Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (43 page)

387.20 marks. What kind of a collision was it anyway? I start slidin’ in a jiffy, it hasn’t any four-wheel brakes-and my front wheel hit his rear wheel. How much did you drink that day, you must have drunk something at breakfast, went to the boss’s house; that’s where 1 get my meals, the boss looks out for his help all right, because he’s a good man. Why, we don’t hold the man responsible for the damage, but the dismissal without giving notice, he forgot himself because of drunkenness. Get your things; they’re in the Viktoriastrasse, all dirtied up. And then the boss said over the telephone: he’s a damn fool, he smashed up the car. But you couldn’t hear that. yes, your telephone talks that loud, if he hasn’t any better manners than that; he also telephoned that I stole the extra wheel, I would like to ask that the witnesses be examined, I wouldn’t do anything of the kind, you’re both at fault, the boss said ass or fool, giving also the surname, do you want to settle it with 35 marks, it’s a quarter to twelve, there’s still time, you can call him up, if it’s all right, let him come here around quarter to one.

*

A girl is standing in front of the door downstairs in Zimmerstrasse; she has just passed by here, she raises her umbrella and puts a letter into the box. The letter says: Dear Ferdinand, your two letters received with thanks. I’ve been really disappointed by you a lot, never thought things would take such a turn with you. Well, you must admit yourself, we are both still awfully young to unite ourselves for good. I think that in the end you must see that. Maybe you thought I’m just a girl like all the others, but that’s where you got burnt, my boy. Or maybe you think I am a rich match? But that’s where you’re also on the wrong track. I’m only a working girl. I tell you this so you can act according. If I had known what was to come of it, I wouldn’t have started writing them letters. Well now you know my opinion, act according, you must know what you feel about it. Sincerely, Anna.

In the same house, a girl is sitting in the back building in the kitchen. Her mother has gone out shopping, the girl is secretly writing in her diary. She is 26 years old, out of work. The last entry on July 10th was as follows: Since yesterday afternoon I feel better again, but the good days are now so few and far between, I cannot speak freely to anybody, as I would like to. So I have decided now to write everything down. When my periods come, I am no good for anything; the least trifle causes me great distress. Everything I see at that time keeps calling forth new thoughts in me, I can’t get rid of them, and I get so nervous that I can hardly force myself to do anything at all. A great unrest within me drives me from one thing to another, and yet I cannot finish anything. For instance: Early in the morning, when I wake up, I would prefer not to get up; but I nevertheless force myself to do it, and talk myself into courage. But even dressing makes me very tired, and it takes a long time, because so many fancies are going round and round in my head. I am constantly tortured by the thought of doing something the wrong way, and causing some disaster. Often when I put a piece of coal into the stove, and a spark flies up, I get so frightened and feel I must examine everything about me to see that nothing has caught fire, and I might spoil something and start a fire without knowing it. All day long it’s the same thing: everything I have to do seems so difficult and if I force myself to do it, it takes a long time, in spite of all the pains I take to do it quickly. Thus the day passes and I haven’t done anything, because I have to think for such a long time before I make a move. When, in spite of all my efforts, I cannot get along in life, it makes me desperate, and then I cry a lot. This is the way my periods always show. They began when I was 12 years old. My parents took all this for deceit. At the age of 24 I tried to end my life on account of these periods, but I was saved. At that time I had had no sexual intercourse as yet, and so I put my hopes in this, but, alas, in vain. I have only had very moderate intercourse, and of late I don’t want to hear about it any more, because I also feel so weak, physically.

August 14th. For the last week I am again in a very bad state. I don’t know what will become of me if this goes on. I think that if I had nobody in the world, I would turn on the gas without further thought, but I cannot do this for mother’s sake. But I really wish very much I could develop some serious illness from which I would die. I have written everything down the way things really look inside me.

The Duel starts! It is rainy Weather

But for what reason (I kiss your little hand, madame, I kiss) for what reason, let’s think it over, think it over, Herbert, his felt slippers on, muses in his room, and it is raining, it drizzles and drizzles, can’t go downstairs at all, no more cigars left, no cigar-store in the house, for what reason, I wonder, is it raining like that in August, the whole month simply swimming away from a fellow, it splashes off like nothin’ on earth, for what reason does Franz go to see Reinhold of late and jaw and jaw about him? (I kiss your little hand, madame, and no less a person than Sigrid Onegin made people happy with her song, till he gave the whole thing up, risked his life and thus won his life.) He surely knows why, for what reason, he probably knows it all right, and then it’s always raining, he might as well come here.

“Gee, why brood about it? You oughta be glad, Herbert, that he gave up politics - if that fellow’s his friend-maybe.” “Well, Eva, his friend, just put a period there, young lady, I know better, betcha. He wants to get somethin’ outa him, he wants somethin’.” (For what reason, I’d like to know, the sale is agreed upon by the General Administration and so the price may be regarded as adequate.) “He wants somcthin’, and why he wants it, and why he’s always goin’ around there and alwaysjawin’ about it, well: he wants to give him the works; he wants to be in his good graces, you’ll see, Eva, and if he can get near ‘im, he’ll just bang away, and nobody’ll ever find out what happened.” “You think so?” “Well, maybe not!” That’s clear, I kiss your little hand, madame, but what rain! “Clear as mud!” “Think so, Herbert? I thought right away, too, it was a bit queer, that a man should let a fellow run over his arm and then go up and see him.” “Clear as mud. I getcha!” I kiss. “Herbert, d’you mean it, that we shouldn’t tell him nothin’ about it, pretend we hadn’t noticed nothin’, and are quite blind?” “We’re jackasses, people can do anything with us they want.” “Yes, Herbert, that’s what we got to do about him, we’ll do it, got to. He’s such a funny guy.” The sale agreed upon by the General Administration so that the price obtained, but why, for what reason, must think it over, must think it over, the rain.

“You’ll see, Eva, we can keep mum all right, but we gotta look out. Watcha think, suppose those Pums fellows smell a rat? Eh?” “That’s what I say. I thought that right away. Oh Lord, why does he go there with his one arm?” “ ‘Cause it suits him . Only we gotta keep a sharp lookout, and Mieze, too.” ‘Til tell ‘er. What can we do, then?” “Gotta keep our eyes on Franz.” “If her old man would only leave her time for it.” “She might give him his walkin’ papers.” “Why, he’s talkin’ about marriage!” “Ha, ha, hal That’s certainly rich. What’s he after? And Franz?” “Oh, that’s nothin’. She just lets the old guy babble away, why no!?” “She’d better watch out for Franz. He’s tryin’ to get his man in that gang, and just wait, one of these days somebody’ll be brought up here in a coffin.” “For Lord’s sake, Herbert, now stop that!” “Eva, old girl, it needn’t be Franz, y’know. So Mieze’d better watch out.” “I’ll keep an eye on him, too. Y’know, that’s much worse than politics.” “Ye don’t understan’ that, Eva. A dame wouldn’t get that! I’m tellin’ you, Eva, it’s just beginning with Franz. He’s just gettin’ started.”

I kiss your little hand, madame, he mastered life, won his life by risking it outright, a funny August we’re having this year, just look, it’s raining cats and dogs.

“What’s he want with us? I said he was crazy, he’s batty all right, clean gone off his nut, and I told him, if a fellow’s got only one arm and comes and wants to play around with us. And him.” Pums: “Well, what does he say?” “What does he say? He just laughs and grins, why, he’s dumb as hell; he must have a screw loose from what happened that time. First I says to myself, I ain’t hearin’ right. Whatsat, says I, about that arm of yours? Well, well, why not, the feller grins, he’s got strength enough in the other one, I should see him liftin’ weights with it, shootin’, even climbin’ if necessary.” “Is that true?” “None o’ my business. Don’t like that guy. Do we want a bozo like that? Look here, Pums-we can’t use him in our work. Anyhow, when I see that guy with that bull’s face of his, aw, it gives me a pain.” “All right, if that’s what you think. Got no objection. Gatta go now, Reinhold, to get a ladder.” “But get somethin’ solid, steel or somethin’ like that. Extending or folding. But not in Berlin.” “I getcha.” “And the bottle. Hamburg or Leipzig.” ‘Til find it all right.” “And how’ll we get it here?” “Oh, leave that to me. Hamburg or Leipzig.” ‘Til get the info.” “And how we gonna move it here?” “Leave that to me.” “So I won’t take Franz then, heh?” “Reinhold, about Franz, he’ll only be a burden to us, I think, but we won’t bother about that. You better fix it up with him alone.” “Wait a minute, old boy,· you really like that guy’s face? Listen. I kick him out of the car and he comes right up to me, I thinks to myself I’m seein’ things, by gosh, and there he stands, the boob, imagine it, what a jackass, dodderin’ away, and why did the jackass come up here, anyway? And then he grins at me and posolutely wants to come along.” “Well, just fix it up with him, and lemme go.” “Maybe he’s gain’ to snitch on us, heh?” “Maybe so, maybe so. Y’know, you’d better keep that feller outa your way, that’s the best thing, g’bye.” “He’ll squeal on us, sure. Or, when it’s dark, he’ll put one of us on the spot.” “So long, Reinhold, golta beat it. The ladder.”

He’s some bonehead, that Biberkopf. But he wants somethin’ from me. Tries to play the hypocrite. Wants to start somethin’ with me, heh? That’s where you got the wrong number, if you think I won’t do nothin’. I’ll let you stumble over my toes. Gimme rum, by gum! Rum’s good for what ails you, all right. Auntie Paula eats tomatoes in her bed. On the urgent advice of a woman-friend who said ... If that guy thinks I’m gonna worry about him, I ain’t an old age insurance company. If he’s only got one arm, let him go and get in on the dole. Reinhold ambles around the room, and takes a look at the flowers. When a fellow’s got flower-pots and that tan gets two marks extra every first of the month, she might water them pots, look at ‘em now, nothin’ but sand. She sure is a dumbdora, a lazy wench, good for nothin’ but gulping down the money. But I’ve gotta knock the cobwebs off her. Another rum. I learned that from him. Maybe I’ll take that louse along with me, wait a minute, you’ll get it yet, if you’re so bent on havin’ it. Maybe he thinks I’m afraid of him. That’s how much you know, Jack. Lel him come, let him come! He don’t need any money, the mack, he mustn’t try to put that over on me, he’s got Mieze, and then he’s also got that dirty louse, that loafer of a Herbert, that old bum, sittin’ there right in the pig-sty. Where are them boots? I’ll step on his toes for him. Come to my bosom, sweet-heart, come on, come straight up, m’boy, to the sinners’ bench. I’ve got a sinners’ bench where you can repent your sins.

He ambles around his room, and dabs at the flowerpots with his fingers, I pay two marks, and that tan don’t water ‘em. Up to the sinners’ bench, me boy, that’s the stuff, glad you’re comin’. To the Salvation Army, I’ll get you there, too, he’ll have to go to the Dresdener Strasse, he’s gotta go to the sinners’ bench, that pimp, that swine, with his big slimy goggle-eyes, that mack, that brute, sure he’s a brute, there he sits in front, that brute, prayin’ while I look on, I could die laughin’.

And why shouldn’t he go up to the sinners’ bench, Franz Biberkopf? Isn’t the sinners’ bench the place where he belongs? Who says that?

What can be said against the Salvation Army, and how does Reinhold, this Reinhold of all people, get that way, poking fun at the Salvation Army, when the guy went there himself once, what do I mean, once, often, five times at least, he went to Dresdener Strasse, and what a state he was in, and they helped him, too. Why, his tongue was hanging out, and they fixed him up; but, of course, not in order that he should get to be such a scoundrel.

Hallelujah, hallelujah! Franz knows what it is, all that singing and shouting. The knife touched his throat, Franz, hallelujah1 He offers his neck, he wants to seek his life, his blood. My blood,
my
innermost being, at last it all comes forth, it was a long voyage before it came, O Lord, how hard it was, but there it is, I gotcha now. Why didn’t I want to go up to the sinners’ bench, if only I’da come sooner, oh, but here I am, I’ve come.

Why shouldn’t Franz go up to the sinners’ bench, when will that blessed moment come, when he will fl op himself down before his terrible death and open his mouth and be allowed to sing with many others behind him:

Come, sinner, to Jesus, do not hesitate so, oh bondsman awake, come up to the light, come to the light’s bright glow, you may find complete salvation here on this happy day, oh, believe in Him, and light and joy will live in you alway. Chorus: For the all-conquering Saviour, He can break every chain, the all-conquering Saviour, He can break every chain, and lead you forth to victory down the happy lane, and lead you forth to victory down the happy lane. Music! Blow horns and trumpets, taraboomdeeay: He can break every chain, and lead you forth to victory down the happy lane. Tara, tara, tara, boom! Taraboomdeeay!

Franz does not give in, it haunts him all the time, he does not ask about God and the world, it is as if the fellow were drunk. Along with the other Pums gangsters, who don’t want him, he slips into Reinhold’s room. But Franz lashes about, showing them the one fist he’s got left and yells: “If you won’t believe me and wanta take me for a swindler and think I want to squeal on you, why, let it go. Do I need you if I want to do something? I can go to Herbert or anywhere I like.” “Then go ahead and do it.” “‘Go ahead and do it!’ You numskull, do you have to tell me ‘Go ahead and do it!’ Look at my arm, you, that fellow over there, Reinhold, pushed me out of the automobile, and with a bang too. I’ll tell you. I stood that all right, and now I’m here and you needn’t tell me ‘Go ahead and do it’! If I come to you and say, I’m with you, then you oughta know who Franz Biberkopf is. He ain’t never swindled anybody, you can ask anywhere you want. I don’t give a hoot in hell for what happened, my arm’s gone. I know you all, I’m here, and that’s the reason why, so maybe you know now.” The little tinner still can’t understand. “Then I’d like to know why you want to come here all of a sudden, after you used to run around the Alex with newspapers, and you said let anybody try to tell ye that ye oughtajoin up with us.”