Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (42 page)

Berlin! Berlin! Berlin! Deep Sea Tragedy, U-boat Sinks. Crew suffocates. If they’re suffocated, then they’re dead, and nobody will give a tinker’s damn for it, then it’s all over. then it’s finished, let’s forget it, march, march. Two military aeroplanes fall. Then they’re down, then they’re dead, nobody’s to give a tinker’s damn for ‘em, if they’re dead, they’re dead.

“G’d evenin’, Reinhold, yessir. y’see, I’m back again.” Reinhold looks at Franz: “Who letcha in?” “Me? Nobody. The door was open, so I simply walked in.” “Is that so, and you can’t ring the bell, can ye?” “Why should I ring a bell when I come to see you, I ain’t tight, am I?”

They sit facing each other, smoking, and Franz Biberkopf doesn’t tremble, but holds himself stiffly erect and is happy that he is alive; that’s the best day he’s had since he fell under the car, and this is the best thing he has done since that night: sitting here, damn it, that’s fine. And it sure is better than public meetings, and almost better-better than Mieze. Yes, and that’s the nicest part of it all: he won’t bite me .

It’s eight o’clock at night, when Reinhold looks Franz in the face: “Franz, I s’pose you know what we got to settle together. Say, if you want anything from me, let’s have it out.” “What d’you think I have to settle with you?” “About that car.” “What’s the use, that won’t make my arm grow again. And then-” Franz bangs his fist on the table. “And then, it was all right. Things couldn’t go on with me that way. It had to happen.” Haha, so that’s what we’ve come to, it’s been on the way a long time. Reinhold tries to sound him out: “Ye mean about that street peddling.” “Yes, sir, that, too. I wasn’t right in my upper story. Well, now, it’s all over.” “And the arm’s gone.” “I still got one arm and I got my head and a pair of legs.” “Whatcha doing now? Pullin’ jobs on your own, or with Herbert?” “With one arm? I can’t do nothin’ with that.” “But say, just being a pimp, that sure must get tiresome after a while.”

Reinhold muses, noticing how stout and stalwart he looks, sitting there. I’d like to have a little fun with that goof. He’s kickin’ back. I’d better crack his bones for ‘im. One arm ain’t enough for that fellow.

They start talking about the janes, and Franz tells him about Mieze whose name was Sonia before; she earns good money and is a nice kid. And Reinhold thinks to himself: That’s fine, I’ll take her away from him, and then I’ll kick him all the way to kingdom come.

For even if the worms eat earth, and pass it out again behind, they always eat it anew. And for this the beasts can show no mercy, even though you cram their stomachs full today, tomorrow they have to go to it and start gobbling all over again. With a human being it’s the same as with fire: while it burns, it must eat, and if it can’t eat. it goes out, it must go out.

Franz Biberkopf is pleased with himself, at being able to sit there without trembling, quite calm and festively happy, like a new-born babe. And, as he walks downstairs with Reinhold, he encounters it again: when the soldiers go marching along through the town, right left, it’s nice to be alive, these people are all my friends. Nobody here is gonna give me a kick, just let anyone try it! Oh, why, that’s why, from every window and door the girls look down.

“I’m goin’ dancin’,” he says to Reinhold, who asks: “Is your Mieze comin’ along?” “Nope, she’s gone off with her gentleman-friend for a coupla days.” “When she comes back, I’ll trot along with ye.” “Attaboy, she’ll be delighted.” “Think so?” ‘Tm tellin’ you, she won’t bite ye.”

Franz is mighty gay; happy, and like one new-born, he dances his way through the evening, first in the old Ballhaus, then in the cafe with Herbert. and they’re all pleased with him, but most of all he’s pleased with himself. As he dances with Eva, he loves best of all two beings: one is Mieze whom he’d like to have with him, and the other is-Reinhold. But he doesn’t dare say it. All through that wonderful night, dancing with first this one and the other, he loves those two who are not there, and is happy with them.

The Fist lies on the Table

Now all who have read thus far can see the turn things have taken: it’s a turn backward, and for Franz it is finished. That strong man, Franz Biberkopf, the cobra, has actually bobbed up on the scene again. It was not easy, but he has come back.

He seemed to be there already, when he became Mieze’s pimp, and went around quite free with a gold cigarette case and an oarsman’s cap. Now he is really there, and how happy he is, now that all fear has left him. The roofs no longer totter, and his arm, well, that’s what he got for it. That screw which was loose in his head has been successfully operated on and taken out. He is a pimp now, and will become a criminal again, but all this does not hurt him, quite the contrary.

Everything is as it was in the beginning. But, as we may clearly see, it is not the old cobra we knew. It’s our old Franz Biberkopf, you can see that all right, but no more than that. First he was betrayed by his friend Lüders and bumped out of gear. The second time he was to be a lookout against his will, so Reinhold kicked him out of the car, and he was run over. Franz has had enough of it all; it would be enough for any plain man. He does not go into a monastery, nor does he work his head off, he goes on the war-path. He becomes not only a pimp and a criminal, but now he feels: just for spite. Now you will see Franz, not dancing alone, nor gluttonously enjoying his life, but in the dance itself. in a rattling dance with something else, something which will have to show not only how strong it is, but which is the stronger of the two, Franz or this other thing.

Franz Biberkopf had taken an oath out loud, when he got out of Tegel, and walked on solid earth again: 1 will lead a decent life. They did not let him keep that oath. Now he will see what he has left to say. He will ask if and why his arm was run over and cut off. Perhaps, who knows how things look in such a fellow’s head, perhaps Franz will get his arm back from Reinhold.

SEVENTH BOOK

Now the hammer crashes down, it crashes against Franz Biberkopf.

Pussi Uhl, Height of American Invasion, is Wilma spelt with a W or a V?

On the Alexanderplatz they go on fussing and bustling around. On the Konigstrasse, at the corner of Neue Friedrichstrasse, they want to pull down the house over the Salamander shoe-store. They are already pulling down the one next to it. Traffic beneath the Alex arch of the municipal railway becomes enormously difficult: they are building new pillars for the railway bridge; here you can look down into a nicely walled shaft where the pillars put their feet.

In order to get to the municipal railway station you have to walk up and down a little wooden staircase. The weather in Berlin is cooler. It often pours buckets. Autos and motor-cycles suffer a great deal from that, every day some of them start skidding and careening about, then they are sued for damages, and so on: frequently people break something or other, that’s the weather’s fault. Have you heard of the tragic case of Beese-Arnim, the aviator? He was questioned today by the criminal police; he is the leading figure in the shooting affray at the home of that old washed-out whore, Pussi Uhl, peace to her ashes! Beese (Edgar) started shooting wild in the Uhl woman’s home; but he’s always had queer things happen to him, according to the police. Once during the war they shot him down from a height of 1700 meters, hence the tragic case of aviator Beese-Arnim, shot down at 1700 meters, cheated out of his inheritance, in prison under an assumed name; the last act is still to come. After being shot down, he goes home and an insurance agent bilks him out of his money. But he was a sharper, and so the money wandered in the simplest way possible from flyer to sharper, and the flyer had no money left. From that moment on Beese changes his name to Auclaire. He is ashamed to face his family, because he is down and out. The dicks have ferreted all this out this morning at police headquarters and have written it down. It is also recorded there that he now found himself on the path of crime. Once he was sentenced to two years and a half in prison, and, because at that time he called himself Krachtowil, he was later on deported to Poland. It seems that it was then this peculiarly nasty and obscure affair with Pussi Uhl developed in Berlin. This Pussi Uhl baptized him “von Arnim” with special ceremonies which we would rather not talk about here, and all he subsequently did in the way of mischief was done under the name of “von Arnim.” Thus it was that on Tuesday, August 14, 1928, von Arnim planted a bullet in Pussi Uhl’s body, as to the why and the how, the underworld keeps mum about it, they don’t tattle out of school, even if they’re about to have their heads chopped off, why should they say anything to the bulls, their natural enemies? All that is known, is that the boxer Hein plays a role in the affair, and anyone who pretends to know human nature goes wrong in assuming it was a case of jealousy. Personally, I’d put my hand in the fire that there was no jealousy involved. Or if there was jealousy, then jealousy arising from some money matter, but money being the main motive. Beese, according to the police, has completely collapsed; believe it or not, as you want. You can take my word for it, the boy collapsed (if it’s true, at all) simply because the bulls are going to make inquiries now, and especially because he is angry with himself for shooting down that old Uhl woman. For what is he going to live on now? If only that broad don’t die on me now, he thinks. So we know quite enough about the tragic case of the flyer, Beese-Arnim, shot down at 1700 meters, cheated out of his inheritance, in prison under an assumed name.

The flood-tide of Americans visiting Berlin continues. Among the many thousands visiting the German metropolis, there are numerous prominent persons who have come to Berlin for professional or private reasons. Thus we have here (Hotel Esplanade) the chief secretary of the American Delegation to the Interparliamentary Union, Dr. Call, of Washington, who will be followed in a week by a number of American senators. Furthermore, in the next few days the chief of the New York fire department, John Kenlon, will arrive in Berlin; like Davis, the former Secretary of Labor, he will stop at the Hotel Adlon.

Claude G. Montefiore president of the World Union for religious and liberal Zionism has arrived from London; these conferences will take place in Berlin from August 18th to 21st: he is staying with Lady Lily H. Montague, his co-worker, who accompanies him, at the Hotel Esplanade.

Since the weather is so very bad, it might be better if we were to go inside, in the Central Market Hall, but there is a lot of noise there, we are almost knocked down by the handcars and these guys don’t even warn you. So we prefer to ride out to the Labor Court in Zimmerstrasse wnd take breakfast there. If you have had much to do with petty lives - and in the last analysis, Franz Biberkopf is far from being a famous man-you like to ride out occasionally to the West End and see what is happening there.

Room No. 60, Labor Court, refreshment room, a rather small room with a bar, quick coffee boiler, the bill-of-fare reads: Lunch: rice soup, roulade of beef (roll that r) 1 mark. A stout young gentleman wearing horn-rimmed glasses is sitting in a chair, eating his lunch. You look at him and you establish the fact that he has a steaming plate of roulade of beef. gravy, and potatoes standing in front of him, and is about to gulp them all down, one after the other. His eyes roam back and forth across the plate, though nobody is trying to take anything away from him, there’s nobody near him, he’s sitting all alone at his table, and he’s worried, he cuts up and mashes his fodder, and quickly shoves it into his mouth, bit by bit, bit by bit, by bit, and as he works one bit in, one out, one in, one out, as he cuts, bolts, and gulps, smacks, sniffs, and stodges, his eyes examine, his eyes observe, the ever-diminishing remnant upon the plate, watching it on all sides like two snappish dogs, and estimating its quantity. Another bit in, another out. Period. Now it is finished, now he gets up, flabby and stout, the fellow has put everything away, now he’d better pay. He fumbles in his vest pocket and smacks his lips: “How much is it, miss?” Then the fat baby goes out, puffing and blowing, and he loosens his trouser-buckle behind a bit, to give his belly enough room. He has got a good three pounds stowed away in his stomach, all victuals. Now things are going to get started in his belly, some labor, now his belly has got to be busy with what that goof has thrown into it. His bowels shake and wobble, winding, twisting like earthworms, the glands do what they can, they squirt their juice into all that stuff, squirt away like firemen, saliva flows down from above, the fellow swallows, it flows down into his bowels, there is an attack on the kidneys, just like in department stores when the white-goods sales are on, and gently, gently, lo and behold, little drops begin to fall into the bladder, one little drop after the other. Just wait, my boy, wait, soon you will walk back, retrace your steps to the door marked “Gentlemen,” and that’s the way the world wags.

They are negotiating behind the doors. Wilma, domestic servant, how do you spell your name? I thought you spelt it with a V, here it is, well, let’s make it W. She became very fresh. She behaved improperly, get your bags packed, clear out of this house, we have witnesses for it. She doesn’t do it, too much sense of pride. Till the sixth, three days’ difference included, I am ready to pay ten marks, my wife is at the hospital. You may make a claim, Fraulein, 22.75 marks is the sum in dispute, but I wish to state that I absolutely refuse to stand for things like that. “You common, low-down dog,” I suppose my wife will be called to court when she is up again, but the plaintiff herself behaved insolently. The parties contract the following agreement.

Chauffeur Papke and Wilhelm Trotzke, film distributor, what kind of a case is this, it has just come up. Well, then please write: Wilhelm Trotzke, film distributor, appears in person, no, 1 have only his power of attorney, all right: So you have been employed as a chauffeur, that is to say, a relatively short time, I bumped into him with my car, bring me the keys, so you got in dutch with the car, what have you to say? On the 28th, it was a Friday, he was supposed to fetch the boss’s lady from Admiralsbad, it was in the Viktoriastrasse, they can testify that he was completely drunk. He is known as a drunkard in the whole neighborhood. See here, I never drink bad beer, anyhow. It was a German car, the repairs cost