Blood Brothers (13 page)

The performer’s feat of strength has done nothing to cool the flickering pugnacity of the Brothers. If only Friedel Peters and his boys would come looking for Anneliese. Boy oh boy, the beer glasses would fly, and the broken chair legs would go whizzing through the air. But there’s nothing doing. If they’re
such cowards that they leave their fellow member’s beating unavenged, then too bad. Let’s go, we’ve waited long enough. Where to? How about Auntie Minnie’s on Warschauer Brücke. There might be dancing. Jonny pays the bill. Thirty marks. Where do they get the money from, Ludwig thinks again.

The street outside is quiet, no sign of any enemy gang members hanging around. Past Schlesischer Bahnhof, the Blood Brothers turn down onto the deserted Mühlenstrasse. A hundred yards ahead of them, someone scampers across the street, and disappears in the shadow of the house fronts. The gang walks in two lines of four, with the gibbering Anneliese and their youngest, Walter, in the middle of the back. Once again, someone runs across the street. This time they are able to recognize the fellow Jonny slapped around. “Have you got your knuckleduster, Konrad?” asks Jonny. “You bet!” Konrad replies. They have walked the hundred yards. Mühlenstrasse widens out into Rummelsburger Platz.

“Go!” comes a shout in the immediate vicinity of the gang. Either side of the Blood Brothers, ten or twelve enemies dart out of dark doorways. The front line of Brothers, with Jonny, and the back line, with Konrad, are prepared. Walter hustles Anneliese to the far side of the road, but he can’t stand inaction, and he leaves her in the lurch wailing and jumps right into the knots of tangling boys. Jonny and Konrad’s knuckledusters are smashing enemy chins, thumping enemy biceps, slamming down on hard enemy skulls. The fight proceeds in near silence. Both sides know that if there’s any noise, a squad car will be there in no time at all, and they’d rather tribal warfare go on without police intervention.

If only there was a bit more light. Blood Brother squares up to Blood Brother, and the same thing is happening with
the other mob. Things are already looking critical for the assailants, their skulls are no match for the knuckledusters. Then a shot rings out. Bang! Like a whiplash. Walter wobbles into the gutter, clasping his left arm. “Oo … oo … ow!” The shot, the cry of the wounded boy, are signs that the Peters gang has had enough. They flee. The Blood Brothers have won the day, and they stand there panting and tending to Walter, who is still screaming his “Ooo … oow!” into the silence.

Windows are already being thrown open. Bed jackets and string vests shiver and shout “Murder!” and “Police!” and “Help!” “Let’s go!” orders Jonny. They run off in the direction of Schlesischer Bahnhof. Jonny and Konrad support Walter. Ludwig and Georg have taken charge of the whimpering Anneliese. On Fruchtstrasse, Jonny and Konrad manage to stop a cab, push Walter inside, and jump in after him. Jonny calls out of the window: “Come after … Badstrasse!” And then the scene is over. The gang breaks up into twos. They take a fleet of taxis to Badstrasse.

Gotthelf, ex-jailbird, now responsible gang-godfather, is not especially surprised when his charges turn up with the injured Walter. “That’s Berlin for you,” he says, and examines the wounded boy. Luckily, it’s just a flesh wound. Konrad arrives with some bandages bought from a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. In dribs and drabs the other Brothers arrive. Walter’s wound is washed and bandaged up. Should he see a doctor tomorrow? A risk. The doctor will ask questions. But Gotthelf has a solution. There’s this tame apothecary he knows, who’s taken to drink. He’ll treat Walter. Walter is feeling rather perky. He likes this role, he likes the attention, and his wound isn’t especially painful. He needs to get some sleep.
First he knocks back a hefty schnapps. “Schnapps is always good!” proclaims the wise Gotthelf.

It’s three in the morning. Konrad and Jonny, Hans and Fred are at home. Jonny will share Hans’s bed, so that Walter gets an uninterrupted night. Those boys who aren’t staying at Gotthelf’s take their leave. Anneliese is with Ludwig for tonight, and she walks back with him to his new pad on Grenadierstrasse.

*
Messerstich: a stab with a knife. Maybe a jocular debasement of “Metternich”?

13

AFTER TWO NIGHTS,
the modest lucky streak of overnight snow is over. Rain, endless and monotonous, dribbles onto the asphalt. Rain that softens up ancient shoes, till the unhappy wearer has the impression of going around in sodden dishcloths.

Willi Kludas is standing out on Neukölln’s Hermannplatz at night, staring vacantly at the illuminating and then disappearing advertisement of a brown bear
^*
the size of a house lighting a cigarette and complacently blowing out a stream of lightbulb smoke, with the legend:
Berlin smokes Juno.

There was no more staying at Silesian Olga’s. She had given him a couple of nights’ credit. After that she wanted to be paid, either in money or her usual tribute. And that wasn’t on, not least with his condition. Oh, the condition. On top of everything else. The first girl he’d ever slept with. The evening after, he had hung around looking for Elly and given her the address in Köllnischer Park. I’ll be back here tomorrow. If you’re not able to show me a card like mine, then I’ll report you to the police, he had threatened her curtly, and
then he had gone. The next evening Elly was waiting for him, with her gray card. He had inspected the card, and ignored Elly. Nothing to eat, nowhere to stay and a disgusting disease. Shit! He had to lug his medicine around with him wherever he went. Where could he have left it anyway? You’ll be over it in three or four days, the doc had said. And the blood test had come up all right. Negative, was the message for him at the end of three days.

If only the bloody rain would stop. Forever standing in doorways. Till a policeman asks him what he’s doing. The big bars over the road, how full they are. The people inside them are all right. They’re smoking their Junos, and eating and drinking, and relaxing in the warm. What if he went into the Bräustübl, and just stood by a table? It’s so packed, surely no one would notice that he wasn’t ordering anything. At least get his rags dry, and stand in the warm for a bit.

He crosses the street and walks into the bar. Pushes his way through the customers, and goes through to the toilets at the back. Then he will slowly make his way to his place by the table next to the stove. There’s enough empty glasses standing around as well, he’s just finished his drink and is waiting to see whether he’ll order another. That’s right isn’t it?… In the toilet, Willi makes a few adjustments to his appearance. Squeezes the wet out of his trouser legs and his jacket. My God, the water … He takes a drink from the cold tap. I’m just having my beer in the bog, he thinks. Smartly, as if he had silver money, he makes his way out through the bar. No one pays him any mind as he draws up at his place. In front of him is a half-full glass of beer. Is the owner gone? Wait and see.

He presses his bum against the heater. Jesus, that feels good. But before long he needs to move again, the wet fabric
is steaming as if it was just out of the washing cauldron. The people standing round the table with him are starting to pass remarks. Go on, laugh, you mugs. You can smoke and drink, and if you were hungry, you could probably get yourselves a sausage from the bar. And I expect you’re fixed up for the night. No one shows up to drink the half-glass in front of Willi. Probably left, had so much he can’t take any more. Willi takes a gander at the clock over the bar: almost two o’clock. At seven he can go to the warming hall. Five hours. The table clears. At long last, Willi claims the flat beer for himself. Now he’s good till three o’clock without anyone throwing him out.

A new client, a young fellow like Willi, walks up to the bar. Gets a glass of beer from the barman along with twenty-five cigarettes, and walks up to Willi’s table. He’s not short, thinks Willi, a pack of twenty-five. The stranger sips at his beer, lights a cigarette, and looks up quickly at Willi. They stare at each other. Damn, that face is familiar, they both think at the same time. Willi thinks he knows the boy. A couple of minutes pass. Each of them is turning over his memories for the answer to the tormenting question: Where do I know him from? The boys are circling each other, but neither dares to ask the other.

Till the stranger takes the plunge and addresses Willi directly: “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” “I’ve got that feeling too …” replies Willi. “Weren’t you in welfare in H.?” the stranger goes on to ask. Then the penny drops for Willi: “Ludwig! Christ Almighty, what are you doing here?” And Ludwig is in the picture as well: “You’re Willi, aincha? Willi from Dorm Two, isn’t that right?” “You bet!” Two old boys from H. have found each other. Ludwig ran away two years ago, Willi only two weeks. “What are the odds on that!”
“Wow, Ludwig, amazing.” “Shall we sit down somewhere?” Ludwig proposes. “I’m skint,” replies Willi. “Never mind that, Willi, it’s fine, I’ve got money.”

They find a little table for themselves. Ludwig has learned not to make a distinction between being skint and being famished. So he asks right away: “What are you having to eat, Willi?” and thrusts the menu over to him. “Maybe a sausage or something …” “Maybe you’ll have something else! You want something proper and hot.” He takes a look at the menu himself. “Pigs’ feet, and a bowl of pea soup for starters,” he decides, on Willi’s behalf. Ludwig orders Willi’s meal, and a pint and a short for both of them. Joy at the reunion shows in their eyes. The joy of having found a comrade, a veteran from the same institution. The joy of telling one version and hearing another of how they managed to run away. “Here, you eat first,” says Ludwig, and he starts on his account of his escape from H. And when Ludwig asks: “Do you remember how little Heini and me …” and “Can you remember how the director …” then Willi, cheeks bulging, can only answer urgently and in full agreement, with “Hmm …” and “Hmm …”

So Ludwig tells his story. Of his wanderings till he got to Berlin, where he’d never been before. Of the hunger, the nights on freight trains, in condemned buildings and on waste ground. Of selling his body to keep from starving like a miserable alley cat. Of occasional acts of theft. Till he fell in with the Blood Brothers. And then the experiences of the last few months: prison, how he got away from the transporter. “So now I’m legit, and I go by August Kaiweit,” concludes Ludwig. Willi tells his adventures of the past few weeks. Many details are common with the experiences of Ludwig, and hundreds of other boys who prefer to starve at liberty to
being half-fed in welfare. Ludwig has decided that Willi is to join the gang. He’ll fix it with Jonny so that Willi is spared the apprenticeship rituals. And Willi is going to take the chance with both hands. He dreads being on his own again, in the heartless endless wastes of Berlin. If you’ve got mates, everything is much easier. Last orders are called. Arm in arm, the two boys wander off to the night bus. For the time being, Willi is staying at Ludwig’s.

The following morning Willi is introduced to the gang in the Rückerklause. Everyone’s there. Even Walter. He’s got his left arm in a sling, and is quite the hero. Jonny looks Willi over and gives him the third degree. A stranger, someone he doesn’t know from Adam, so everything he says could be a lie, being adopted into the gang? No way. But that’s not quite the situation here. He’s got Ludwig vouching for him. Jonny doesn’t mind adding a new member. It’s up to the boys to say what they want. If Ludwig is of the opinion that Willi’d be an asset, that’s fine by him. Willi is welcomed to the gang with a shaking of hands all round. A solemn drink will give the new membership legal force.

“Gang baptism?” the hero Walter asks slyly. Willi might be excused the apprenticeship that would have had him polishing everyone else’s shoes, but no one gets out of gang baptism. That’s obligatory. And if he fails at the baptism, which is at the same time the journeyman’s piece, then he’ll retake it until he passes. Without a successful baptism, no one is worthy of full membership of the Brothers. Baptism with the Brothers takes the form of completing the act of sexual intercourse four times in the space of an hour, with the whole gang watching, and invited guests as well. In view of Willi’s condition, the baptism is postponed till the doctor gives him the all-clear.

Evening. The gang is sitting in Max’s in Linienstrasse. Ludwig and Willi are expected any minute. Jonny splits everyone up into three groups, and gives them their mission: a supermarket in the east. Tomorrow is the last of the month, and the shops will be doing booming business. Best moment for pickpocketing. The head of each band of three will lift the purse and give it right away to the second man, who’ll slip it to the third. The three groups will work independently of each other in the shop. The gang has been doing this for months now. In department stores and weekly markets and market halls.

Generally, it’s the thin change-purses of working-class mothers that get it. You just need to reach into the shopping baskets, the nets and the pockets. The money’s lying on top. The support, the weekly wage, a whole month’s pay. It was Fred who set the gang on the path of pickpocketing. The idea turned out to be so brilliant that they’ve been flush ever since. As long as Ludwig was in prison, everything went well. The day Ludwig turned up, Jonny gave orders not to tell Ludwig anything about the source of the gang’s money for now. Jonny had a notion that Ludwig wouldn’t be a willing participant in these escapades. He thought he might have to do something to talk him round first. Ply him with money and then, if Ludwig showed distaste or alarm, to confront him with it: What are you on about? You were happy to take our money, weren’t you? You didn’t think we’d won the lottery? So don’t be a mug, and roll your sleeves up.

Willi walks into the bar in a high state of excitement, no Ludwig: “You’re all to go to Schmidt’s. Ludwig’s waiting there. He’s got the piece of work who gave him the ticket!” Damn it! The excitement. To Schmidt’s, right away. In separate groups,
unobtrusively as ever. Ludwig is sitting at a table near the band. Jonny, Willi and Fred join him, the others hang around near the door. In case the fellow tries to do a runner … That’s him at the back, with his girl. A geezer of twenty-odd, sharp suit, nice coat, well turned out. “Are you quite sure it’s him, Ludwig?” asks Jonny. “Positive!” Jonny walks up to the table. In his curt decisive way, he asks the little spiv to follow him out back.