Every Man Dies Alone (43 page)

“Yes…”

“And where should I hold it? There against my temple?”

“Yes…”

“And then the finger on the trigger. I’ll be careful, I don’t want to do it right now… I want to talk to you a bit more first…”

“You don’t need to worry, the safety catch is still on…”

“Escherich, you know that you’ll be the last person I’ll speak to in my life? After you, there’ll just be peace, and I’ll never be able to talk to anyone again.”

He collapsed with a shudder.

“When I held the pistol against my temple just now, I felt a kind of chill from it. That’s how icy cold the peace must be, and the liberty, that are awaiting me.”

He leaned across to the Inspector and whispered: “Will you promise me one thing, Escherich?”

“Yes. What?”

“But you must keep your promise!”

“I will, if I can.”

“Don’t let me slide into the water once I’m dead, will you promise me that? I’m scared of water. Leave me lying up here, on the pier, where it’s dry.”

“Of course. I promise.”

“Okay. Shake on it, Escherich.”

“There!”

“And you won’t trick me, Escherich? You see, I’m just a wretched little fuck, it doesn’t much matter if you trick me or not. But you won’t trick me?”

“I promise I won’t, Kluge!”

“Give me the pistol again, Escherich—is the safety on it still?”

“Yes, yes, I won’t take it off till you say.”

“Is this the right way to point it, here? Now I can feel the cold from the muzzle, I’m just as cold as the pistol. Do you know that I have a wife and children?”

“I’ve even spoken to your wife, Kluge.”

“Oh!” The little man was so interested that he quickly set down the pistol. “Is she here in Berlin? I wouldn’t mind talking to her again.”

“No, she’s not in Berlin,” said the Inspector, and cursed himself for violating his principle of not sharing information. Idiot! “She’s still in Ruppin with her relations. It’s better you don’t talk to her again, Kluge.”

“She doesn’t have a good word to say for me.”

“No, not at all, she just has bad words to say for you.”

“That’s a shame,” said the little fellow. “That’s a shame. Actually it’s funny, Escherich. I’m just a zero, no one could love me. But apparently a lot of people hate me.”

“I don’t know that your wife hates you exactly. I think she just wants to be left alone by you. You bother her…”

“Has the pistol still got the catch on, Inspector?”

“Yes,” said the Inspector, surprised that Kluge, who had become calm in the last quarter an hour, still asked the question so excitedly. “Yes, it’s still on… What the hell?”

The pistol’s muzzle fire flashed so close to his eyes that he fell back on the pier with a groan; still with the feeling of being blinded, he pressed his hands to his eyes.

Kluge whispered in his ear: “I knew it was off! You wanted to cheat me once more! And now you’re in my hands, now I can give you peace and liberty…” He held the muzzle against the brow of the groaning man, and giggled: “Can you feel how cold that is? That’s peace and freedom, that’s the ice we’ll be buried in, for ever and ever…”

The Inspector dragged himself upright with a groan. “Did you do that on purpose, Kluge?” he asked severely, and cracked open his scorched lids from his stinging eyes. The other man looked to him like a slightly blacker clump in all that darkness.

“Yes, on purpose,” giggled the little man.

“You tried to kill me!” said the Inspector.

“But you said the catch was on!”

Now the Inspector was certain that nothing had happened to his eyes.

“I’ll throw you in the water, son of a bitch! And it’ll be self-defense.” He grabbed the little man by the shoulder.

“No, no, please not! Please not that! I’ll do the other thing! But not in the water! You promised me…”

The Inspector had seized him by the shoulder.

“Bah, stop it! No more of your whimperings! You’ve not got the courage! Into the water…”

Two shots rang out in quick succession. The Inspector felt the man crumple between his fists, and topple over. Reflexively, Escherich made a move as he saw the dead man slip off the edge of the pier into the water. His hands wanted to grab hold of him.

Then with a shrug the Inspector watched as the heavy body smacked into the water and straightaway disappeared.

Better that way! He said to himself, as he moistened his dry lips. Less evidence.

For an instant he stood there, wondering whether to kick the pistol into the water or not. He let it lie. He walked slowly back down the pier, up the bank of the lake, towards the station.

The station was locked, the last train was gone. Indifferently, the Inspector set off on the long walk back to Berlin. The clock struck.

Midnight, thought the Inspector. He made it to midnight. I’m curious how he’ll like his peace, really curious. Wonder if he’ll feel cheated again? The piece of shit, the little whimpering piece of shit!

Part III

THINGS BEGIN TO GO
AGAINST THE QUANGELS

Chapter 33

TRUDEL HERGESELL

The Hergesells were on the train from Erkner to Berlin. Yes, that’s right, there was no Trudel Baumann anymore. Karl’s stubborn passion had prevailed, they were married, and now, in the year of disgrace 1942, Trudel was five months pregnant.

After their marriage, they had given up their jobs in the uniform factory—following the run-in with Grigoleit and the Babyface, neither of them had felt easy there. Karl was now working in a chemical factory in Erkner, and Trudel earned a few marks by taking in sewing. With quiet embarrassment, they thought back to the time of their illegal activity. Both knew that they had failed, but both knew too that they were not suitable for such work, which demands that one put oneself second. Now they lived only for the happiness of their home life and looked forward to the arrival of their baby.

When they left Berlin and moved out to Erkner, they thought they would be able to live in complete seclusion. Like many city dwellers, they’d had the mistaken belief that spying was only really bad in Berlin and that decency still prevailed in small towns. And like many city dwellers, they had made the painful discovery that recrimination, eavesdropping, and informing were ten times worse in the small towns than in the big city. In a small town, everyone was fully exposed; you couldn’t ever disappear in the crowd. Personal circumstances were quickly ascertained, conversations with neighbors
were practically unavoidable, and the way such conversations could be twisted was something they had already experienced in their own lives, to their chagrin.

Because neither of them belonged to the NSDAP, because they both contributed the bare minimum to any collection, because they both had the inclination to live in quiet privacy, because they both preferred reading to attending meetings, because Hergesell with his long, tangled hair and dark burning eyes looked the embodiment of a Socialist and pacifist (in the view of the Party), because Trudel had once been heard to say that you had to feel sorry for the Jews—for all of these reasons they very soon acquired the reputation of being politically unreliable, and every step they took was watched, every word they said passed on.
^*

The Hergesells suffered under the atmosphere they were obliged to live in at Erkner. But they told themselves and each other that it didn’t concern them and that nothing could happen to them, as they were doing nothing against the State. “Thoughts are free,” they said—but they ought to have known that in this State not even thoughts were free.

So, increasingly, they took refuge in their happiness as husband and wife. They were like a pair of lovers clasped together in a flood, with waves and currents, collapsing houses and the bloated corpses of cattle all around them, still believing they would escape the general devastation if they only stuck together. They had failed to understand that there was no such thing as private life in wartime Germany. No amount of reticence could change the fact that every individual German belonged to the generality of Germans and must share in the general destiny of Germany, even as more and more bombs were falling on the just and unjust alike.

The Hergesells parted on Alexanderplatz. She had some sewing to deliver in Kleine Alexanderstrasse, and he wanted to inspect a secondhand baby carriage he’d seen advertised in the paper. They arranged to meet up again at the station around noon, and went their separate ways. Trudel Hergesell, who after initial difficulties had gained a wholly new feeling of confidence and happiness from her now advancing pregnancy, soon reached her destination on Kleine Alexanderstrasse and started up the staircase.

There was a man going up the stairs ahead of her. She saw him only from behind, but she knew him right away from the characteristic way of holding his head, his stiff neck, his lanky form, his hunched shoulders: it was Otto Quangel, the father of her onetime fiancé, the man to whom she had once betrayed the existence of her illegal organization.

Instinctively, she hung back. It was evident that Quangel was unaware of her presence. He climbed the stairs at an even speed, without haste. She followed half a flight behind, always ready to stop the moment Quangel rang at one of the many bells in the office building.

But he didn’t ring. Instead she watched as he stopped at a window, took a postcard from his pocket, and laid it on the sill. As he did so, he turned and his eyes met hers. It wasn’t clear whether he recognized her or not. He walked past her down the stairs, not looking at her.

When he was a little way below her, she hurried up to the window and picked up the card. She read only the first few words: “HAVE YOU STILL NOT UNDERSTOOD THAT THE FÜHRER WAS LYING TO YOU WHEN HE CLAIMED RUSSIA WAS ARMING FOR A SURPRISE ATTACK ON GERMANY?”

Then she ran down after Quangel.

She caught up with him as he was leaving the building, pressed against his side, and said, “Did you not recognize me a moment ago, Dad? It’s me, Trudel, Ottochen’s Trudel!”

He turned his head toward her, and never had it looked so tough and birdlike to her as it did then. For a moment she thought he didn’t recognize her, but then he nodded curtly and said, “You’re looking well, girl!”

“Yes,” she said, and her eyes shone. “I feel stronger and happier than I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m having a baby. I’m married. You’re not angry with me, are you, Dad?”

“Why would I be angry? Because you’ve got married? Don’t be silly, Trudel, you’re young, and Ottochen’s been dead for two years. No, not even Anna would hold your marrying against you, and she still thinks of her Ottochen every day.”

“How is Mother?”

“As ever, Trudel, as ever. Nothing much changes with us old people.”

“But it does!” she said, and she came to a stop. Her expression now was very serious. “It does, lots of things have changed with you. Do you remember the time we stood in the corridor in the uniform factory, under the posters with the executions? Back then, you warned me…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Trudel. An old man forgets.”

“Today it’s me warning you, Dad,” she went on quietly, but all the more penetratingly. “I saw you put the card down in the stairwell, that terrible card that I’ve now got in my purse.”

He stared at her with his cold eyes, which now took on an angry gleam.

She whispered, “Dad, you’re risking your life. Other people could see you like I saw you. Does Mum know you’re doing this? Do you do it often?”

He was silent for such a long time that she thought she wasn’t going to get an answer. Then he said, “You know I don’t do anything without Mother.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, and tears sprang to her eyes. “That’s what I was afraid of. You’re dragging her into it too.”

“Mother’s lost her son. She’s not over it yet—don’t forget that,

Trudel!”

Her cheeks colored, as if he had reproached her. She murmured, “I don’t think Ottochen would have approved of his mother getting involved in something like this.”

“We all make our own way in life, Trudel,” replied Otto Quangel coldly. “You go your way, we go ours. That’s right, we go ours.” His head jerked backward, then forward again—like a pecking bird’s. “And now we’d better say good-bye. I wish you well, Trudel, you and your baby. I’ll pass on your regards to Mother—maybe.”