Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (30 page)

When, late that afternoon, he was, to be sure, all in, though still himself, he discovered perplexedly a few welcome changes in his home. Trude, apparently, was gone. That is, completely gone. For her bag also was gone. Furthermore, the mirror was smashed, and somebody had vulgarly been spitting on the floor-and it was blood, at that. Reinhold inspected the wreckage around him. His own mouth was intact, so it must have been Trude who had spat and he had smashed up her beezer. This put him in such high spirits and self-esteem that he laughed aloud. He picked up what remained of the mirror and looked at himself: Well, Reinhold, so it’s you who did this. I never would have thought it possible. Reinhold, m’boy, Reinhold, m’boy! He certainly was glad. He patted his cheeks.

He reflected: Maybe somebody else had kicked her out? Maybe it was Franz? The events of last evening and the night weren’t entirely clear to him as yet. Suspiciously he fetched his landlady, the old procuress, and tried to sound her out: “There was a big row in my place today, wasn’t there?” It got that woman started off. He had done the right thing by Trude, she was a lazy pig, that one, she didn’t even wanta iron her own petticoat. What, she wears petticoats; well, he never could stand for that, no, sir. So it had been he, himself. How happy Reinhold was now! And then he remembered everything about the evening and the night. Pulled a fine job, lots of dough, got fat Franz Biberkopf into trouble, and let’s hope they ran over him and killed him, and now Trude’s gone. Boy, we certainly got a lotta credit coming to us!

What am I going to do now? First I’ll doll myself up for the evening. Let ‘em come and talk about booze now. I didn’t want to go at it, and didn’t want to start and all that gab. It saves a man’s strength all right, just look what I accomplished.

While he is changing his suit, a man arrives, sent by Pums. He whispers and talks in undertones and puts on big airs, hopping from one leg to the other; Reinhold is to come over to the cafe right away. But it’s a good hour before Reinhold goes marching down. Today he’s hotfooting it after the dames. Pums can beat his drums alone today. Over there in the cafe they’re all scared stiff, Reinhold’s got them in a nice mess about Biberkopf. If he isn’t dead, he’ll squeal on all of us. And if he’s dead, man, oh man, then what, that’ll settle our hash. They make inquiries about him at his house and hear this and that and the other thing.

But Reinhold is happy and fortune is with him. They can’t do a thing with him. This is his happiest day since he can remember. He now has booze and can get as many janes as he wants, and chase them when he’s through. He can lose them all, that’s the latest and greatest stunt of all. He would like to start off on a bust right away, but the fellows with Pums don’t let him go till he has promised to stay with them in Weissensee two or three days and keep under cover. They have got to see what’s happened to Franz and what might come out of it. And so Reinhold makes a promise.

The same night he forgot all about it and scooted off. But nothing happened to him. The others hang around Weissensee in the camp and are terribly afraid. The next day they secretly come back to get him, but he’s got to go to see a certain Karla whom he discovered yesterday.

And Reinhold is right. Nobody hears anything about Biberkopf. They don’t see or hear anything about him. The man has completely vanished from the earth. All right with us. So they all trot back in high spirits and take up their old quarters again.

But that certain Karla is smoking in Reinhold’s room, a straw blonde, she is, and she has brought three big bottles of booze along. He sips at it now and then, but she takes much more, sometimes in big gulps. He thinks to himself: Go ahead and drink. I’ll drink first, when my time comes, and then it’s good-bye for you.

Some of my readers are worried about Cilly. What’s to become of the poor girl now Franz isn’t there, when Franz isn’t alive, is dead, and simply isn’t there? Oh, she’ll manage somehow, don’t you worry, needn’t get yourself worked up about her, that kind always falls on her feet. Cilly, you see, still has enough money for two days, and on Tuesday, just as I thought, she gets hold of Reinhold, who is tripping along on lover’s feet, the finest dude in Berlin Center, with a real silk shirt. And Cilly is perplexed and doesn’t understand, when she sees him, whether she’s falling in love with the fellow all over again, or whether she wants to have it out with him, once and for all.

She carries, as Schiller might have said, a dagger in her garment. It is, to be sure, only a kitchen knife, but she wants to hand Reinhold one for his low tricks and doesn’t care where the blow lands. She is standing with him in front of the house-door, while he chatters on in a friendly mood, two red, red roses and an ice-cold kiss. And she thinks: Go ahead and bray as long as you want to, afterwards I’ll slash away. But where? That gets her all mixed up now. Why, you can’t cut through fine stuff like that, the man’s got such a nice get-up, and it fits him great, too. She says, as she trots along beside him in the street, that he must have got her Franz away from her. Why’s that? Franz doesn’t come home, he hasn’t been home up to today, and nothing ever happens to him, and anyway, Trude has left Reinhold. That’s it, sure as she’s alive, and he can’t say anything. Franz is gone away with Trude, Reinhold talked him into taking her off his hands, and now that’s the last straw.

Reinhold is astonished how she got to know all that so quickly. Well, she’s just been upstairs, and his landlady told her about that row with Trude. You crook, bawls Cilly, and here she would like to get herself courage for the kitchen knife, you’ve already got yourself a new one, anybody can see that all right.

Reinhold notices, at a distance of ten yards that: 1, she has no money; 2, she is furious with Franz; and 3, she’s in love with yours truly, the handsome Reinhold. In this get-up all the dames love him, especially if it’s a repetition, a
reprise,
as they say. Whereupon as regards point 1, he gives her ten marks. Point 2, he calls Franz Biberkopf all kinds of names. Wonder where that bozo’s hanging out, as a matter of fact, he’d like to know himself. (Remorse, where is remorse now, Orestes and Clytemnestra, Reinhold doesn’t know any of these fine folk, not even by name, but he simply, heartily, and sincerely would like to. Franz is dead as a doornail, and not to be found.) But neither does Cilly know where Franz is, and that is proof, argues Reinhold, deeply moved, that the man is a goner. And then, says Reinhold, to point 3, in a friendly way, regarding love, in case of a come-back: Just now I’m busy, yep, but you might call in again around May. You must be batty, she curses him, and doesn’t want to believe it, for sheer joy. Everything’s possible with me, he beams, says good-bye, and walks off. Reinhold, oh my Reinhold, you’re my cavalier so true, Reinhold, oh my Reinhold, I love only you.

In front of every cafe he thanks his Creator that booze exists. Suppose now all the saloons should close up or that Germany should go dry, what would I do? Well, a fellow’d have to lay in a stock in time at home. We’ll do that right away. I’m a clever lad, he thinks, as he stands in the store and buys various brands, he knows he has his forebrain and, when necessary, his middle-brain.

Thus ended, anyhow, for the time being, Reinhold’s Sunday-to-Monday night. And if you ask again whether there is any justice in the world, you’ll have to be satisfied with the reply: Not for the time being; at any rate, not till next Friday.

Sunday Night, Monday, April 9
th

The big private car into which Franz Biberkopf is put - he’s unconscious and has been given camphor and scopolamine - has been racing ahead for two hours. Now we are in Magdeburg. He is unloaded near a church; the two men ring the alarm-bell at the hospital. That night Franz is operated on. His right arm is sawn off at the shoulder joint, parts of the shoulder bones are reassembled, the bruises on his chest and right upper thigh are unimportant, as far as one can say for the present. Internal injuries are not impossible, perhaps a small rupture of the liver, but it can’t be very serious. We have to wait. Did he lose much blood? Where did you find him? On the x-y road, that’s where his motorcycle was, they must have collided with him from behind. You didn’t see the auto? No. When we found him, he was lying there, we separated at z, he drove to the left. Get you, it was quite dark. Yes, that’s how it happened. Are the gentlemen going to stay here? Yes, for a few days; he’s my brother-in-law, his wife will arrive today or tomorrow. We have taken rooms across the street if you need us. In front of the door of the operating-room one of the two gentlemen talks again with the people at the hospital: It’s a terrible thing, but we shall greatly appreciate, on your part, at any rate, if there would be no report about the affair. Well, wait till he comes to, we’ll see what he himself thinks about it. He’s no friend of court-proceedings. He himself once ran into someone, his nerves. As you like. First we’ll have to see him through.

At eleven there is a change of bandages. It is Monday morning-the authors of the accident are fighting and bawling at this hour, including Reinhold, merrily tight and dead drunk, in the company of their fence in Weissensee-Franz is quite awake, lying in a fine bed, in a fine room, his chest seems tight and he feels terribly packed in, he asks the nurse where he is. She repeats what she had heard from the night-service and picked up during the previous conversation. He is awake. Understands everything, touches his right shoulder. The nurse takes his hand away: he must lie quiet. Blood had run down his sleeve into the street mud, he had felt it. Then there had been people around him and then something had happened inside him. What had happened at that moment inside Franz’? He had made a decision. He had trembled before Reinhold’s iron blows on his arm in the hall of the Biilowplatz, the ground had trembled under him, Franz understood nothing.

When the auto took him away, the ground was still trembling; Franz did not want to notice it, but that’s how it was all the same.

Then, while he was lying in the mud, a difference of five minutes, something moved in him. Something tore its way out, broke through him, and rang, rang, Franz is turned to stone, he feels, I am being run over, he is cool and collected. Franz observes: I am going to the dogs-and he starts to give commands. Maybe I’ll go to smash, what’s the odds, I won’t go to smash. Forward, march! They bind up his arm with his suspenders. Then they want to drive him to Pankow Hospital. But he watches every move like a hawk: not to the hospital, and calls out an address. What address? Elsasser Strasse, Herbert Wischow, his chum of former days, before Tegel. The address comes to him at once. Something moves in him, as he lies in the mud, tears its way out, breaks through, then rings and rings. He feels this jerk at once; and now, no more uncertainty.

They shan’t catch me. He is safe, Herbert is still living there, and is at home. The people hurry all through the cafe in the Elsasser Strasse, inquiring for a certain Herbert Wischow. A slender young man beside a beautiful dark woman gets up, what’s the matter, what’s up, out there in t be car, then runs out with them to the car, the girl behind them, half the cafe with them. Franz knows who is coming now. He commands time.

Franz and Herbert recognize each other. Franz whispers ten words to him, the people outside make room, Franz is laid on a bed in the cafe, a doctor is called. Eva, the beautiful dark girl. brings some money. Then they change his clothes. An hour after the accident they take him in a private auto from Berlin to Magdeburg.

Herbert comes to the private hospital at noon, to talk things over with Franz. Franz is not going to stay there a day more than necessary. Wischow will come back in a week, Eva, meanwhile, takes lodgings in Magdeburg.

Franz is lying still as a stone. He has complete control over himself. He does not think backward one inch. Only when, at two o’clock, after inspection, a lady is announced, and Eva arrives with tulips, he weeps unrestrainedly, weeps and sobs, and Eva has to wipe his face with her handkerchief. He bites his lips, blinks his eyes and grits his teeth, but his jaw trembles, he can’t help sobbing, and the nurse hears it outside, knocks and begs Eva to go for today, the meeting upsets the sick man’s nerves too much.

Next day he is quite calm and smiles at Eva. A fortnight later they take him away. He is back in Berlin. He breathes Berlin again. When he sees (he houses on Elsasser Strasse agilin, something stirs within him, but he doesn’t break out in sobbing. He thinks of that Sunday afternoon with Cilly, of the ringing of the bells, the ringing of the bells, and here I am at home, and something awaits me, and I have something to accomplish, something will happen. Franz Biberkopf knows this positively, and he does not stir. but lets them carry him quietly out of the car. I have something to do, something will happen, I won’t stir from here, I am Franz Biberkopf. So they carry him into the house, into the home of his friend, Herbert Wischow, who calls himself a business agent. It is the same heedless sense of security which had surged up in him after the fall from the auto.

Supply at the slaughter-house: Hogs 11,543, Beef 2016, Calves 920, Mutton 14,450. A blow, bang down they go. Hogs, oxen, calves - they are slaughtered. There is no reason why we should concern ourselves with them. Where are we? We?

Eva is sitting by Franz’s bed, Wischow comes back to it again and again: Who was it, man alive, how did it happen? Franz isn’t spilling anything. He has built an iron coffer around himself and there he sits and he’ll let nobody in.

Eva, Herbert, and the latter’s friend, Emit are sitting together. Since Franz was run over in the night, the man is a mystery to them. He certainly didn’t just happen to be run over by the auto, there’s something behind it, why should he be hanging around in the North End at 10 p.m., he wouldn’t be selling papers at ten o’clock, when there’s nobody about up there. Herbert doesn’t budge from his opinion, Franz was up to something, then this thing happened, and now he’s ashamed because business didn’t go well with his old newspaper junk, and then there are surely a few others behind it, whom he doesn’t want to give away. Eva shares his opinion; he must have been up to something or other, but how did it happen, now he’s a cripple. We’ll get that out of him all right.