by Hans Fallada
Dr. Reichhardt interrupted his pre-lunch reading only twice. The first time was to say, not raising his head, “Cigarettes and matches are in the little cupboard—if you want to smoke?”
But when Quangel replied, “I don’t smoke. It costs too much money!” he was deep in his book again.
The second time, Quangel had clambered on to the stool and was trying to look out on the yard, where the regular rhythm of scraping feet could be heard.
“Best not now, Herr Quangel!” said Dr. Reichhardt. “It’s exercise. Some of the warders make a note of the windows where inmates watch. Then it’s solitary confinement with only bread and water. It’s usually safe to look out the window in the evenings.”
Then lunch came. Quangel, who was used to the contemptuously thrown together grub in the Gestapo prison, was astonished to see two big bowls of soup and two plates with meat, potatoes, and green beans. But he was even more astonished to see his cell mate pour a little water in the basin and carefully wash and dry his hands. Then Dr. Reichhardt poured fresh water into the ewer, stepped aside and politely said, “Herr Quangel!” and Quangel duly washed his hands, even though he hadn’t touched anything dirty.
Then they ate the—for Quangel—unusually good lunch in near silence.
It took three days before the foreman understood that this wasn’t the ordinary diet afforded by the People’s Court to remand prisoners, but Dr. Reichhardt’s private food, which he shared without the least fuss with his cell mate. In the same way that he was completely ready to give Quangel whatever he had, whether that was cigarettes, soap, or books; all he had to do was ask.
It took a few more days for Otto Quangel to overcome the sudden surge of suspicion that was his instinctive reaction to all Dr. Reichhardt’s kindness. He was convinced that whoever enjoyed such incredible privileges had to be a spy for the People’s Court. Whoever offered another man such favors must want something in return. Watch your step now, Quangel!
But what could the man want from him? Quangel’s was an open-and-shut case, and he had repeated to the examining magistrate, coolly and succinctly, the statements he had previously given to Inspectors Escherich and Laub. He had said everything exactly as it was, and if the files still hadn’t been passed on to the prosecution for the fixing of a date for proceedings, that was purely because of Anna’s peculiar insistence that she had done everything and that her husband had merely been a sort of tool for her. But all that was no reason to shower Quangel with valuable cigarettes and good, clean food. The case was straightforward, there was no reason to spy on him.
Quangel only really got over his suspicion of Dr. Reichhardt on the night that his cell mate, this superior, elegant gentleman, confessed to him in whispers that he was horribly afraid of death, whether by rope or ax; often he would think of nothing else for hours on end. Dr. Reichhardt also admitted that often he only turned the pages of his books mechanically: before his eyes he saw not printer’s ink but a gray concrete prison yard, a gallows with a noose swinging gently in the breeze that within three to five minutes would convert a strong, healthy man into a repulsive piece of dead meat.
But even more horrifying than the death that Dr. Reichhardt foresaw (it was his firm conviction) coming closer with every new day, even more horrifying was his fear on behalf of his family. Quangel learned that Reichhardt and his wife had three children, two boys and a girl, the oldest eleven, the youngest only four. And Reichhardt was often desperately afraid that his persecutors, not content with murdering the father, would extend their vengeance to his innocent wife and children, would drag them into a concentration camp and slowly torture them to death.
Witnessing these agonies, not only did Quangel feel his suspicions swept aside, but he even came to regard himself as a relatively fortunate man. He had only Anna to worry about, and however foolish and contrary her reported statements were, he could see from them that she had fully recovered her courage and strength. One day, they would both have to die, but dying would be made easier for them, because it would take both of them: they weren’t leaving anyone behind whom they would have to worry about in the hour of their death. The torments that Dr. Reichhardt had to go through on behalf of his wife and three children were incomparably greater. They would accompany him to the last second of his dying. The old foreman understood that.
Quangel never learned quite what it was that Dr. Reichhardt had done wrong and that made capital punishment seem so certain to him. As far as Quangel knew, his cell mate had not very actively opposed the Hitler regime, nor conspired with others, nor put up posters, nor plotted assassinations, but had simply lived in accordance with his principles. He had refused all the temptations that National Socialism had thrown his way, he had never contributed financially or by word or deed to their rallies, though he had often raised his voice in warning and had clearly stated how disastrous the course was that the German people were taking under their Führer. In a word, all the things that Quangel had laboriously written out on his postcards, Reichhardt had been happy to say to persons at home and abroad. Because even in the latter years of the war, Dr. Reichhardt had gone on giving concerts abroad.
It took a very long time for the carpenter Quangel to form a reasonably clear picture of the sort of work that Dr. Reichhardt had done in the world—and even then the picture never became completely clear, and in the depths of his soul he never quite saw Reichhardt’s activity as work.
When he first learned, right at the beginning of their acquaintance, that Reichhardt was a musician, he had thought of dance musicians playing in cafés, and he had smiled a little contemptuously about that as not much of a job for a tall man with strong limbs. It was a little like reading: something superfluous that only high-up people went in for, people who did no proper work.
Reichhardt had to explain to the old man at some length and repeatedly what an orchestra was and what a conductor did. Quangel never tired of hearing about it.
“So you get up in front of your people with your little stick, and you’re not even playing anything yourself…?”
Yes, that was pretty much the way of it.
“And purely for showing an individual when you want him to start playing, and how loud—purely for that, you get paid a lot of money?”
Yes, Dr. Reichhardt was afraid that was all he had done to come into so much money.
“But you’re able to play music yourself, on a violin or a piano?”
“Yes, I am. But I don’t do it, at least not in public. You see, Quangel, it’s a bit like you: you can plane and saw and bang in nails. But that wasn’t what you were doing; you were overseeing others doing it.”
“Sure, to make them work harder. Did your standing there make your people do their work any faster?”
“No, they didn’t do that.”
Silence.
Then Quangel suddenly said: “Anyway, music… You see, in the good years, the things we made weren’t coffins, but furniture—sideboards, bookshelves, tables—and we could take pride in our work! First-class carpentry, pinned and glued, things that will last a hundred years. But music—the minute you stop playing, what have you got left?”
“There is something, Quangel. The joy in the people who hear good music, that’s something enduring.”
But no, on this point they weren’t able to agree, and Quangel was left with a quiet disdain for the work of the conductor Reichhardt.
But he could at least see that his companion was an upright, sincere man who went on living his life in the same way he had always lived it, despite all the threats and terrors he was confronted with, always friendly and helpful. With astonishment Otto Quangel saw that the kindnesses he received at Reichhardt’s hands were not specifically directed at him, but would have been offered to any other cell mate, even, for instance, to the “dog.” For a few days they had a small-time thief in their cell with them, a spoiled and deceitful creature, and this louse exploited the doctor’s kindnesses to the full, smoking all his cigarettes, trading away his
soap, stealing his bread. Quangel itched to beat him up—oh yes, the old foreman would have taught the creature a lesson he wouldn’t have forgotten in a hurry. But the doctor wasn’t having that, and he simply took the fellow under his wing—the thief who took his kindness for weakness.
When the man was finally taken away, it transpired that in his unfathomable wickedness he had taken a picture that Dr. Reichhardt had, his only picture of his wife and children, and torn it up. As the doctor sat grieving before the scraps of the picture, which he was unable to put together again, Quangel angrily said, “You know, Doctor, pardon my saying so, I think you’re just too soft at times. If you had let me, I would have sorted the guy out right away, and something like that would never happened.” The conductor replied with a rueful smile, “Do you want us to be like the others, Quangel? They think they can convert us to their views by physical punishment! But we don’t believe in force. We believe in goodness, love, and justice.”
“Goodness and love for a monster like that!”
“But do you know what turned him into such a monster? Are you sure he’s not just resisting goodness and love because he’s afraid his life would change if he were no longer evil? If we’d had him in our cell for four weeks, I think you would have seen a change in him.”
“But in life you need to be tough sometimes, Doctor!”
“No, you don’t. And a saying like that is justification for every form of brutality, Quangel!”
Quangel shook his head, with its sharp, angular bird face, in dissent. But he did not continue the dispute.
Chapter 57
LIFE IN THE CELL
They got used to one another and became friends, insofar as a hard, dry man like Otto Quangel could ever become friends with an open and kindly one. Their days were rigidly ordered—by Reichhardt. The doctor got up very early, washed all over with cold water, did exercises for half an hour, and then tidied the cell. After breakfast, Reichhardt would read for a couple of hours and then walk up and down the cell for a further hour, never forgetting to take off his shoes so that the other inmates would not be bothered by his continual pacing.
In the course of his morning walk, which lasted from ten to eleven, Dr. Reichhardt would sing to himself. Generally he confined himself to humming softly, because a lot of warders wouldn’t allow it, and Quangel got used to listening to this humming. Whatever his poor opinion of music, he did notice its effect on him. Sometimes it made him feel strong and brave enough to endure any fate, and then Reichhardt would say, “Beethoven.” Sometimes it made him bafflingly lighthearted and cheerful, which he had never been in his life, and then Reichhardt would say, “Mozart,” and Quangel would forget all about his worries. And sometimes the sounds emanating from the doctor were dark and heavy, and Quangel would feel a pain in his chest, and it would be as though he was a little boy again sitting in church with his mother, with something grand—the whole of life—ahead of him, and then Reichhardt would say, “Johann Sebastian Bach.”
Yes, while continuing to think poorly of music, Quangel was unable to avoid its influence, however basic the doctor’s hummed vocal settings might be. He got accustomed to sitting on a stool and listening to him as he walked up and down, usually with eyes closed, because of course his feet knew every inch of the short narrow path. Quangel would look at him, this fine gentleman, whom he wouldn’t have known how to talk to in the outside world, and sometimes a doubt would come over him; he wondered whether he had lived the right sort of life, cutting himself off from everyone else in a voluntary self-isolation. Sometimes Dr. Reichhardt would say, “We live not for ourselves, but for others. What we make of ourselves we make not for ourselves, but for others…”
Yes, there was no doubt: past fifty and facing death, Quangel was changing. He might not like it—he even fought it—but he noticed more and more clearly that he was changing, influenced not only by the music but also, more generally, by the man who hummed it. He, who had so many times told Anna to keep quiet, who had taken silence for the best condition, would now suddenly catch himself wishing that Dr. Reichhardt would put down his book and speak to him again.
And quite often he would. Once, the doctor looked up from his reading and asked with a smile, “What’s going on, Quangel?”
“Hmm, nothing, Doctor.”
“You know you shouldn’t sit and think so much. Don’t you want to give life a chance?”
“It’s too late for that, surely.”
“Maybe you’re right. What did you use to do after work? You can’t just have sat around idly at home after your shift, a man like you!”
“I wrote my postcards.”
“And earlier, before the war?”
Quangel had to think quite hard what he had done then. “I suppose I used to enjoy carving things out of wood.”
The doctor said thoughtfully, “Well, that’s one thing they won’t allow us in here: knives. We mustn’t cheat the executioner, Quangel!”
To which Quangel hesitantly replied, “What’s chess like? You can play against other people too, can’t you?”
“Yes. Would you like to learn?”
“I think I’m probably not clever enough.”
“Nonsense! Let’s get you started right away.”
And Dr. Reichhardt shut his book.
And so Quangel learned to play chess. To his surprise, he learned very quickly and easily. And again he made the discovery that something he had thought before was completely wrong. He had always found it rather silly and childish when he’d seen two men sitting at a café table, pushing wooden figures back and forth: killing time, it was, something suitable for children at the most.
Now he learned that this back-and-forth of wooden figures could bring something like happiness, clarity in one’s mind, a deep and honest pleasure in an elegant move, the discovery that it mattered very little if you won or lost, but that the pleasure of losing a closely contested match was much greater than that of winning through a blunder on the part of his opponent.
Now, while Dr. Reichhardt read, Quangel would sit opposite him, the chessboard with the black and white figures in front of him, and open next to it a little paperback, Dufresne’s Guide to Chess, and he would practice openings and endgames. Later on, he progressed to playing over famous matches in their entirety. His clear, sober brain could easily remember twenty or thirty moves, and before long the day came that he was the better player.
“Checkmate, Doctor!”
“You caught me again, Quangel!” said the doctor, and he laid down his king on its side in tribute to his conqueror. “You could make a very good player.”
“I sometimes think now, Doctor, about the gifts I had no idea I had. It’s only since meeting you, since coming to this death row, that I understand how much I’ve missed out on in my life.”
“It’s like that for everyone. Everyone facing death, especially premature death, like us, will be kicking themselves about each wasted hour.”
“But it’s different for me, Doctor. I always thought it was enough if I did my work properly and didn’t mess anything up. And now I learn that there are loads of other things I could have done: play chess, be kind to people, listen to music, go to the theater. You know, Doctor, if I were granted one wish before my death, it would be to see you with your baton conducting a big symphony orchestra. I’m so curious to see it, and find out my reaction to it.”
“No one can develop every side of themselves, Quangel. Life is so rich. You would only have spread yourself too thin. You did your job and were a man of integrity. When you were at liberty, Quangel, you had everything you wanted. You wrote your postcards…”
“Yes, but they didn’t do any good, Doctor! I wished the earth would swallow me up when Inspector Escherich told me that of the 285 postcards I wrote, 267 went straight to him! Only eighteen not handed in! And those eighteen didn’t do any good, either!”
“Who can say? At least you opposed evil. You weren’t corrupted. You and I and the many locked up here, and
many more in other places of detention, and tens of thousands in concentration camps—they’re all resisting, today, tomorrow…”
“Yes, and then they kill us, and what good did our resistance do?”
“Well, it will have helped us to feel that we behaved decently till the end. And much more, it will have helped people everywhere, who will be saved for the righteous few among them, as it says in the Bible. Of course, Quangel, it would have been a hundred times better if we’d had someone who could have told us. Such and such is what you have to do; our plan is this and this. But if there had been such a man in Germany, then Hitler would never have come to power in 1933. As it was, we all acted alone, we were caught alone, and every one of us will have to die alone. But that doesn’t mean that we are alone, Quangel, or that our deaths will be in vain. Nothing in this world is done in vain, and since we are fighting for justice against brutality, we are bound to prevail in the end.”
“And what good will that do us, down in our graves?”
“Quangel, I ask you! Would you rather live for an unjust cause than die for a just one? There is no choice—not for you, nor for me either. It’s because we are as we are that we have to go this way.”
For a long time there was silence.
Then Quangel began, “This game, chess…”
“Yes, Quangel, what about it?”
“I sometimes think I’m doing wrong by playing. For hours on end, I have my head full of chess, but I have a wife still, and…”