Little Man, What Now?

by Hans Fallada

  ‘Morning,’ said Kessler.

  ‘Morning,’ said Pinneberg, without looking up.

  ‘Still very dark today,’ said Kessler.

  Pinneberg did not reply. Rumm, rumm, went the cloth.

  ‘You’re keen to earn your beer,’ said Kessler, with a rather embarrassed smile.

  ‘I don’t drink beer,’ replied Pinneberg.

  Kessler seemed to be working himself up for something, or perhaps simply searching for a way to begin. Pinneberg was very nervous; he knew the man had some object in mind, and that it couldn’t be friendly.

  Kessler asked: ‘You live in Spenerstrasse, don’t you Pinneberg?’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I heard you did.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Because I live in Paulstrasse. It’s funny that we’ve never met on the tram.’

  ‘The fellow’s got something on his mind,’ thought Pinneberg. ‘I just wish he’d come out with it! What a swine.’

  ‘And you’re married,’ said Kessler. ‘It’s not easy being married these days. D’you have children?’

  ‘I dunno,’ cried Pinneberg furiously. ‘Why don’t you find something to do instead of just standing around here?’

  ‘You don’t know! That’s a good one,’ said Kessler. Now he had the bit between his teeth and was openly insolent. ‘Might be true though. Pretty good when a father of a family says he doesn’t know.’

  ‘Now you listen, Mr Kessler …!’ began Pinneberg, raising the measuring ruler slightly.

  ‘Why?’ asked Kessler. ‘It was you who said it. Or didn’t you say it? As long as Mrs Mia is in the know too …’

  ‘What?’ shouted Pinneberg. The few people who had since come in stared in their direction. ‘What?’ he asked, involuntarily lowering his voice. ‘What d’you want with me? I’ll give you a punch on the jaw, you stupid fool, always picking a quarrel.’

  ‘So that’s the discreet introduction to high-class company?’ sneered Kessler. ‘You’d better not come on so strong with me, man. I’d like to see what Mr Jänecke would say if I showed him the advertisement. A man who allows his wife to put in such dirty adverts. Filthy …’

  Pinneberg was no sportsman. He couldn’t get over the counter in one bound, he had to go round it to grab the man, all the way round.

  ‘… a disgrace to our profession! Don’t start a fight in here.’

  But Pinneberg was now on top of him. He was, as stated, no sportsman; he tried to box Kessler’s ears, the other hit back, and now they grappled at each other ineptly.

  ‘You just wait, you bastard,’ panted Pinneberg.

  The people came running from the other counters.

  ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘If Jänecke sees you, you’ll both be out on your ears.’

  ‘All we need now is for the customers to come in.’

  Suddenly, Pinneberg felt himself grabbed from behind, held fast, and pulled off his opponent.

  ‘Let me go!’ he shouted. ‘I must get at that …’

  But it was Heilbutt, and Heilbutt said quite coolly: ‘Don’t be silly, Pinneberg. I’m much stronger than you are, and I’m not letting you go.’

  A little way off Kessler was already straightening his tie. He wasn’t particularly agitated. If you’re a born stirrer, you get quite a few clips round the ear in life. ‘I’d like to know why he’s getting so excited?’ he remarked to the onlookers. ‘When he lets his old woman advertise openly in the newspaper!’

  ‘Heilbutt!’ begged Pinneberg, straining at his chains.

  But Heilbutt had no intention of letting him go.

  He said: ‘Come on, out with it, Kessler! What sort of an advert is it? Show it here!’

  ‘You can’t order me about,’ declared Kessler. ‘You’re no better than me even if you do call yourself Senior Salesman.’

  But now a general murmur of annoyance arose: ‘Come on, out with it, mate.’

  ‘You can’t go back on it now.’

  ‘All right then, I’ll read it,’ said Kessler, and unfolded the newspaper. ‘But it’s embarrassing.’

  He hesitated again, to raise the tension.

  ‘Come on, man.’

  ‘He’s always got to be stirring.’

  Kessler said: ‘It’s in the small ads. I’m surprised the police don’t follow it up. It can’t go on much longer.’

  ‘Just read, will you!’

  Kessler read. He did it very nicely. He must have been rehearsing that morning: ‘Unlucky in love? I can introduce you to a charming circle of uninhibited ladies. Satisfaction guaranteed. Mrs Mia Pinneberg, Spenerstrasse 92-II.’

  Kessler relished his triumph. ‘Satisfaction guaranteed. Now what do you say?’ And he explained ‘I’d never have breathed a word about it, but he told me explicitly that he lived in Spenerstrasse.’

  ‘Well, that’s a turn-up for the books!’

  ‘We could take a lesson from him.’

  ‘I didn’t …’ stammered Pinneberg, who had gone as white as a sheet.

  ‘Give me the page,’ said Heilbutt suddenly, sounding as angry as it was possible for him to be angry. ‘Where? Ah, here … Mrs Mia Pinneberg … Your wife isn’t called Mia, is she, Pinneberg? … Your wife’s called …?’

  ‘Emma,’ said Pinneberg in a flat voice.

  ‘Well that’s another box on the ears for you, Kessler,’ said Heilbutt. ‘It wasn’t Pinneberg’s wife for a start. I also think it was in very bad taste …’

  ‘Cut it out, will you?’ protested Kessler. ‘That’s something I just can’t stand.’

  ‘It’s also perfectly clear,’ Heilbutt continued, ‘that our colleague Pinneberg here knew nothing whatever about it. You live with a relation, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Pinneberg.

  ‘There you are,’ said Heilbutt. ‘I couldn’t answer for all my relations. Nothing you can do about it.’

  ‘Well you can be grateful to me all the same,’ said Kessler, striving to regain his cool in the face of a discomfiting atmosphere of disapproval. ‘I pointed this disgusting business out to you. Though it’s funny you didn’t notice it …’

  ‘That’s enough,’ declared Heilbutt, to general assent. ‘And now, gentlemen, I think we ought to be doing something. Mr Jänecke could come along at any moment. And I think the decent thing would be not to talk about this any more. Not the way for colleagues to behave, is it?

  They nodded and withdrew.

  ‘Now listen to me, Kessler,’ said Heilbutt, taking him by the shoulder. The two of them disappeared behind the rack with the ulsters. They talked a long while, mostly in whispers with occasional lively protestations from Kessler, but finally he went very quiet.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ said Heilbutt returning to Pinneberg. ‘He won’t give you any more trouble. But I’m sorry I was a bit familiar with you just now. We’re friends enough to do that though, aren’t we?’

  ‘If it’s all right by you, it’s all right by me.’

  ‘Good. Kessler will leave you in peace. I’ve brought him down a peg.’

  ‘I’m very grateful to you, Heilbutt,’ said Pinneberg, ‘It’s all been such a shock, I feel stunned.’

  ‘It’s your mother, isn’t it?’ asked Heilbutt.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pinneberg. ‘I never thought very much of her. But not something like that … no.’

  ‘I don’t see it quite that way,’ said Heilbutt, ‘It doesn’t look so terrible to me.’

  ‘But in any case I’m moving out.’

  ‘I would do that. And as quickly as possible. If only because the others know about it now. It’s quite possible they’d call, just out of curiosity.’

  Pinneberg winced. ‘God forbid. When I’m away I don’t know what goes on. They play cards as well. I always thought it was something to do with the cards, I was so worried sometimes. Well now, Lammchen will have to find us somewhere to live, and quickly.’

  LAMMCHEN SEARCHES, NO ONE WANTS CHILDREN AND SHE FAINTS, BU
T IT PAYS OFF

  Lammchen was looking for somewhere to live. It involved going up a lot of stairs, and that wasn’t as easy as it had been six months before. Then a staircase was as easy as anything to go up and down. You could dance to the top, no trouble at all, hop, step, hop … But now she frequently had to stop on a landing; her forehead was covered in sweat, she wiped that off, but then those pains in the small of her back started. She could put up with the pain itself if only it wasn’t doing any harm to the Shrimp!

  She walked, climbed stairs, inquired, and went on. A flat must turn up soon, it was more than she could stand seeing her young man turning white and trembling whenever Mrs Mia Pinneberg came into the room. She had made him promise to keep quiet to his mother about the whole thing, they were just going to leave secretly; one morning they would simply be gone. But he was beginning to find it such a strain. He would so like to have made a scene, to storm about. She couldn’t for her part understand why, but she understood very well that her young man was like that …

  Anyone else would have smelled a rat long ago, but in this respect Mrs Mia Pinneberg was touchingly naïve. She breezed into the room where they were sitting, crying gaily: ‘Whatever are you doing, sitting here like chickens in the rain? You’re supposed to be young! When I was your age …’

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ said Lammchen.

  ‘Cheer up! Cheer up! Life’s bad enough already, you can’t let it get you down. I wanted to ask if you’d help me with the washing-up, Emma? I’ve got a shameful pile of it lying there.’

  ‘Sorry, Mama, I’ve got to do some sewing,’ said Lammchen, who knew her husband would throw a tantrum if she helped.

  ‘Oh well, we’ll leave the washing-up for another day. You’ll feel more like it tomorrow. What’s all this sewing you’re doing? Just don’t injure your eyes. Sewing’s not worth it any more. You can get things cheaper and better ready-made.’

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ replied Lammchen meekly, and Mrs Pinneberg sailed off, having cheered the young people up a little.

  But Lammchen didn’t help with the washing-up the next day either, she was out and about looking for somewhere to live, day after day. It was urgent; her young man was burning to leave.

  Oh! those landladies! There was one sort who, when Lammchen inquired after the furnished room with the use of the kitchen, stared straight at her middle, saying: ‘Expecting, aren’t yer? Na, if we wanted kids bawling round the ‘ouse, we’d ‘ave our own. Then we could ‘ave a choir of ’em.’

  And, bang! The door was shut.

  And sometimes, when it was more or less settled and Lammchen was just thinking to herself, ‘Tomorrow morning Sonny is going to be able to wake up carefree’, Lammchen would say—because they didn’t want to be thrown out after two or three weeks—‘Oh, and we’re expecting a baby.’ Then the landlady’s face would drop, and she would say, ‘Oh no, dear, I’m very sorry, I like you very much, but my husband …’

  On to the next one! Keep going, Lammchen, it’s a wide world and Berlin’s a big city. There must be some nice people, too. Surely it’s a blessing to be expecting a baby, this is the era of the child …

  ‘Oh, and we’re expecting a baby.’

  ‘Oh, that’s no big problem. Can’t do without them, can we? The only trouble is that children do a lot of damage in a flat, all that washing when the baby’s little, the steam, the vapour, and we do have such nice furniture. And then a child scratches the polish so. I’d be glad to have you, but … I’ll have to charge at least eighty marks instead of fifty. Well, let’s say seventy …’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Lammchen, and went on.

  Oh, but she did see some lovely places: bright, sunny, properly furnished rooms, with clean colourful curtains, and fresh bright wallpaper … and she thought so lovingly of the Shrimp.

  Then some elderly woman would appear and look at the younger woman with a friendly eye when she whispered something to her about the expected baby—and indeed, for anyone with eyes in their head it was a pleasure to look at her. And then the elderly woman would say to her, glancing thoughtfully at the blue, very shabby coat: ‘But you know, I can’t really charge less than a hundred and twenty marks. The landlord gets eighty, and I only have my little pension, and I’ve got to live too.’

  ‘Oh why, oh why,’ thought Lammchen, ‘don’t we have just a little bit more money? If only we didn’t have to watch the pennies so! It would all be so simple, life would look so different, and we’d just be able to look forward to the Shrimp without worrying about a thing.’

  Oh! why not? And the sleek cars roared by, and there were delicatessens, and people who earned so much they didn’t know how to spend it all. No, Lammchen didn’t understand it. In the evening her young man was often home before her, waiting for her in their room.

  ‘Nothing?’ he would ask.

  ‘Not yet,’ she would reply. ‘But don’t lose heart. I’ve got the feeling I’ll definitely find something tomorrow. Oh Lord, my feet are so cold!’

  But she was only saying that to head him off and keep him busy. It was true that she had cold feet, and they were wet too, but she was only saying that to distract him from the disappointment of not having a flat yet. Because what he did then was take her shoes and stockings off and rub her feet with a towel to warm them.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, satisfied. ‘Now they’re warm again, put your slippers on.’

  ‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘And tomorrow I’m sure to find something.’

  ‘Don’t overdo it,’ he said. ‘A day here or there won’t matter. I’m not losing heart yet.’

  ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I know that.’

  But it was she that was soon going to lose heart. All this walking, walking, and what use was it? For the money they could lay out, there simply wasn’t anything decent to be had.

  Recently she’d been going ever further east and north, where there were endless frightful blocks of flats, overcrowded, malodorous, noisy. And working-class women had opened the door to her and said: ‘Of course, you can look round, but you won’t take it. Not good enough for you.’

  And she would go and look at the room with the stains on the wall … ‘Yes, we did have bugs, but we got rid of them with prussic acid.’ The wobbly iron bedstead … ‘You can have a bedside rug if you like that sort of thing, but it only makes more work …’ A wooden table, two chairs, a few hooks on the wall and that was it. ‘A child? As many as you like. A few more shouting around the place won’t make any difference to me, I’ve got five already.’

  ‘Yes, I don’t know’ said Lammchen uncertainly. ‘Perhaps I’ll come back.’

  ‘No, you won’t’, said the woman. ‘I know what it’s like. I had a parlour once, and it’s not easy to settle for less.’

  No, it wasn’t easy. That was rock-bottom, that was giving up everything you’d wanted out of life; a grimy wooden table with him on one side, her on the other, and the child whining in the bed.

  ‘Never!’ said Lammchen. Or, if she was tired, or had pains, she added very quietly: ‘At least not yet.’

  No, it wasn’t easy to settle for that, the woman was right, and it turned out to be a good thing for Lammchen that it wasn’t because things did in fact turn out quite differently …

  One afternoon she was standing in a little shop in Spenerstrasse where they sold soap; she was buying a packet of Persil, half a pound of soft soap, and a packet of bleaching soda. Suddenly she felt ill, everything went black, she just managed to grasp at the counter and hold herself up.

  ‘Emil!’ shouted the woman to her husband.

  Then Lammchen was given a chair and a cup of hot coffee, she started to be able to see again, and whispered apologetically: ‘I’ve done so much walking.’

  ‘You shouldn’t. A bit of walking’s healthy in your condition, but not too much.’

  ‘But I have to!’ cried Lammchen despairingly. ‘I’ve got to find somewhere to live.’

  And suddenly she was talkative; she told the couple who ow
ned the shop everything about her fruitless search. She had to talk to someone, just once. With Sonny she had to be brave all the time.

  The woman was tall and thin with a sallow wrinkled face and black hair. She looked rather severe. He was a thick-set, red-faced fellow, looming in the background in shirtsleeves, corpulent.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Yes, young woman, they feed the birds in winter so they don’t starve, but the likes of us …’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said the wife. ‘Don’t talk rubbish. Think. Have you any ideas?’

  ‘Ideas?’ he asked. ‘Talk about the privileges of being a white-collar worker: don’t make me laugh. Privileged to take shit.’

  ‘I’m sure the young woman knows all about that without needing you to tell her. Especially not in that sort of language,’ growled the woman. ‘Come on, think! Don’t you know?’

  ‘Oh, don’t keep on at me: just say what you mean. What am I meant to know?’

  ‘Emil Puttbreese of course.’

  ‘Oh, I’m meant to be thinking of somewhere for the lady to live. Why didn’t you say so?’

  ‘How are things at Puttbreese’s? Is it still free?’

  ‘Is Puttbreese planning to let? What?’

  ‘Where he used to store the furniture. You know.’

  ‘That’s the first I ever heard of it. Now supposing he does want to let that poky place, this young woman’s never going to get to it up the step-ladder. Not in her condition.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said the wife. ‘Listen to me, young woman. You go and lie down for a couple of hours, then come down to me around four and we’ll go to Puttbreese together.’

  ‘Thank you very, very much,’ said Lammchen.

  ‘If the young lady rents Puttbreese’s place,’ said the shirt-sleeved Emil, ‘I’ll eat my hat. My best hat, worth one mark eighty-five.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said the soap-shop lady.

  And then Lammchen went and lay down. ‘Puttbreese,’ she thought. ‘Puttbreese. As soon as I heard the name I knew something was going to come of it.’

  And then she fell asleep, quite satisfied with her little faintingfit.