Once a Jailbird

by Hans Fallada

  Someone coughed and a high feminine voice said: ‘How charming!’

  And a deeper, masculine one: ‘I’m afraid you spoil them.’

  ‘No,’—it was the voice of Pastor Marcetus. ‘No, ladies and gentlemen, we do not spoil them, we try to accustom them to an orderly and self-respecting life. The ex-prisoner is meant to find life pleasant here; we want subsequently to inoculate him, so to speak, with a sense of horror and disgust at prison life. When he again falls into temptation, we hope he will think of his pleasant room in the Home of Peace—and the bleak and comfortless cell will seem doubly dreadful.’

  The ex-prisoner on his bed, with his head in his hands, thought of the room that he had left early that morning: the beds bare, with their hideous grey mattresses, no curtains, no pictures, no carpets, no comfortable chairs, no flowers . . . In the next room, the orchestrator of this twenty-five years’ jubilee said in answer to a question: ‘No, no, it’s as much as we can do to get the men to leave the Home. You, as patrons and contributors to the Home, know how much support it needs. We are constantly having to appeal to your charity. And we must not limit your generosity to a few. So many come and knock at our door. A month is the longest period for which we can keep any one man. By that time he is acclimatized, and we get Herr Petersen, one of our welfare workers, to find him a room outside. We keep our eye on him, of course, he goes on working with us . . . ’

  ‘Is the Home full?’ asked a voice. ‘At the moment? I cannot exactly say. Pretty nearly so, in any case. But we do not want to provide any more beds. We wish it to preserve the character of a family home. That door leads to a second bedroom, exactly like this one . . . ’

  Kufalt kept his head in his hands. He heard the footsteps approach. He had intended to remain sitting on his bed, but he got up. Fifteen, twenty people crowded through the door, and all looked at him. Among them was Pastor Marcetus, but Kufalt avoided his eye. He assumed a grave, obsequious expression, as he used to do at cell inspections, and bowed.

  A few of the visitors actually bowed in response. ‘Herr Kufalt,’ said Pastor Marcetus, after a long silence. He cleared his throat and began again in a lighter tone. ‘My dear Kufalt, you are not with the party?’ And turning to his audience, he added: ‘As I have explained, our guests are making a little trip down the Elbe in celebration of this day.’

  ‘I felt ill,’ muttered Kufalt. ‘It must have been the sun.’

  ‘Did Herr Petersen send you back?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Ah. Indeed. I understand . . . ’ To his audience again: ‘Another similar bedroom, you see. Bright . . . quiet . . . just like the one next door.’ To Kufalt once more: ‘I’m afraid we shall have to disturb you three or four more times, my dear Herr Kufalt. Herr Seidenzopf and Herr Mergenthal are each taking parties round. And I do not know whether Fräulein Matzke has finished yet. I hope you will soon feel better.’

  And he turned to go.

  The visitors were still looking at Kufalt; perhaps they thought that the only ex-prisoner who had been introduced to them had not been properly noticed. A large man, with heavy lips and the smooth, fleshy face of a parson, said:

  ‘How do you get on here? Do you like it?’

  Pastor Marcetus dropped his shoulders in a gesture of resignation.

  ‘I like it now very much,’ said Kufalt politely. ‘It is now very nice here.’

  ‘And the work?’

  ‘I like that too,’ said Kufalt, with a gentle and submissive smile. ‘We must all work,’ said the large parson, and laughed. ‘We aren’t all lilies of the field, unfortunately, eh? Isn’t that so?’ There was some applauding laughter. ‘And how long have you been with our brother Marcetus?’

  ‘More than three weeks.’

  ‘Then you will soon be leaving the Home?’

  ‘Yes, unfortunately I shall have to go soon.’

  Pastor Marcetus looked meaningfully at Kufalt: ‘Herr Kufalt is to leave us at the beginning of next week. He wants to live outside; and we are allowing him to do so. But he will go on working here, until we find him a good permanent position.’

  Kufalt bowed.

  ‘Well, that’s splendid,’ said the large parson. ‘Keep your spirits up, my young friend. Do you know that your patron here, our dear colleague Marcetus, has been given an honorary degree for his services to you all? Doctor honoris causa!’

  ‘I heartily congratulate Herr Pastor Marcetus,’ said Kufalt, and bowed again.

  Herr Pastor Marcetus stepped forward and gave Kufalt his hand. ‘I thank you, my dear Kufalt. And as I have already said, we hope very soon to find you a good position, worthy of your great abilities.’

  Kufalt bowed; the visitors departed. Kufalt stood by the window and looked down into the forbidden garden of peace. He whistled softly; once again he was extremely well pleased with himself.

  4

  The Road to Freedom

  I

  The confidence that Pastor Marcetus had placed in his protégé’s good sense was completely justified by Kufalt the moment the last visitors left the Home of Peace. He couldn’t have shown more zeal in helping Minna and the ecstatic Frau Seidenzopf take the curtains down, put the pictures away in a chest, roll up the carpets and carry them up to the attic. Then he and Minna laid the white linen, all still nice and clean, back in the linen cupboard, and when they had both hurried across the street to the gardener to return the borrowed pot plants, and when all traces of the well-heeled clerical and charitable visitors had been removed from the freshly polished floors, the rooms resumed their aspect of barren austerity that made them seem to the ex-convict so indistinguishable from prison.

  Then, when Petersen and Beerboom arrived, rather breathless, at half past six, there was of course a pleasant little spat with the student about Kufalt’s desertion. But the latter was in no mind to have anything more said to him.

  ‘I’ve got something to say to you, Petersen,’ he observed. ‘When you say you were anxious about me, that’s all rubbish; you don’t care a thing about me.’

  ‘I beg your pardon!’

  ‘You needn’t protest. Not a word. You are only anxious about your job. All this talk about your being our friend and adviser is rubbish. If you were on our side, you would be against Marcetus and Seidenzopf, and they’d give you the sack.’

  ‘Really! That’s not true. I can make things easier for you.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you can lick the swines’ boots. How is it, when the typing room gets twelve marks for the addresses, we only get six, and sometimes even only four and a half?’

  ‘I have nothing to do with the money side.’

  ‘But that’s the first thing you ought to see to. Every week you hear the row with Seidenzopf over the accounts, and how excited they all get, and you say you have nothing to do with it. And you know just as well as I do that it’s madness to make Beerboom sit for nine or ten hours in an office, he’s getting madder every day . . . ’

  ‘Yes,’ wailed Beerboom. ‘I certainly am.’

  ‘ . . . But our friend and adviser isn’t going to risk speaking up.’

  ‘Beerboom must get gradually used to regular work.’

  ‘And I went into a tobacco shop yesterday, about ten doors away, to buy half a dozen Junos, and the girl in the shop actually said to me: “Do you come from there too?” “From where?” I said. “Oh, you know,” she said. “Is it true that that dark man in your place is a murderer? He asked me whether I would like to go out with him, or whether I was too proud to go out with a murderer. I would have gone,” she said, “but Mother wouldn’t let me.” ‘

  ‘Oh God,’ whimpered Beerboom. ‘I only said it because . . . ’

  ‘You shut your mouth, Beerboom. You just want to make yourself interesting. But why don’t you know all this, Petersen, you—our friend and adviser, eh? You ought to have spoken to Marcetus long ago, about—you know, going soft in the head, and so on. It says in the brochure that you sleep with us, and live just as we do. Then why do you
have a separate room and proper sheets, and why don’t you polish your floor yourself instead of letting us do it for you . . . ?’

  ‘Why talk to me like this?’ said Petersen angrily. ‘If you know all that, then you know I’ve got no influence here.’

  ‘Because you give yourself airs! Because you swank about being anxious about me. Because you’re no better than a spy. Because the sight of you makes me sick. Because I wish to God you’d leave me in peace!’

  ‘Herr Kufalt . . . ’

  ‘Oh, go away.’

  ‘But please listen, Herr Kufalt!’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, get out!’

  ‘You are unjust.’

  ‘Do you expect me to be just? Me! Goodnight all.’ And he departed to the bedroom, slamming the door in a fury.

  But he was not really in a fury at all, he was really jubilant and chanted to himself: ‘Freedom! Free! At last!’

  And then it was morning once again, a fresh and radiant morning in mid-June. Kufalt had watched the slow coming of the dawn, then he turned over for a little while and closed his eyes; and when he again looked at the window, it was already quite light, the sun was shining and the birds were twittering.

  Then, as Father Seidenzopf hurried past his table on his usual morning round, Kufalt said in a low voice: ‘I want to stop two hours earlier today, Herr Seidenzopf.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Woolly Teddy, impatiently.

  ‘I want to get a room outside.’

  ‘Eh? What? Herr Petersen takes rooms for our people.’

  ‘But not for me,’ said Kufalt, eyeing him fixedly.

  ‘Um—um . . . very well, then,’ muttered Seidenzopf, and bustled on.

  From a neighbouring table Maack glanced at Kufalt, nodded, and went on tapping. Kufalt hammered on his machine: ‘Free,’ he thought; ‘free at last . . . ’

  In the afternoon he went out. He promptly found his way to the Marienthaler Strasse; indeed he remembered it quite well. But through which doorway had she disappeared? He had not noticed very clearly that night, and now he was uncertain. It was so important that he should find the right house; he had so often thought of that lovely little oval face.

  At last he decided to trust to luck, and chose a house at random. ‘May I see the room?’

  The plump little white-haired woman showed it to him. (‘Could this be her mother?’)

  ‘Have you any other lodgers?’

  ‘No, none. There’s only my daughter living with me, I’m a widow. My daughter goes to work.’

  ‘What price is the room?’

  ‘Thirty marks with morning coffee. We don’t clean shoes.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’ Kufalt glanced round. ‘Very well, I’ll take the room. I’ll pay ten marks down. And here are six marks more. My luggage may be coming by goods train in a day or two; please pay the carriage. I’ll move in on the first. OK then . . . ’

  He looked round again, and said suddenly, with unexpected cordiality: ‘I hope we shall be good friends, Frau Wendland. Good evening.’

  Everything passed off with disquieting ease. That night as he was falling asleep he had pitched battles with Woolly Teddy over his account: ‘You have no right to keep my money any longer, it’s what I’ve earned . . . ’

  And now Seidenzopf just paid him his money down on the table. He did not even offer any comment, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that Kufalt should leave the Home of Peace. The sole remaining inmate, Beerboom, helped him carry his things down.

  They walked through Hamburg in the evening light, and Kufalt said to Beerboom: ‘Well, you’re the next.’

  Beerboom happened to be feeling cheerful that day: ‘Of course, they can’t keep me for ever.’

  ‘I’m so excited to see whether my things have come,’ said Kufalt.

  Yes, they were there, two boxes and a large trunk, waiting in the bright room.

  ‘The money wasn’t enough,’ whined the old lady. ‘I had to pay three marks ten more.’

  ‘I’ll pay you back all right. Now have you by any chance got pliers and a chisel, so that I can open the boxes . . . ? Haven’t you? Nothing? But you must have something of the sort in the house? Really not? Then where’s the nearest ironmonger’s? Right. Ten minutes to seven, I must run. Do you mind waiting, Beerboom, I’ll only be a few minutes.’

  He ran. His cheeks glowed. Good God in heaven, two boxes, a large trunk, a suitcase, two cardboard boxes—and only six weeks ago his abode had been a bare cell, with no possessions at all. He was wildly exultant: ‘This is great!’ he said to himself. ‘I wonder what can be in the boxes, I’m so excited!’

  With a hammer and pliers in one hand and a chisel in the other, he dashed up the steps again. He rang . . . he heard whispers behind the door, a whining elderly voice and a shrill young one (‘that’s not oval-face’s voice!’); he rang again, the whispering increased; he rang again, but this time hard.

  ‘So you’ve come at last; where’s my friend? Gone? What do you mean, gone? What’s the matter with you? What’s up, eh?’

  ‘Oh please,’ said the old woman in a quavering stutter; ‘please move your things out at once. I’ll give you all your money back.’

  Kufalt was dumbfounded. ‘Move my things out? But why?’

  ‘It’s my son,’ she stammered; ‘my son-in-law—we need the room, he’s coming back at once.’

  ‘You need the room? But you’ve let the room to me.’

  ‘Oh please, do move out!’

  ‘Of course I can’t! At this time in the evening . . . ’

  Then a shrill female voice was heard behind the door: ‘If he doesn’t go at once, we’ll send for the police. We can’t let rooms to the likes of him. The friend himself said he was a murderer.’ A pause; then raising her voice almost to a shriek: ‘And you’re an ex-convict too!’

  Kufalt stood for a moment, then stepped quickly towards the door. He noticed that he was standing by a mirror. So that was he. There he stood. Darkness was already falling; but there he stood. Odd how the hammer began to quiver in his hand, and his arm swung upwards as though in preparation for a blow. He was trembling with agitation, which was natural enough—he supposed.

  Suddenly he saw—also in the mirror—Frau Wendland’s dark and anguished eyes and her snow-white face.

  ‘Right,’ said Kufalt, taking a tighter grip of his hammer. ‘I’ll fetch my things away in an hour at the latest. Now give me back my rent. And be quick!’

  It was nine o’clock in the evening.

  Kufalt stood beside a box wondering whether he dared break it open. Perhaps he would disturb his neighbours, or the landlady. He didn’t want another row, that sort of thing got about. Well, if it came out, he would have to move again; indeed he would probably have to shift his lodging a good many times; it would always come out somehow.

  He longed to know what was in that box, but he did not dare open it. He did not dare. He stood there; the windows were open, the room was pleasantly airy whereas the Home of Peace had always been like a cell. Now he had plenty of air, a large open window and a white bed. But he did not dare open that box.

  It was a large, lean woman who let him the room. A working woman, also a widow, Frau Behn, the Widow Behn. Twenty-five marks, and the room was spotless. A toil-worn woman with an unattractive face, a rather ravaged, evil face, lean and greedy hands and gnarled fingers.

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ he said to himself. ‘I’ll stay here quietly for a bit. She actually put a bunch of lilac in the room while I was out fetching my things . . . I hope I shall keep my temper when it happens again. It was unfortunate the girl had such a shrill voice, and I had the hammer in my hand. Ah well, it turned out all right this time.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  The door opened. A girl stood in the doorway.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  She came in, carrying a tray; the spoon clinked faintly against the saucer.

  She looked cha
rming and alert, with fair hair and an oval face . . .

  ‘I am Frau Behn’s daughter. I hope you will be comfortable here.’ And she gave him her hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and looked at her.

  ‘We don’t know whether you take milk or lemon in your tea?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ he said. ‘Very nice, very nice.’

  She looked at him and blushed faintly. She set her lower lip more firmly against her upper lip. ‘Or don’t you take anything in it?’ she said with a sudden laugh.

  ‘No, nothing at all, of course,’ he said, laughing too. Then he looked at her again. ‘It’s a very nice room,’ he said.

  He must not go too far yet: ‘Have you got all you want?’ she asked. ‘Mother has gone to bed. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  II

  When Kufalt got to the typing room next morning, Beerboom was already crouching in his place, scrawling addresses, with his shoulders hunched up to his ears.

  Kufalt gripped him from behind and pulled him up. The tearful, imploring look was again upon his face; Beerboom was unhappy because everything he did went wrong.

  ‘Beerboom, you idiot,’ said Kufalt, ignoring the sacrosanct de corum of the typing room. ‘If it ever again occurs to you to tell my landlady or anyone in the house that you’re a murderer—I’ll pick you up and . . . ’

  He shook him.

  Beerboom’s body sagged in his grasp, and swayed from side to side as though its bones had melted.

  ‘Psst!’ said Mergenthal. ‘Herr Kufalt, I really must ask you . . . ’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ said Kufalt to Beerboom. ‘But if you were ten times an idiot, I’d set about you . . . !’

  ‘I won’t ever do it again,’ wailed Beerboom. ‘Oh God, how wretched I am. She was so sympathetic, I thought she felt for us. She asked why our faces were so yellow, and said she supposed we worked in a chemical factory, and so I . . . ’

  ‘Idiot!’ said Kufalt, giving Beerboom a final shove, and sat down. ‘You won’t mess up things for me again. I’ll kill you, understand that!’

  ‘And now silence, please,’ said Mergenthal, ‘or I’ll call Herr Seidenzopf.’