Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (28 page)

Whereupon the asthmatic man grew silent and hunched himself into his coat, as they sauntered along through the soft snow. At the next streetlamp he took a package of post-cards out of his pocket, looked sadly at Franz and pressed two into his hands. “Read this, neighbor.” On the card was written: “Sir (or Madam), Dated as per post-mark. I regret to state that I am obliged to cancel the agreement made with you yesterday on account of untoward circumstances. Respectfully yours, Bernard Kauer.” “So Kauer’s your name?” “Yep, that’s me. That’s done with a copying machine which lance bought. It’s the only thing I ever did buy. I do my own copying with it. Can do up to fifty an hour.” “Ye don’t say so? Well, what’s it all about?” The fellow’s not right in his upper story and then he cocks his eyes so funny, too. “Why don’tcha read it: cancel ... on account of untoward circumstances. I buy something and then maybe I can’t pay for it. People won’t let you have it without payment. Can’t blame ‘em, can ye? So I keep rushing up all the time and buy the stuff and make an agreement and I’m glad, and the others are glad, too, because the business went off so smoothly, and I think to myself, I’m a lucky fool I am, there are so many nice things in this world, magnificent coin collections, I could tell you a thing or two about it, people who suddenly got no money: so then I come up, take a look at everything, and they tell me right away what’s up. What misery people do have, if they could only get hold of a few pennies. Bought something in your house, too, they need it
that
badly, I tell you, a washing machine and a little ice-box, they’re glad to get rid of ‘em. And then I go downstairs, I’d really like to buy everything, but downstairs I get to worrying a lot: no money and still no money.” “But then you get somebody to take the stuff off your hands, don’t you?” “Never mind that. That’s why I bought that copying-machine, I pull off the post-cards with it. Each post-card costs me five pfennigs; that goes on the expense account, and that’s all there is to it.”

Franz opened his eyes wide. “Well, I’ll be doggoned, neighbor. You don’t mean it.” “The expenses, well, I manage to reduce them sometimes, I save five pfennigs by throwing my card in the people’s letter-box just as I go out.” “And you run your legs off and get all out of breath, but what for?”

They had reached Alexanderplatz.

There they saw a crowd gathered, they went near it. The small man looked furiously up at Franz. “Suppose you try to live on eighty-five marks a month and can’t make both ends meet?” “But listen, man, you gotta look out for your sales. If you want me to, I’ll inquire among my acquaintances.” “Rot, did I ask you to do this, I do my business alone, I won’t go into partnership.” They were right in the midst of the crowd, it was a common brawl. Franz looked around for the little man, he was gone, vanished. To think of his running around like that! Franz wondered at it, amazed, you could knock me down with a feather. Now where did that trouble of mine really happen? He stepped into a little cafe, took a Kümmel, thumbed the pages of the
Vorwärts
and the
Lokalanzeiger.
Not much more in ‘em than in the
Mottenpost,
there’s a big horse-race on in England, Paris, too; they probably had to shell out a lot of dough for that. May mean a big stroke of luck, when your ears ring like that.

He is about to go home and make a right-about-face. But he can’t help crossing the street to see what’s happening in the crowd. Try our big bock sausage with salad! Here you are, young man, the great and only bock sausage!
Montag Morgen, Die Welt, Die Welt am Montag.

Look at those two guys; they’ve been at each other for half an hour now, beating the stuffing out of each other, and for no reason at all. Say, I’m goin’ to stick around here till tomorrow. Heh, you, maybe you think you’ve subscribed to a standing-room ticket-you need a lot of room, don’t you? Nope, when you’re a flea, you don’t need so much. Ouch, what a whack, look at ‘im, he’s knockin’ ‘im for a goal.

And when Franz has pushed his way through the crowd, till he gets up in front, who do you think is fighting there with whom? Two lads, why, he knows ‘em, they’re Pums’s boys. Now what do ye think o’ that! Bang, the tall fellow’s got the other in a stranglehold; bing, he’s got him eating dirt. Boy, you lei that fellow kick you around like that; why, you’re no good. What’s this pushin’ here, heh there! Oh baby, the cops, the bulls. Cheese it, the cops, the cops, beat it. Two coppers in their rain-capes are making their way through the crowd. Wow! one of the pugilists is on his feet, in the crowd, off he flies. The other one, the tall chap, he can’t get up right away, he’s got a punch in the ribs, and a good one, too. At that moment Franz pushes himself through, right to the front. Why, we can’t leave that man lying around here, what a bunch of boobs, nobody touches ‘im! So Franz takes him under his arms, and walks right into the crowd. The cops are looking around. “What’s the matter here?” “Two guys’ve been fighting.” “Get a move on, now, beat it!” They’re always bawling and just the same they’re always a day too late. Move on, we’re going all right, sergeant, only don’t get yourself all worked up.

Franz is sitting with the tall lad in a badly lighted hallway in Prenzlauer 5trasse; only two numbers farther down is the house from which some four hours later a fat man without a hat will step out and try to pick up (illy; she walks on, she’ll certainly take on the next man, he’s a scoundrel Franz is, that was a mean trick.

Franz sits in the hallway trying to rouse the lazy Emil. “Well now, my lad, get a hold of yourself, we gotta get along to the cafe. Don’t carryon so, can’t you stand a little punch, brush yourself up, why, you’re carrying half the pavement along with you!” They cross the street. “Now I’m going to leave you in the first good cafe we go into, Emil. I gotta go home, my girl’s waiting for me.” Franz shakes hands, then the other fellow turns towards him again. “You might do me a favor, Franz, I’m supposed to go fetch some goods with Pums today. Go ahead and stop at his house, it’s just a few steps from here, on the same street. Go ahead now.” “How can I, man, I ain’t got no time.” “Just tell him, I can’t today, he’ll wait. He won’t be able to do anything today.”

At which Franz curses, goes off, what weather, go along, old boy, I wanta get home. I can’t let Cilly sit around and wait, can r. He’s a reg’lar monkey, I guess I didn’t steal my time. He starts running. Beside a street lamp there stands a little man, reading in a notebook. Who is that anyway, why, I know him. At that moment the other man looks up, walks towards Franz. “Heh, neighbor. You’re the one from the house where the washing machine and the ice-box were, aren’t you. Yes. Here, you might leave this card there later, when you go home, it’ll save me postage. “ He presses the post-card into his hand, cancel on account of untoward circumstances. Whereupon Franz Biberkopf wanders quietly on, he’ll show the card to Cilly, no hurry about it. He is happy about that crazy fellow, the little mail hound, who’s always running around buying things and has no money, but he’s got a dickey bird in his belfry, and no common ordinary birdie either, that’s a big grown chicken that a whole family could live off of.

“Evenin’, Herr Pums, even’. Maybe you’re wondering what I’ve come for. Wait a minute-what’s that I’m supposed to tell you? I was walkin’ across the Alex. There’s a fight goin’ on on Landsberger Strasse. Thinks I to myself, well, let’s go see. And who’s fightin’ there? Guess. Your Emil, the tall fellow, with a little chap, got a name like me, Franz, you know who I mean.” Pums answers: he’d been thinking about Franz Biberkopf anyway, he’d already noticed at noon that there was something up between those two. “So big old Emil isn’t coming. You’ll help me out, won’t you, Biberkopf.” “What d’you want me to do?” “It’s around six now. We’ve gotta fetch that stuff at nine, today’s Sunday, Biberkopf, you’ve got nothing to do, anyway, I’ll pay your expenses and then some more-well, let’s say, five marks an hour.” Franz hesitates: “Five marks?” “Well, I’m up against it, those two left me ditched.” “The little fellow’s goin’ to show up.” “All right, shake, five marks and your expenses, all right, make it five-fifty, what do I care!”

Franz has a good laugh to himself as he walks downstairs behind Pums. This is certainly a lucky Sunday, a thing like this don’t come your way every day, so it’s really true, the bells did mean something. I’m goin’ to clean up on this, well, fifteen or twenty marks on Sunday and I ain’t got any expenses, anyway. He is happy, the mail-grifter’s card crackles in his pocket, he starts to say good-bye to Pums in front of the streel-door. But the latter looks astonished: “What’s this? I thought we’d fixed that up, Biberkopf?” “Sure we did, it’s all right, y’can depend on me. But I just gotta run over home, y’know, heehee, I got a girl, Cilly, maybe y’know her through Reinhold, he had ‘er before me. Why, I can’t leave the gal up in that place alone all day Sunday.” “Now listen, Biberkopf, I can’t let you go now, afterwards everything’lI be all messed up, and I’ll be left in the lurch. No, for the sake of a dame, imagine it, Biberkopf, that won’t do, we’re not going to let business go to pot on account of that. She won’t run away from you.” “I know that all right, that’s where you said one true word, that gal, I can rely on her all right. But that’s just it. Can I let her sit around there all by herself, and she don’t hear nothiug or see nothing or know nothing? What’ll I do’?” “Now just come along, it’ll be all right.”

“What’ll I do’?” thought Franz. They went off. Once more on the corner of Prenzlauer Strasse. Here and there the street-girls were already standing abollt, the same girls Cilly is going to see a few hours later, when she runs around looking for Franz. Time progresses, all kinds of things are collecting around Franz; soon he will be standing on a car, they will take hold of him. Now he wonders how he might quickly deliver the crazy man’s post-card and perhaps make a dash up to Cilly for a minute or so, the gal’s waiting.

He walks with Pums along the Alte Schonhauser Strasse up to the side wing; that’s his office, says Pums. There’s a light up there, the room really does look like an office, with a telephone and typewriters. An elderly woman with a severe face comes frequently into the room where Franz is sitting with Pums. “That’s my wife, Herr Franz Biberkopf, he’s going to help us out a bit today.” She goes out as if she hadn’t heard anything. While Pums is busying himself at his desk, just wants to look up something, Franz reads a copy of the
B.Z.
which is lying on the chair: 3000 nautical miles in a canoe, by Gunther Pluschow, vacation cruises, Lania Sale, Piscator Stage in the Lessing Theater. Piscator himself directing. What’s Piscator, what’s Lania? What’s envelope and what’s contents, in other words, drama? No more child-marriages in India, a cemetery for prize cattle. News in brief: Bruno Walter will conduct his last concert this season, Sunday, April 15, at the Municipal Opera. The program will include the Symphony in E-flat major by Mozart, the net profits will go to the fund for the Gustave Mahler Monument in Vienna. Chauffeur, 32, mar., Driver’s License 2a, 3b, wants place, private business or truck.

Herr Pums is hunting for matches on the table to light his cigar. At that moment the elderly woman opens a wallpaper door, and three men walk slowly in. Pums does not look up. So those are all Pums’s men. Franz shakes hands with them. The woman is about to go out again, when Pums nods to Franz: “Hey, Biberkopf, didn’t you want to get a letter delivered? Clara, you take care of it.” “Say, that certainly is nice of you, Frau Pums, to do me that favor. Well, it ain’t a letter, only a card, and to my girl.” And he tells her exactly where he lives, writes it down on one of Pums’s business envelopes, they are to tell Cilly not to worry, and he’ll be home around ten o’clock, and then the post-card.

Well, now everything’s straightened out, he feels as if a load had been taken off his shoulders. Once in the kitchen the thin, evil-looking hussy reads the address on the envelope, and puts it in the fire: she crumples the card up and throws it in the dustbin. Then she moves up close to the stove and goes on drinking her coffee, doesn’t think of anything: just sits and drinks, it’s good and warm. Biberkopf’s joy is tremendous, when who should come shuffling in, wearing a beret and a heavy green soldier’s outfit, but-well, who do you think? Who is it slouches along as if he were dragging first one leg and then the other out of the thick mud? Why, it’s Reinhold. Franz feels at home now. Well, that’s fine. “With a man like you, Reinhold, I’m Johnny on the spot, no matter what happens.” “What, you’re going to be in on this?” Reinhold sniffles and snoops around. “That’s some decision you made.” And then Franz starts to tell him about the brawl on the Alex and how he helped Emil along. They listen avidly, all four of them, Pums is still writing; they nudge each other, then they start to whisper, two by two. One of them sticks close to Franz the whole time.

At eight o’clock the ride begins. All of them are well wrapped up, and Franz, too, gets an overcoat. He says, beaming, he’d like to keep it, and that lambskin cap as well. Oh Baby. “Why not?” they say. “But you’ll have to earn it.”

Off they go, outside it’s pitch-dark, a lot of mud. “What are
we
going to do anyway?” asks Franz, when they reach the street. They reply: “First we’ll go get a taxi or two. And then we’ll fetch the stuff, apples, and whatever there is.” They let a lot of taxis pass by; there are two standing in Metzer Strasse which they take, hop in, and they’re off.

For about half an hour the two taxis ride along one behind the other, can’t make out the district very well in this darkness, probably Weissensee or Friedrichsfelde. The boys say: The old man will most likely have to attend to something first. And then they stop in front of a house, it’s a wide street bordered with trees, Tempelhof probably, the others say they don’t know it either, they’re all smoking a lot.

Reinhold is sitting next to Biberkopf. Strange how different this Reinhold’s voice is now! He no longer stutters, but talks, quite loudly, and sits straight as a captain; the boy even laughs, the others in the car listen to him. Franz takes him by the arm. “Well, Reinhold, old boy” (he whispers it to him in the nape of his neck under his hat) “well, whatcha got to say, now? Wasn’t I right about the dames? Heh?” “Well, maybe, everything’s