Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (18 page)

Cock-a-doodle-doo. Cock-a-doodle-doo. Thus spake Menelaus. And, without meaning to, he made Telemachus’s heart so sad that the tears rolled down his cheeks, so that he had to draw his purple mantle with both hands firmly before his eyes.

In the meanwhile Princess Helen strolled from out the women’s apartments, like unto a goddess in beauty.

Cock-a-doodle-doo. There are many kinds of chickens. But if anyone asks me, on my honor and conscience, which I like best, I answer freely and frankly: Broiled chickens. Pheasants also belong to the gallinaceous birds, and in Brehms’s Animal Life it says: The little dwarf moor-hen differs from the little prairie-hen, apart from its smaller size, through the fact that both sexes in spring wear an almost identical coat. Explorers in Asia know also the monial or monal, which is called by the scientists glossy pheasant. It is difficult to give a description of the splendor of its coloring. One hears it call, a long plaintive note, in the woods at all hours of the day, most frequently before daybreak and toward evening.

But all this takes place very far away, between Sikkam and Bhutan in India, and is a rather sterile bit of library knowledge for Berlin.

For it happens alike with Man and Beast; as the Beast dies, so Man dies, too

The slaughter-house in Berlin. In the northeast part of the city, from Eldenaer Strasse across Thaerstrasse across Landsberger Allee as far as Cotheniusstrasse along the Belt Line Railway, run the houses, halls, and stables of the slaughter-and stock-yards.

They cover an expanse of 47.88 hectares, equal to ll8.31 acres. Not counting the structures behind Lands-berger Allee, 27,083,492 marks were sunk into this construction, of which sum the cattle-yards cost 7,682,844 marks, and the slaughter-house 19,4l0,648 marks.

The cattle-yard, slaughter-house, and wholesale meat-market form an inseparable economic whole. The administrative body is the municipal committee for stock-yards and slaughter-houses, and consists of two members of the city administration, a member of the district office, 11 councillors and three citizen-deputies. There are 258 employees in the organization: among them are veterinaries, inspectors, branders, assistant veterinaries, assistant inspectors, permanent employees and laborers. Traffic ordinance of October 4, 1900: General Regulations governing the cattle-driving, delivery of fodder, scale of fees, market fees, boxing fees, slaughter fees, fees for the removal of fodder-troughs from the pork-market hall.

Along Eldenaer Strasse run the dirty-gray walls topped with barbed wire. The trees outside are bare, it is winter, the trees have sent their sap into the roots, to wait for spring. Slaughter wagons roll up at a smart gallop, with yellow and red wheels, prancing horses in front. A skinny horse runs along behind a wagon, from the sidewalk somebody calls “Emil,” they bargain about the old nag, 50 marks and a round for the eight of us, the horse turns, trembles, nibbles at a tree, the driver tears it away, 50 marks and a round, Otto, otherwise we’ll let it drop. The man on the sidewalk slaps the horse: All right!

Yellow administration headquarters, an obelisk for the war dead. And to the right and left longish halls with glass roofs, these are stables and waiting-rooms. Outside black signboards: property of the Berlin Union of Wholesale Butchers, Incorporated. No bill posting without proper authority. The Board of Directors.

In the long halls there are doors, black openings through which the animals are driven, numbered 26, 27, 28. The cattle-hall. the pork-room, the slaughter-rooms: death tribunals for the animals, swinging hatchets, you won’t get out of here alive. Peaceful streets nearby, Strassmannstrasse, Liebigstrasse, Proskauer, Public Gardens in which people are strolling about. They dwell snugly side by side, the doctor comes running when one of them gets sick and has a sore throat.

But on the other side, the tracks of the Belt Line Railway stretch over a distance of 10 miles. Live-stock comes rolling up from the provinces, specimens of the genus sheep, hog, ox, from East Prussia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, West Prussia. They bleat and low over the railings of their pens. The hogs grunt and sniff the ground, they can’t see where they’re going, the drivers follow them with sticks. They lie down in the stables, white and fat, side by side, snorting and sleeping. They have been driven a long time, then well shaken up in the cars; now there’s nothing vibrating beneath them, only the flagstones are cold. They wake up and huddle close together. They lie piled one on top of the other. Two of them are fighting, there is room in the pen, they butt their heads together, snap at each other’s necks and ears, turn around in a circle, snort, then at times become quite still, just biting each other. One of them grows afraid and climbs over the bodies of the others, its adversary climbs after it, gives a snarl, and while those underneath grub themselves up again, the two plump down, looking for each other.

A man in a linen smock ambles through the corridor, the pen opens, he steps in between the animals with a stick; then, once the door is open, they rush out, squealing, grunting, and screaming. They crowd along the corridors. Across the courtyards, between the halls, he drives them up, those funny bare creatures with their jolly fat hams, their jolly little tails, and the green and red stripes on their backs. Here you have light, dear little pigs, and here you have dirt, just give a sniff, go ahead and grub a while, for how many minutes longer will it be? No, you are right, one should not work by the clock, just go on sniffing and grubbing. You are going to be slaughtered, there you are, take a look at the slaughter-house, at the hog slaughter-house. There exist old houses, but you get a new model. It is bright, built of red brick, from the outside you might take it for a locksmith’s workshop, for a machine-shop, an office-room, or a drafting-room. I am going to walk the other way, dear little pigs, for I’m a human being, I’ll go through this door, we’ll meet again, inside.

A push against the door, it rebounds, swings to and fro. Whew, what a lot of steam! What are they steaming? It’s like a bath, all that steam, the hogs are taking a Turkish bath, perhaps. You can’t see where you’re walking. Your glasses are covered with vapor, you could go naked, sweat out your rheumatism, cognac alone won’t do, the slippers go clattering about. Nothing can be seen, the steam is too thick. But a continuous noise of squealing, snorting, clattering, men’s voices calling back and forth, tools being dropped, slamming of lids. Somewhere around here are the hogs, they came in from across the way, from the door at the side. This thick white steam! Here they are, the hogs, some of them are hanging up, already dead, they’ve been cut up, almost ripe for guzzling. A man with a hose is squirting water on the white halves of the hogs. They are hanging on iron posts, head downward: some of the hogs are still whole, their legs are locked in a cross-beam above, a dead animal can’t do anything at all, nor can it run. Pigs’ feet, hacked off, lie in a pile. Two men arrive out of the fog carrying something, an animal on an iron bar, gutted and slit open. They lift the bar up and put it through the rings. Many of its comrades are dangling there, staring at the flagstones.

You walk through the room in a fog. The flagstones are grooved, damp, covered with blood. Between the posts are rows of white eviscerated animals. Behind there must be the slaughter-pens, there is a sound of smacking, clattering, squealing, screaming, rattling, grunting. Steaming boilers and vats send vapor into the room. The dead animals are dipped in the boiling water, then scalded and taken out very white, a man scrapes off the epidermis with a knife, the animal grows whiter still, becomes quite smooth. Quite soft and white, relaxed as though after a tiring bath, after a successful operation or a massage, the hogs lie in rows, on benches or planks, they lie quite still in their replete tranquility, in their new white shirts. They all lie on their sides, on some of them can be seen a double row of teats, a sow has many breasts, they must be fertile animals. But they all have a straight red slit at their throats right down the middle, that’s very suspicious.

The cracking sound starts up again, a door is opened in back, the vapor vanishes, they drive in a new lot of hogs, there you run while I walk in front through the sliding door, funny rosy creatures, jolly hams, jolly little curly tails, backs with motley colored stripes. And they sniff in the new pen. It’s cold as the old one, but there is still something wet on the floor, something unknown, a red lubricity. They sniff at it with their snouts.

A pallid young man with slick blond hair has a cigar in his mouth. Look here, that’s the last man who will occupy himself with you. Don’t think ill of him, he is doing his official duty. He has to settle an administrative matter with you. He is dressed only in his boots, trousers, shirt and suspenders, the boots come up over his knees. That’s his official garb. He takes his cigar out of his mouth, lays it on a shelf on the wall, takes a long hatchet from out the corner. It is the sign of his official dignity, of his rank over you, like the brass badge of a detective. He’ll soon flash it at you. The young man takes a long wooden pole, lifts it up to the height of his shoulders over the squeaking little pigs which are rooting, sniffing and grunting undisturbed down below. The man walks around, looking down, searching, searching. The problem at stake is an inquiry against John Doe, John Doe in the case of X
vs.
Y. -Bing, one of them has run in front of his feet. bing, another one. The man is quick, he has given an account of himself, the hatchet has whizzed down, plunged into the lot of them with its blunt side, first on one head, then on another. That was a great moment! Kicking, writhing. Flinging from side to side. No longer conscious. Just lying there. What are those legs and heads doing? But the pig isn’t doing that, it’s the legs that do it, on their own, you might say. And already two men have begun to look across from the scalding room; it’s time for them now, they lift a slide onto the killing-pen, drag out the animal, they sharpen their long knives on the stone and kneel down, slash, slash, they thrust them into the throat, zzing, a long slit, a very long slit in the throat, the animal is opened up like a bag, deep, plunging cuts, the animal twitches, kicks, thrashes about, it is unconscious, no more than unconscious now, more’s to come, it squeals, and now for the opening of the veins in the throat. It is profoundly unconscious, we have stepped into metaphysics, into theology, my child, you no longer walk on earth, we’re wandering now on the clouds. Hurry up with the pan now, the black warm blood streams into it, foams and bubbles in the pan, stir it quickly. The blood coagulates in the body, forms clots and stops up wounds. Now it has left the body, and it still wants to coagulate. Like a child that keeps on crying Mama, Mama, when it lies on the operating table, but there is no question of Mama, and Mama does not come, but it’s suffocating under the mask with the ether, it goes on crying till it can cry no longer: Mama. Zzing, zzing, the veins, right and left. Stir it quickly. That’s it. Now the twitching stops. Now you are still. We are through with physiology and theology, physics begins.

The man who was kneeling gets up. His knees hurt him. The pig has to be scalded, gutted, then hacked up; this is done step by step. The boss, looking well-fed, wanders up and down through the steam, puffing at his pipe, glancing from time to time at an open belly. On the wall next to the swinging door hangs a poster: Annual Ball, First Section of Live-Stock Shippers, Saalbau, Friedrichshain, Kermbach Orchestra. Outside are posters announcing boxing matches. Germania Halls, Chausseestrasse 110, Entrance from 1.50 to 10 marks, 4 Qualification Matches.

Supply at the cattle-market: 1399 steers, 2700 calves, 4654 sheep, 18,864 hogs. Market conditions: prime steers firm, otherwise quiet. Calves firm, sheep quiet, hogs opening firm, closing weak, overweights lagging.

The wind blows through the driveway, it is raining. The cattle bleat as several men drive a big, roaring, horned herd into the place. The animals close in on each other, they stop in their tracks, then run in the wrong direction while the drivers chase them with sticks. A bull jumps up on a cow in the middle of the bunch, the cow runs right and left, the bull is after her, hugely he rises up on her again and again.

A big, white steer is driven into the slaughter-hall. Here there is no vapor, no pen like they have for the swarming pigs. The big strong animal, the steer, steps in alone, between its drivers through the gate. The bloodbespattered hall lies open before it with the chopped-up bones, and the halves and quarters hanging about. The big steer has a broad forehead. With sticks and thrusts it is driven up to the butcher. In order to make it stand stilL he gives it a slight blow on the hind leg with the flat part of the hatchet. One of the drivers seizes it from below around the neck. The animal stands for a moment, then yields, with a curious ease, as if it agreed and was willing, after having seen everything and understood that this is its fate, and that it cannot do anything against it. Perhaps it thinks the gesture of the driver is a caress, it looks so friendly. The animal follows the tug of the driver’s arms, turns its head obliquely to one side, mouth upward.

But then the butcher stands behind it with his hammer uplifted. Don’t look around! The hammer lifted by the strong man with both his fists is behind you, above you, and then: zoom, down it comes! The muscular force of a strong man like an iron wedge in its neck! And a second later the hammer has not yet been lifted-the animal’s four legs give a spring, the whole heavy body seems to fly up with a jerk. And then as though it had no legs, the beast, the heavy body, falls down on the floor with a thud, onto its rigidly cramped legs, lies like this for a moment, drops on its side. The executioner walks around the animal from left to right, cracks it over the head, and on the temples, with another mercifully stunning blow: you will not wake up again. Then the other man beside him removes the cigar from his mouth, blows his nose, sharpens his knife, it is half as long as a sword, and kneels behind the animal’s head; its legs have already stopped their convulsive movements. With short twitching jerks it tosses the hind part of its body back and forth. The butcher searches for something on the floor and before using the knife, he calls for the basin to catch the blood. The blood is still circulating quietly inside, little disturbed, under the impulses of a mighty heart. To be sure, the spine is crushed, but the blood still flows quietly through the veins. The lungs breathe, the intestines move. Now he applies the knife, the blood will gush out, I can see it now, in a stream as thick as your arm, black, beautiful, jubilating blood. Then the whole merry party will leave the house, the guests will dance out into the open, a tumult, and gone are the happy pastures, the warm stable, the fragrant fodder, everything gone, blown away, an empty hole, darkness, a new cosmos emerges! Haha! Suddenly we see a gentleman who has bought the house, new streets being laid out, better business conditions, going to tear down everything. They bring the big basin, shove it up to him, the huge animal throws its hind legs in the air. The knife is thrust into its neck near the gullet, look carefully for the veins, they are covered with a tough skin, well safeguarded. And now it’s open, another one too, it spurts forth, hot steaming blackness, black red, the blood bubbles out over the knife, over the butcher’s arm, jubilant blood, hot blood, the guests are coming, the transformation act proceeds, from the sun came your blood, the sun hid in your body, now it surges forth again. The animal breathes with huge efforts, it amounts to suffocation, a huge irritation, it snorts and rattles. Yes, the beams are cracking. The flanks heave so fearfully that one of the men helps the beast. If you want a stone to fall, give it a push. A man jumps on top of the animal, on its body, with both legs, he stands up there, bouncing, steps on the entrails, bobs up and down, the blood should come out more quickly, all of it. And the snorting grows louder, it is a long drawn-out panting, panting away, with light defensive blows of the hind legs. The legs quiver gently. Life is going out with a snort, the breathing begins to die down. The hind quarters turn over heavily. That’s the earth, that’s gravity. The man bobs upward. The other man underneath is already preparing to turn back the hide of the neck.