Every Man Dies Alone (14 page)

He gets up and trots off again. He sees where he actually is, and when a tram goes by, heading his way, he actually dares get up on the back platform of the first car. It’s so dark and crowded there that no one will pay much attention to his battered face. Then he walks into the café. He’s not there to eat or drink. He walks right up to the bar and asks the girl there if she knows Tutti, and if Tutti still comes here.

In a shrill loud voice that can be heard all over the bar, the girl asks him what Tutti he means. There was a fair few Tuttis in Berlin!

The shy little man answers awkwardly, “Oh, the Tutti that always used to come here. A dark-haired lady, a bit on the heavy side…”

Oh, that Tutti! No, and they didn’t want to see any more of that Tutti, thank you very much. If she dared to show her face here again! In fact, they didn’t care if they never heard from her again!

And with that the indignant girl turns away from Enno, who mumbles a few words of apology and scurries out of the cafe. He is still standing on the pavement outside, not knowing what to do, when another man comes out of the café, an older man, down and out, as it seems to Enno. He goes up to Enno, pulls himself together, tips his hat to him and asks if he wasn’t the gentleman who asked a moment ago after a certain Tutti.

“I might be,” replies Enno Kluge cautiously. “What’s it to you?”

“Oh, just this. I might be able to tell you where she lives. I could even walk you to her flat, but you’d have to do me a little favor!”

“What favor?” asks Enno, even more cautiously. “I don’t know of any favors I could do for you. I don’t even know you.”

“Oh, let’s just walk a bit!” exclaims the old gentleman. “No, it’s not out of your way if we walk down here. The thing is that Tutti still has in her possession a suitcase full of my belongings. Perhaps you could get the suitcase out to me tomorrow morning, while Tutti’s asleep or gone out?”

The elderly gent seems to take it for granted that Enno will be spending the night with Tutti.

“No,” says Enno. “I won’t do that. I don’t get involved in business like that. I’m sorry.”

“But I can tell you exactly what’s in the suitcase. It really is my suitcase, you know!”

“Why don’t you ask Tutti yourself, then?”

“Hah! To hear you talk,” says the man, a little offended, “it seems you can’t know her very well. She’s some woman, I thought you knew. Not just hair on her chest, but, my God, hedgehog bristles! She bites and spits like a gorilla—that’s why they call her the Gorilla!”

And while the elderly man is painting this glowing portrait of her, Enno Kluge remembers with a start that Tutti really is like that, and that the last time he left her, he left with her purse and her ration cards. She really does bite and spit like a gorilla when she’s in a temper, and presumably she will vent her temper on Enno the moment she sees him. His whole idea of being able to spend the night with her was a fantasy, a mirage…

And suddenly, from one moment to the next, Enno Kluge decides that from now on his life is going to be different: no more women, no more petty thieving, no more betting. He has forty-six marks in his pocket, enough to tide him over till next payday. Battered as he is, he’s going to give himself tomorrow off, but the day after he’ll start working again properly. They’ll soon see his worth, and not send him away to the Front again. After all he’s been through in the past twenty-four hours, a gorilla tantrum of Tutti’s is the last thing he can risk.

“Yes,” says Enno Kluge pensively to the man. “You’re right: that’s Tutti, all right. And because that’s the way she is, I’ve decided not to go and see her after all. I’m going to spend the night in the little hotel over the way. Good night, sir… I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped…”

And with that he hobbles across the road, and in spite of his battered appearance and lack of luggage, he manages to wheedle a bed out of the impoverished-looking clerk for three marks. In the tiny, stinking hole of a room he crawls into bed, whose sheets have already served many before him. He stretches out and says to himself, I’m going to turn over a new leaf. I’ve been a mean sonofabitch, especially to Eva, but from this minute I’m going to be a changed man. I deserved the beating I got, and now I’m going to be different…

He lies perfectly still in the narrow bed, his hands pressed against his trouser seams, at attention, as it were, staring at the ceiling. He is trembling with cold, with exhaustion, with pain. But he doesn’t feel
any of it. He thinks about what a respected and well-liked worker he used to be, and now he’s just a nasty little creep, the sort that people spit in front of in the street. No, his beating has straightened him out: from now on, everything’s going to be different. And as he pictures the difference to himself, he falls asleep.

At this time, all the Persickes are also asleep, Frau Gesch and Frau Kluge are asleep, the Borkhausens are asleep—Emil silently allowed Otti to slip in beside him.

Frau Rosenthal is asleep, frightened and breathing hard. Little Trudel Baumann is asleep. This afternoon, she was able to whisper to one of her coconspirators that she had an urgent message for them, and they’ve all arranged to meet discreetly tomorrow at the Elysium. She is a little worried, because she will have to admit to her gabbiness, but for the moment she is asleep.

Frau Anna Quangel is lying in bed in the dark, and her husband, as always at this time of night, is standing in his workshop directing everyone’s tasks. They hadn’t called him up to the boardroom after all, to hear his suggestions for technical improvements. So much the better!

Anna Quangel, in bed but not yet asleep, still thinks of her husband as cold and heartless. The way he reacted to the news of Ottochen’s death, the way he threw poor Trudel and Frau Rosenthal out: cold, heartless, only concerned for himself. She will never be able to love him as before, when she thought he at least had something to spare for her. Clearly, he hasn’t. Only offended by her blurted “You and your Führer,” only offended. Well, she won’t hurt his feelings again for a while, if only because she won’t be speaking to him. Today they didn’t exchange a single word, not even hello.

The retired Judge Fromm is still up, because he’s always up at night. In his neat hand, he is writing a letter that begins, “Dear Attorney…”

Open under the reading lamp, his Plutarch lies waiting for him.

*
Commonly used abbreviation for the Alexanderplatz, a square in central Berlin that was the site of one of the city’s major train stations, as well as Berlin’s imposing, seven-story police headquarters.

Chapter 13

VICTORY DANCE AT THE ELYSIUM

The floor of the Elysium, the great dance hall in the north of Berlin, that Friday night presented the kind of spectacle that must gladden the heart of any true German: it was jam-packed with uniforms.

While the Wehrmacht with its grays and greens supplied the background to this colorful composition, what made the scene so vibrant were the uniforms of the Party and its various bodies, going from tan, golden brown, brown, and dark brown to black. There, next to the brown shirts of the SA
^*
you saw the much lighter brown of the Hitler Youth; the Organization Todt was as well represented as the Reichsarbeitsdienst; you saw the yellow uniforms of Sonderführer, dubbed golden pheasants; political leaders stood next to air raid wardens. And it wasn’t just the men who were so delightfully accoutred; there were also many girls in uniform; the Bund Deutscher Mädel, the Arbeitsdienst, the Organization Todt—all seemed to have sent their leaders and deputies and rank and file to this placed.
^†

The few civilians present were lost in this swarm. They were insignificant and boring among so many uniforms, just as the civilian population out in the streets and factories never amounted to anything compared to the Party. The Party was everything, and the people nothing.

Thus, the table at the edge of the dance floor occupied by a girl and three young men received very little attention. None of the four wore a uniform; there wasn’t so much as a party badge on display.

A couple, the girl and a young man, had been the first to arrive. Then another young man had asked for permission to join them, and later on a fourth civilian had come forward with a similar request. The couple had made one attempt to dance in the seething mass. While they were away, the other two men had started a conversation in which the returning couple, looking hot and crushed, participated from time to time.

One of the men, a fellow in his early thirties with thin, receding hair, leaned way back in his chair and silently contemplated the crowd on the dance floor and at the other tables. Then, barely looking at his companions, he said, “A poor choice of venue. We’re almost the only civilian table in the whole place. We stick out a mile.”

The girl’s partner smiled at her and said—but his words were meant for the balding man—”Not at all, Grigoleit, we’re practically invisible here, and if they do see us, at the most they despise us. The only thing on the minds of these people is that the so-called victory over France has secured them dancing rights for a couple of weeks.”

“No names! You know the rules!” the balding man said sharply.

For a while no one spoke. The girl doodled something on the table and didn’t look up, though she could feel they were all looking at her.

“Anyway, Trudel,” said the third man, who had an innocent baby-face, “it’s time for whatever you wanted to tell us. What’s new? The next-door tables are almost all empty, everyone’s dancing. Come on!”

The silence of the other two could only indicate agreement. Haltingly, not looking up, Trudel Baumann said: “I think I’ve made a mistake.
At any rate, I’ve broken my word. In my eyes, admittedly, it’s not really a mistake…”

“Oh, come on!” exclaimed the balding man angrily. “Are you going to start gabbling like a silly goose? Tell us what it is, straight out!”

The girl looked up. She looked at the three men one after the other, all of them, it seemed to her, eyeing her coldly. There were tears in her eyes. She wanted to speak, but couldn’t. She looked for her handkerchief…

The man with the receding hairline leaned back. He let out a long, soft whistle. “I tell her she’s not supposed to blab. I’m afraid she already has. Look at her.”

The cavalier at Trudel’s side retorted quickly, “Not possible. Trudel is a good girl. Tell them you haven’t blabbed, Trudel!” And he squeezed her hand encouragingly. The Babyface directed his round, very blue eyes expressionlessly at the girl. The tall man with the receding hairline smiled contemptuously. He put his cigarette in the ashtray and said mockingly, “Well, Fräulein?”

Trudel had got herself under control, and bravely she whispered, “He’s right. I talked out of turn. My father-in-law brought me news of my Otto’s death. That somehow knocked me off balance. I told him I was in a cell.”

“Did you name names?” No one would have guessed that the Babyface could ask questions so sharply.

“Of course not. That’s all I said, too. And my father-in-law is an old workingman, he’ll never say a word.”

“Your father-in-law’s the next chapter, you’re the first! You say you didn’t give any names…”

“I’ll thank you for believing me, Grigoleit! I’m not lying. I’m freely confessing.”

“You just used a name again, Fräulein Baumann!”

The Babyface said, “Don’t you see it’s completely immaterial whether she named a name or not? She said she was involved in a cell, and that means she’s blabbed, and will blab again. If the men in black lay hands on her, knock her about a bit, she’ll talk, never mind how much or how little she’s said so far.”

“I will never talk to them, even if I have to die!” cried Trudel with flaming cheeks.

“Pah!” said the balding man. “Dying’s the easy bit, Fräulein Baumann, sometimes they do rather unpleasant things to you before that!”

“You’re unkind,” the girl said. “Yes, I’ve done something wrong, but…”

“I agree,” said the fellow on the sofa next to her. “We’ll go and see her father-in-law, and if he’s a reliable sort…”

“Under the torturer’s hand there are no reliable sorts,” said Grigoleit.

“Trudel,” said the Babyface with a gentle smile, “Trudel, you just told us you haven’t told anyone any names?”

“And that’s the truth, I haven’t!”

“And you claimed you would rather die than give us away?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” she exclaimed passionately.

“Well then, Trudel” said the Babyface, and smiled charmingly, “what if you were to die tonight, before you blabbed any more? That would give us a certain measure of security, and save us a lot of trouble…”

A deathly hush descended on the four of them. The girl went white. The boy next to her said “No,” and laid his hand over hers. But then he took it away again.

The dancers returned to their various tables and for a while made it impossible to continue the conversation.

The balding man lit another cigarette, and the Babyface smiled subtly when he saw how the other’s hands were shaking. Then he said to the dark-haired boy next to the pale, silent girl. “You say no? But why do you say no? It’s an almost entirely satisfactory solution to the problem, and as I understand it, was suggested by your neighbour herself.”