by Hans Fallada
“What are you doing that for? It’s incredibly laborious! Why not give it to the birds straight, and let them sort it!”
“And spoil three-quarters of it! Or else have them eat feed that doesn’t agree with them, and die on me! No, it’s just a little job that needs doing. I did it myself in the evenings, and on Sundays, whenever I had a bit of spare time. Once on a Sunday, I sorted through five pounds, as well as doing my housework! That’s still my record. Now we’ll see if you can beat it or not! You’ve got a lot of time on your hands, and it’s good meditative work. I’m sure you have a lot of things you want to meditate about. Give it a go, Enno!”
She gave him the little shovel, and watched as he began to work.
“Why, you’re quite dexterous!” she praised him. “You have clever hands!”
And then, a moment later: “But you need to pay closer attention, Hänschen—I mean Enno! I can’t quite get used to it. You see, this pointy, shiny seed is millet, and this dull, black, round one is rapeseed. You mustn’t get them mixed up. It’s best to pick the sunflower seeds out with your fingers beforehand, it’s quicker than with the pen. Wait, I’ll bring you some bowls that you can put the grains in when you’ve sorted them!”
She was full of eagerness to find him work for his boring days. Then the shop bell rang for the first time, and from that moment there was an unbroken stream of customers, and she was only able to look in on him for moments at a time. Then she would find him dreaming over his counting board full of seeds. Or else, and worse, she would find him creeping back to his workplace, alerted by the sound of the door, like a guilty child caught playing hooky.
She soon saw that he would never break her record of five pounds—he couldn’t even manage two pounds. And even those she would have to go through afterward herself, so messy had been his work.
She was a little disappointed, but she agreed when he said: “Not quite satisfied, Hetty, are you?” He laughed sheepishly. “But you know, it’s not real man’s work. Give me some proper man’s work, and just watch me light into it!”
Of course he was right, and the next day she didn’t put the board with the seeds in front of him. “You poor man, you’ll just have to get through the day by yourself!” she said comfortingly. “It must be awful for you. But maybe you’d like to read? I’ve got a lot of books of my late husband’s in the bookcase over there. Wait, I’ll open it for you.”
He stood behind her as she scanned the shelves. “He was an official in the Communist Party. That copy of Marx I just managed to save during a search. I had hidden it in the stove, and an SA man was about to look there when I offered him a cigarette, and he forgot.” She looked him straight in the eye. “But maybe this isn’t your sort of reading matter, darling? I must admit, I’ve barely looked at them since my husband’s death. Perhaps that was mistaken of me—every-one ought to be interested in politics. If we all had been, then maybe the Nazis wouldn’t have got their hands on power; that’s what my Walter always said. But I’m just a woman…”
She broke off, realizing he wasn’t listening.
“Down at the bottom there are a couple of novels that I like.”
“What I like is a proper thriller, you know, with criminals and murder, that sort of thing,” proclaimed Enno.
“I don’t think I have anything like that. But this is a lovely book, I’ve read it many times. Wilhelm Raabe’s Sparrow Street. Why don’t you try that, I’m sure it’ll cheer you up…”
But when she came into the parlor by and by, she didn’t see him reading it. It lay open on the table, and later she found it pushed to the side.
“Aren’t you enjoying it?”
“Ach, you know, not really… They’re all such terribly good people, and I get bored. It’s too much like a proper book. Not a book that a man can sink his teeth into. I’m looking for something with a bit more excitement, you know.”
“Too bad,” she said. “Too bad.” And she put the book back on the shelf.
It bothered her when she walked into the parlor now, to see the man sitting there, always in the same slumped posture and staring into space. Or else he would be asleep, with his head on the table. Or standing by the window, looking into the courtyard, always whistling the same tune. It bothered her. She had always been an active woman, and she still was. A life without work would have struck her as pointless. What made her happiest was having the whole shop full of customers—she would have liked to divide herself up into ten little Hetties to serve them all.
And now this man here, standing, sitting, squatting, lying, for ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day, doing nothing, absolutely nothing! He was stealing God’s sweet time! What was the matter with him? He slept well, he ate with a healthy appetite, he wanted for nothing, but he refused to work! Once her patience snapped, and she said irritably: “If only you wouldn’t always whistle that same tune, Enno! It’s six or eight hours now you’ve been whistling: Bedtime now for little girls…”
He laughed sheepishly. “Does my whistling bother you? Well, I know some other tunes. Shall I whistle the Horst Wessel song instead?”* And he began: Raise high the flag! The ranks in strict formation…
Without a word she went back to the shop. This time she wasn’t just annoyed with him, she was seriously offended.
It passed. She didn’t bear grudges, and besides, he too had noticed that he had overstepped the mark, and so he surprised her by fixing the lamp over the bed. Yes, he could do things like that too; if it suited him, he was deft enough, but usually it didn’t suit him.
The period of his banishment to the parlor soon came to an end. Hetty convinced herself that there were no spies prowling around outside, and Enno was permitted to help out in the shop again. He still wasn’t allowed out on the street, as there was always a chance he might run into someone who knew him. But helping out in the shop was all right, and he turned out to be useful and deft. She noticed that working for long periods at some repetitive task tired him out, so she took care to offer him plenty of variety.
Before long she allowed him to help with the customers. He was good with them: polite, confident, even witty in his slightly sleepy way.
“That gentleman is an asset to your business, Frau Haberle,” old customers would say. “Must be a relation?”
“Yes, he’s a cousin of mine,” lied Hetty, happy about the praise for Enno.
One day she said to him, “Enno, I want to go out to Dahlem today. You remember, Herr Lobe is having to close his pet shop there because he’s been called up. I have an opportunity to buy some of his stock. He has a lot, and it would be a big help to us, because things are in shorter and shorter supply. Do you think you can manage the shop on your own?”
“Of course I can, Hetty, of course I can! Easy. How long are you going to be gone for?”
“Well, I’ll set off right after lunch, but I don’t think I’ll be back before the end of the day. I’d like to see my dressmaker at the same time…”
“Why not, Hetty? As far as I’m concerned, you can be away till midnight. Don’t worry about the shop, I can handle everything here.”
He walked her to the subway. It was during the lunch break, and the shop was closed.
She smiled to herself as the train moved off. Living with someone else was such a completely different proposition! It was fun working together. Only then did you really have a feeling of achievement at the end of the day. And he was trying as hard as he could to please her. He did his best. No, he wasn’t an energetic or even a hard working man, she had to admit that. When he had been made to run around too much for his liking, he often withdrew to the parlor, regardless of how full the shop was, and she had to serve the customers by herself. Once, after calling him many times, she found him in the cellar, perched on the rim of the sandbox, half asleep, the little sand pail half filled in front of him—and she waiting for it for the past ten minutes!
He’d jumped when she called out: “Enno! What’s keeping you? I’m waiting and waiting!”
/> Like a frightened schoolboy he’d got to his feet. “Just dropped off a bit,” he murmured sheepishly, and started scooping up sand. “Just coming, boss, won’t happen again.”
Little jokes like that were his way of appeasing her.
No, not a mighty worker before the Lord, our Enno, that was certainly clear to her, but he did what he could. And then he was likable, polite, decent, affectionate, without obvious vices. She forgave him his excessive consumption of cigarettes. She wasn’t averse to smoking the odd one herself, when she was tired…
But that day Hetty was unlucky with her errands. Lobe’s store in Dahlem was closed when she got there, and no one was able to tell her when he might be back. No, he hadn’t yet been called up, but he probably had things to do in connection with the army. Normally, the shop opened at ten in the morning—perhaps she might try tomorrow?
She said thank you, and went to see her dressmaker. But when she reached the premises, she stopped in bewilderment. The house had been bombed overnight; there was nothing but rubble. People hurried past it, some purposely averting their eyes, unwilling to see the devastation or afraid of being unable to conceal their anger. Others went by especially slowly (the police saw to it that no one stopped), either with expressions of curiosity or else frowning at the destruction.
Yes, Berlin was being sent down to bomb cellars more and more often, and more and more bombs were falling on it, among them the feared phosphorus canister bombs. More and more people now quoted Göring’s saying that his name would be Meier if an enemy plane showed its face over Berlin. The night before, Hetty had sat in her bomb shelter—alone, because she didn’t want Enno to be seen as her official boyfriend and housemate. She had heard the nerve-racking sound of planes, like mosquitoes droning and whining. She hadn’t heard any bombs falling: thus far her part of the city had been spared. People told each other the British didn’t want to hurt working people, they just wanted to bomb the rich people out west…
Her dressmaker hadn’t been rich, but she had been bombed just the same. Hetty Haberle tried to find out from a policeman what had happened to her. The policeman regretted that he was unable to help her. Perhaps she could ask at the local police station, or the nearest air raid protection office?
But Hetty lacked the peace of mind to do that. However sorry she felt for her dressmaker, and however much she wanted to learn about her fate, she now felt she had to go home. Whenever she saw something like this, she felt the need to go home. She had to check whether things were still all right there. It was foolish, she knew, but she couldn’t help it. She first needed to see with her own eyes that nothing had happened there.
Unfortunately something had happened to the little pet shop at the Königstor. Nothing tragic by any means, but still it shook Frau Haberle, and more profoundly than other things she had experienced of late. Frau Haberle found the grating down and a note with the silly legend that never failed to annoy her: “Back soon.” And underneath that: “Frau Hedwig Haberle.”
To have her name on that note, to have her own good name associated with such sloppiness and laziness, offended her almost as much as the breach of trust of which Enno was guilty. He had crept off behind her back, and he would have reopened the shop behind her back, and not have breathed a word to her of his deception. On top of everything it was so stupid of him, because it was almost inevitable that one of her regulars would ask her, “How come you were shut yesterday afternoon? Did you have to go out, Frau Haberle?”
She enters her flat through the back. Then she pulls up the grating and unlocks the door. She waits for the first customers to arrive, but no, she doesn’t really want even one to come now. To be so betrayed behind her back—never once in the years of her marriage with Walter was there ever anything like this. They always trusted each other, never let each other down. And now this! She hadn’t given him the least cause to behave so.
The first customer comes and is served by her, but when Hetty opens the till to make change for a twenty-mark note, she finds it empty. There was plenty of change there when she left, around a hundred marks. She masters herself, gets some money out of her purse, gives the lady her change, there, done. The bell over the door rings.
Now she wants to shut up shop and be all alone. It occurs to her—all the while she continues to serve customers—that in the past few days she has occasionally had the sense that there was something wrong, that the daily takings ought to have been higher than it seemed they were. At the time she had quickly dismissed such thoughts from her mind. What would Enno do with the money in any case? He never left the house, and he was always under her watchful eye!
But now she remembers the bathroom out on the landing, and that he has smoked more cigarettes than he can have brought with him in his little case. He must have found someone in the house who had agreed to get him cigarettes on the black market, for cash, without coupons, behind her back! How low and how mean! She would have loved to provide him with cigarettes—he only had to open his mouth and ask!
In the ninety minutes or so till Enno’s return, Frau Haberle struggles with herself. Over the past few days, she has reaccustomed herself to the presence of a man about the house, to not being alone any more, to having someone to look after, someone she is fond of. But if the man is as he appears to be, she must surely root the love out of her heart! Better to be alone than live with permanent suspicion and fear. She can hardly pop out to the greengrocer’s any more without being afraid of being cheated by him in some way.
And then it occurs to Hetty that she has also had the impression of things not being the way she left them in her linen closet. No, she must, she must send him packing—today, however difficult it feels. Later on, it will only be more difficult.
But then she remembers that she is a woman past her best, and that this might be her last chance of escaping a solitary old age. After this experience with Enno Kluge, she will hardly feel able to try again with some other man. After this terrifying, catastrophic experience with Enno!
“Yes, we’ve got mealworms in again. How many would you like,
Madam?”
Half an hour before closing, Enno walks in. It’s indicative of the state of her mind that only now does it occur to her that it’s not safe for him to go out on the street, with the Gestapo looking for him! Up till this moment she hasn’t been able to think like that, so preoccupied has she been with his betrayal of her. But what use are all the precautions in the world if he just runs off whenever she goes out? Maybe all that business with the Gestapo was just deception anyway? Who knows, with such a man!
He has noticed, of course, from the raised shutters, that she’s back in the shop earlier than expected. He walks in off the street, carefully makes his way through the line of customers, smiles at her as if nothing has happened, and says, as he disappears into the parlor, “I’ll be back in a jiffy to help out, boss!”
And he is back, and very quickly too, and then, to keep her dignity in front of the customers, she has to speak to him, give him instructions, act as if nothing were amiss—and all this when her entire world has collapsed! But she doesn’t let on; she even responds to his feeble little jokes, which he makes in unusual quantity today, and only when he starts to go to the cash register does she say, sharply, “If you don’t mind, I’ll look after that myself!”
He jumps slightly at that and looks at her with a shy sidelong glance—like a dog, yes, just like a beaten dog, she thinks. Then his hand feels its way into his pocket, a smile appears on his face, and yes, he’s already over the shock.
“At your orders, boss!” he barks, and scrapes his heels together.
The customers laugh at him, the funny little fellow playing soldiers, but she doesn’t feel like laughing just now.
Then the shop shuts. For another hour and a quarter they continue to work together, busy with feeding and watering and tidying up, both of them in near silence after she has failed to respond to his latest series of jests.
Hetty is in the
kitchen, making supper. She is making fried potatoes, real lovely fried potatoes, with bacon. She got the bacon from a customer in exchange for some old cheese. She had been looking forward to surprising Enno with something good for supper, because he likes good things. The potatoes are turning a fine golden yellow.
But then all at once she turns off the gas under the pan. All at once, she is impatient to clear the air. She goes into the parlor, leans against the Dutch stove, somber and grim, and asks, almost menacingly, “Well?”
He is sitting at the table, at their supper table, which he has laid for both of them, humming away to himself as he always does.
At that menacing “Well?” he jumps, and then he stands up and looks across at her dark form.
“Yes, Hetty?” he says. “Is supper ready soon? I’m really famished.”
She feels like hitting him, this man who supposes she will pass over such a betrayal in silence! He must feel mighty sure of himself, this fellow, merely no doubt because he has spent the nights in her bed! She is furious: she feels like giving him a good shaking and beating and then repeating the dose.
But she gets a grip on herself and says “Well?” again, but this time more menacingly still.
“Ah, I get it, Hetty!” he says. “You mean about the money.” He reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a bundle of notes. “Here, Hetty, here are 210 marks—I took 92 out of the till.” He laughs a little sheepishly. “My contribution to the household, if you like.”
“How did you come by so much money?”
“This afternoon there was the big race in Karlsbad. I got there just in the nick of time to place a bet on Adebar. Adebar to win. I like betting on horses. I know quite a bit about racing, Hetty.” He says it with a rare touch of pride. “I didn’t place all ninety-two, just fifty The odds were…”
“And what would you have done if your horse hadn’t won?”
“Adebar was a cert to win—it’s a meaningless question.”