Nightmare in Berlin

by Hans Fallada

  But none of this was sufficient reason to sink into such a deep state of apathy again, to destroy their hard-won gains, to give up what they had struggled to hold on to. Perhaps the work also had something to do with it, this work that had become more of a duty than a pleasure: work that lacked any spark, any intuition, any love, work that his heart simply wasn’t in. He had always loved his work, had seen it as the thing that gave his life meaning. And now he watched himself just going through the motions, and the feeling often came over him that he might never be able to work again like before, that the old fire had gone out of him for good.

  That’s where they were now, and a thousand minor adversities, impossible to avoid in these times, had added to their troubles. He had even lost the ability to manage money sensibly, it seemed. Money was a constant problem: it never went far enough, and since it didn’t go far enough, despite all their economies, why bother to limit their smoking? Why not smoke English and American cigarettes? What did it matter, after all?

  And right on cue, his young wife’s gallbladder trouble had started up again, whether due to some physical cause or just psychosomatically induced. When this complaint returned to the Doll household, so did the ‘little remedies’, and this time Doll made no protest; this time, it was a case of share and share alike. Now they abandoned themselves to their dreams, the world appeared in a rose-tinted glow, all their troubles were forgotten, and they were barely aware of feeling hungry or cold; they only got out of bed in order to go and fetch more ‘stuff’.

  But getting hold of money became increasingly difficult. Doll was not working on anything — so the big sell-off began. First the furniture went out the door, and then Persian rugs, pictures, and books. They were pouring their lives into a bottomless pit. Their strength, their courage, their hopes, their last possessions, they all went the same way — out the door.

  They hid their passion cunningly enough from the world; when they were talking to Granzow, the work was making great strides. Doll talked the talk, coming out with one project after another; he invented the most amazing stories, and then promptly forgot about it all again as soon as he stepped outside Granzow’s house. They lived only for their dreams now, each dreaming their own dreams alone, lying in their bed-graves …

  Until the day came when it had to stop, until everything had been sold, until they had lost everything they owned and run up a mountain of debt besides, until the body barely responded even to the strongest dosage, until they so hated their stupid, pointless lives that they just wanted out. But they didn’t get out, any more than the rest of their nation did, though there was reason enough to go. They eventually ended up in hospital again — in his case, in that strange women’s refuge at No. 10 Elsastrasse. She, young as she was, successfully overcame her substance abuse after a short course of treatment; now she was back in the small country town again, where she had gone some time before to collect the rest of their things.

  So they would make another attempt to start out all over again — another attempt, and under much more difficult circumstances than before. They had squandered a great deal of capital in terms of friendship, trust, property, and self-belief.

  He stood up from his desk in this dusty, threadbare room, where the remnants of his library gazed back at him accusingly. He stretched his limbs, stepped out on the balcony, and looked out over the sunlit greenery. The trees haven’t been through a war, he thought to himself, nor the shrubs or the grass. Life goes on. It was not much comfort, but it was comfort of a sort. Why shouldn’t he write another book that everyone would read, that would be a success? Soon — perhaps it was happening at this very moment, as he stood there on the balcony — the truck and trailer carrying the rest of his books and furniture would be rounding the corner. They would make a new start once again — and this time they wouldn’t stray from their course just when the goal was in sight.

  He suddenly felt cold in the sun. He couldn’t bear to remain in this house a moment longer; it reminded him of a tomb where so many hopes lay buried. He hurried out of the house, passed through the red-and-white barrier again, and a few minutes later was sitting in a tram.

  Right, he thought to himself with sudden resolve. I don’t want Granzow thinking I shirk every decision and leave everything to others. I need to know one way or the other, and before the truck arrives.

  Later he was walking through the heart of the destruction, seeing few people on these streets, which seven years ago were absolutely packed and could barely cope with all the traffic. Now he was able to walk down the middle of the road, with no need to worry about the cars. When one did occasionally appear, it crept forward cautiously to avoid the deep holes in the road surface.

  Doll’s progress was likewise slow. The sun beat down on the ruins (it was all quiet around here), and the smell of dust and burnt debris was everywhere still. Many Berlin locals had happy visions of the ruins being grassed over in next to no time. But we are a long way from the nearest tropical jungle here, and anyway the topsoil was completely smothered by the fallen masonry; nothing was growing as yet. You hardly ever saw so much as a green shoot …

  Yes, my friend, Doll said to himself, and why are you surprised, aggrieved almost? Things just don’t grow that quickly from ruins — and that applies to you, too, especially to you! You’re no spring chicken yourself, and just think back to a year ago, how damaged you were then! Don’t you remember how you were lying in that huge bomb crater, which was the world, or at least Germany, waiting for help from the Big Three? So there! But I think you’ve pulled yourself together a bit since then. There’s a little bit of grass growing on the ruin. Don’t be so impatient — just keep on going the way you are!

  So he kept on going the way he was, and that way led him, just a few hundred paces further on through all this destruction, to a large, fairly well preserved office building — the former headquarters of the German Labour Front. He climbed the stairs; nobody asked him what he wanted, he didn’t need to fill out a registration form stating whether he was born, baptised, or existent — he was going to see a truly modern businessman.

  He opened a door, and there he was, standing in front of his publisher Mertens — no desk clerk, secretary, or receptionist.

  Ten minutes later he left the former headquarters of the German Labour Front. Granzow had been right: this Mertens was not a small-minded man. No faffing around, no protracted discussion, no words of blame. Just questions, a few moments of reflection, and then a ‘Yes’.

  Under his arm Doll was clutching a package — new titles published by Mertens and dedicated to him — and his wallet was now stuffed with banknotes. He no longer needed to make the gaps on his bookshelves bigger, yet the burden of debt had been lifted from his shoulders. Now all he needed to do was to keep working steadily, stay lucky, and all would be well again.

  Although Doll knew of a small, little-frequented post office next to the tram stop near his house, he headed off through the streets of ruins, asking people the way to another post office. He couldn’t wait to do what now had to be done. It was a much longer walk to this city-centre post office, through the streets of ruins, and the post office itself was still badly damaged and very busy.

  He had to wait in line for a long time before he was handed a pen and a sheaf of money orders and transfer forms. Then he went to one of the desks, and started to make out the money orders. They were for large amounts, and it would take a long time, many months of work, to earn back the money. He thought of all the good things they could have bought for that money; their home would look like a human habitation now instead of an animal’s den, if they had not squandered the money so senselessly on this wretched ‘stuff’, this trash that had made them ill into the bargain.

  But this was just a passing thought. Doll now filled out the money orders with genuine pleasure, and with a profound sense of relief he crossed off the names of his satisfied creditors from the list he always carried wi
th him. He couldn’t pay them all today, but in a week’s time he would collect the rest of his advance from the publishers — and then he could draw a line under all this business.

  When Doll stepped out into the street again a good hour later, his wallet had shrunk back to its normal size, but his heart seemed to have grown bigger and stronger, because he felt so easy in his mind. He no longer noticed that there was hardly anything green growing on the rubble; in fact, he didn’t even see the rubble any more. He was free from the heavy cares that had so long tormented him, and he now saw a way forward … Suddenly he was in a hurry to get home. That dreary, filthy den — suddenly he was calling it ‘home’.

  And lo and behold, as he turned the corner and could see to the end of the villa-lined street, a scene of lively activity met his gaze. A truck and trailer were parked outside his door, he saw the children helping the men to carry things in — and good heavens, there they were, just taking his books into the house! The shelves would be full again despite everything, the den would become a proper home, they’d managed to do it again! He practically ran the last bit …

  He found Alma sitting in an armchair and smoking, giving out instructions to the removal men. She had used the time he was away to remove the traces of her dusty truck journey, and now she was looking fresh and youthful again …

  ‘I bet you’re surprised’, she called out to him. ‘Yes, I managed to fill up the truck and the trailer completely. Now it’s all here. We don’t need to make another trip. We’ve seen the back of that dreary little place for good. All your books are here — are you pleased? Haven’t I done well?’

  He was very pleased, of course, and gave her a kiss. Then he quickly asked Alma if she could spare a cigarette for him, too.

  ‘You can have a whole pack if you want it!’ she cried. ‘You poor dear, are you feeling desperate? Here — take one! And I’ve got something else for you: there’s two bottles of schnaps in my bag! We should let the men have some, they’ve worked really hard. And don’t pull a face because you think I’ve spent too much money. Schnaps is cheap out there — less than forty marks a bottle! I’ve also come back with all my travel money. More, in fact!’

  ‘You have?’ he said. ‘How come you’ve still got all your travel money? And more than you took with you! Do they let people travel for free on the railways now? Do the hotels pay you for sleeping in their rooms?’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy!’ she cried. ‘I quickly sold off all the useless junk that wouldn’t fit on the truck — old stuff that we’d never have used: mattresses, plain wooden furniture. And now let’s raise a glass — to a better future! Cheers!’

  They clinked glasses and drank the schnaps. She stretched herself luxuriously. ‘Oh, that went down well after the long, dusty drive! Am I glad to have that behind me! We were working until three o’clock in the morning loading up the truck. We worked hard, I can tell you, and now you can give me a kiss to say thank you! I’m feeling so happy!’

  He kissed her, this spoilt child, who was now ready to walk the way of hard work and austerity with him. He gazed at her as she sat there, smiling in all her joy and wholesome youthfulness, pleased with her achievements.

  In the late evening Doll returned to the hospital to spend his last night there. Next morning he would move into the villa-lined street and start to make a new home for himself. He was well again, he felt the desire to work, and he believed in his future. And one cannot believe in one’s own future without thinking about family and friends, the nation at large, and humanity in general. Believing now that he would get back on his feet again, he believed that Europe, too, would endure and rise again.

  The apathy had finally left him, and he was no longer lying in that bomb crater. The strength he needed to climb up out of the crater had come to him mysteriously from within — not from the Big Three — and now he was at the top. He applauded life — the life enduring, forever sullied, but magnificent. The nations would sort themselves out again. Even Germany, this beloved, wretched Germany, this diseased heart of Europe, would get well again.

  And as Doll made his way through the streets of Berlin at this late evening hour, he felt for the first time that peace had truly come. He walked past undamaged houses, past ruins, under the leafy treetops, and felt happy. At one with himself. At rest. Restored to health — and fit for a life of peace.

  Life goes on, and they would outlive these times, those who had been spared by the grace of God, the survivors. Life goes on, always, even beneath the ruins. The ruins are of no account; what counts is life — the life in a blade of grass in the middle of the city, in amongst a thousand lumps of shattered masonry. Life goes on, always.

  And maybe people will learn something, after all. Learn from their suffering, their tears, their blood. Learn reluctantly, hesitantly, or with relish. Learn that things have to change, that we have to learn to think differently …

  Doll, at any rate, was determined to be part of this learning process. He saw his path laid out before him, the next steps he had to take, and they meant work, work, and more work. Beyond these first steps, the darkness began again, the darkness that obscures the future for every German today; but he preferred not to think about that. In the last few years, people had learned so well how to live in the moment, from one day to the next: why should that lesson not be put to good use today? Just get on with life and do your job: that should be his watchword now.

  A comforting late-evening breeze was wafting through the treetops. The breath of the big wide world was blowing upon him, the little man. He leaned against one of the trees for a while, listening to the wind whispering in the branches above. It was nothing, just the movement of air making the leaves rustle like that. Nothing. No more than that. But it sufficed. In the last few years he had never had time to stand under a tree and listen to its whisperings. Now he had time, for peace had come again — peace! Know this in your heart, my friend: you are done with murdering and killing. Lay down your arms — peace has finally come!

  BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

  1893 21 July: Rudolf Ditzen is born in Greifswald, the third child of Wilhelm and Elisabeth Ditzen.

  1899 His father, a county court magistrate, is appointed a counsellor in the Court of Appeal in Berlin. The family moves to Berlin.

  1909 His father is appointed to the Imperial Supreme Court in Leipzig. The family moves to Leipzig; he suffers a serious bicycle accident.

  1911 Attends the grammar school in Rudolstadt, and is seriously injured in a suicide pact — made to look like a duel gone wrong — in which his friend Hanns Dietrich von Necker is killed.

  1912 He is committed to Tannenfeld sanatorium in Saxony.

  1913 Gets a job as an estate worker in Posterstein, Thuringia.

  1914 Enlists as a volunteer in the German army, but is discharged a few days later as unfit for military service.

  1915 Secures a position as deputy steward on the Heydebreck estate in Eastern Pomerania (until March 1916).

  1916 Takes a job with the Chamber of Agriculture in Stettin, then joins the staff of a seed potato company in Berlin.

  1919 He is re-admitted to Tannenfeld in August 1919, but soon leaves for Carlsfeld sanatorium in Brehna to be treated for drug addiction.

  1920 Literary debut with the semi-autobiographical novel Der junge Goedeschal [‘Young Goedeschal’]; thereafter he adopts the pseudonym Hans Fallada. In November he takes a job as a bookkeeper on the Marzdorf estate in West Prussia (now Poland).

  1921 Leaves Marzdorf in January. For the second half of the year he works as a bookkeeper on an estate near Doberan in Mecklenburg.

  1922 From June to October he works as a bookkeeper on the Neuschönfeld estate near Bunzlau in Silesia (now Poland). Arrested in October for trading the estate’s grain on the black market, he returns to Marzdorf for the last two months of the year.

  1923 Publication of the novel Anton und Gerda. From the spring unti
l October he is employed as a bookkeeper on the Radach estate near Drossen. In July he is sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for embezzlement (deferred until 1924).

  1924 Imprisoned in Greifswald from June to early November.

  1925 Publication of three essays on social and political issues of the day in the liberal journal Das Tage-Buch. In the spring he goes to work as a bookkeeper on the Lübgust estate near Neustettin in Pomerania (now Poland); leaves Lübgust in July and takes a new job as senior bookkeeper on the Neuhaus estate near Lütjenburg in Schleswig-Holstein; in September he is caught stealing money from his employers again.

  1926 Sentenced to two-and-a-half years in Neumünster prison for embezzlement.

  1928 Earns a living addressing envelopes in Hamburg, joins the SPD (Social Democratic Party), and gets engaged to Anna ‘Suse’ Issel.

  1929 Gets a job selling advertising space and reporting on local news for the General-Anzeiger in Neumünster; 5 April: marriage to Anna Issel; reports on the trial of the Landvolk movement agitators.

  1930 Secures a position with Rowohlt Verlag; birth of son Ulrich.

  1931 Publication of Bauern, Bonzen, und Bomben [‘A Small Circus’]; moves to Neuenhagen near Berlin.

  1932 Kleiner Mann – was nun? [‘Little Man – What Now?’] is published; he becomes a freelance writer. Moves to Berkenbrück in November.

  1933 He is held in jail for eleven days after being denounced to the authorities; buys a house and smallholding in Carwitz near Feldberg; birth of daughter Lore.

  1934 –35 Publication of Wer einmal aus dem Blechnapf frisst [‘Once a Jailbird’], Wir hatten mal ein Kind [‘Once We Had a Child’], and Das Märchen vom Stadtschreiber, der aufs Land flog [‘Sparrow Farm’].