by Hans Fallada
And so, refreshed by the breakfast and a good wash, they took their leave of the friendly but ever-despondent caretaker’s wife. ‘I’ll be back again in the next few days’, promised Mrs. Doll, ‘and I’ll go down to the housing office and sort out this business with that cheeky cow upstairs. Doesn’t even offer me a chair in my own home — she’s out on her ear!’
And how are we going to compensate her for the ‘few thousand marks’ she’s spent on doing the place up? thought Doll. And anyway, they’ll never grant us the right to the whole seven-room apartment, not even if we include Petta and grandmother.
But he didn’t talk about any of this with his wife. Events would just have to take their course now. There was no point in getting worked up over anything, or making plans for the future. Things would turn out one way or the other — though hardly ever for the best.
The refreshing effects of the wash and the ground coffee had not lasted long, and his wife’s leg must have been in a really bad way, because their progress was painfully slow. Time and time again, Doll resolved to hold back and walk with his sick wife, but before he knew it he was ten or twenty paces ahead of her. When he then turned round and went back to her, feeling guilty, she would give him a friendly smile. ‘You go on!’ she said. ‘I’ll whistle if I think I’m losing sight of you. It must be a pain to have to slow down for me — I’m like a snail today. You go on ahead!’
After the cold night, the sun shone warmly, with that pleasantly autumnal warmth that has nothing oppressive about it, but just feels good. Here in the streets lined with villas the trees had not yet lost their leaves. The foliage was paler and changing colour, but it was just good to see healthy trees again after all the ruins. Many of the villas here had also been destroyed, but nestling among shrubs and trees, and surrounded by green lawns and flowers, it didn’t look so bad somehow.
Mrs. Doll said to her husband, who had just turned back again to rejoin his ‘snail’: ‘Ben will have his own car by now, for certain, and I’m sure he’ll take us out for a drive from time to time. Now we’ve got the whole of the lovely autumn ahead of us — let’s just enjoy it for ourselves at last, without having to worry about anything. I expect Ben can arrange a truck for us, too, so we can pick up the furniture and your books from the sticks and set up house again properly. You wait and see what a wonderful home I’ll make for you! We’re sure to have lots of English visitors through Ben, and then you can invite your writer friends, too … I’ll mix the most marvellous cocktails for you — I mix a mean cocktail, me! Ben will be able to supply the ingredients!’
Ben this, Ben that, Ben the other! What a child she was, the way she just pinned all the hopes of her innocent, child-like heart on a friend she hadn’t thought about for weeks and months! A child in her faith and trust — so far, no disappointment had been able to eradicate this capacity for belief and hope from her heart.
Eventually, they really were sitting in the large drawing room of a huge villa, and from the windows they could see across the garden to the garage buildings, where a chauffeur was busy washing the car — Ben’s car, and in that regard at least, Alma’s expectations had been fulfilled. Her friend Ben had done surprisingly well for himself, and official plates on the garden gate indicated that Mr. Ben already held a senior position.
So far he had not yet appeared, having been detained for a few minutes by an important meeting on the ground floor. In the meantime, three interior decorators were busying themselves around the Dolls as they sat there amongst the antique furniture, looking lost in the magnificently appointed room; whispering among themselves, they were arranging diaphanous curtain fabrics in folds, climbing up and down ladders, and pulling on cords. And when Doll saw all this new splendour around him, such as he had not seen intact for months and years now, he felt his own down-at-heel appearance twice, ten times, as keenly. He looked from the snow-white tulle to the pale summer suit he was wearing, which showed dirty marks and streaks from the overnight train journey; and Alma’s cheap little coat and torn stockings looked even worse against the rich brocade of the armchair in which she sat.
The truth was they had become beggars, and here in this house, which even in the best of times had been the villa of a very rich man, Doll felt this very acutely. It wasn’t so long ago that he had thought of himself as a pretty prosperous man. But now he and his wife, as he suddenly saw very clearly, were no different from all those refugees whom he had only recently — when he was still mayor — had to direct through his little town in endless, wretched, starving columns. Now the Dolls, too, were down-and-out, with only a small suitcase to their name, homeless, dependent on the help of friends, strangers, maybe even public assistance. Mayor, property owner, an abundance of possessions, a bank account always in the black, decent food — and now suddenly nothing, zero, zilch!
Oh Lord! thought Doll. Don’t let Alma say too much! Please God she doesn’t ask these two women for anything — I couldn’t bear it, we’re not reduced to begging just yet!
The two women who had just entered the room were the wife of Alma’s friend Ben and a woman friend of hers; they had eyed the two visitors with some surprise, but then Alma had started to explain …
There was no risk of her saying too much. She didn’t get a chance for that. What happened next was something that Doll was to observe quite often over the coming weeks and months. Alma had barely got into her stride before the two women became very restless and fidgety, and the reason was obvious: they were dying to tell their own story!
As soon as Alma paused in her tale, the other two jumped in immediately. In a breathless gush of words, taking it in turns to speak, they now told the story of how badly they had suffered, how they had nearly starved, how they had lost so much … Sitting in this magnificent house, in an antique armchair covered in fine brocade, the Dolls learned what an awfully wretched time the owners had had of it, and indeed were still having.
Then the master of the house entered the room in a hurry; he could spare them just five minutes between two important meetings. He kissed Alma’s hand, and said how sorry he was that life had become so very difficult. He could not even offer his guests a cigarette — that’s how bad things were in his house! Mrs. Doll’s leg really did look in a bad way; his guess was blood poisoning. He advised Doll to take her straight to a hospital.
A quarter of an hour later, they were both standing out on the street again, having got through the visit to Alma’s truest and most grateful friend — thank God! The sun was still shining brightly and cheerily though the sparse foliage of the trees, the lawn in front of the villa was a deep green, and the Michaelmas daisies were in flower. Doll linked arms gently with his wife — she had such an alarmingly pale, ill-looking face — and said gaily: ‘And you know what we’re going to do now, Alma? Now we are going to look after our nerves, we’re going to live the good life — and your poor leg will get better in the meantime. So where are we going? Well, it occurred to me, when there was mention of a hospital just now, that only a quarter of an hour from here there’s a sanatorium where I have stayed a couple of times for my nerves. They know me there, and they’ll admit us for certain.’
‘Do what you want with me’, answered Mrs. Doll. ‘Just as long as I get to lie down soon!’
And so they set out for the sanatorium, but instead of a quarter of an hour it took them nearly an hour, because the woman found it such a struggle to walk. There was no more talk of best friend Ben during this veritable via dolorosa; deep in thought, Mrs. Doll merely observed once in passing: ‘I’m never going to be decent and generous to people like I was before! Never again!’
‘Thank God’, he said, and gave her a tender look. ‘Thank God, Alma, that’s not something that depends solely on you. You’ll always be a decent person, no matter how badly you’ve been let down!’
The sanatorium, a large, ugly building of red brick and cement, was still standing — it would have been almost unbea
rable if this had turned out to be another disappointment. They sat in the consulting room. ‘Turn on all your charm, Alma’, whispered Doll. ‘They’ve got to take us in here. Where else are we going to go?’
Mrs. Doll quickly applied powder, rouge, and lipstick, intent on making the most of her charm. ‘Of course we’ll admit you, my dear!’ said the white-haired lady doctor, and stroked Alma’s hair. ‘As far as your husband is concerned, we’ll have to consult the privy councillor. But I’ve certainly got a bed free for you in my section.’
The privy councillor appeared. He looked a lot more jaundiced, wrinkled, and careworn, and a lot more intelligent, too, than before — or so it seemed to Doll. ‘I’ve got a room free for Mr. Doll’, he announced after brief reflection. ‘But unfortunately not for the young lady at present — perhaps we’ll be able to do something in three or four weeks.’
Having only just been relieved of their worst cares, the Dolls looked at each other in disbelief, then at the white-haired lady doctor, who now looked at her boss with a tight-lipped and submissive expression. Pointing out that she had just said something different was clearly a waste of time: fate was against the Dolls — end of story. Protest was futile. One disaster after another — they were headed for the streets …
‘I’m not leaving my wife now’, said Doll after a protracted silence. ‘Come on, Alma. Goodbye, Councillor. Goodbye, Doctor!’
This time, out on the street, they didn’t notice that the sun was shining, that the trees still had their leaves. The pressing question ‘What now?’ overshadowed everything else. They had other friends, of course, and they still had relatives living in the city, too, but with the young wife in her present condition, how could they think of walking halfway across Berlin only to find a bombed-out shell instead of a house?
‘What now? What now?’ And turning suddenly to look back at the sanatorium: ‘How I hate that man with his polite weasel face! Of course they had spare beds — beds for both of us. But he knew your first wife — I could tell straightaway that he was comparing me to her, and took against me. But where are we going to go now? Dear God, I’ve got to lie down somewhere, just a couple of hours, and then I’ll be all right again.’
‘I think we’ll just go back to the dear old caretaker’s wife for now. She’s sure to have a sofa or some sort of couch where you can lie down. And in the meantime I’ll find something else.’
And since at that moment they couldn’t think of any alternative, they decided to do just that. The endless return trek began: travelling in overcrowded underground trains, where it didn’t occur to anybody to offer the sick woman a seat, toiling up and down stairs, being pushed, shoved, and berated because they were going so slowly. He had the little suitcase in his hand, with their last crust of bread inside — the meat and the coffee were all gone now. It was lunchtime, they had no apartment and no ration cards, and no immediate prospect of getting any. And after Alma’s extravagant purchase of cigarettes, they had less than two hundred marks left to their name.
We’re facing utter ruin, thought Doll. How would we do it? We don’t have access to poison. Water? We both swim too well. The noose? Couldn’t face that! Gas? But we don’t even have a kitchen with a gas stove any more. And then aloud to his wife, who was leaning against him: ‘You’ve nearly made it! We’re nearly home!’
‘Home’, she answered with a smile, and just a hint of irony. Then she added with a sudden rush of remorse: ‘But you’ll see, I will make a wonderful home for us!’
‘Of course you will’, said he. ‘A wonderful home — I’m already looking forward to it.’
CHAPTER SIX
A new burden to bear
And then it really was almost as if they were at home. Alma Doll lay on a couch that belonged to the caretaker’s wife, covered with a duvet, because she suddenly felt very cold. Her teeth were chattering. He sat on the edge of the couch, held her hands, and gazed anxiously into her face, which had become so thin.
Then the shivering attack abated, and she lay still for a long time, as if utterly drained. Now she opened her eyes. ‘Dearest’, she said, ‘will you mind very much if I send you off on another errand? I think I need a doctor …’
‘Of course I’ll go’, he replied. ‘And I don’t mind one bit. I’ll go and find a doctor right away.’
She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him. He felt her dry, cracked lips coming to life again under his kiss, filling with blood again, and becoming soft and pliable.
‘I’m such a burden to you’, she whispered. ‘I know I am, I know. But I’ll make it up to you — you know me. Just you wait till your Alma’s back on her feet again, and I’ll pamper you like before, you know that!’
‘My wonderful pamperer!’ he said tenderly. ‘Yes, I know, I know you will.’ He kissed her once more. ‘And now I’m going.’
‘You don’t have to go far’, she called after him. ‘There are six or eight doctors living right here in this street.’
They had indeed lived there, or were living there still, but it turned out that none of them had time for a house call right now. One of them could not come until the late evening; another, not before the following day. He couldn’t possibly leave his wife lying in pain for all that time. He went on further, trudging up and down stairs, semi-stupified with fatigue and hunger, his feet hot and sore …
He did eventually find a doctor who was prepared to come with him immediately. Not exactly the right kind of doctor — this one specialised in dermato-venereal diseases — but right now he couldn’t care less. All that mattered was that she was seen by a doctor. I can’t go back to her having failed again! We’ve had enough failures already today. Our whole life is just one long series of failures.
The doctor had a face that appeared to be covered not with skin, but with thin parchment paper, stretched so taut that it looked about to tear. He had a ghostly air about him, with slow, careful movements, as if he might shatter into pieces at any moment, and with a soft, almost soundless way of speaking, as if he was speaking into fog …
They walked along the street side by side. The doctor was carrying his case containing some medical instruments. Suddenly he asked: ‘You are a writer, Mr. Doll?’ Doll said that he was. ‘I’m a writer myself’, said the doctor, still speaking in the same soft, impersonal manner. ‘Did you know?’
Doll tried to remember the name on the doctor’s nameplate. But all he could remember was the reference to ‘dermato-venereal diseases’. ‘No’, he replied. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Oh yes!’ the doctor insisted. ‘I was even a very famous writer once. And it’s not all that long ago.’ He paused, and then added out of the blue: ‘My wife killed herself out on the highway, by the way.’
What a spooky character! thought Doll, shocked by this revelation. Of all the people I had to bring to Alma’s sick-bed! I hope she doesn’t find him too scary!
But the doctor behaved quite normally at Alma’s bedside. Something like a smile even flitted across his parchment features when he saw the pretty, childlike face of the young woman. ‘Now then, what seems to be the trouble, my dear child?’ he inquired gently. He examined her briefly, and then said, speaking more to Doll than to the young woman: ‘The early stages of blood poisoning. The best thing would be for the young woman to go straight to hospital. I’ll write you a referral.’
‘And what’s to become of my husband in the meantime?’ cried Alma. ‘I don’t want to go into hospital. I’m not leaving my husband alone now!’
Doll tried to persuade her: ‘You know our situation, my dear. It may be the best solution for the time being. In hospital, you will at least have a bed. And meals. And rest. And proper care. Please say yes, Alma!’
‘And what about you? What about you?’ she kept on asking. ‘Where are you going to be, while I’m having rest and meals and a bed and proper care? Do you think I’m going to live a life of ease while y
ou’re struggling to get by? Never! Never!’
During this exchange, the strange doctor had sat with bowed head, not saying a word. Now he picked up his bag and said in a flat, toneless voice: ‘I’m going to give you an injection for now, which will take away the pain and let you sleep for a bit. I’ll call in again this evening.’
‘But we have to vacate this couch before tonight!’ countered Doll. ‘This is where the caretaker’s wife sleeps. By this evening we might be sleeping on the street!’
The doctor didn’t answer, but carried on with the injection. The effect was immediate: no sooner had the needle gone in than Doll saw the relaxed, almost happy, expression spread across his wife’s face. (It wasn’t her first morphine injection, of course. She’d had them before — for her bilious attacks.) She suddenly smiled, stretched herself out at her ease, and snuggled down into the sheets. ‘God, that feels good’, she whispered, and closed her eyes.
In the space of just five seconds, she had forgotten her husband, her pain and disappointments, and her hunger. She had forgotten a lot more besides. She had forgotten that she was married and had a child. She was completely alone with herself, in her own world. A smile played about her lips, and there it stayed. Doll watched her breathing gently, and understood that the very act of breathing was pleasurable for her now.
The doctor had packed his syringe away again. ‘I’ll walk a little way with you, Doctor’, said Doll. For the moment, it seemed to him impossible to sit with this woman who was now so far away. Through all their differences over the past weeks and months, he had never once felt so alone as he did now.
‘I’ll call in again this evening’, said the doctor, exactly as before, as if he had not heard a word Doll had said. ‘Between eight and nine. Please make sure that the street door is not locked.’