A Small Circus

by Hans Fallada

  The way Bartels is, he would rather have double or tenfold certainty. That evening he goes to the Krug. There’s not many farmers in the bar, while the dance floor is packed. Farmers don’t tend to like the carry-on of young folk. But there are maybe six or eight in attendance.

  They don’t reply to his greeting, but stand up, leave their beer half drunk, and walk out.

  There’s a stand-in at the bar, who serves him a glass of beer. The barman joins them, he gives Bartels a furious look, and throws his glass out of the window on to the cobbles outside.

  The farmer looks furious too. But he keeps his mouth shut and goes to watch the dancing.

  The music is going. It’s still early, the clientele is mostly farmhands and farm-maids. The farmers’ children won’t be along till later. The ones who are there don’t know him that well, don’t care either way, they look at him, they ignore him, they dance past him.

  He is certain the barman hasn’t been in, nor the stand-in waiter either. But the music suddenly stops. There is an empty space around him, getting wider and wider. The young people go over to the windows, to the doors, he is standing there all alone.

  Then suddenly the electric light goes off; he feels his way out on to the village street: the whole of the Krug is in the dark.

  It’s the beginning, he thinks. They’re under duress. Things will be back to normal in a week.

  But in the morning his wife wakes him up. ‘Go out to the hands. None of them are up yet. The cows are in pain, they need to be milked.’

  The farmhands are in their room. But it’s not a matter of waking them because they’re already up. They want to be handed their papers.

  He refuses and goes to milk the cows himself.

  At nine, he’s just finished milking, the hands turn up with the militiaman. He is given a talking-to, and told he is not allowed to withhold their papers. If they run away from him, he can bring charges against them in a work tribunal, but now he has to let them leave.

  When he gives them their papers, the two maids are standing by. Half an hour later, he and his wife have the farm all to themselves.

  It’s not such a small farm as that: he has four horses, twenty-two cows, not to mention calves, pigs and poultry. The grain is ripe on the stalk.

  It’s more than any two people can cope with.

  He silently puts the horses to and takes the milk to the dairy.

  ‘Take your milk. We don’t need it here.’

  ‘But this is a co-op dairy and I’m a member.’

  ‘Look at your contract. You have to have the milk delivered by eight o’clock. It’s almost noon. Take your milk home.’

  He does so. He pours the milk in the pig troughs, that way he won’t have to think about mixing their feed.

  The farmer’s wife goes around in tears, once she says quietly to him: ‘Go and see Büttner. He found out about Stolpe.’

  ‘That bastard? Never.’

  That afternoon he goes.

  The conditions he is offered are outrageous: a thousand marks penalty payable to the Bauernschaft, public burning of the clock, and, worst of all, he has to beg pardon of everyone in the village publicly.

  Publicly, in front of everyone: women, children, farmhands, maids.

  You can’t let too many people know what happens to those who make deals with Altholm.

  ‘It’s just a clock. And I really did buy it before the boycott.’

  ‘Exactly, otherwise it would be costing you three thousand now.’

  ‘I don’t mind asking forgiveness of the farmers, but in front of the women . . .’

  ‘In front of the women.’

  He walks out, he will never agree to that.

  In his yard, there is an uneasy feeling, the animals are tugging at their chains, they can feel things are amiss.

  The pump for water for the animals—the pump won’t draw. He takes it apart. The pump leather is missing. This morning it was still there. The pump won’t draw.

  He could cut himself a new leather, he has a tanned cowhide put by for bootsoles, maybe it would work for a day or two. He gets the hide and starts cutting.

  Then he throws down his knife and the hide. Goes inside, puts the clock on a dog cart and tows it through the village in front of Büttner’s house.

  The villagers stand in front of their houses and stare. The children stop playing and stare.

  That evening, in front of the war memorial on the village square, he repeats the sentences that Büttner says:

  ‘I have betrayed the farmers in Poseritz, and I have betrayed the farmers in the whole country.

  ‘I am deeply sorry.

  ‘I regret my wickedness, I see my sin, and will atone for it, without compulsion or anger.

  ‘Whoever is my neighbour’s enemy is my enemy. I must not sit down with him at one table, I must not have dealings with him, I must not exchange words with him.

  ‘I am heartily sorry I have breached this.

  ‘I beg forgiveness from all the farmers in Poseritz, with their wives, their parents, their children, their hands and their maids. I sincerely beg you all to forgive me . . .’

  The wind blows in the poplar trees above the memorial. The flames of the fire that is consuming the ill-fated grandfather clock cast their flickering light over the assembled people, a village community of three hundred souls, a single cell in the great body of the Bauernschaft.

  Farmer Bartels stands there, looking pale, one hand behind his back, the other stretched out to District Headman Büttner, who is not yet ready to accept it.

  Behind Büttner stands Henning, who is thinking: This will do the trick. This would gladden Franz’s heart. This is exactly his style. And it will be incredibly effective in the countryside.

  In his breast pocket, he can feel the crinkle of the fifty-mark note, the first instalment of the fine.

  Finally Büttner gives Bartels his hand. ‘And in full view of the community, do you promise us that you are without hatred, without rancour, without resentment? ’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘That you have come to us freely and voluntarily, having seen your own wickedness?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case I forgive you on behalf of the assembled farming community. What was, is no more. No one is to remind you of it or offend you on account of it.’

  By the time Farmer Bartels gets home, the hands are already in the cowshed, the light is on, they’re spreading straw for the night.

  He lies down to sleep. He feels it’s all been a bad dream.

  V

  Stuff and Tredup are sitting facing each other in the editorial office.

  Stuff has just given his latest manuscript to the boy to be set, and is digging around in his desk for something.

  Tredup is logging imaginary visits to clients in the card index system, all with the same comment, ‘Declined.’

  For some time Stuff has not spoken to Tredup, and generally carried on as though he didn’t exist.

  He breaks wind, mutters, ‘Better out than in!’ and rustles his paper again.

  It’s stupidly warm in the room, a few flies buzz around, and now there’s a bad smell too. Tredup wonders whether he ought to go out looking for ads, in a sort of pro forma way. He could sit by the playground and read.

  Stuff loudly and distinctly says: ‘Shit!’ and with such venom that Tredup in spite of himself looks up.

  Stuff looks him in the eye, then looks down at a letter he has opened out in front of him. Tredup needs only a cursory glance, he knows the letter.

  He masters himself, and goes back to jotting notes on the index cards.

  But Stuff is really in a filthy mood today. He is incredibly provocative, and at the top of his voice he starts reading the anonymous letter:

  ‘Stettin, 6 September.

  Dear Herr Stuff,

  It seems both my friendly warnings have gone unnoticed by you. You have taken no steps to leave Altholm. So that you know that I am in possession of all the deta
ils: the woman’s name is Timm, and she lives in Stettin on the Kleine Lastadie, a back building, up one flight of steps. The girl’s name is Henni Engel, and at the time she was in service to Dr Falk. If you haven’t left Altholm by the 15th of October, I’m taking the details to the public prosecutor.

  Final warning from a well-intentioned lady friend.’

  Stuff finishes reading, and is blowing hard.

  ‘Shit!’ he says again.

  Tredup badly doesn’t want to look up, but he does anyway. Stuff is looking straight at him and grunts in his face.

  ‘Shit!’ he says for the third time. ‘Yes, I mean you, Tredup, don’t look so gormless.’

  Tredup has the feeling he ought to show some reaction—indignation would be good—but he can’t muster more than a feeble ‘Ridiculous’.

  Completely unimpressed, Stuff goes on: ‘Do you think you can just carry on like this, sonny boy? First the photographs, and then a bit of treachery here, another bit of treachery there? Do you think I don’t know how often you run along to the town hall?

  ‘Do you think you can do it all with impunity?’

  Stuff expectorates, leans further back, and holds Tredup in his grip.

  ‘Say, sunshine, don’t you sometimes feel that famous spot on the back of your head that felt so vulnerable three months back? No? I would feel it if I were you, I’d damned well feel it.’

  Stuff folds the letter up leisurely and puts it back in his pocket. Suddenly he starts laughing loudly. ‘Absurd creature! Because he’s spent a fortnight in jail, he thinks he’s a big gangster and can dabble in blackmail. You want your bottom smacking, sonny boy!’

  He cumbrously gets to his feet, and is abruptly furious: ‘I swear, Tredup, if you have the gall to type one more of those lousy letters of yours on my typewriter, I’m going to knock your block off—’

  Tredup stammers in bewilderment: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t understand you. You surely can’t think . . . ?’

  Stuff isn’t even listening. He’s grabbed his hat off the hook and is looking with displeasure at his feet in their clapped-out shoes.

  ‘They smell. Like stinky cheese. Really must give them a wash one day,’ he mumbles.

  Then he snaps out of it. ‘Do you have a message for your wife, Tredup? Because I’m on my way to see her now.’

  And he’s gone.

  Tredup is left on his own, seething with helpless anger.

  Stuff, that bastard, isn’t taking those letters seriously. He reads them out loud, as though he knew for a fact that they were from Tredup. And this last one Tredup was so hopeful of. The trouble it took (and money too) to get the names and addresses. And Stuff just laughs.

  Well, if Stuff thinks this isn’t serious, he’s making a bad mistake. If all else fails, he, Tredup, will take matters to the prosecutor. Then Stuff would get his comeuppance all right.

  He is racked by the question of whether Stuff actually has gone to see Elise. After a couple of minutes he gets up and goes home.

  What if Stuff is actually telling his wife everything!

  He doesn’t get as far as the parlour, he doesn’t even set foot in the yard.

  At the other side of the yard, he parks himself behind a lilac bush.

  The parlour window is open, and inside there is Stuff, sitting on the bed, chatting to Elise.

  The two of them are talking together perfectly calmly. Mainly it seems to be Stuff who’s doing the talking. He’ll be giving Tredup a paint job. And Elise is nodding in agreement, a couple of times she launches into long, urgent speeches.

  Tredup keeps an eye out to see if Stuff pulls out the letter, but it doesn’t happen, at least not while he’s standing looking. Perhaps it happened before he arrived.

  Then the conversation appears to end. Stuff gets up, and they both go over to the window to look out. Tredup disappears completely behind his lilac bush.

  When he peeps out again, the coast is clear. Stuff is gone, and Elise is sprinkling water over the ironing on the kitchen table.

  She answers his greeting with a proper, hearty ‘Hello!’

  ‘Is supper soon?’ he asks, walking back and forth in the parlour.

  ‘In half an hour. When the children are back.’

  She doesn’t even ask him why he’s back early himself.

  He walks up and down, and spots a sodden cigar end in the ashtray.

  ‘Whose is this?’ he asks, picking up the cigar end.

  ‘Herr Stuff, of course. You know that.’

  ‘I know that? How do I know that? Is Herr Stuff such a regular visitor here, then?’

  ‘Because you were standing behind the lilac bush,’ she says.

  ‘Me? What do you mean?’ he stammers, and goes red. The woman is alarming. What in all the world did Stuff tell her?

  And now she suddenly does something completely unexpected: she drops her work, goes over to him, and presses her cheek against his.

  It hasn’t happened in weeks and weeks.

  He keeps very still. Her hair tickles his temples.

  ‘Let’s be friends again,’ she says quietly. ‘Shall we be, like the way we were before?’

  He is completely bamboozled. (What was it Stuff said to her?) But his hand wangles its way into hers.

  ‘Herr Stuff isn’t a bad person,’ she says abruptly.

  ‘Oh? Do you reckon?’ he asks. He is really floundering.

  ‘He explained everything to me. That you’re still in shock from your time in prison. That we need to be gentle with you. I was so stupid. Please forgive me, Max.’

  ‘That’s all a load of nonsense,’ he says mouthily, and tries to break away. ‘I’m perfectly healthy.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ she says sweetly, and looks at him.

  ‘Was that why Stuff was here, to fill you full of that nonsense?’

  ‘But he told me that you were becoming editor of the paper on the 1st of October. That that’s a certainty. Didn’t you arrange that between yourselves?’

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ says Tredup vaguely. ‘We arranged that.’

  And inside: So the letters did have an effect! Nasty of him, to try and frighten me like that. He must be really shitting himself if he’s leaving on the 1st without a struggle.

  But he can’t quite convince himself that Stuff is leaving out of fear. He didn’t look exactly frightened half an hour ago.

  He asks: ‘Did he really say that? For definite?’

  ‘It’s definite, he says, because he starts in his new job on the 1st. Only we’re not allowed to tell anyone else about it.’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ says Tredup. He tries to feel happy, he’s won after all, but what was Stuff’s question again: Do you feel that spot on the back of your head?

  He can feel it again.

  Stuff is trying to lead him into a trap.

  ‘Did he not say where he was going?’

  ‘No. So he didn’t tell you either?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And then you’ll be certain to bring home at least a hundred marks more. You see how right we were to keep little Bootsy on board?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘yes.’

  ‘Come on, give me a kiss, Max.’

  She puckers up for a kiss.

  He kisses her and thinks: Trap. Trap. I need to be much more careful.

  VI

  One bright and sunny September evening, Commander Frerksen sets foot in his boss’s office for the first time in a while.

  Mayor Gareis is sitting behind his desk, roly-poly as ever. He waves a greeting with his short, fat-fingered hand and grins.

  ‘Why, there you are, Frerksen. Forgive me for summoning you back telegraphically. It seemed to me you’d been away for long enough. Was it pleasant in the Black Forest?’

  Frerksen bows: ‘Yes, Mayor.’

  ‘Chance to get away from all this filth here, what? Become a new person. You’ve got a tan, and a new jut to your jaw—or was that there before? Well, anyway, it’s time you wer
e back at work. And I can do with a little holiday myself.’

  Frerksen smiles gallantly.

  ‘Do you remember how on the 26th of July I was all set to go on holiday? I’d packed my bags. Now it’s September. At last, summer is over.’

  ‘Is the mayor still proposing to go to Rügen?’

  ‘Oh Lord, no! What would I do there? I’d rather go back home, look at the old villages, wallow in a little sentimentality.—Well, while you were gone, things got a little aerated. They’re quieter and cleaner now. But there’s one piece of news still to come, which I want the town to have. It’ll be circulated to the press tomorrow. Here,’ and Gareis hands him a piece of paper.

  Police Commander Frerksen has returned from holiday today, and taken over the reins of the police administration, having been restored to executive duties by fiat of the Minister of the Interior. The proceedings started against him have been suspended.

  ‘Well, so what do you say?’

  ‘This is very—pleasant,’ murmurs the commander.

  ‘Stop that, Frerksen! Kindly be happy! This is our victory. Your victory, above all. Have you any notion of how upset the gentleman in Stolpe will be today! A couple of weeks ago he made you walk the plank. Well, I’ve been a bit busy myself, and the result was that the minister moved the cold pot back on to the hot plate. You have cause to be happy.’

  ‘Yes, Mayor.’

  ‘I see,’ the mayor said in a change of voice, ‘that you want to be childish about this, Herr Frerksen. The commander likes a good sulk.’

  ‘Mayor, please—’

  ‘Don’t plead. As you will have been reading the Altholm papers, you should have understood that in the hour of your leaving I made a lot out of the sabre episode, so as to save you from the very much sharper disapproval of the district president. You seem not to have understood, and prefer to sulk.

  ‘You can be cross with me for as long and as much as you want. I don’t care. I would only warn you against taking steps in a spirit of irritation, or starting negotiations—we understand each other.’

  ‘I would like to assure the mayor that I am not sulking.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. I expect you’re regretting it now. The jut of the jaw was a temporary illusion.—We have to be able to work together, Frerksen, for a long time to come, and I am the only person here who will have you. Who has an interest in keeping you. If you’d rather believe others, go ahead. Only I would have hoped you might have learned from your experiences.’