BRETTSCHNEIDER: Lieutenant Bullinger, that is still my opinion. However, if for any reason you don’t want him I’ll take him back. I should just like to say that for us in the Criminal Investigation Department time doesn’t grow on trees.
BULLINGER: Brettschneider, in my opinion you are a shit.
BRETTSCHNEIDER: Lieutenant Bullinger, I don’t have to take that sort of thing from you.
BULLINGER: And I’d like you to admit it. It’s not much, and it would make you feel a great deal better. Admit it, you’re a shit.
BRETTSCHNEIDER: I really don’t know how you can have formed such an opinion of me, Lieutenant Bullinger, in my official capacity I am conscientious down to the last detail, I...
VOICE ON PHONE: Mobile squad to Headquarters. The prisoner Kruscha has declared himself ready to take your brother into the bank, sir, as a partner, but continues to deny having made the remarks in question.
BULLINGER: Ten more on the backside, I need the remarks. To Brettschneider, almost pleading: Look, what am I asking you to do? If you admit it, it won’t harm your reputation, it’s a purely personal matter, you are a shit, so why not admit it? Look, I’m asking you as nicely as I can. To Schweyk: You try talking to him.
SCHWEYK: Beg to report, sir, that I don’t want to get into an argument between you two gentlemen, but I do see what you mean, Lieutenant. But it must be a bit hard for Mr Brettschneider too, being such a good bloodhound like he is and this not really being his fault, so to speak.
BULLINGER sadly: So you’re betraying me too, are you, you stinking hypocrite. ‘And the cock crowed for the third time’, like it says in the jewbible. Brettschneider, I’ll wring it out of you sooner or later, but I’ve no time for private business just now, I’ve still got 97 cases to come. Throw that idiot out and once in a while try to bring me something better.
SCHWEYK going up to him and kissing his hand: God reward you a thousand times, sir, and if you should ever need a dog, you come to me, I deal in dogs.
BULLINGER: Concentration camp. As Brettschneider is about to take Schweyk away again: Stop! I want to talk to this man alone.
Exit Brettschneider, annoyed. Exit also the SS man.
VOICE ON PHONE: Mobile squad to Headquarters. The prisoner Kruscha has admitted the remarks, but only that he’s not interested in the attempt on the Führer’s life, not that he’s pleased about it, and not that the Führer’s a clown, just that he’s only human after all.
BULLINGER: Five more till he’s pleased about it, and till the Führer’s a bloody clown. To Schweyk, who is smiling at him amicably: Do you know that in the camps we tear out your limbs one by one if you try to take the piss out of us, you rat?
SCHWEYK: I know that. They shoot you there before you can say Jack Robinson.
BULLINGER: So you’re a dog-wallah, are you? I’ve seen a pure-bred pom on the promenade that caught my fancy, with a spot on one ear.
SCHWEYK interrupting: Beg to report, sir, I know that animal professionally. There’s quite a few been after that one. It has a whiteish spot on the left ear, hasn’t it? Belongs to Mr Vojta, one of the high-ups at the Ministry. It’s the apple of his eye and only eats when it’s begged to on bended knee, and then only if it’s the best cut of veal. That proves it’s racially pure. Mongrels are cleverer, but the racially pure ones are high-class and they get stolen more often. They’re mostly so stupid they need two or three servants to tell ’em when to shit and when to open their mouths to eat. Like high-class people.
BULLINGER: That’s enough about race, you swine. The long and the short of it is I want that pom.
SCHWEYK: You can’t have him, Vojta won’t sell. What about a police dog? The sort that can sniff out anything and track down criminals? There’s a butcher in Vršovice got one, it pulls his cart. Now there’s a dog has missed his way in life, so to speak.
BULLINGER: I told you I want that pom.
SCHWEYK: If only Mr Vojta was a Jew you could just take it away from him and that’d be that. But he’s an Aryan, got a fair beard, kind of moth-eaten.
BULLINGER interested: Is he a real Czech?
SCHWEYK: Not what you mean, sabotaging and grumbling about Hitler, that’d be easy. Bung him into the concentration camp like me, just because I’ve been misunderstood. No, he’s a collaborationist—they’re calling him a quisling—and that makes the pom a real problem.
BULLINGER takes a revolver out of the drawer and begins to clean it meaningly: I can see you don’t intend to get this pom for me, you saboteur.
SCHWEYK: Beg to report, sir, that I intend to get the pom. Didactically: There are various systems of dog-removal in use, Lieutenant. You pinch a lapdog or a terrier by cutting its lead in a crowd. You can get one of those bad-tempered dalmatians by leading a bitch on heat past it. A horsemeat sausage, nicely fried, is nearly as good. But a lot of dogs are as pampered and spoiled as the Archbishop. There was one, a smooth-haired fox terrier, pepper-and-salt he was, and I wanted him for the kennels on the other side of the Klamovka, d’you know, he wouldn’t touch the sausage I gave him. Three days I followed him and then I couldn’t stick it any longer, so I went straight up to the woman who used to take him for his walks and asked her what it was the dog ate made him so good-looking. That got me on the right side of her, and she said he liked chops best. So I got him a bit of fillet of veal. I thought, that’s bound to be even better. And do you know, that son of a bitch wouldn’t even look at it, because it was veal. He was used to pork. So I had to go and buy him a chop. I gave it him to sniff and then ran, with the dog after me. And the woman kept on shouting ‘Puntik, Puntik’, but it was no good, poor old Puntik. He ran after the chop as far as the corner, once he was past it I slung a chain round his neck and next day he was the other side of the Klamovka in the kennels.—But suppose people ask you where you got the dog from, when they see the spot on his ear?
BULLINGER: I don’t think anybody will ask me where I got my dog from. Rings the bell.
SCHWEYK: Perhaps you’re right there, it wouldn’t do them much good, would it?
BULLINGER: And I think you’ve put one over on me about being certified as an idiot; but I’m ready to turn a blind eye to that, for one thing because Brettschneider’s a shit and for another because you’re going to get me that dog for my wife, you crook.
SCHWEYK: Sir, permission to admit that I really was certified, though I was having a bit of a joke as well. As the landlord of a pub in Budweis said, ‘I’m an epileptic but I’ve got cancer as well’, when he wanted to keep it dark that he’d gone bankrupt. It’s like the old Czech proverb says, sweaty feet seldom come singly.
VOICE ON PHONE: Mobile squad number 4 to Headquarters. The prisoner Moudra Greissler denies having overstepped the regulations relating to shops not opening before 9 a.m. on the grounds that she didn’t in fact open her shop till 10 a.m.
BULLINGER: Crafty bitch. Couple of months inside for understepping the regulations. To the SS man who has just come in, indicating Schweyk: Free till further notice.
SCHWEYK: Before I do go, could I put in a word for a gentleman that’s waiting outside among the prisoners, so he doesn’t have to sit with the others, you see it isn’t very nice for him, it looks a bit suspicious, him sitting on the same bench with us political prisoners. He’s only here for attempted murder of a farmer from Holice.
BULLINGER roars: Clear out!
SCHWEYK: Very good, sir. I’ll bring the pom as soon as I’ve got it. A very good morning!
Exit with the SS man.
INTERLUDE IN THE LOWER REGIONS
Schweyk and SS man Müller II in conversation on their way from SS headquarters to the Chalice.
SCHWEYK: If I tell Mrs Kopecka, she might do it for you. I’m glad to hear you confirm that the Führer doesn’t go for the girls, so that he can reserve his strength for higher matters of State, and that he don’t ever drink alcohol. He’s done what he has done stone-cold sober, you might say; it’s not everyone who’d do the same. And it’s lucky too that he d
oesn’t eat anything except a few vegetables and a bit of pastry, because there’s not much going, what with the war and all that, and it makes one mouth less to feed. I knew a farmer up in Moravia who’d got stomach trouble and had no appetite, and his farmhands got so scraggy that the whole village began to talk, and the farmer just went around saying ‘In my house the servants eat what I eat’. Drinking’s a vice, I admit, like old Budova the saddler, who meant to swindle his brother and then while he was under the influence signed over his own inheritance to the brother instead of the other way round. There are two sides to everything, and he wouldn’t have to give up the girls if it were left to me, I don’t ask that of anybody.
3
In the Chalice Baloun is waiting for his meal. Two other customers are playing draughts, a fat female shopkeeper is enioying a small slivovitz, and Mrs Kopecka is knitting.
BALOUN: It’s ten past twelve now, and no Prochazka. As I expected.
MRS KOPECKA: Give him a bit of time. The quickest aren’t always the best. You need the right mixture of fast and slow. Do you know the ‘Song of the Gentle Breeze’? She sings:
Come here, my dearest, and make haste
No one dearer could I pick
But once your arm is round my waist
Don’t try to be too quick.
Learn from the plums in the autumn
All golden on the trees.
They fear the whirlwind’s terrible strength
And long for the gentle breeze.
You can scarcely feel that gentle breeze
It’s like a whispering lullaby
Which makes the plums drop off the trees
Till on the ground they lie.
Oh, reaper, don’t cut all the grass
But leave one blade to grow.
Don’t drain the brimming wine-glass
Don’t kiss me as you go.
Learn from the plums in the autumn
All golden on the trees.
They fear the whirlwind’s terrible strength
And long for the gentle breeze.
You can scarcely feel that gentle breeze
It’s like a whispering lullaby
Which makes the plums drop off the trees
Till on the ground they lie.
BALOUN restless, going over to the draughts players: You’re in a good position. Would you gentlemen be interested in postcards? I work at a photographer’s, and we’re putting out a series of special postcards on the quiet: it’s called ‘German towns’.
FIRST CUSTOMER: I’m not interested in German towns.
BALOUN: You’ll like our series then. He shows them postcards furtively, as if they were pornographic pictures. That’s Cologne.
FIRST CUSTOMER: That looks dreadful. I’ll have that one. Nothing but craters.
BALOUN: Fifty Hellers. But be careful showing it around. We’ve already had police patrols picking up people who were showing it to one another, because they thought it was something filthy, the sort of thing they like to confiscate.
FIRST CUSTOMER: That’s a good caption: ‘Hitler is one of the greatest architects of all time’. And a picture of Bremen in a heap of rubble.
BALOUN: I sold two dozen to a German NCO. He grinned when he looked at them, and I liked that. I told him I’d meet him in the park by Havliček’s statue, and I kept my knife open in my pocket in case he was a twister. But he was straight.
FAT WOMAN: He who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword.
MRS KOPECKA: Careful!
Enter Schweyk with SS man Müller II, a beanpole of a man.
SCHWEYK: Morning all. This gentleman with me isn’t on duty. Let us have a glass of beer, Mrs Kopecka.
BALOUN: I didn’t think we’d be seeing you again for a good few years. Ah well, we all make mistakes. Mr Brettschneider’s usually so thorough. Last week, when you weren’t here, he took the upholsterer in Cross Lane away and he hasn’t come back since.
SCHWEYK: Must have been some awkward fellow who didn’t crawl to them. Mr Brettschneider will think twice before he misunderstands me again. I’ve got protection.
FAT WOMAN: Are you the one they took away here yesterday?
SCHWEYK proudly: The very man. In times like these you’ve got to crawl. It’s a matter of practice. I licked his hand. In the old days they used to put salt on prisoners’ faces. Then they tied them up and set great wolfhounds on to them, and the dogs’ld lick away their whole faces, I believe. Nowadays people aren’t so cruel, except when they lose their tempers. Oh, but I was forgetting: this gentleman—indicating the SS man—wants to know what good things the future has in store for him, Mrs Kopecka, and two beers. I’ve told him you’ve got second sight and I think it’s creepy and he should have nothing to do with it.
MRS KOPECKA: You know I don’t like doing it, Mr Schweyk.
SS MAN: Why don’t you like to, young lady?
MRS KOPECKA: A gift like that is a responsibility. How are you to tell which way a person is going to take it, or if he’s got strength enough to face up to it? Because a look into the future sometimes gets a person really on the raw, and then he blames it on me, like Czaka the brewer, I had to tell him that pretty young wife of his was going to deceive him, and right off he went and broke a valuable mirror I had on the wall there.
SCHWEYK: But she led him a dance all right. And Blaukopf the schoolmaster, we told his fortune too, same thing it was. And it always happens, when she predicts something like that. I think it’s quite remarkable. The way you told Councillor Czerlek that his wife, remember, Mrs Kopecka? And she did.
SS MAN: But you’ve a rare gift there, you know, and you shouldn’t let a thing like that go to waste.
SCHWEYK: I’ve told her before now she ought to make the same prediction to the entire Council, I wouldn’t be surprised if it came true.
MRS KOPECKA: Don’t joke about such things, Mr Schweyk. They exist, and that’s all we know about them because they’re supernatural.
SCHWEYK: And do you remember how you told Bulova the engineer, here, right to his face, that he’d be cut to pieces in a railway accident? His wife’s already got married again. Women can stand prediction better, they’ve more strength of character, I’m told. Mrs Laslaček in Huss Street had such strength of character that her husband said in public: ‘Anything rather than live with that woman’, and went off as a voluntary worker to Germany. But the SS can stand quite a lot too, I’m told, they have to what with the concentration camps and that third-degree stuff, you’ve got to have nerves of steel for that sort of thing, haven’t you? SS man nods. So you don’t have to worry about telling the gentleman’s fortune, Mrs Kopecka.
MRS KOPECKA: If he’ll promise to treat it as a harmless game and not take it seriously, I might just have a look at his hand.
SS MAN suddenly hesitant: I don’t want to force you, you say you don’t like doing it.
MRS KOPECKA bringing him his beer: Quite right. Better forget it and drink your beer.
FAT WOMAN aside to draughts player: Cotton’s a help if you suffer from cold feet.
SCHWEYK sits down beside Baloun: I’ve some business to discuss with you, I’m going to collaborate with the Germans about a dog, and I need you.
BALOUN: I’m not in the mood.
SCHWEYK: There’ll be something in it for you. If you had the cash you could take your appetite along to the black market and get something for it.
BALOUN: Young Prochazka isn’t coming. Nothing but mashed potatoes again, one more disappointment like this and I’ll never get over it.
SCHWEYK: Perhaps we might form a little club, six or seven chaps who’d be ready to put their two ounces of meat together, and then you’d get your meal.
BALOUN: Where would we find them, though?
SCHWEYK: That’s true, it probably wouldn’t work. They’d say they weren’t going to give up their rations for a blot on the landscape like you, without the strength of mind to be a real Czech.
BALOUN glumly: Yes, you’re right, they’d te
ll me to bugger off.
SCHWEYK: Can’t you pull yourself together and think of the honour of your country whenever you feel this temptation and all you can see is a leg of veal or a nice fried pork fillet with a bit of red cabbage or gherkins maybe? Baloun groans. Just think of the disgrace if you gave way.
BALOUN: I’ll have to try, I suppose. Pause. I’d sooner have red cabbage than gherkins, if it’s all the same to you.
Young Prochazka enters with a briefcase.
SCHWEYK: There he is. You were looking too much on the black side, Baloun. Good morning, Mr Prochazka, how’s business?
BALOUN: Good morning, Mr Prochazka, I’m glad you’re here.
MRS KOPECKA glancing at the SS man: Will you join these gentlemen, I’ve something to do first. To the SS man: I think your hand might interest me after all, could I just have a look? She takes hold of it. I thought so; you have an extraordinarily interesting hand. I mean a hand that’s almost irresistible for us astrologers and palmists, as interesting as that. How many other gentlemen are there in your unit?
SS MAN with difficulty, as if having a tooth extracted: In the detachment? Twenty. Why?
MRS KOPECKA: I thought so. It’s in your hand. There are twenty gentlemen associated with you in life and death.
SS MAN: Can you really see that in my hand?
SCHWEYK who has joined them, gaily: You’ll be surprised what else she can see there. It’s just that she’s careful, she won’t say anything that’s not absolutely certain.
MRS KOPECKA: Your hand has a lot of electricity in it, you’re lucky in love, that’s clear from the well-formed Mount of Venus. Women throw themselves at you, so to speak, but then they are often pleasantly surprised and wouldn’t have missed the experience for worlds. You’re a serious personality, and you can be tough. Your success line is fantastic.
SS MAN: What does that mean?
MRS KOPECKA: It’s nothing to do with money, it’s much more than that. Do you see that H, the three lines there? That means heroism, something heroic you’re going to do, and very soon at that.
SS MAN: Where? Can you see where?
Brecht Collected Plays: 7: Visions of Simone Machard; Schweyk in the Second World War; Caucasian Chalk Circle; Duchess of Malfi (World Classics) Page 12