“What’s he want with us? I said he was crazy, he’s batty all right, clean gone off his nut, and I told him, if a fellow’s got only one arm and comes and wants to play around with us. And him.” Pums: “Well, what does he say?” “What does he say? He just laughs and grins, why, he’s dumb as hell; he must have a screw loose from what happened that time. First I says to myself, I ain’t hearin’ right. Whatsat, says I, about that arm of yours? Well, well, why not, the feller grins, he’s got strength enough in the other one, I should see him liftin’ weights with it, shootin’, even climbin’ if necessary.” “Is that true?” “None o’ my business. Don’t like that guy. Do we want a bozo like that? Look here, Pums-we can’t use him in our work. Anyhow, when I see that guy with that bull’s face of his, aw, it gives me a pain.” “All right, if that’s what you think. Got no objection. Gatta go now, Reinhold, to get a ladder.” “But get somethin’ solid, steel or somethin’ like that. Extending or folding. But not in Berlin.” “I getcha.” “And the bottle. Hamburg or Leipzig.” ‘Til find it all right.” “And how’ll we get it here?” “Oh, leave that to me. Hamburg or Leipzig.” ‘Til get the info.” “And how we gonna move it here?” “Leave that to me.” “So I won’t take Franz then, heh?” “Reinhold, about Franz, he’ll only be a burden to us, I think, but we won’t bother about that. You better fix it up with him alone.” “Wait a minute, old boy,· you really like that guy’s face? Listen. I kick him out of the car and he comes right up to me, I thinks to myself I’m seein’ things, by gosh, and there he stands, the boob, imagine it, what a jackass, dodderin’ away, and why did the jackass come up here, anyway? And then he grins at me and posolutely wants to come along.” “Well, just fix it up with him, and lemme go.” “Maybe he’s gain’ to snitch on us, heh?” “Maybe so, maybe so. Y’know, you’d better keep that feller outa your way, that’s the best thing, g’bye.” “He’ll squeal on us, sure. Or, when it’s dark, he’ll put one of us on the spot.” “So long, Reinhold, golta beat it. The ladder.”
He’s some bonehead, that Biberkopf. But he wants somethin’ from me. Tries to play the hypocrite. Wants to start somethin’ with me, heh? That’s where you got the wrong number, if you think I won’t do nothin’. I’ll let you stumble over my toes. Gimme rum, by gum! Rum’s good for what ails you, all right. Auntie Paula eats tomatoes in her bed. On the urgent advice of a woman-friend who said ... If that guy thinks I’m gonna worry about him, I ain’t an old age insurance company. If he’s only got one arm, let him go and get in on the dole. Reinhold ambles around the room, and takes a look at the flowers. When a fellow’s got flower-pots and that tan gets two marks extra every first of the month, she might water them pots, look at ‘em now, nothin’ but sand. She sure is a dumbdora, a lazy wench, good for nothin’ but gulping down the money. But I’ve gotta knock the cobwebs off her. Another rum. I learned that from him. Maybe I’ll take that louse along with me, wait a minute, you’ll get it yet, if you’re so bent on havin’ it. Maybe he thinks I’m afraid of him. That’s how much you know, Jack. Lel him come, let him come! He don’t need any money, the mack, he mustn’t try to put that over on me, he’s got Mieze, and then he’s also got that dirty louse, that loafer of a Herbert, that old bum, sittin’ there right in the pig-sty. Where are them boots? I’ll step on his toes for him. Come to my bosom, sweet-heart, come on, come straight up, m’boy, to the sinners’ bench. I’ve got a sinners’ bench where you can repent your sins.
He ambles around his room, and dabs at the flowerpots with his fingers, I pay two marks, and that tan don’t water ‘em. Up to the sinners’ bench, me boy, that’s the stuff, glad you’re comin’. To the Salvation Army, I’ll get you there, too, he’ll have to go to the Dresdener Strasse, he’s gotta go to the sinners’ bench, that pimp, that swine, with his big slimy goggle-eyes, that mack, that brute, sure he’s a brute, there he sits in front, that brute, prayin’ while I look on, I could die laughin’.
And why shouldn’t he go up to the sinners’ bench, Franz Biberkopf? Isn’t the sinners’ bench the place where he belongs? Who says that?
What can be said against the Salvation Army, and how does Reinhold, this Reinhold of all people, get that way, poking fun at the Salvation Army, when the guy went there himself once, what do I mean, once, often, five times at least, he went to Dresdener Strasse, and what a state he was in, and they helped him, too. Why, his tongue was hanging out, and they fixed him up; but, of course, not in order that he should get to be such a scoundrel.
Hallelujah, hallelujah! Franz knows what it is, all that singing and shouting. The knife touched his throat, Franz, hallelujah1 He offers his neck, he wants to seek his life, his blood. My blood, my innermost being, at last it all comes forth, it was a long voyage before it came, O Lord, how hard it was, but there it is, I gotcha now. Why didn’t I want to go up to the sinners’ bench, if only I’da come sooner, oh, but here I am, I’ve come.
Why shouldn’t Franz go up to the sinners’ bench, when will that blessed moment come, when he will fl op himself down before his terrible death and open his mouth and be allowed to sing with many others behind him:
Come, sinner, to Jesus, do not hesitate so, oh bondsman awake, come up to the light, come to the light’s bright glow, you may find complete salvation here on this happy day, oh, believe in Him, and light and joy will live in you alway. Chorus: For the all-conquering Saviour, He can break every chain, the all-conquering Saviour, He can break every chain, and lead you forth to victory down the happy lane, and lead you forth to victory down the happy lane. Music! Blow horns and trumpets, taraboomdeeay: He can break every chain, and lead you forth to victory down the happy lane. Tara, tara, tara, boom! Taraboomdeeay!
Franz does not give in, it haunts him all the time, he does not ask about God and the world, it is as if the fellow were drunk. Along with the other Pums gangsters, who don’t want him, he slips into Reinhold’s room. But Franz lashes about, showing them the one fist he’s got left and yells: “If you won’t believe me and wanta take me for a swindler and think I want to squeal on you, why, let it go. Do I need you if I want to do something? I can go to Herbert or anywhere I like.” “Then go ahead and do it.” “‘Go ahead and do it!’ You numskull, do you have to tell me ‘Go ahead and do it!’ Look at my arm, you, that fellow over there, Reinhold, pushed me out of the automobile, and with a bang too. I’ll tell you. I stood that all right, and now I’m here and you needn’t tell me ‘Go ahead and do it’! If I come to you and say, I’m with you, then you oughta know who Franz Biberkopf is. He ain’t never swindled anybody, you can ask anywhere you want. I don’t give a hoot in hell for what happened, my arm’s gone. I know you all, I’m here, and that’s the reason why, so maybe you know now.” The little tinner still can’t understand. “Then I’d like to know why you want to come here all of a sudden, after you used to run around the Alex with newspapers, and you said let anybody try to tell ye that ye oughtajoin up with us.”
Franz straightens himself up in his chair and says nothing for a long time; the others are also silent. He has taken an oath to be respectable and you have seen how he stayed respectable for many a week, but that was only a respite, so to speak. He is dragged into a criminal case, he does not want this, he defends himself, but the issue he must face. For a long time they sit and say nothing,
Then Franz suggests: “If you want to find out who Franz Biberkopf is, just go to the Landsberger Allee, to the cemetery, there’s a dame lyin’ there. I did four years for that. It was still my good arm that did it. Then I peddled papers. I thought I’d be a respectable man.”
Franz groans softly and gulps: “You can see what I caught. Once you’ve lost that, you gotta stop paper-peddlin’ and lots of other things, too. That’s why I’m here.” “I suppose we ought to give you a new arm, because we smashed it up.” “You can’t do that, Maxe, I’m satisfied with sittin’ here and not runnin’ around on the Alex. I don’t blame Reinhold, just ask him if I ever said a single word about it. When I sit in the car and there’s a
suspicious character with us, don’t I know what to do? Now let’s stop talkin’ about my damn-foolishness. Max, if you do a damn-fool trick one of these days yourself, well, I hope it’ll learn you a lesson.” Then Franz takes his hat and walks out of the room. So that’s the way things are.
In the room Reinhold pours a nip of brandy from his little pocket flask and says: “As far as I’m concerned I’m through with all this stuff. I fixed him up the first time and I’ll do it again. You may say it’s risky startin’ somethin’ with him. But first of all, he’s already in deep, he’s a pimp, he admits it himself; as for going straight, that’s all over. The only question now is, why does he come to us and not to Herbert, who’s his friend. Don’t know. But I’m thinkin’ a lot. Anyway we’d be fools if we couldn’t hold our own with certain Herr Franz Biberkopf. Let him join us. If he pulls somethin’, he’ll get one on the beezer. I say let him come on.” Whereupon Franz comes.
Burglar-Franz, Franz is not under the Auto, he sits Inside now, on Top, he’s fixed it
In the early part of August these gentlemen, the so-called criminals, are still in rest-billets behind the lines, recuperating and attending to small jobs. As long as the weather’s fairly nice, a man who’s an expert or a professional doesn’t burgle or exert himself. He saves himself up for the winter, when he’s got to go at it like hell. Franz Kirsch, for instance, the well-known yegg, escaped eight weeks ago, in the early part of July, with another man from Sonnenburg prison; Sonnenburg, though the name be ever so charming, is, as a matter of fact, little suited for vacation purposes, and now he has had a pretty good recovery in Berlin, has about eight quiet weeks back of him, and is perhaps going to think of doing some work. But there’s a hitch, such is life. The man happens to take a street-car. Along come the bulls, it’s the end of August, and take him out of the streetcar in Reinickendorf West, good-bye to rest, nothing doing any more. But there are still many outside, they are slowly going to start action.
Before starting I should like to give you hastily the weather conditions according to the reports of the public meteorological service for Berlin. General weather conditions: The region of high pressure in the west has extended its influence as far as Central Germany, and generally brought better weather. The southern area of the high-pressure region is already diminishing. We may, therefore, expect that this improvement in the weather will not last very long. On Saturday the high-pressure area will still determine our weather and it will be fairly fine. But the depression which is now developing over Spain will affect the climatic conditions on Sunday.
Berlin and vicinity: Partly cloudy, partly sunshine, weak air currents, gradually rising temperature. In Germany: cloudy in the west and south, in the rest of Germany cloudy to fair, in the northeast somewhat windy, gradually warmer again.
In this very temperate weather, the Pums gang, our Franz among them, set themselves slowly in motion; the ladies belonging to the mob are of the opinion that the swains should step out a bit, for otherwise they’d have to go out on the streets, and none of the girls likes to do that, unless she’s obliged to. Welt first of all, they’ve got to study the market, find purchasers, and if men’s and ladies’ wear don’t go, they had better tackle furs, the ladies think: they’ll do that in a jiffy, they’re always doing exactly the same job, and it’s easy to learn a trade like that. But they ain’t got the slightest mind for switching jobs when business conditions are bad. Anyway, the girls got nothing to say about it.
Pums has got in with a tinner who knows something about oxygen blow-pipes, so we got him with us; then they have a business man who has gone to the wall, he looks classy; of course, that louse doesn’t work, that’s why his mother kicked him out, but he is a light-fingered gent, and knows his business, so they can send him everywhere to look round and fix up an expedition. Pums says to the veterans of his gang: “Of course, we don’t really need to worry about competition, naturally we have it in our business like everyone else, but we don’t interfere with each other. However, if we don’t try to get good people who know their business and understand their tools, then we’ll get it in the neck. Might as well take to plain hooking, and we don’t need six or eight men for that anybody can do that on his own.”
Since they’re out for ladies’ and men’s wear and furs now, everybody who can walk has got to start trotting and finding shops where one easily gets rid of things without too many questions being asked, and where the police aren’t likely to pay an early visit. The stuff can be faked up or sewn in a different way, or, as a last resort, stowed away for a while. Got to find it first, however.
For one thing his fence in Weissensee gives Pums endless trouble. When a fellow works like he does, you can’t do any business with him. Live and let live. All right. But just because he claims to have suffered some losses last winter-that’s what he says-and to have had no profits and incurred debts, while we had a good time in the summer, he comes now and asks for money and bellyaches a lot about having made a bad speculation. That’s it, he’s simply made a bad speculation, for he’s a jackass, a rotten business man, simply knows nothin’ about business, the fool, then he ain’t for us. Gotta look for somebody else. It’s, of course, easier said than done, but it can’t be helped, and as for things like that, it’s good old Pums who, alone of the whole gang, can attend to them. Anyhow, it’s queer, they hear everywhere that the other boys are also worrying about that; they want to know what becomes of the stock, for no one ever got fat just by cribbing things, it has got to be turned into money, but as I said: with Pums around, they stretch their legs and say: “As long as Pums is there, he’ll fix it up all right.” He’ll do it, he’ll do it all right. But suppose Pums ain’t able to do it? Hal Hah! Pums can’t always do it. Couldn’t somethin’ happen to Pums, too? He’s only human, after all. Then how’re ye goin’ to get rid of the stuff, that’s what you gotta think about, and all your burglary won’t help you any.... Nowadays it’s not crowbars and blow-pipes alone that get a fellow ahead in the world, today he’s got to be a business man.
That’s why, as September rolls along, Pums worries not only about oxygen blow-pipes, but who’s going to take that stuff off my hands? He started all that in August already. And if you want to know who Pums is: he’s the silent partner in five good little fur-shops-never mind where and then he’s put a little money into a couple of quick-pressing places, American plan, with ironing-boards in the window, a tailor stands around in his shirt-sleeves, he’s always lifting the board up and down, it’s steaming, but in the rear they’ve got a lot of suits hanging up, well, they’re what matters, it’s the suits that matter, and where we got ‘em from, well, you simply say, from customers, they brought ‘em in here yesterday to be pressed and altered, here are the addresses, and when a dick comes in to look around, everything’s jake. So good old Fatty Pums has made his preparations for the winter, and now we can say, let ‘er go. If anything happens, a man can’t prepare everything in advance, can he now? It won’t go without a bit of luck, but we should worry about that.
Now let’s get on with our story. It’s early in September, and our classy loafer, the go-between, who is also an imitator of animal-cries-but that’s another story - Waldemar Heller is the baby’s name, and he’s really bright as hell, now, that lad has been snooping around the big clothing stores in Kronenstrasse and Neue Wallstrasse to get the lay of the land. He knows all about entrances and exits, front-doors, back-doors, who lives upstairs, who lives downstairs, who shuts up the place, where the timeclocks are, etc. Pums pays his expenses. Sometimes Heller pretends to represent a Posen firm which has recently started in business; well, people would first like to make some inquiries about that Posen firm; all right, why not, I just wanted to see how high your ceiling is, next time we’ll come down from upstairs.
The job is to come off during the night from Saturday to Sunday. It is the first time Franz goes along. He fixed it. Franz Biberkopf is sitting in the automobile, they all know what to do, he has an assignment like the
others. It all goes in a very business-like way. Another fellow has to be the lookout, that is, he’s not a lookout in the real sense of the word, three of the boys simply sneaked their way into the printers’ shop on the floor above during the previous night, they carried the ladder and blowpipe upstairs in boxes and hid them behind the reams of paper, one of them drove the car away; at eleven they open the door for the others, not a damned soul in the house notices anything, there are nothing but office rooms and stores in the building. They sit peacefully working, one of them at the window keeps looking out while another watches the courtyard. Then they start blasting the floor, more than half a yard square, the tinner with the horn-rimmed glasses does that. Next they cut through the wood of the ceiling, there is a rattling noise downstairs, but that’s nothing, that’s just the debris of heavy stucco falling down, the ceiling bursts with the heat, through the first opening they thrust a fine silk umbrella into which the lumps fall, that is, most of them, of course it is impossible to catch them all. But nothing happens, downstairs everything is black and dead quiet.
At ten they climb in, classy Waldemar first, because he knows the place. He walks down the rope-ladder like a cat, the boy’s doing that for the firs t time, he’s not the least bit afraid, people like that are regular greyhounds, they have all the luck, that is, of course, till things go wrong. Then it’s another’s turn to come down, the steel ladder is only 8 feet high, it doesn’t reach to the ceiling, so downstairs they drag up some tables, then slowly lower the ladder till it rests on the upper table, and here we are. Franz remains upstairs, lying across the hole on his belly. He gathers up the bundles of cloth handed up to him, like a fisherman, then puts them behind him, where another man is standing. Franz is strong. Reinhold himself, who is downstairs with the tinner, is astonished at the things Franz can do. A funny thing to be pulling off a job with a one-armed man. His arm grabs things like a crane, he sure has got a mighty punch, he’s some bloke. Afterwards they drag the baskets down. Although one of them is on the watch downstairs at the exit of the courtyard, Reinhold is also patrolling the place. Two hours, now we’re sitting pretty, the watchman walks through the house, better leave that man alone, he won’t notice anything, never mind, he’d be a fool to let himself be shot dead for the few pennies he gets, well, there you are, he’s gone, he’s a good fellow, we might leave a blue-back beside the time-clock for him. By that time it’s two o’clock, at half-past two the car arrives. Meantime the men upstairs have a nice supper, but not too much liquor, otherwise they’d make a lotta noise, and then it’s half-past two, anyway. Two men pull off their first job with the gang today. Franz and the classy Waldemar. They quickly toss a coin, Waldemar wins, he has to put the seal on today’s trip, he’s got to go down the ladder again, into the dark devastated stockroom; and there he crouches down, pulls off his trousers and presses on the floor what he has in his belly.
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