Little Man, What Now? (10 page)

‘But what am I to do then? I have to tell him something.’

‘If I were you,’ said Lammchen thoughtfully, ‘I’d talk to your colleagues. Perhaps he’s threatened them like you. If you all stick together he can’t sack you all.’

‘It might work,’ he said. ‘Provided nobody pulled a fast one. Lauterbach doesn’t cheat, he’s too stupid for that, but Schulz …’

Lammchen believed in the solidarity of all workers: ‘Your colleagues won’t land you in it! It’ll turn out all right, Sonny love. I always believe nothing bad can happen to us. Why should it? We’re hard-working, we’re thrifty, we’re not bad people, we want our Shrimp, we want him very much—why should anything bad happen to us? It wouldn’t make sense!

KLEINHOLZ MAKES TROUBLE, KUBE MAKES TROUBLE, THE OFFICE WORKERS MAKE A PACT AND THERE ARE STILL NO PEAS

The granary at Kleinholz’s was a poky old place. There wasn’t even a proper sacking machine. Everything still had to be weighed out on scales and then the sacks were despatched from a skylight down a chute into the lorry.

And once again it was the typical Kleinholz performance of sacking up sixteen hundred hundredweight of grain in one day. No division of labour, no organization. The wheat had been lying there a week or two, they could have begun the work ages ago, but no: it all had to be done in one afternoon!

The granary loft was teeming with people; everyone Kleinholz had been able to drum up on the spur of the moment was helping. A couple of women were sweeping the wheat back into a heap; three scales were in use: Schulz on one, Lauterbach on the other, Pinneberg on the third.

Emil was dashing around, in an even worse humour than the morning, as Emilie was keeping him totally dry, for which reason she and Marie had not been allowed up to the loft. Rage at being henpecked had won out entirely over fatherly concern for Marie’s future. ‘I don’t want you cows anywhere near me.’

‘Have you added the weight of the sack, Mr Lauterbach? The right weight? What a nitwit. A two-hundredweight sack weighs three pounds, not two pounds! Exactly two hundredweight and three pounds is the correct weight. And nobody give any more. I can’t afford to give presents. Schulz, you heart-throb, I’m checking yours.’

Two men were dragging a sack to the slide when it burst, and a flood of red-brown wheat rustled onto the floor.

‘Who tied that sack? You, Schmidt? Good God, man, you should be able to deal with old bags, you’re not a bloody virgin. And stop staring, Pinneberg. Your scales are uneven. Didn’t I tell you we aren’t giving any over. Idiot.’

This time Pinneberg did stare at his boss, and very angrily.

‘And don’t go looking like that. If you don’t like it here, you’re welcome to leave. Schulz, you old goat, leave the Marheinecke girl alone. He’s even chasing the women in my granary!’

Schulz muttered something.

‘Hold your tongue. You pinched her bottom. How many sacks have you got to now?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘We’re making no headway! No headway at all! I tell you none of you’s coming down from the floor until the eight hundred sacks are ready. There’ll be no breaks. I’ll see that it’s done, even if you’re still here at eleven o’clock at night …’

It was oppressively hot; above them the August sun beat down in all its strength on the roof-tiles. The men wore only their vest and trousers, the women little more. There was a smell of dry dust, sweat, hay, the fresh shiny jute of the wheat sacks, but above all of sweat, sweat, sweat. A thick miasma of physicality, a stench of tawdry sensuality gradually permeated the loft. And all the while Kleinholz’s voice rang out like a continuously-droning gong.

‘Lederer, kindly handle your shovel correctly! Man, how can you handle a shovel like that! Hold the sack open properly, you fat
sow, it must have a mouth. That’s how you do it …’

Pinneberg was operating his scales. Letting down the bar had become quite mechanical. ‘A bit more, Mrs Friebe. Just a little. Now that’s too much. Take a handful out. Right. Next! Get ready, Hinrichsen, you’re next. Or we’ll still be here at midnight.’

Meanwhile thoughts drifted through Pinneberg’s brain in snatches: ‘Lammchen’s lucky. Fresh air. White curtains blowing. Just shut your trap, will you? D’you have to keep barking all the time like a dog? And this is what people live in fear and trembling of losing? No thanks.’

And off went the gong again. ‘Hurry up, Kube. What did that heap come to? Ninety-eight hundredweight. It was a hundred. That was the wheat from Nickelsdorf. It was a hundred. What have you done with the two hundredweight, Schulz? I’ll weigh it again. Go on, put the sack back on the scales.’

Kube, who’d worked in grain stores since way back, voiced his opinion: ‘The wheat’s shrunk in the heat. It was bloody dry when we brought it from Nickels farm.’

‘So I buy dry wheat now, do I? Shut your gob; you can’t talk. Did you take it home to Mother? Shrunk, did you say? I say it was pinched. Everyone steals round here.’

‘You didn’t ought to have said that, sir,’ said Kube. ‘Accusing me of stealing. I’ll report it to the union. You didn’t ought to. Now we’ll see.’

He looked his boss straight in the eye, salt-and-pepper whiskers bristling.

‘Good stuff!’ Pinneberg rejoiced inwardly. ‘His union! If we could only do that! What does ours do? Nowt.’

Kleinholz was far from being struck dumb. Kleinholz was used to that sort of thing. ‘Did I say you’d been stealing? I never said anything of the sort. Mice steal too. We’ve plenty of mouse food here. We must put down sea onions or spread diphtheria, Kube.’

‘You said, Mr Kleinholz, that I’d stolen wheat. All the people
in the granary are my witness. I’m going to the union and filing a complaint against you, Mr Kleinholz.’

‘I didn’t say anything. I didn’t say a word to you. Hey, Mr Schulz, did I say anything to Kube about stealing?’

‘I didn’t hear anything, Mr Kleinholz.’

‘You see, Kube. And you, Mr Pinneberg, did you hear anything?’

‘No. Nothing,’ said Pinneberg hesitantly, weeping tears of blood inside.

‘So,’ said Kleinholz. ‘You and your endless trouble-making, Kube. You’re out to be a shop steward.’

‘Just go easy, Mr Kleinholz,’ warned Kube. ‘You’re at it again. You know the score. You’ve ended up in court with old Kube three times before, and I’ll do it a fourth time. I’m not frightened, Mr Kleinholz.’

‘You’re blethering,’ said Kleinholz furiously. ‘You’re old, Kube. You don’t know what you’re saying any more. I’m sorry for you.’

But Kleinholz had had enough. And it really was too hot up here, running up and down shouting all the time. He was going downstairs for a break.

‘I’m going to the office, Pinneberg. Mind they keep going. No breaks, you understand? You’ll answer to me, Pinneberg!’

He disappeared down the steps from the loft and at once lively conversation broke out. There was no lack of subject-matter; Kleinholz had seen to that.

‘Well, we all know why he’s so out of sorts today.’

‘Wet his whistle and he’ll soon act differently.’

‘Break!’ shouted old Kube. ‘Break!’

Emil couldn’t yet be across the courtyard.

‘Please, Kube,’ said the twenty-three-year-old Pinneberg to the sixty-three-year-old Kube. ‘Please don’t make any trouble. Mr Kleinholz expressly forbade it.’

‘It’s in the collective agreement, Mr Pinneberg,’ said Kube
with the walrus-whiskers. ‘Breaks are statutory. The boss can’t take them away from us.’

‘But I shall get into the worst trouble …’

‘What do I care?’ snorted Kube. ‘When you didn’t even hear him accusing me of thieving!’

‘If you were in my position, Kube …’

‘I know, I know. If everyone thought like you, young man, we’d all be slaving in chains and begging the employers on our knees for every bit of bread. Ah well, you’re young, you’ve got a lot of time ahead of you, and you’ll find out how far crawling to them will get you. Take a break!’

But all the workmen had long been taking a break. The three clerks were on their own.

‘The gentlemen could carry on filling the sacks,’ said one workman.

‘Get into Emil’s good books,’ said another, ‘then perhaps he’ll let them have a sniff of the cognac.’

‘Or a sniff of Mariechen.’

‘All three of them?’ A bellow of laughter.

‘She’ll have all three. She’s not choosy.’

One began to sing: ‘Sweet Marie, my little pussy,’ followed by most of the others.

‘I do hope there’s no trouble!’ said Pinneberg.

‘I’m not going to put up with it any longer,’ said Schulz. ‘Why should I take it when he calls me a goat in front of everybody? What I should do is get Marie pregnant and then drop her.’ He gave a sombre and malicious grin.

‘We ought to lie in wait for him one night when he’s drunk and do him over,’ said the doughty Lauterbach. ‘That’d help.’

‘But then none of us does anything,’ said Pinneberg. ‘The workers are right. We’re always shit-scared.’

‘You may be. I’m not,’ said Lauterbach.

‘Nor am I,’ said Schulz. ‘I’m sick of the whole outfit.’

‘Well then, let’s do something,’ suggested Pinneberg. ‘Did he have a talk with you this morning?’

The three looked at each other: testing, mistrustful, embarrassed.

‘Let me tell you something,’ declared Pinneberg, who’d realized he had nothing to lose. ‘This morning he started on to me about what a good girl Marie was, and then he said I ought to state my intentions, what about I didn’t know, then whether I would volunteer for redundancy because I was the youngest. It was all about Marie.’

‘I had it too. He said my being a Nazi gave him a lot of trouble.’

‘With me it was because I go out with a girl now and then.’

Pinneberg took a deep breath. ‘Well?’

‘What d’you mean: well?’

‘What are you going to say on the first of the month?’

‘What about?’

‘Whether you want Marie?’

‘Out of the question!’

‘I’d rather be on the dole!’

‘So.’

‘What d’you mean: so?’

‘We could come to an agreement.’

‘What about?’

‘For instance: we all give our word of honour to say “No” to Marie.’

‘But he won’t say anything about her, Emil isn’t such a fool as that.’

‘Marie isn’t grounds for dismissal.’

‘Well then, let’s agree that if he dismisses one of us, we all go. Give our word of honour on it.’

The three looked thoughtful, each weighing up his chances of being dismissed, and whether it was worth giving his word of honour.

‘He wouldn’t dismiss us all,’ urged Pinneberg.

‘Pinneberg’s right there,’ confirmed Lauterbach. ‘He couldn’t do that just now. I’ll give my word.’

‘Me too,’ said Pinneberg. ‘And you Schulz?’

‘Oh, why not? Count me in.’

‘Break over!’ roared Kube. ‘Will the gentlemen stir themselves, please!’

‘So that’s agreed?’

‘Word of honour!’

‘Word of honour!’

‘Lord, how pleased Lammchen will be,’ thought her young man. ‘Another month’s security.’

They went back to their scales.

It was getting on for eleven when Pinneberg got home. Curled up in the corner of the sofa he found Lammchen, asleep. She had the face of a child who has cried itself to sleep. Her eyelids were still wet.

‘Goodness, is that you? At last. I was so frightened.’

‘Why were you frightened? What could happen to me? I had to work after hours. I get that pleasure every so often.’

‘And I was so scared! Are you hungry?’

‘I should say so. D’you know there’s a funny smell in here?’

‘Funny?’ snuffled Lammchen. ‘My pea soup!’

They rushed in to the kitchen, to be met by a stinking barrier of smoke.

‘Open the window! Quick, open all the windows! Create a through-draught!’

‘Find the gas tap. Turn the gas off first.’

At last, breathing somewhat purer air, they both looked into the big cooking-pot.

‘My beautiful pea-soup,’ whispered Lammchen.

‘More like coal.’

‘The beautiful meat!’

They stared into the pot, the bottom and sides of which were covered with a blackish, sticky, stinking mass.

‘I put it on at around five,’ explained Lammchen. ‘I thought you would come at about seven. The water was meant to boil away in that time. And then you didn’t come, and I got so frightened and didn’t give a thought to the silly old pot.’

‘It’s done for too,’ said Pinneberg sadly.

‘Perhaps I could get it off,’ mused Lammchen. ‘With one of those wire brushes.’

‘All costs money,’ said Pinneberg shortly. ‘When I think of the money we’ve squandered already these last few days. And now all these pots and wire brushes, and the meal—I could have had lunch for three weeks in a restaurant for that. Yes, you may cry, but it’s true …’

She was sobbing now. ‘I try so hard, Sonny. But when I’m so worried about you I can’t think about the food. And couldn’t you have come even half an hour earlier? That wouldn’t have been too late to turn off the gas.’

‘Never mind,’ said Pinneberg, putting the lid back on the pot. ‘Put it down to experience. I …’ (making a heroic effort) ‘I make mistakes sometimes too. So don’t cry. And now give me something to eat. I’m starving.’

PINNEBERG, WHO NEVER HAS ANYTHING PLANNED, FOR ONCE GOES ON AN OUTING AND CREATES A SENSATION

Saturday, that fateful Saturday the thirtieth of August, dawned bright and deep-blue. Over their morning coffee Lammchen repeated: ‘So you’ve definitely got tomorrow off. Tomorrow we’ll go to Maxfelde on the little train.’

‘Tomorrow is Lauterbach’s turn at the stables,’ said Pinneberg.
‘Tomorrow we’ll be off. I promise.’

‘And then we’ll take a rowing-boat and row across the Maxsee and up the Maxe.’ She laughed. ‘Goodness what funny names! I keep thinking you’re pulling my leg!’

‘I’d love to. But I’ve got to go to work. ‘Bye, wife!’

‘’Bye, husband.’

Then Lauterbach came up to Pinneberg. ‘Listen, Pinneberg, we’re going on a recruitment march tomorrow and my Gruf has told me I have to be there. Would you look after the stables for me?’

‘Dreadfully sorry, Lauterbach. Tomorrow is out. Any other time willingly.’

‘Do me a favour, man.’

‘No, I really cannot. You know I’m always willing to help but just this time it’s out. Try Schulz.’