Once a Jailbird

by Hans Fallada

  ‘It seems,’ said Kufalt, with a wry smile, ‘as though a bloke ought to ask you to keep him in here, sir. I’m like a man with his hands cut off.’

  ‘Not cut off,’ said the governor. ‘But they’re paralysed, they’re stiff. I want to make a suggestion. There’s a place in Hamburg where you might go, they take in unemployed clerks and salesmen, and men just released from prison. There’s a typewriting room there, and you do a day’s work, exactly as in an office, and for that you get your lodging and your food. If you earn any more, it is reckoned to your account. You don’t need to touch your earnings, and they will mount up if you work hard. And as soon as you feel safe, and know of some work of any sort, you can leave the Home. You can leave it any day you like, Kufalt.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kufalt reflectively. ‘They’re not only ex-convicts?’

  ‘No,’ said the governor; ‘so far as I know, there are ordinary unemployed too.’

  ‘And I can just go straight into the place?’

  ‘Certainly. You will learn to walk, Kufalt, no more. There will of course be some kind of regulations, and it won’t exactly be luxurious, but you have not been spoiled.’

  ‘No,’ said Kufalt, with a deep breath; ‘no, I haven’t. Very well, sir. That’s what I’ll do.’

  He looked before him. The hundred-mark note in his stocking burnt like a sore. He struggled with himself. He would have liked to give it to the governor: ‘There, take it, I want to start afresh.’ The governor would not ask any questions. But he did not, it seemed too pretentious, as though he meant to pay off his gratitude; he would tear it up when he got back to his cell. He really would.

  ‘Yes,’ said the governor; ‘then that’s settled. And if anything goes wrong, write to me.’

  ‘Yes. And thank you very much, sir. Thank you for everything.’

  ‘Good,’ said the governor, and stood up. ‘And now I’ll take you along to the chaplain. He’ll send in your name to the Home.’

  ‘The chaplain?’ asked Kufalt. ‘Is it a religious home?’ He stayed in his chair.

  ‘No, no. There’s a clergyman at the head of it. It is quite un denominational. Jews and Christians and heathen.’ The governor laughed reassuringly.

  ‘But I don’t want to see the chaplain.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ said the other energetically. ‘The chaplain sends in your name, it’s a mere matter of form, it might just as well be the police inspector or the post warder. It happens to be the chaplain.’

  ‘But I don’t care to see the chaplain.’

  ‘Look here, young man; surely five minutes’ unpleasantness with the chaplain is better than throwing in your hand. Now, then—come along.’

  The governor was already hurrying along the passage ahead of Kufalt.

  IV

  Suddenly Kufalt called out to the governor, who had almost reached the door of the chaplain’s room, ‘Sir, there’s just one thing more.’

  The governor turned: ‘Yes?’

  ‘Bruhn, sir, he’s coming out too the day after tomorrow. Could you see him?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s something wrong. I think he’s been promised something and now they want to let him down.’

  The governor pondered for a moment, concentrating on the matter, then he asked: ‘The foremen?’

  Kufalt looked at the governor, but said nothing.

  ‘You won’t say any more?’

  And Kufalt answered slowly: ‘Since the business with Sethe I hardly dare.’

  They stood face to face in the office corridor, prisoner and prison governor; and they both thought of that interview when the governor promised the prisoner help and satisfaction. The governor’s forehead flushed. He said with great deliberation: ‘It isn’t all so easy, Kufalt. One has to do just the little that one can, all the time . . . ’

  Then, with sudden decision: ‘Very well, I will speak to Bruhn, and see that he doesn’t make a fool of himself.’

  And he stepped quickly into the chaplain’s room in front of Kufalt.

  ‘I have brought Kufalt to see you, chaplain. He has a request to make.’ And to Kufalt: ‘Well, I hope you will get on all right. Keep your pecker up—and good luck.’

  He gave him his hand, Kufalt murmured something in reply, and the governor was gone.

  ‘Now then, my dear young friend,’ said the chaplain; ‘you have a request to make. Speak out, tell me all that is on your mind.’

  ‘Don’t you wish I would,’ thought Kufalt, observing the smooth plump face with ill-concealed dislike.

  Chaplain Zumpe’s hair was white as snow, he had a fine white smooth complexion, but dark eyes, and over them a pair of bushy deep black brows. It was rumoured in the prison that these eyebrows were false, that the chaplain stuck them on with glue every Sunday before service; and as a proof that this was no mere rumour, it was pointed out that one eyebrow was often higher than the other.

  There was friendliness in the chaplain’s eye, a rather tepid, almost rabbit-like sort of friendliness, but it was of no avail; Kufalt was perfectly well aware that the man cared nothing about him at all.

  ‘What is the trouble, Kufalt?’ the chaplain asked again. ‘Are we in need of anything? A nice suit for leaving? That costs a great deal of money, but perhaps it’s worthwhile in your case. You have still a chance to make good.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Kufalt. ‘I don’t want a suit. But the governor told me I must come to you about a recommendation to a home. That’s what I have come for.’

  ‘So you want to go to the Home of Peace? I am delighted to hear it; delighted. It is a great favour to be admitted there, my dear Kufalt. The men have a marvellous life, I can assure you of that. Good food. And charming rooms. And a beautiful sitting room with an excellent library. I have been there myself and seen it all. Admirable.’

  ‘And the work?’ asked Kufalt suspiciously. ‘What’s that like?’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said the chaplain, rather taken aback; ‘true, the men work, of course. That is excellently organized. There is a large room with a number of typewriters, and there the men sit and type. It looks so—cosy.’

  ‘What does a man earn there?’

  ‘But, my dear young friend, how can I tell you that? You must understand that it is a welfare institution conducted for your benefit. But of course you will be properly paid. I cannot tell you the amount, but you will certainly earn a good wage.’

  ‘All right,’ said Kufalt; ‘then will you give me a recommendation?’

  ‘Yes. Here are the forms. What is your name? Ah, Kufalt. And your Christian names? Willi? Wilhelm, then.’

  ‘No, not Wilhelm. Willi. I was christened Willi.’

  ‘Really? But Willi is a mutilation. Well, we will leave it. Willi . . . hmm . . . Willi. And when were you born? So you will soon be thirty? It is time, my friend, high time. And for what were you sent to prison? Embezzlement and forgery. And for how long?’

  ‘Do they really want to know all this in the Home? I thought this was all over, I’ve served my time.’

  ‘But they want to help you, my dear Kufalt. And if they are to help you, they must know you. How long?’

  ‘Five years.’

  The chaplain became gentler and more benevolent, as Kufalt’s replies grew more abrupt. It was in a tone of something like emotion that he asked: ‘And your civil rights, my dear Kufalt; have you still your civil rights?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘And your dear parents? What is your dear father?’

  Kufalt was now in despair. ‘For God’s sake, sir,’ he said savagely, ‘can’t you stop this? It makes me . . . what have my parents got to do with this crap?’

  ‘My dear Kufalt, you must control yourself. It is all for your benefit. We have to know from what sort of class you come. The son of a working man cannot be recommended for a post as private secretary, can he? Now then, what is your father?’

  ‘Dead.’

  The chaplain was not quite satisfied, but did not purs
ue the matter: ‘Very well. But your mother is still alive, isn’t she? You have not lost your mother?’

  ‘Sir,’ said Kufalt standing up, ‘will you kindly read me the questions succinctly, just as they are printed on the form.’

  ‘But, my dear young friend, what is all this? I don’t understand you. Ah yes, yes, it is a sore subject when a man has quarrelled with his nearest and dearest; I should not have touched upon it. But your mother still writes to you, does she not?’

  ‘No, she does not write,’ shouted Kufalt. ‘And you know that quite well. You read the letters, you’re the censor.’

  ‘But, my dear young friend, then you must go to her. You must go back to your old mother. You cannot go to the Home of Peace. You must go to your mother, she will surely forgive you.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Kufalt, with cold determination, ‘what about that bunch of flowers?’

  The chaplain was staggered. In quite a different tone, from which all the benevolence had vanished, he said: ‘Bunch of flowers? What bunch of flowers?’

  ‘Yes, what bunch of flowers?’ said Kufalt, now openly contemptuous. ‘What about your bunch of flowers that you took to that poor consumptive Siemsen’s cell three weeks after Christmas? What about that complaint that Siemsen wrote against you to the Prison Board? Did it go into your waste-paper basket?’

  And Kufalt looked wildly round the room for the waste-paper basket, as though the document might still be lying there three months afterwards.

  The chaplain was shaken. ‘But my dear young friend, pray calm yourself. That sort of thing does you no good. You are quite wrong, you have been listening to some detestable slander . . . If I took a bunch of flowers to prisoner Siemsen when he was ill, I did so to give him pleasure, but never to . . . ’

  The chaplain broke off, quite overcome.

  ‘Look, sir,’ said Kufalt savagely. ‘At Christmas, you promised Siemsen, and his wife, half a ton of coal and a parcel of food. It was granted by the Prisoners’ Welfare Association. The woman and her children waited and waited. You simply forgot about it. And when the woman came to see you, you had her sent away. And when she spoke to you in the street you told her not to bother you, as all the supplies had been used up. That is the truth, Chaplain, all the prisoners know it, and all the officials too.’

  ‘Now listen to me,’ roared the chaplain in a fury. ‘That is all untrue—it’s an abominable slander! Do you know I could report you for insulting an officer of the prison? Siemsen’s wife is a bad character, who goes with other men, she deserves no help.’

  ‘I suppose she ought to let her kiddies starve, instead of going on the streets! And how is it, sir, that you took Siemsen the bunch of flowers on the very day he had written his letter to the Prison Board?’

  ‘I visited him out of sympathy. The complaint was all rubbish, the Welfare Association is a private body, and the Prison Board has nothing to do with it.’

  ‘And I suppose that’s why you were all over Siemsen to get him to withdraw it, eh? And the silly fool did. But I’ll write one, when I come out, and I’ll see it gets into the papers . . . ’

  ‘Do so, by all means,’ said the chaplain venomously. ‘And see what comes of it. I have been chaplain here for forty years, and I have dealt with many men like you. Is your mother in a position to keep you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What is your religion?’

  ‘Protestant. But I shall drop it as soon as possible.’

  ‘Protestant, then. What can you do?’

  ‘Office work.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Every kind.’

  ‘Can you write a business letter in Spanish?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what kind of office work can you do?’

  ‘Typewriting, stenography, American and Italian bookkeeping, by double entry, and balance sheets. The usual things.’

  ‘But no Spanish. Can you use a duplicating machine?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Folding machine?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Address machine.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s not much. Very well—you have to sign there.’

  Kufalt looked over the form. Suddenly he stopped. ‘It says here that I accept the House Regulations. What are they?’

  ‘The regulations of the house, of course. Naturally you have to accept them.’

  ‘But I must know what I am accepting. May I see them?’

  ‘I haven’t got them here. My dear Herr Kufalt, there won’t be any extras for your benefit. All the inmates have agreed to them, and you must do so too.’

  ‘I won’t put my name to what I don’t know.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to be admitted to the Home?’

  ‘Yes; but I must see the regulations first. You must have a copy.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Then I can’t sign.’

  ‘And I can’t recommend your admission.’

  Kufalt stood there for a moment undecided, and looked at the chaplain. He was sitting at his desk, turning over letters.

  ‘You ought to censor the letters quicker, sir,’ said Kufalt. ‘It’s a disgrace they lie here for a fortnight.’

  The chaplain did not look up. ‘So you won’t sign?’

  ‘No,’ said Kufalt, and went.

  V

  Kufalt looked round the corridor. Over at the Admission Office stood a little group of six or eight men in civilian clothes, newly delivered prisoners. Senior Warder Petrow was in charge of them, and he never noticed what was not pushed under his nose. Otherwise the corridor was clear.

  Kufalt went in the opposite direction, away from the cells, away from Petrow, past all the office doors, until he reached the staircase that led to the ground floor. This was a staircase for officers, not to be used by prisoners, but he took the risk.

  He met nobody and went down as far as the cellar, where Kufalt found himself confronted by another great iron door that led into the storeman’s domain. The chaplain had put an idea into his head: what would his suit look like?

  It was five years since he had handed it in, and he tried in vain to recall what he had been wearing at the time. His sole possessions had been what he carried on his person: suit and winter overcoat and hat, and a nightshirt and a toothbrush in a briefcase.

  He would have to buy some underclothes. No sooner he got out than his money would dwindle, dwindle. And what will his suit look like now after five years?

  He stood there at the iron door and gazed with a troubled expression. His release had certainly come much too soon, nothing was prepared, and above all he himself was unprepared. And now the Home was off, he would have to rent a room . . . Anyhow, he would get his money paid out in a lump sum, he had made the governor agree to that, he had enough to live on for one or two months; and enough to buy a few things. But then?

  Warder Strehlow appeared: ‘Hello, what are you doing there? Where’s your warder?’

  ‘I’ve had to report to the governor and the chaplain. I am going to the storeman about my things—I’m coming out tomorrow,’ he added by way of explanation.

  ‘You category three blokes had better get yourselves a key. We don’t seem to be needed. You run around the place as if it belonged to you. Well, it’ll go on till one of us gets his head smashed, and then those people at the green table will see how they’ve messed up the place.’

  But Strehlow let Kufalt through; he grumbled, but he let him through, locked the gate behind him, and went up the warders’ staircase.

  Kufalt was in a long underground corridor, on the right and left of which were the doors of the various store rooms. As he passed he saw vast arrays of plates, armies of buckets, shelves bending under endless piles of laundry. Gradually he approached the Issue Office, which was the storeman’s abode. His heart was pounding; all now depended on the state of the storeman’s temper.

  The storeman was, in fact, a decent sort of man, he never treated a prisoner as a prisoner, just lik
e anybody else: kindly when he was in a good mood, and meanly when he was in a bad one. If he was in a bad mood, he would promptly kick Kufalt out, and probably get him put in solitary for invading his lair by himself.

  The manner of addressing him was also a point of importance. There were two factions in the jail: one maintained that he always wanted to be called ‘Chief Warder’, the other swore by ‘Storeman’.

  Kufalt had previously belonged to the ‘Chief Warder’ faction, but, in spite of this, he had twice been thrown out with his request. ‘Storeman’ had once brought him a reprimand, and that was to be expected because he had asked for metal polish. That, the old man had said, was a most impertinent request: metal polish was only issued to the orderlies, who had to polish the warders’ belongings.

  He summoned his nerve and went up to the storeman.

  ‘I’ve come from the chaplain, sir. I wanted to ask, sir, if my things are still all right. Otherwise I might get a little help from the chaplain.’

  ‘Why have you come by yourself?’ asked the storeman at once. ‘Where’s your warder?’

  ‘I was let through,’ said Kufalt.

  ‘Who let you through? The chaplain?’

  Kufalt nodded.

  ‘Blasted old fool,’ said the storeman. ‘There he goes again. If we ever suggest some little relief for the prisoners, he’s always against it, because he says “the penalty must be paid”; but he’s too lazy to walk twenty steps down the corridor. Just let him wait, I’ll bring it up at the next officials’ conference.’

  Kufalt listened politely. The storeman was in a good humour; he was abusing the chaplain, which he enjoyed doing, for the storeman’s opinions were Red. And the next officials’ conference was not until Tuesday, by which time Kufalt would be well away.

  ‘Well, what do you want?’ asked the storeman benevolently. ‘Trying to wangle another suit of clothes? Your own is still quite good.’

  ‘I wonder if I might try it on, sir,’ pleaded Kufalt. ‘I’ve grown such a belly on all these slops.’

  ‘I don’t see much sign of it. Well, all right, though I don’t like obliging the chaplains. Bastel, get out Kufalt’s things.’ He turned over the pages of the register. ‘Seventy-five sixty-three. Is the suit back from the tailor?’