Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (38 page)

Franz’s face grows hard, his eyes are glaring: “Nope, he don’t do that.” “Then he’s no comrade of mine and no fellow-worker, and he’s not one of the unemployed, either. Well, I only ask one thing and all the rest don’t matter a damn: what’s he after here?” Franz looks at him with grim decision: “I just been waiting for you to ask that: Whatcha want here? You people here sell all kinds o’ papers and pamphlets, and when I start asking you what it’s all about, what’s in ‘em, you say: How’s it come you ask me that’) What do you want here? Didn’t you write yourself all about that damned wage slavery and how we are just outcasts who don’t dare to move!” Awake, you pariahs of the earth, doomed by all to starve! “Well then, you didn’t listen to the rest. When I spoke about refusal to work. First of all a fellow has got to work.” “I refuse to.” “That’s no use to us. You might just as well go to bed. I was talking about strikes, mass strikes, general strikes.”

Franz raises his arm and laughs, he’s furious now. “And what you’re doing now, you call that direct action? Running around pasting up posters and making speeches? And in the meantime you go and make the capitalists all the stronger. Say, comrade, you bonehead, you’re turning out the shells they’ll shoot you down with and that’s what you want to preach to me? Willy, whatcha say to that? You could knock me down with a feather.” “I ask you again, what are you working at?” “Then I will tell you again, nothin’! Crap! Nothin’, I tell you. Why should I? I can’t, anyway. According to your own theories, I can’t. I ain’t goin’ to make the capitalists stronger! As a matter of fact, I don’t give a hoot for the whole racket, your strikes and them little goofers that are supposed to come after. A man’s got only himself, just himself. I look after myself. I’m a self-provider, I am!”

The worker gulps down his seltzer-water and nods: “Well, then, try it out alone.” Franz laughs and laughs. The worker: “And I’ve told you that three dozen times already: you can’t do anything alone. We need a fighting organization. We’ve got to bring enlightenment to the masses, to cope with the despotic rule of the state and the economic monopoly.” Franz laughs and laughs. No higher being will save mankind, no Kaiser, people’s tribune, God, can rescue us from misery’s grind, alone we have to bear the rod.

They sit opposite each other, silent now. The old worker in the green collar stares at Franz, who looks him hard in the eyes, whatcha looking at, boy, y’can’t get me, eh? The worker opens his mouth: “I tell you, I can see, comrade, I’m wasting my breath on you. You’re thick-skulled. You’ll butt your head against the wall. You don’t know what the main thing for the proletariat is: solidarity. That you don’t know.” “Well, pardner, you know what, we’re going to get our hats right away and get along, heh, Willy? That’s enough. You’re only saying the same old things over and over again.” “So I do. You can go down to the cellar and bury yourself if you want to. But you shouldn’t go to public meetings.” “Excuse me, boss. We just had a little free half-hour. And now, many thanks to you. Waiter, how much is it? Here: I’m paying for this: three beers, two brandies, one mark ten, there you are, I’m paying for this, that’s direct action!”

“What are you, anyway, mate?” The fellow won’t let go. Franz pockets the change. “Me? Pimp. Don’t I look it?” “Well, you’re not far from it.” “Me, I’m a pimp, get me? Did I say it or not? Well, Willy, tell him what you are.” “None of his business.” Hell, they’re crooks, sure enough. Probably true. That’s what I thought. Those crooks have humbugged me, the rotters, they wanted to pull my leg. “You’re the dregs of the capitalistic morass. Go ahead and beat it. You’re not even proletarians, you’re what we call bums.” Franz is already standing. “But we’re not going to the poor-house. Good day, Herr Direct-Action. Just go on fattening the capitalists. Get in line at seven o’clock in the morning at the bone mill and get your coupla pfennigs from the wage-bag for the missus.” “Don’t let me see you here, any more!” “No, Herr Direct-Bunkaction, we don’t have any dealings with the slaves of capitalists.”

Quiet exit. On the dusty street, the two walk arm-in-arm. Willy breathes deeply: “You certainly gave him an earful, Franz.” He is astonished to hear Franz talking in monosyllables. Franz is furious, it’s even funny how full of hate and rage Franz left the hall, it’s fermenting inside him, but he doesn’t know why.

They meet Mieze at the Mocca-Fix Cafe in Münzstrasse, where there’s a lot of noise. Franz decides to go home with Mieze, he wants to talk to her, sit by her. He tells her about the conversation with the gray-haired workman. Mieze is very gentle with him, but he wants to know if he had said the right things. She smiles, uncomprehending, and strokes his hands, the bird has waked up, Franz sighs, she can’t calm him down.

A Ladies’ Conspiracy, our dear Ladies have the Floor, Europe’s Heart does not age

But Franz can’t get away from politics. (Why? What’s torturing you? What are you defending yourself against?) He sees something there, he sees something, he wants to bash them all in the face, they are always baiting him, he takes to reading the
Red Flag
and the
Unemployed.
He often turns up with Willy at Herbert and Eva’s. But they don’t care for the fellow. Franz is not crazy about him either, but you can talk to the chap and he has them all beat when it comes to politics. When Eva begs Franz to leave that fellow, this Willy, who only takes his money, and is nothing better than a pickpocket, Franz is entirely of her opinion; in reality Franz has no use for politics, it’s made him sore as long as he can remember. So today he promises to give Willy his walking papers, but the next day he is around again with the lout, and he takes him along canoeing.

Eva says to Herbert: “If it wasn’t Franz and he hadn’t had this rotten business about his arm, I’d know how to cure him.” “Yeah?” “I can promise you in two weeks time he won’t be going around with that young big-mouth any more, who’s only wheedling money out of him. Who goes with that fellow, anyway? First of all, if I were in Mieze’s place, I’d get the cops after him.” “Who? Willy?” “Willy, or Franz, one or the other. I wouldn’t care. But they oughta know it. When he’s sitting in the bull-pen, he’ll realize who was right.” “Gee, Eva, but you’re really mad at Franz.” “Yeah, that was why I threw Mieze his way, and her working and slaving for the two fellows she’s got so Franz can do tricks like that? No, Franz has got to listen to reason a bit, too. Now he’s got only one arm, where is it all gonna end? Wanting to play at politics and making the girl mad!” “Yes, she’s mighty mad. Told me that yesterday, too. Sits there, waiting for him to come home. What does a girl like that get out of life, anyway?” Eva kisses him: “Yes, I feel the same way. Suppose you were to stay away like that and start that kind of bunk, running around to meetings, eh, Herbert!” “Well, what would happen then, honey?”

“First I’d scratch your eyes out, and then you could look for me in the moonshine.” “I’d like to do that, honey.” She gives Herbert a tap on the mouth, laughs, then gives him a good shaking: “I’ll tell you, I won’t let that kid, Sonia, get ruined, she’s too good for that. As if the man hadn’t burnt his fingers enough already, and at that it don’t bring him in five pfennigs.” “Well. try to do something with our Franzeken. As long as I’ve known the boy, he’s been a good enough sort, but you might as well talk to the wall, for all he listens to what you say.” Eva remembers how she had wooed him, that was when Ida came, and later how she had warned him, all she had suffered through that man, and even now she’s not happy.

“I just don’t understand,” she says, standing in the middle of the room, “there he went and had all that trouble with Pums and that gang of criminals, but he doesn’t lift a finger. He’s nicely fixed now, sure enough, but an arm is an arm, after all.” “That’s what I think.” “He don’t like to talk about it, that’s as sure as you’re alive. Now I’m going to tell you something, Herbert. Of course, Mieze knows the story about his arm. Only where it happened and who did it, that she don’t know. I’ve asked her already. She don’t know nothing and wouldn’t like to rake it up. She’s a bit soft, that Mieze. Well, maybe she worries about it now, when she sits there all alone waiting, wondering where our Franz is, and, of course, he might easily come to grief again. Mieze cries quite enough as it is; of course, not when he’s around. That man just looks for trouble. He ought to look after his own affairs better. Mieze should make him get a move on in this Pums business.” “Wow!” “That’s better. That’s what I say. That’s what Franz ought to do. And if he took a knife or a pistoL wouldn’t he be doin’ right?” “As far as I’m concerned; I’ve always thought so. I certainly asked around enough myself. Those Pums people keep mum, all right; there’s not one of ‘em seems to know anything.” “Certainly somebody knows all about it.” “Well. what can you do?” “That’s what Franz ought to be thinking about, and not about Willy and those anarchists and communists and the whole bunch of lousy bums that don’t get him any money.” “Say, Eva, mind out your fingers don’t get burnt with that.”

Eva’s gentleman friend has gone to Brussels, and so she can invite Mieze to her place and show her all about how smart folks live. That’s out of Mieze’s line, so far. The man is so crazy about Eva that he’s even fixed up a little nursery for her, where two monkeys are kept. “You think ,all that’s for my little monkeys, don’t you, Sonia? Yes, well, not on your life. I only put ‘em there because it’s such a pretty little room, ain’t it, and those monkeys, well, Herbert just dotes on ‘em, and he always has such a lot of fun when he comes here.” “What? You bring him here?” “What of it? The old boy knows him, of course, he’s mighty jealous, but I guess it’s ilist as well. D’you think if he wasn’t jealous he wouldn’ta canned me long Jgo? He wants a child by me, imagine it, and that’s what the little room is for!” They laugh, it’s a cozy, gayly painted, beribboned little room with a low baby’s cot. The little monkeys climb up and down the bars of the bed, Eva clasps one to her breast and stares mistily into space: “I mighta done him that little favor all right, about the child, but I don’t want one from him. No, not from him.” “Yes, and Herbert don’t want a baby.” “No, but I’d like one by Herbert. Or by Franz. Are you angry, Sonia?”

But Sonia does something quite different from what Eva expects. She gives a little scream, her features seem to crumple up, as she pushes the little monkey away from Eva’s breast and embraces Eva Violently, happily, beatifically, tenderly. Eva can’t understand and turns her face away, when Sonia tries to kiss her again and again. “Look here, Eva, why, of course I’m not angry, I’m only happy you like him. Tell me how much you like him? You’d like to have a child by him, why not tell him that?” Eva frees herself from the girl’s embrace. “Are you crazy, kid? But just tell me, Sonia, what’s wrong with you? Tell me truly, now: do you really want to hand him over to me?” “No, why should 1, I want to keep him, of course, he’s my Franz. But you’re my Eva.” “What am I?” “My Eva, my Eva.”

Eva can’t prevent Sonia from kissing her on the mouth, the nose, the ears, the nape of her neck; Eva keeps quite still, but then when Sonia nestles her face on Eva’s breast, she abruptly lifts Sonia’s head: “Listen, girl, are you queer?” “Not a bit,” she stammers, and frees her head from Eva’s hands, resting against Eva’s face. “I love you and I never knew it before! Until a minute ago when you said you’d like to have a child by him-” “What’s that? Did you suddenly go crazy?” “No Eva, I really don’t know.” Sonia’s face is as red as fire as she looks up at Eva. “You’d really like to have a child by him?” “No, I only said it.” “Yes, you would like one, you only said it; but you really do want one, you really do.” And again Sonia nestles on Eva’s breast, and pressing Eva to her, murmurs happily: “That’s lovely, that you should want a child by him, oh, it’s just lovely! I’m happy, ever so happy.”

Eva leads Sonia into the next room and lays her on the sofa. “Sure, you’re queer, Sonia.” “No, I’m not queer, I never touched a girl before in all my life.” “But you’d like to touch me.” “Yes, it’s because I love you so and you want a child by him. And you shall have one, too.” “You’re crazy, kid.” She has been carried off her feet, and when Eva tries to get up, she clasps her hands tightly: “Don’t say no, please, you do want one by him, you must promise me that. Promise me you’ll have a child by him.” Eva has to use force to tear herself from Sonia, who lies there limply, eyes shut, moist lips a-quiver.

Sonia gets up and sits beside Eva at the table, on which the maid has set a luncheon with wine. She brings coffee and cigarettes for Sonia, who is still dreaming, enchanted, with swimming eyes. As usual, she has on a simple white dress. Eva is in a black silk kimono. “Well, Sonia, kid, can I talk reason to you now?” “There’s no law against it.” “How do you like it at my house?” “Swell.” “You do? And how about Franz, you like him, don’t you?” “Yes.” “Well, what I mean is, if you love Franz, you better look after the boy. He’s running around where no good can come and always with that lousy bum, Willy.” “Yes, he likes him.” “And how about you?” “Me? Oh, I like him, too. If Franz likes him, then I like him too.” “That’s the way you are, girlie, you simply haven’t got any eyes, you’re too young yet. That’s no company for Franz, I tell you, Herbert says so too. He’s a louse. He’ll lead Franz into trouble. Hasn’t he got enough already with that one arm of his?”

Sonia grows pale instantly, lets her cigarette hang from the corner of her mouth, puts it down, and asks softly: “What’s the matter? For God’s sake, tell me.” “Who kin tell what’s the matter. I don’t run after Franz, nor you either. Well, I know, you ain’t got any time. But get him to tell you sometime where he goes. What does he tell you, anyway?” “Oh, only politics, and I don’t understand that.” “So y’see that’s what he’s doin’, politics, and nothing but politics, with those communists and anarchists and such low people who ain’t got a decent pair of pants to their behinds. That’s what Franz is running around with. And you like that, Sonia, is that what you’re working for?” “But I can’t say to Franz he must come here and go there, Eva, a girl can’t do that.” “If you weren’t so little and not yet twenty, I’d box your ears for you. All of a sudden you can’t say anything. You want him to get caught under the wheels again?” “He won’t get caught under the wheels again, Eva. I’ll watch out for him.” Strange, little Sonia has tears in her eyes and her head droops. Eva looks at the girl but can’t make her out, does she really love him as much as that? “Here, take some red wine, Sonia, my old man’s always swilling red wine, come on!”