A Small Circus

by Hans Fallada

  Ten seconds, twenty seconds . . .

  Then Stuff, slightly out of breath, but calm, is saying: ‘Let the case go, Mayor, I’ve got it.’

  And takes it from Gareis’s hands, holds it to his ear. ‘It’s ticking,’ says Stuff. ‘So far everything’s going well!’

  The mayor struggles to his feet, looks at the man lying on the ground. ‘Unconscious. Perverse idiot. Deranged, isn’t he?’

  ‘Totally.’

  ‘Tell me, Stuff, what do you actually do with a bomb like that? The thing could go off any moment, could it not?’

  ‘That’s what I was just going to ask you, Mayor,’ replies Stuff, and holds the little case at arm’s length. ‘What if we set it down in the meadow over there.’

  ‘Why not? If it hasn’t gone off before that?’

  ‘That would be pointless, wouldn’t it? I suggest I go at this point.’

  ‘I suggest we both go together.’

  ‘But that’s really unnecessary,’ says Stuff.

  ‘Let me have my bit of fun,’ says the mayor.

  And they walk over to the meadow.

  Unconscious, on the road, lies Gruen. Somewhere further on, rapidly approaching the centre of town, are Henning and Stein, both running hard.

  X

  It’s the same night, the same hour, and Thiel is on his way from Bandekow-Ausbau to Stolpe. He too hears the clocks strike half past eleven, and he works out: Just after midnight I’ll be back at the Bauernschaft.

  He couldn’t bear to stay on the farm.

  A week ago, when Padberg left, and he went upstairs to his garret, he thought: Why do I have to play the guard dog? There’s nothing of any interest left in the desk. And those days in the garret next to the toilet . . . no, no more. I’m going to the country.

  Today he told Count Bandekow that he had a headache, and went off to bed at nine o’clock. At half past, he was taking his departure through the vegetable allotment.

  He couldn’t bear it.

  There is the sprawling villa in town, with the unlit rooms, the corridors, the staircases, the halls, the garden, with the strange bell, with the desk and the mysterious typesetter. He wants to catch the man.

  Thiel walks rhythmically and fast. It’s a fine, moonless night. Hardly any pedestrians or cyclists any more, just the occasional car, throwing clouds of dust, or a motorbike clattering past.

  The first houses on the outskirts. A gaslight comes to meet him, burning there stupidly by itself, lighting a patch of meadow, and some roadway. On the road is a perfectly round stone, a fieldstone the size of your fist, burnished smooth. Thiel kicks at it, and the stone rolls off a little way, unevenly, with seeming reluctance.

  ‘All right then,’ says Thiel, and he picks it up instead and puts it in his bag. As he does so, he has two pictures in his head: one, a memory of a Bible illustration, David with the sling in the fight with Goliath. And then he sees himself standing behind the door of the editorial suite of the Bauernschaft, with the light on inside. There’s a man hunched over the desk. Thiel picks up the stone and hurls it through the crack in the door.

  ‘All right,’ he says impatiently, ‘we’ll do that.’

  He arrives in the streets of Stolpe, silent and deserted here too. No more than the occasional lit-up window. Only the pubs are still open. Music comes out of one of them: radio or gramophone.

  Suddenly, Thiel feels a yen for a glass of beer and a schnapps. What is he risking, if it comes down to it? Who knows who he is here in Stolpe? Not a soul! And he steps in.

  The bar is almost deserted. A solitary customer is propping up the bar, a dark, stout man with a little beer belly. The barkeeper is chatting to him.

  When Thiel orders, the two of them look at him. The beer belly has an unpleasant way of staring. Even so, Thiel keeps his position at the bar.

  He takes the first swallow. The barman says: ‘Here’s health!’

  ‘From the country?’ asks the dark man.

  ‘Yes,’ says Thiel. And with a sheepish little laugh, he says: ‘Why, do I look it?’

  The man motions with his head at Thiel’s shoes, which are thickly coated with dust.

  ‘Of course,’ laughs Thiel. ‘Well, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’ And looks back at the other fellow’s shoes. A vaguely uncomfortable feeling comes over him. The other fellow has black Oxfords.

  Well, there’s plenty like that in the world. Drink up and go.

  ‘Teacher?’ asks the man.

  ‘What makes you say so?’ asks Thiel, evasively.

  ‘No, you’re no teacher,’ says the man, without going into any further explanations, and continues staring at Thiel.

  He takes another gulp of beer, orders another double, and asks the barman for no good reason for directions to the station.

  After he had stiltedly talked Thiel through something he’d long known, the dark-haired man threw in: ‘There’s no more trains tonight.’

  ‘I know,’ says Thiel. ‘I just want to go to the left-luggage office.’

  ‘That’s shut as well,’ says the man.

  Dammit! thinks Thiel. Why did I come here! And he feels for his purse.

  Of course it’s in the bag that has the stone lying on top of it. As he pulls out the purse, the stone clatters out on to the floor.

  Thiel and the fat man both stoop for it at once. Thiel is the quicker, and hastily and sheepishly stows the stone back in the bag.

  ‘Do you collect stones, then?’ asks the man.

  ‘I’m building a house,’ says Thiel in a tone that won’t permit further questions. And to the barman: ‘Pay, please!’

  He pays and leaves. He has a feeling between his shoulder blades that they are both staring at him. Bloody yokels! Idiotic of me to ever go in there, he thinks again, and he steps out to make up for lost time.

  He reaches the back wall of the Bauernschaft, pulls himself up over a plank, and finds himself standing in the garden.

  All quiet and dark.

  Shall I go to the machine plant first and filch a few cigarettes from the foreman?

  But he doesn’t feel up to it. The dark-haired fellow at the bar is preying on his mind.

  Instead he climbs the outside staircase on the main building, and when he reaches the first floor he doesn’t go inside, he scales the wall, using ledges and drainpipe, up to the second floor.

  He’s thought it all out. He’s remembered the façade correctly. This way he won’t get to the editorial office from the ground floor but from the second floor. If the man’s in there, he won’t be alerted: there’s no warning bell set off from upstairs.

  He’s in luck. There’s a window open on the second floor in the bookbinding plant, he swings himself in and stands in the silent room, waiting for his breathing to slow.

  Nothing stirs in the sleeping building.

  But Thiel knows the building isn’t really asleep. He knows that today he will reach his objective.

  He takes his shoes off and puts them down. Then, with infinite caution, he opens the door to the proof room and slides in.

  He stands in the middle of the dark room. He rests his hip against a table, both hands are on a high desk.

  He stands there, listening. The editorial office is directly below.

  Everything is still, perfectly still.

  And slowly out of the silence, a quiet sound rises to him, almost a no-sound, something terribly slight, carried on the wind.

  Endlessly slowly, Thiel drops to his knees, and then presses his ear to the floor for a long time.

  Far off, ghostly, he hears footfall, back and forth, below him.

  The man is there.

  While he gets to his feet again, he is thinking feverishly. First he needs to shut the window of the proof room to make sure there isn’t a draught when he opens the door on to the corridor. The bookbindery door needs to be closed too. You never know, if the door downstairs is open, a draught might alert him.

  He does everything, and opens the door on to the corridor. Yes, th
e door downstairs is open, he can hear the man walking about.

  He feels mighty safe, thinks Thiel. You wait!

  He feels his way to the top of the stairs. Of course he can’t use the staircase, a single creak would wreck everything. But it’s an old villa, the steps have a nice wide balustrade, and he slides down it, as he might have done as a boy, only braking all the time.

  He is down in the passage, two steps from the door, which is ajar. The way to the door takes for ever. He is irritated by his heart booming, by his trembling limbs. He’s by the door. He pushes three fingers in the crack and slowly pulls it wide. He sees a white face bending over the desk, in the beam of a torch . . .

  The door gives a creak.

  The face scoots out of the beam. Thiel sees an arm upraised. He reaches into his bag.

  The light goes out.

  Thiel slings his stone. There’s a messy sound. Someone screams, roars: ‘Aaah! Oooh!’

  More feebly then: ‘Oooh!’

  Thiel takes a step into the dark, feels for the switch, the brightness is painful.

  The man in the blue typesetter’s tunic is sprawled on the carpet in front of the desk.

  The drawer is open. The desk is covered with pieces of paper.

  Suddenly Thiel doesn’t know what to do.

  The man is motionless and bleeding.

  What’s it all about? What do I do now? What am I going to do with this guy? I haven’t thought past this moment.

  A fine, tinny rasp sounds in the wall. Someone is downstairs, someone else who has no lawful business here.

  Slowly the footsteps come up the stairs.

  Thiel could still flee, but he is fixated by the man on the carpet, just starting to come round, opening his eyes, looking at Thiel.

  Now the footsteps are very close.

  Is it Padberg?

  In the door stands the pot-bellied dark-haired man from the pub. Behind him are a couple of policemen. He looks into the room.

  Then: ‘Detective Inspector Tunk. You’re under arrest, Herr Thiel. No fuss, or else . . .’ And he half pulls a pistol out of his coat pocket.

  A relieved Thiel thinks: Thank God, now I’m out of this trouble. Somehow everything is going to get sorted out. And aloud: ‘I suggest you start with this burglar here.’

  ‘We’ll begin with you, if you don’t mind,’ says the detective. ‘Let’s get you braceleted. Put your hands together.’

  The cuffs snap shut.

  ‘And what are you doing here?’ the detective asks the typesetter.

  ‘I was getting some manuscripts for Herr Padberg. And then this guy turns up out of the dark and hurls a rock at me.’

  The detective looks at the rock, lying harmlessly on the carpet.

  ‘Nice houses you build yourself, Thiel. I can think of one you’ll be spending some time in.’

  And to the typesetter: ‘What was the manuscript you were told to get Herr Padberg?’

  ‘The one on the desk,’ says the typesetter, pointing.

  Suddenly Thiel is struck by something. The drawer was empty when Padberg left. And now . . .

  Oh, we’re so stupid! he thinks. We kept thinking about things being taken away, but not of incriminating material being introduced . . . poor Padberg!

  The detective browses for a while. ‘Nice. Very nice. A black day for the Farmers’ League, I’d say. Wouldn’t you agree, Herr Thiel?’

  ‘They’re all damned lies,’ says a furious Thiel. ‘Padberg knew he had a housebreaker. He cleared his desk when he went to Berlin. Whatever’s here has been smuggled in by Commie forgers.’

  ‘An interesting idea,’ says Tunk. ‘Nice. Cleared his desk, you say? Well, plenty of time to talk about all that. Is Herr Padberg at home?’

  ‘He sent me here when he came back from Berlin tonight.’

  ‘Sent. Came,’ fusses the great political detective. ‘Fetch would have been better. Well, we’ll go and fetch him. He won’t slip through our fingers. Let’s give the great farmers’ movement a bit of a going-over, shall we, Herr Thiel?’

  ‘Fetch away,’ says Thiel angrily. ‘We’re not finished by a long chalk.’

  6

  Gareis Triumphant

  I

  A quiet, oppressed bunch of people sits in the rooms of the Bauernschaft the following morning. Not in the editorial rooms, though, the detectives are still in there, turning the place upside down, reading, confiscating.

  They are all up in the proof room, new faces, farmers brought in overnight by Cousin Benthin, whom Padberg managed to call just before he was arrested: Biedermann, Hanke, Büttner, Dettmann.

  The old ones are all gone, the old ones are all in prison: starting with Thiel and Padberg, then Bandekow, Reimers, Rohwer and Rehder.

  Down in the setting room the linotype machines are waiting to be fed, so that the newspaper can be made up. The whole country, alerted by the morning press, is waiting to see what the Bauernschaft is going to say.

  And what does the Bauernschaft say?

  Who is writing?

  The man already writing away, covering page after page with swift pen, is Georg Henning.

  Released with the adventurer’s luck from police detention just as all the others are arrested, he takes the early-morning train to Stolpe, into the eye of the storm, and now he’s sitting there writing.

  Cousin Benthin is very depressed. ‘What will the farmers say? Chucking bombs isn’t our style. They shouldn’t have done that. People will say: Gareis and Frerksen were right all along.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Henning manages to interject. ‘You shouldn’t believe all that rubbish. Who chucked the bombs: Thiel and Gruen! Are they farmers?’

  ‘But Padberg—?’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Cousin Benthin. These are things you don’t understand. First, Padberg isn’t a farmer either, and second, he’s completely innocent. He doesn’t know anything. The Reds have laid a bad egg in his desk. Hear what I’ve written. Sub-headings that go off with a bang:

  ‘“Embarrassment for the Police”—“Government Attempts to Muzzle Awkward Squad Farmers”—“Sacked Tax Official and Deranged Prison Warden are the Bombers”—“Red Gareis Runs for His Life”—“Appeal from Franz Reimers to the Farmers”—’

  ‘What, you’ve got an appeal from Franz Reimers?’

  ‘You bet I have—I’ve just written it.’

  ‘But you can’t do that!’

  ‘Why the hell not! I know what Franz would say. It’s just as if he had written it. That our movement is irreproachable, that of course we’re not to blame if outsiders and madmen chuck bombs.’

  ‘Right,’ say the farmers.

  ‘That’s exactly how it is,’ they say.

  ‘We’re opposed to violence. We condemn all acts of violence. We won’t besmirch our cause.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Franz is right.’

  ‘And the more the government persecutes us, the more firmly we stick together. The bloody day in Altholm is unforgotten. The boycott continues.’

  ‘That’s good. Right.’

  ‘It’s exactly the way Franz would have put it.’

  ‘Get it out in print, it’ll allay fears in the country.’

  ‘Yes, the peasants are angry. Why do these other people keep getting involved in our business?’

  ‘We ought to do everything ourselves. Not use any outsiders.’

  Büttner, a little fat man with white-blond hair and a round bullet-head, says: ‘The thing about the boycott . . . It’ll be tricky. It’s already starting to crumble. There are some . . .’

  They all turn to look at him.

  He comes over all embarrassed. ‘I don’t want to shop anyone. But Bartels round our way has bought a grandfather clock in Altholm.’

  ‘Someone near us has delivered eggs to Altholm. He took them into Frau Manzow’s house.’

  ‘Langewiesche bought his potash in Altholm.’

  ‘Stop!’ yells Henning. ‘I’m writing that the edict against tra
itors is to be stepped up. You farmers, I’m making you responsible for putting it into effect!’

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘How do we go about that?’

  ‘I’ll tell you. Tell your sons and your lads to think up punishments for those that break the boycott. They’ll enjoy thinking of ways that will make life hell for others.’

  ‘Not the lads. They’re impertinent enough as it is.’

  ‘All right, not the lads, then. But ask your sons. And talk to your wives. They’re sure to come up with something.’

  ‘You’ve got a point.’

  ‘And you have to be sharp as tacks. A blackballed farmer in every third village, lots of talk about it, lots of telling everyone what he did and what happened to him—and all that bomb nonsense will be forgotten. Everyone will rally round again.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘I think you’ve got a point.’

  ‘I have an idea what to do with Kantor.’

  ‘All right then, get to it! I have to go to typesetting.’

  On the corridor, Cousin Benthin stops him for a word.

  ‘What is it now, Cousin Benthin?’

  The old man looks at him mournfully. ‘What about you? How can you? You’ve got your hands dirty as well.’

  Henning laughs. ‘Me, Cousin Benthin?—Nothing ever happens to the likes of me, you can see that for yourself.’

  ‘But what if Thiel blabs?’

  ‘Even if Thiel betrays everyone else, he’ll not betray me. Back before everything began, I swore to him that if he gives me away, I’ll cut him into little tiny pieces. There’s no prison in the world where he’s safe from me.—And he knows that, Cousin Benthin, he knows it!’

  ‘But the police? Surely they’ll find out.’

  ‘Oh, Cousin Benthin! They’re not much good at finding things out. Anyway, ever since the episode with the flag, I’ve been a hero. They won’t dare go near me. They’re all on the Right anyway, the cops. They like their heroes as much as the next man.’

  ‘To listen to you, Henning, it seems like you must always be right about everything. But I know you’re not, and no amount of talking is going to change that. Ever since I met you, I’ve slept badly. And I don’t really have much relish for life.—Henning, Georg, I want you to promise me you’re a decent man.’