Anyway, that counter’s been broken for six months.’

  ‘What about paper? You can work out how many copies we print from the amount of paper we get through.’

  ‘Who’s going to calculate our paper use? I don’t even do that. The machine master comes and says we’re on the last roll, and I order more.’

  ‘But with the inserts? Say we get some leaflet to put in with the paper, and they give us seven thousand two hundred copies—what do we do with the spares?’

  ‘Then we have some cheap fuel for the lead stove. Now let me read my paper in peace, will you?’

  ‘But that’s a swindle!’

  ‘Of course it is. Not that you’ve ever swindled anyone in your blameless life. So calm down.’

  Silence. Tredup goe
s on his walkabout again, goes into the typesetting room, comes back, stops in front of Wenk again.

  ‘Has anyone told you that the Chronicle is being wound up?’

  ‘That’s nonsense. I would know.’

  ‘That we’re all going to be out of a job?’

  ‘Nonsense. Gebhardt would hardly have gone to the trouble of acquiring us if he wants to put us out of business.’

  ‘He’ll have got rid of one competitor.’

  ‘If he lets the Chronicle go bust, then someone else will come along and start a new paper. Then he’ll have got himself some fresh competition.’

  ‘Do you think Gebhardt bought the paper on the basis of the certificate, or did he know the actual number of subscribers?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him that yourself?’ And Wenk turns a page.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve got the real certificate here at all. Ours is just an unsigned copy.’

  Wenk slams his hand down on the table. ‘Will you leave me alone with your bloody certificate?! I don’t know what’s got into you today!’

  Tredup stomps off. That was a defeat. I’d better not start talking about it again.

  He hangs around with the typesetters, and goes back again. When he’s in the editorial office, he hears voices in dispatch. He stops and listens.

  ‘Yes,’ Wenk is just saying. ‘Your husband is still here, Frau Tredup. He’s in the typesetting room now. Please take him with you, he’s a bloody nuisance today, he must have sat in some itching powder.’

  ‘Is he like that here too? What’s he doing here still? I thought he was off for lunch an hour ago.’

  ‘Am I his keeper? He says he wants to wait for Stuff. But Stuff isn’t going to be around any time before four.’

  ‘Tell me honestly, Herr Wenk, do you think my husband has changed?’

  Wenk is evasive. ‘Maybe a bit nervous? Prison does that, they say.’

  ‘Is he doing any work?’

  ‘Well, Frau Tredup, you’d better ask Herr Gebhardt that. I don’t dole out report cards here, it’s the boss who does that.’

  ‘I will go to him!’ says the woman. ‘They’ve wrecked my husband!’

  ‘Who have?’

  ‘Stuff, who started him on drinking and whoring. And the ones who gave him money, Frerksen and Gareis.’

  ‘Was he really given money? By Frerksen and all? For what?’

  ‘Of course he got money. But he won’t give me any. He’s got it hidden somewhere by the Baltic. He talks about it in his sleep.’

  ‘What’s Gebhardt got to do with it? I wouldn’t tell him about anything, because Gebhardt will just throw your husband out.’

  ‘He ought to throw Stuff out. Stuff is the worst. And I’ll drive a wedge between them yet, so I swear. And I know how, too.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know. So you can go and tell your Herr Stuff about it—’

  Tredup comes strolling out of the editorial office. ‘Shall we have lunch, Elise?’

  The woman looks at him cursorily, gives Wenk her hand: ‘Goodbye, Herr Wenk.’

  ‘Goodbye, Frau Tredup. I’m happy to see you haul him off.’

  They walk off, Frau Tredup a step ahead. As they pass the narrow little lane that connects the Burstah and the Stolpe Road, Tredup says: ‘Go left down here, it’s quicker.’

  The woman hesitates briefly, and turns left. She is in the lead. Between dark firewalls. The lane is narrow, just five or six feet.

  Suddenly the woman feels herself grabbed from behind, spun round, and looks into a face pale with rage.

  ‘Max!’ she cries out.

  Her husband doesn’t speak. With one hand he presses her to the wall, he draws back the other and hits her three, four times in the face, hard.

  She stares at him. Peers out fearfully from under a sheet of hair that has fallen into her face.

  He looks at her a moment, his fury starts to ebb. Then he quickly turns and runs back to the Chronicle.

  Wenk looks up. ‘Well, made a run for it?’ he grins.

  ‘Who does she think she is!’ rages Tredup. ‘New fashions. Picking me up for lunch. I’ll teach her a lesson, I promise you, Wenk, my hand is itching.’

  ‘If you think that’s the best way to teach her?’

  ‘Absolutely.—Does Krüger have Bavarian beer?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t he? He always used to have it.’

  ‘Will you get us two pints? I’ll buy.’

  ‘Now, before lunch? My wife will smell it on me.’

  ‘What does your wife care if a businessman treats her husband to a glass of beer? Are you to miss out on a client because your wife doesn’t approve of beer in the morning?’

  ‘You’re right. I’ll send Fritz.’

  ‘Don’t send him, go yourself. The typesetters talk enough as it is about our drinking.’

  ‘Where’s the money?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘You know what? I’ll telephone. Then Krüger can have them sent here.’

  Tredup, standing right by the safe, hiding the key with his back: ‘Yes, so we can spend another hour waiting. It’s lunchtime, they’ll all be rushed off their feet at Krüger’s.’

  ‘Well, I guess I’ll have to go, then.’

  ‘And not before time either! Surely you can make the short trip if I’m buying?’

  ‘I said I’m going.’

  No sooner has he gone than Tredup tears open the safe door. There are three little drawers inside, in addition to the files for accounts and cash.

  In the first there are employee and sick-fund cards.

  The second is full of all kinds of junk.

  The third—thank God, there it is. But there isn’t time to write it out. He sticks it in his pocket, he’ll have to see later on how he can return it.

  Tredup puts the keys back, stops them swinging, and walks up and down. He can feel the paper burning a hole in his pocket.

  Then they drink their beer, and then along comes Miss Clara Heinze to relieve Wenk so that he can go off for lunch too.

  Wenk locks the safe, and his desk, picks up his hat.

  ‘Cheers, then!’

  ‘Cheers.’

  He stops one last time in the doorway. ‘Will you be here when I get back, Tredup?’

  ‘Yes. I’m waiting for Stuff. I’ll be here.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave the safe keys here. There’s a chance a messenger from the News will come with some money. Eight hundred. The receipt’s in the file.’

  ‘OK, then. Enjoy your lunch.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Tredup sits down at his typewriter in the editorial office, pulls the certificate out of his pocket, and starts typing.

  Surely there was some easier way of getting hold of it.

  V

  Thiel has found a hideaway in an attic at the premises of the Bauernschaft.

  It’s not even a room, more what they call a side-loft hereabouts, a cubbyhole under a slant roof, with a little pane of glass that can be swung open on an iron hinge. One corner is full of junk: broken typesetters’ galleys, decrepit rolls, machine debris. Under the window, Padberg has left him a few rugs and a stack of review copies of new novels. ‘So you don’t get bored.’

  Here, a width of boards from the toilet, Thiel spends his days. The cistern next door continually floods, and any illusions Thiel may have had about Homo sapiens have failed to withstand the sounds of moving bowels.

  But he isn’t allowed to move himself, no one in the building can even guess at his presence. At night, Padberg brings him food, drink, reading matter and smokes. He’s not mean about it, he seems happy to foot the bill (or have the paper foot it) to keep his guest in a good humour, but he is implacable in his insistence that Thiel not leave the premises.

  By day, Thiel is kept locked up, his door is padlocked shut. He could try to loosen the staples, some bit of mechanical debris could be used to fashion a lever. But after once getting out, and running into Padberg on the street, he is keen
to avoid a second such encounter.

  Padberg had quietly taken him by the arm and, chatting the while, had walked him back to the editorial offices. But no sooner was the door closed than a hail of blows descended on Thiel. He was thrashed, a pitiless beating, for as long as Padberg’s strength—which was something to behold—lasted.

  ‘You stupid boy, all I need is getting into trouble over you! I rescue an idiot from prison and end up taking his place! Take that! And that! And that! Get it!?’

  Two days later, Padberg is all right again. He knows what young people are like, he doesn’t hold grudges. And he doesn’t tire of setting Thiel on the nocturnal visitor of his, Padberg’s, desk. He wants Thiel to catch him.

  But Thiel remains doubtful. ‘If there was someone, he’s not there any more, Herr Padberg. I’m on guard all night. There’s no one.’

  ‘You’re on guard? That’s just it, you’re not. Last night you left the light on in my room, I was just passing by outside. You mustn’t do that. I could see you standing there, you fool.’

  ‘Me . . . ? You think I . . . ?’

  They look at each other. Thiel doesn’t need to go on. Padberg understands, and believes him.

  ‘That means he was there again. My God, Thiel, something is going on. You have to catch him. You’ve got the truncheon, haven’t you?’

  The Bauernschaft office is in an ancient building on the Stolpe Road. Two floors, with a big sloping roof like the side of a hill. It used to have a long garden at the back. Then the building became a newspaper premises, and a typesetting works was put up in the garden, as wide as the original house, with an external staircase leading up to a bookbindery on the second floor. Further into the garden, they added a machine house, where the lead stove was placed, and the rotation press, and the stove to heat the matrixes. The machine house was connected to the cellars of the front house by a covered walkway, so that the newspaper bales could be rolled through to the back. And they added a third shed with packing tables for the delivery girls.

  Then by and by the remains of the garden were filled in with staircases and little passageways. In the house proper, walls had been knocked through and others put up: it was a warren of a place, a fox-burrow, a labyrinth –

  Thiel knows it now. In the evening, at night, when darkness has fallen in these August days, he sets off without a torch, without any light at all, with nothing for company but his rubber truncheon, the only weapon Padberg will let him have.