Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (54 page)

His hand grips the page convulsively. Slowly he sinks down on to the chair, he sits all shrunken within himself. What’s that on the page? Behind the stove a mouse is sitting.

The two women gape at him, in tears; stare with goggly eyes towards him, what’s the matter, murder? What’s that, Mieze? I’m crazy, what’s that, what does it all mean? His hand moves again towards the table, there it is in the paper, let’s read it: my picture, me, and Reinhold, murder. Emilie Parsunke of Bernau, in Freienwalde, how did she get to Freienwalde? What paper is it, anyway, the
Morgenpost.
His hand moves up with the paper, down with the paper. Eva, what’s Eva doing? Her look has changed, she comes over to him, her voice no longer strident: “Well, Franz?” A voice, somebody’s speaking, I must say something, two women; a murder, what is a murder, in Freienwalde, so I murdered her in Freienwalde, but I never been to Freienwalde, where is that anyhow? “Now tell me Franz, say somethin’.”

Franz looks at her. looks at her, his big eyes staring at her. he holds the paper on the flat of his hand, his head is shaking, he reads and babbles in jerks, stumbling, crackling. Murder in Freienwalde, Emilie Parsunke of Bernau, born June 12, 1908, it’s Mieze, Eva. He scratches his cheek, looks at Eva with a vague, empty, hollow look, one can’t see down into it. It’s Mieze, Eva. It’s Mieze, Eva. Yes. What-do you say, Eva? She’s dead. That’s why we didn’t find her. “And you are in the papers, Franz.” “Me?”

He takes the paper again and looks at it. It’s my picture.

The upper part of his body is shivering. For God’s sake, for God’s sake, Eva! She grows more and more afraid. She moves a chair next to him. He is still rocking the upper part of his body. For God’s sake, for God’s sake! Swaying to and fro. Now he starts puffing and panting. From his face one would think he was amused. “For God’s sake, what’ll we do, Eva, what’ll we do?” “Why did they put your picture there?” “Where?” “There?” “Well, I don’t know. For God’s sake, what does it mean?” “How come, ho, ho, that’s really funny.” Now he looks at her, helplessly trembling, and she is glad, that’s a human look, tears are rolling from her eyes again, fat Toni starts whimpering, too, then his arm goes round behind her, and his hand rests on her shoulder, his face is on her neck. Franz whispers: “What’s this, Eva, what’s the matter with our Miczeken, what’s happened? She’s dead, something happened to her, now it’s out. She didn’t run away from me, somebody killed our Miezeken, my Miezeken, whatsa matter now? Is it true, tell me, it’s not true!”

As he thinks of Miezeken something rises in him, fear arises, terror beckons him, there he is, there is that mower, Death’s his name, hatchet and staff in hand he marches o’er the land blowing’ on a little flute, he wrenches his jaws apart, and takes a trumpet, to blare upon his trumpet, and beats the kettledrum and now it looms, a doom, gloom-black, battering ram, drooms, and softly droooooms. ...

Eva watches the slow gnashing and grinding of his Jaws and clings to Franz. His head quivers, and now his voice is heard, at first a harsh rattle, then growing softer. But not an uttered word.

He lay beneath the auto, that was like it is now, there’s a mill there, a quarry, it goes on pouring over me, but I’ll hold fast, no matter how I hold on, it’s no use, it wants to smash me to pieces, even if I am an iron girder, it wants to break me to pieces.

Franz murmurs through his teeth: “Something’s coming.” “What’s coming?” What mill is this, revolving wheels, a windmill, a watermill? “Watch out, Franz, they are looking for you.” So they say I killed her, me, he trembles again, his face is laughing again, I beat her once, maybe they think because I killed Ida. “Stay where you are, Franz, don’t go downstairs, where do you wanta go? They’re looking for you, they know you by that one arm.” “They won’t catch me, Eva, if I don’t want ‘em to; they won’t catch me, you can depend on that. I must go out and look at the poster column, I’ve gotta see it. I’ve gotta read it in the saloon, in the papers, the stuff they write, how it happened.” Then he stands in front of Eva, staring at her, can’t get a word out, if he only don’t start laughing. “Look at me, Eva, is there anything wrong with me, look at me.” “No, no.” She screams and clings to him. “Well, look at me, is there anything the matter with me? There must be somethin’ wrong with me.”

No, no, she screams, and wails, while he walks to the door, smiling, takes his hat from the bureau, and is gone.

Behold the Tears of Such as were oppressed and they had no Comforter

Franz has an artificial arm, but, as a rule, he rarely wears it; now, however, he goes out on the street with it, the false hand in the pocket of his overcoat, in the left a cigar. He had left the house with difficulty. Eva shrieked and threw herself at his feet before the hall-door, he promised her not to run away, and to watch out. “I’ll be back for coffee,” he said, and then went downstairs.

They did not catch Franz Biberkopf as long as he did not want to be caught. There were always two angels walking beside him, one on the left, the other on the right, who diverted people’s eyes from him.

In the afternoon he comes upstairs for coffee at four. Herbert is there, too. Then for the first time in a long time they hear Franz talk at length. He has read the papers downstairs about his friend, Karl the tinner, he has read how he squealed on them. He does not know why he did that. So Karl the tinner went along to Freienwalde, where they had dragged Mieze. Reinhold did it by force. He had taken an auto, rode perhaps a little way with Mieze, and then Karl got in and between them they held her feet and dragged her to Freienwalde, probably at night. Maybe they had already killed her on the way. “And why did Reinhold do that?” “It was him who kicked me under the car, now you might as well know it, it was him, but it don’t matter. I’m not angry at him for it, a fellow’s gotta learn things, if he don’t, he won’t ever know nothin’. Then he runs around like a damn blockhead and knows nothin’ about the world. I’m not angry at him, nope, nope. He wanted to knock me out, he thought he’d got me in his clutches, but it didn’t happen that way, he found that out; that’s why he took Mieze from me and did that to her, it wasn’t her fault.” Oh why, that’s why. Roll of drums, battalion march, march. When the soldiers come marching along through the town, oh why, that’s why, just because of tararara taraboomdeeay.

That’s how I marched up, and that’s how he answered me and it was a damned trick and all wrong for me to march with him.

It was all wrong for me to march, all wrong, all wrong.

But that doesn’t matter, now it doesn’t matter any more. Herbert opens his eyes wide. Eva can’t say a word. Herbert: “Why didn’tcha tell Mieze somethin’ about it?” “It’s not my faull, there’s nothing you can do about it, that guy mighta just as well shot me dead when I was in his room. I tell you, there’s nothin’ to be done about it.”

Seven heads and ten horns, in her hand a cup full of abominations. We’ll get ‘em now, all right, there’s nothin’ can stop it now.

“Man alive, if you had just let one peep out, I tell you Mieze would still be living today, and another guy would be carrying his head under his arm.” “It’s not my fault. What a guy like that does, you’ll never know. And you can’t know what he’s doin’ now, you’ll never find out.” “I’ll find out, all right.” Eva pleads with him: “Don’t go near that fellow, Herbert, I’m afraid, too.” “We’ll fix him up all right. First we’ll find where he hangs out, and half an hour later the bulls’ll get him.” Franz nods. “Just you keep your fingers out of that pie, Herbert, he don’t belong to you. Let’s shake.” Eva: “Shake, Herbert, what are you gain’ to do, Franz?” “What do I care. You can throw me on the garbage-dump.”

Then he moves quickly to the corner and stands with his back against the wall.

Now they hear a sobbing, sobbing, a whimpering, he is weeping for himself and for Mieze, they hear it, and Eva cries and weeps upon the table, the paper with “Murder” on it is still lying on the table, Mieze is murdered, nobody did anything, it just happened to her.

Wherefore I praised the Dead which were already Dead

Towards evening Franz Biberkopf is on his way again. Five sparrows, on the Bayrischer Platz, fly over him. They are five slain evil-doers, who have often met Franz Biberkopf before. They have considered what to do with him, what decision to take about him, how to make him anxious and uncertain, over which beam they shall make him stumble.

One of them screams: There he walks. Look, he has a false arm, he hasn’t yet given up the game for lost, he does not want to be recognized.

The second says: That fine gentleman has certainly done a lot of shady things. He is a dangerous criminal, they should put him in the bull-pen, he ought to get life. Killing one woman and going around hooking things, burgling and then taking another woman, that’s another of his crimes. What does he want now, I ask you?

The third: He’s puffing himself up. He’s playing the innocent. He’s aping the honest man. Look at the louse. When a bull comes along, let’s kick his hat off.

The first speaks again: Why should that fellow live any longer? I croaked in prison after nine years. I was much younger than this chap here, I was dead already then, and couldn’t say boo. Take your hat oft you monkey, take off your damned glasses, you’re not an editor yet, you jackass, Why, you don’t even know the multiplication table, and then you go putting on horn-rimmed glasses like a professor, look out, you’ll see, they’ll get you.

The fourth: Heh, don’t scream so loud. What do you want to do to him? Look at the fellow, he has got a head, he walks on two legs. We little sparrows, we might let something drop on his hat.

The fifth: Go ahead and bawl him out. He’s chewing his cud, he’s got a screw loose. He goes walking about with two angels, his sweetheart is a mask at police headquarters, go ahead and do something to him. Go ahead and scream.

So they whir, scream, and twitter above his head. Franz raises his head, his thoughts are muddled, the birds squabble and mock at him.

Autumn weather. In the Tauentzien Palast they are playing
The Last Days of Francisco;
there are fifty dancing beauties at the Jager Casino, for a bunch of lilacs you can kiss me. Then Franz decides: my life is at an end, it’s all over, I’ve had enough.

The street-cars rattle along the streets, they are all going somewhere, but I don’t know where to go. The Nord-End 51, Schillerstrasse, Pankow, Breitestrasse, Schonhauser Allee Depot, Stettin Depot, Potsdam Depot, Nollendorfplatz, Bayrischer Platz, Uhlandstrasse, Schmargendorf Depot, Grunewald, hop in. Howdy, here I am, they can take me anywhere they please. And Franz starts inspecting the city like a dog that has lost a trail. What kind of a city is this, anyway, this huge city, and what kind of a life, how many lives he has led in it. He gets out at Stettin Depot and then moves along Invalidenstrasse. Here’s the Rosenthaler Tor. Fabisch’s Ready-to-Wear Shop, here’s where I stood, hawking tie-holders, last Christmas. He rides out to Tegel on the No. 41. The red walls appear, red walls on the left, the heavy iron gates, and now Franz grows silent. This is part of my life, and I must look at it, look at it.

The walls are red, and the roadway streams past them, car No. 41 rides past, General Pape Strasse, West Reinickendorf, Tegel, Borsig, they thunder by. Franz Biberkopf stands in front of the red walls, walks across the other side where there is a saloon. Then the red houses behind the walls begin to shake and tremble, and to puff out their cheeks. Convicts line all the windows, pushing their heads against the bars, their hair has been shaved close, almost to the skull. They look miserable, underweight, their faces are gray and scrubby, they roll their eyes and lament. There they stand, murderers, burglary, theft, forgery, rape; all the crimes of the code are there, and they wail with gray faces. There they sit, the gray men, and now they’ve twisted my Mieze’s neck.

Franz Biberkopf roams around the giant prison; it goes on trembling and shaking and calling to him, across the fields, to the wood, back again to the tree-lined street.

Then he is in the street with the trees. I didn’t kill Mieze. I didn’t do it. I ain’t got nothing to do here. That’s all over. I ain’t got nothing to do with Tegel any more, I don’t know how all this came about.

Now it is six in the evening and Franz says, I want to go to Mieze. I must go to the cemetery, where they buried her.

The five criminals, the sparrows, are with him again. They sit up there on a telegraph post and scream down: Go to her, you scoundrel, have you the courage, ain’t you ashamed to go to her? She called to you when she lay there in the hollow. Go and see her in the cemetery!

For the Repose of our Dead. In Berlin, in 1927, there died 48,742 persons, excluding infants born dead.

4570 deaths from tuberculosis, 6443 from cancer, 5656 from heartdisease, 4818 from vascular diseases, 5140 from apoplexy, 2419 from pneumonia, 961 from whooping cough, 562 children died of diphtheria, 123 of scarlet fever, 93 of the measles, 3640 deaths of children at the breast. There were 42,696 births.

The dead lie in the cemetery, in their garden plots, the guardian walks by with his stick, prodding scraps of paper.

It is half past six and still quite light; on her grave in front of a beech tree is seated a very young woman in a fur coat, without a hat, her head is bent and she is silent. She is wearing black kid gloves, she holds a sheet of paper in her hand, a small envelope. Franz reads: “I can live no longer. Give my love once more to my parents, my darling child. Life is a torture to me. Bieriger alone need have me on his conscience. But I hope he will go on enjoying life. I was a mere toy for him, and he exploited me. He is just a vulgar lout. I came to Berlin only on account of him, he alone made me miserable and I became a ruined woman.”

Franz gives her back the envelope. “Oh my, oh my! Is my Mieze here?” Mustn’t be sad, mustn’t be sad. He weeps. “Oh my, oh my! where is my little Mieze?”

There is a grave like a big soft divan, and a learned professor is lying on it, he smiles at Franz. “Why are you grieved, my friend?” “I wanted to see Mieze. I just happened to pass by.” “I’m dead, you see, one mustn’t take life too seriously; nor death either. One can make everything easier. When I had had enough of it, and became ill, what did I do? Do you think I was willing to go on lying sick-a-bed till the end? What use would that have been? I had them put the morphine bottle near me and asked for some music, they were to play the piano, jazz, the latest hits. I had them read aloud something from Plato, the great
Symposium,
that’s a beautiful dialogue, and, unobserved, I injected syringe after syringe underneath the sheets. I counted them, three times the fatal dose. I heard them banging away merrily, and my reader talking of old Socrates, yes, there are wise men and some less wise.”