A Stranger in My Own Country (19 page)

And then he started drawing me. He suddenly became quite still, his face was tense, and I had to be still too. He screwed up his eyes, studied me closely, now very serious: a stranger who was feeling his way to the bottom of my soul. His first attempts were unsuccessful, failing to get beyond the physical externals. The nose, a little exaggerated in the way it stuck out, perhaps, but that wasn't what he was after. So he set to work again, the pen making a frightful scratching noise on the paper. I started to say something. ‘Not now, you have to be quiet', he said sternly, and carried on drawing. And then he suddenly said: ‘Finished!' And looked at me, the smile had returned to his face. I looked at the cartoon
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– and I was looking at myself. I was thrilled with it. It was amazing, it was magic, what he had done there. It was me, in fact I didn't even think of it as a cartoon in that sense: not at all, that was the real me, that was how I really looked, with the squashed roll-up hanging from my expressive and yet rather limp mouth. Needless to say, the publishers decided not to use the cartoon for my book. They thought it was very good, really quite wonderful, but perhaps just a touch too daring? For the present times, that is? Instead they put a cosy little cottage with a little tree on the cover, which would have been much more appropriate for Marlitt.
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But before that they commissioned Plauen to do a ‘serious', ‘academic' portrait of me. I was delighted, as it gave me an excuse to spend more time with him! But the serious portrait didn't work out either: ‘It's no good, I can only
draw cartoons!' he cried in despair, having struggled with it for hours. We met up with him a few more times, and he also came out to see me in Mahlendorf. We had a lot of laughs. He was full of new ideas, as ever. ‘When Berlin has been reduced to rubble, Plauen will still be sitting on the ruins and doing his little drawings.'

I was in Berlin this spring, and standing on the tram with a friend. We were travelling through the bombed-out streets of the city, heading somewhere where we could still get something decent to eat. The friend said to me: ‘Have you heard – ?' and broke off again. ‘Heard what – ?' I asked. ‘No, I'd better not tell you, it'll just upset you . . .' ‘Look, Max, just tell me! After the ten years we've been through, I doubt if anything much can upset me!' He looked me in the face. ‘Plauen shot himself. Two weeks ago now . . .' I was wrong: I could still get upset, even after the ten years we'd been through. Plauen? Shot himself? It was not possible, this man who was full of life and laughter, this irrepressible jester – shot himself? Impossible! ‘It's not possible!' I said out loud. ‘A man like Plauen would never shoot himself!' And yet he had done it. His studio had been bombed out, as I have already described, so he took his family down to southern Germany and then found temporary accommodation for himself in Fürstenwalde, the same Fürstenwalde where I had once been kept in protective custody. He needed to be fairly close to the editorial offices of
Das Reich
, where he had to deliver his cartoons every week. He shared his new quarters with a friend, and when the two of them were talking and laughing together in the evening, their landlord was sitting next door
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and taking down every word in shorthand! Plauen's deafness meant that every word could be clearly heard. This vile creature kept it up for six months, then went and handed all the material over to the Gestapo. I doubt if he was paid for his pains; he probably dished the dirt out of pure, high-minded devotion to his beloved Führer. What a dung heap they have turned Germany into! And just look at the plants that have grown on this dung heap – unspeakable!

The material was just too incriminating, even Goebbels could not have saved his pet cartoonist. But they did do something for him; they
placed a revolver in his cell, and left it to him to anticipate the verdict. Which he did. I wish I knew if he died laughing. It's entirely possible, I'm tempted to think so – in fact, I firmly believe it. He was a cartoonist and a caricaturist from the day he was born, and I doubt if he saw the world any other way – he just had to smile about it. And so died E.O. Plauen, real name Ohser, born in the Saxon town of Plauen. May he rest in peace!

I must interrupt myself at this point. This is a separate entry,
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inserted into these notes I am making. You'll recall that I am writing these lines in the autumn of the year of the war 1944, in the asylum at Strelitz, where I have been sent for observation by the public prosecutor, doubtless as a ‘dangerous lunatic'. (There are various ways of getting rid of undesirable writers; this is one area where the German Reich is not short of ideas.) I was given permission to occupy myself by doing some writing. I wrote a few short stories to start with, followed by a little novel. And then it suddenly occurred to me: this was the place, inside these four walls, under constant guard and surveillance, where I had to make a start on these notes. I've been carrying it all around in my head for so long now. I've just got to get it down on paper. And I know that I am crazy. I'm risking not only my own life, I'm also risking, as I increasingly realize as I go on, the lives of many of the people I am writing about. I don't have a drawer or cupboard with a lock on it. All my things are freely accessible to anyone. I'm writing in a cell they allocated to me, where other prisoners are constantly passing through, police guards are looking in on me all the time, smoking a cigarette and asking stupid questions about what a writer does. They admire my tiny handwriting, the only protection I have against spies and nosy parkers. I know that every letter, every line I write here has to be censored by the public prosecutor's office before it leaves here. I haven't the faintest idea how I am going to evade this censorship, how I am going to smuggle the MS out. Am I just being reckless? Or am I acting under an irresistible compulsion? All these thoughts plague me day and night,
and make me forget my own fate here in this house of the dead: it's only when I am sitting writing these notes that these thoughts cease to torment me! And yesterday something else happened that worries me even more. One of the police guards took me to the director's office, and they showed me a letter, with everything carefully masked apart from the sender's name. ‘Who's this?' ‘Küthers',
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I replied, ‘a young soldier, an admirer of my books, who sometimes writes to me from the field. We've never actually met.'

‘Well, I am obliged to inform you that the Prosecutor General has confiscated this letter. Constable, take this man away again!'

That was all, and it isn't hard for me to guess what's in the letter. Küthers, the poor boy – he spent a year and a half in a field hospital, and in his last letter he told me that he would probably have to go back to the front again soon. This will have been his first letter sent from the front, and no doubt it didn't sound particularly enthusiastic, this letter from a young man whom they'd been patching up for a year and a half in order to make him fit for more slaughter. He will doubtless have expressed the hope that this ‘shitty war' would soon be over – an old campaigner just knows instinctively that he can speak his mind freely with someone like Fallada. But what this young man couldn't know was that his letters were no longer reaching Fallada directly, but were being censored first by the public prosecutor's office – to whom one cannot afford to speak one's mind at all freely. Poor boy: they will probably court-martial you now because of your ever so slightly disgruntled remarks. In Germany, you see, one has to remain enthusiastic about a lost war even when the world is collapsing about your ears! Poor boy – my hands are tied, I can do nothing to help you. You have made your bed, and now you will have to lie in it!

But will I not find myself lying in the same bed? Won't the recipient of such remarks come under the same suspicion as their writer? Won't they go through all my post at home? Won't they suddenly haul me off somewhere else to be cross-examined about defeatism, before I've had chance to destroy this MS? Won't they pounce upon these pages, and will not even the tiniest handwriting fail to save me, once they have
deciphered a single sentence? Wouldn't it be better to tear up everything I have written in the last few days and flush it down the toilet? I don't know. I'm struggling with myself. Now night is falling. Soon they'll be bringing our bowl of gruel with a few cabbage leaves in it, and then at half past seven we have to go to bed, in the cramped cell that I am sharing with a schizophrenic murderer, a mentally deficient and castrated sex offender and another mental defective locked up for attempted rape and murder. My three companions always sleep very soundly, but I don't sleep so well. I have a long night ahead of me to reflect on my many problems. Shall I carry on writing tomorrow? I'd be mad to do it!

(1.X.44.) Swenda – A Dream Fragment, or My Troubles
.
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I must have known Swenda from earlier, but my memories of her are unclear, they are like the shadows of clouds that sometimes fall upon our lakes even on sunny days. The first thing I know about her for certain is that I am climbing up a broad, antiquated staircase with lovely shallow oak treads, which leads straight up to a set of big, double doors with panels of transparent mirror glass instead of wood. The doors are like the ones that lead to the garden in my own home, except that they are much larger and not so handsome as the doors at home, having ugly decorative trims of brass and coloured glass in the corners of the frame. Through the clear mirror glass panes I can see Swenda standing there, her dark tresses tumbling to her shoulders, looking straight at me. For a moment I stand still on the landing outside the doors, we gaze at each other in silence for a long time. Then I reach for the handle of the door. Swenda shakes her head. And suddenly I remember what I had forgotten, that I may not enter here ever again, that I proposed to Swenda and was rejected, that terrible things happened here which I can only dimly remember, they are like the shadows of clouds that sometimes fall upon the lakes at home on sunny days.

I turn and slowly go back down the stairs. I walk through the streets of the city, I leave the city behind and find myself in open country. I
walk slowly onwards. I come to a railway track, the level crossing barrier is just being lowered, the monotonous sound of the bell announces the approach of a train. On the far side, raised up on a mound of earth, stands the crossing-attendant's cottage. I lean on the top pole of the barrier and look across at the cottage, nestling in a profusion of yellow and pink hollyhocks. A young girl emerges from the door, the red signal flag in her hand. Her dark tresses fall to her shoulders, it could be Swenda, but I know that it is not Swenda. I know this girl's name, but I cannot remember it. And as the passing train rattles and lurches between us, I remember that I was rejected here too. I slowly turn round and walk back into the city, whose towers, shimmering in the sun, rise up from the fields as I approach.

I am standing in a large, unevenly paved market square, where I have just bought three horses. They are incredibly big. ‘How on earth am I going to feed them?' is the thought that goes through my head. Then I recognize them: these are the ancient nags belonging to our drunken innkeeper. And there is the man himself, greeting me with a laugh, the corners of his mouth are stained brown with tobacco juice, he is unshaven and dirty, as always. I leave the market square and head into the city, the horses, which are unharnessed, follow me readily, one of them has my cigarette case hanging from its hindquarters on a strap. One of the horses is especially affectionate to me, pushing its head under my arm and nuzzling me as I walk on; I walk slightly to one side, I'm afraid the horse might tread on my painful right foot with its broad hooves.

I stop in front of a large house. I go up and inquire if Mrs Stössinger is there. No, she is away at the moment – but a room has been prepared for me. I go upstairs, thinking to spruce myself up a little, but I have to come and eat straight away. I sit down at a long table, opposite me is a general. He is wearing a white linen suit, but I know that he is a general. He is mentally ill, and he hates me. He has a small, very red head and he watches me silently through bloodshot eyes. The food is served very quickly, and the plates are not changed between courses. There's poached white turbot, pike tails in a watery aspic, shellfish with
mustard butter. No meat – they show me the huge menu, and I note that today is a meatless day. Finally a large, white, marbled ice-cream bombe is served. I take a large portion and put it on my plate, which is already full to overflowing. The ice cream immediately collapses and melts, spilling out over the edge of the plate, the whole plate now overflows. I spread my legs to let the cascading food drip down onto the floor between them. I look round quickly: the bloodshot eyes of the mad general are firmly fixed on me, everyone at the table is looking at me in earnest silence. Between my legs the overflow from my plate is still trickling steadily onto the floor.

I suddenly remember that I have forgotten to retrieve my cigarette case from the horse, I have no cigarettes on me. I go to the window and open it. The horses have disappeared, and I know I shall never see them again. Now I have nothing to smoke. I look out onto the square around the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The church is burnt out, the houses around it are in ruins, the streets are buried under deep piles of rubble. There is nobody to be seen. ‘There is a war on', I say to myself. ‘Berlin lies in ruins.' The house from whose third-floor window I am now looking out has also been burned out by an incendiary bomb and blown apart by an aerial mine: I myself saw it lying in ruins that time when I was in Berlin on business. I am my own ghost, I think to myself.

Then I discover a cigarette machine on the wall. I fiddle about with it, trying to get a pack of cigarettes out of it. ‘There's a war on', somebody says behind me. ‘Those are all empty packs, just there for show.' But at the top I discover a compartment with a flat door that I can open just like that. This compartment is also completely filled with empty cigarette packs, but right at the back I find four packs of tobacco. The tax stickers have been torn off. ‘That's good, that I've found some tobacco', I think to myself, remembering that I've probably still got plenty of cigarettes with senior nurse Holst,
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but only half a pack of tobacco. I leave two marks in the compartment for a pack of tobacco.