Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (44 page)

Franz straightens himself up in his chair and says nothing for a long time; the others are also silent. He has taken an oath to be respectable and you have seen how he stayed respectable for many a week, but that was only a respite, so to speak. He is dragged into a criminal case, he does not want this, he defends himself, but the issue he must face. For a long time they sit and say nothing,

Then Franz suggests: “If you want to find out who Franz Biberkopf is, just go to the Landsberger Allee, to the cemetery, there’s a dame lyin’ there. I did four years for that. It was still my good arm that did it. Then I peddled papers. I thought I’d be a respectable man.”

Franz groans softly and gulps: “You can see what I caught. Once you’ve lost that, you gotta stop paper-peddlin’ and lots of other things, too. That’s why I’m here.” “I suppose we ought to give you a new arm, because we smashed it up.” “You can’t do that, Maxe, I’m satisfied with sittin’ here and not runnin’ around on the Alex. I don’t blame Reinhold, just ask him if I ever said a single word about it. When I sit in the car and there’s a suspicious character with us, don’t I know what to do? Now let’s stop talkin’ about my damn-foolishness. Max, if you do a damn-fool trick one of these days yourself, well, I hope it’ll learn you a lesson.” Then Franz takes his hat and walks out of the room. So that’s the way things are.

In the room Reinhold pours a nip of brandy from his little pocket flask and says: “As far as I’m concerned I’m through with all this stuff. I fixed him up the first time and I’ll do it again. You may say it’s risky startin’ somethin’ with him. But first of all, he’s already in deep, he’s a pimp, he admits it himself; as for going straight, that’s all over. The only question now is, why does he come to us and not to Herbert, who’s his friend. Don’t know. But I’m thinkin’ a lot. Anyway we’d be fools if we couldn’t hold our own with certain Herr Franz Biberkopf. Let him join us. If he pulls somethin’, he’ll get one on the beezer. I say let him come on.” Whereupon Franz comes.

Burglar-Franz, Franz is not under the Auto, he sits Inside now, on Top, he’s fixed it

In the early part of August these gentlemen, the so-called criminals, are still in rest-billets behind the lines, recuperating and attending to small jobs. As long as the weather’s fairly nice, a man who’s an expert or a professional doesn’t burgle or exert himself. He saves himself up for the winter, when he’s got to go at it like hell. Franz Kirsch, for instance, the well-known yegg, escaped eight weeks ago, in the early part of July, with another man from Sonnenburg prison; Sonnenburg, though the name be ever so charming, is, as a matter of fact, little suited for vacation purposes, and now he has had a pretty good recovery in Berlin, has about eight quiet weeks back of him, and is perhaps going to think of doing some work. But there’s a hitch, such is life. The man happens to take a street-car. Along come the bulls, it’s the end of August, and take him out of the streetcar in Reinickendorf West, good-bye to rest, nothing doing any more. But there are still many outside, they are slowly going to start action.

Before starting I should like to give you hastily the weather conditions according to the reports of the public meteorological service for Berlin. General weather conditions: The region of high pressure in the west has extended its influence as far as Central Germany, and generally brought better weather. The southern area of the high-pressure region is already diminishing. We may, therefore, expect that this improvement in the weather will not last very long. On Saturday the high-pressure area will still determine our weather and it will be fairly fine. But the depression which is now developing over Spain will affect the climatic conditions on Sunday.

Berlin and vicinity: Partly cloudy, partly sunshine, weak air currents, gradually rising temperature. In Germany: cloudy in the west and south, in the rest of Germany cloudy to fair, in the northeast somewhat windy, gradually warmer again.

In this very temperate weather, the Pums gang, our Franz among them, set themselves slowly in motion; the ladies belonging to the mob are of the opinion that the swains should step out a bit, for otherwise they’d have to go out on the streets, and none of the girls likes to do that, unless she’s obliged to. Welt first of all, they’ve got to study the market, find purchasers, and if men’s and ladies’ wear don’t go, they had better tackle furs, the ladies think: they’ll do that in a jiffy, they’re always doing exactly the same job, and it’s easy to learn a trade like that. But they ain’t got the slightest mind for switching jobs when business conditions are bad. Anyway, the girls got nothing to say about it.

Pums has got in with a tinner who knows something about oxygen blow-pipes, so we got him with us; then they have a business man who has gone to the wall, he looks classy; of course, that louse doesn’t work, that’s why his mother kicked him out, but he is a light-fingered gent, and knows his business, so they can send him everywhere to look round and fix up an expedition. Pums says to the veterans of his gang: “Of course, we don’t really need to worry about competition, naturally we have it in our business like everyone else, but we don’t interfere with each other. However, if we don’t try to get good people who know their business and understand their tools, then we’ll get it in the neck. Might as well take to plain hooking, and we don’t need six or eight men for that anybody can do that on his own.”

Since they’re out for ladies’ and men’s wear and furs now, everybody who can walk has got to start trotting and finding shops where one easily gets rid of things without too many questions being asked, and where the police aren’t likely to pay an early visit. The stuff can be faked up or sewn in a different way, or, as a last resort, stowed away for a while. Got to find it first, however.

For one thing his fence in Weissensee gives Pums endless trouble. When a fellow works like he does, you can’t do any business with him. Live and let live. All right. But just because he claims to have suffered some losses last winter-that’s what he says-and to have had no profits and incurred debts, while we had a good time in the summer, he comes now and asks for money and bellyaches a lot about having made a bad speculation. That’s it, he’s simply made a bad speculation, for he’s a jackass, a rotten business man, simply knows nothin’ about business, the fool, then he ain’t for us. Gotta look for somebody else. It’s, of course, easier said than done, but it can’t be helped, and as for things like that, it’s good old Pums who, alone of the whole gang, can attend to them. Anyhow, it’s queer, they hear everywhere that the other boys are also worrying about that; they want to know what becomes of the stock, for no one ever got fat just by cribbing things, it has got to be turned into money, but as I said: with Pums around, they stretch their legs and say: “As long as Pums is there, he’ll fix it up all right.” He’ll do it, he’ll do it all right. But suppose Pums ain’t able to do it? Hal Hah! Pums can’t always do it. Couldn’t somethin’ happen to Pums, too? He’s only human, after all. Then how’re ye goin’ to get rid of the stuff, that’s what you gotta think about, and all your burglary won’t help you any.... Nowadays it’s not crowbars and blow-pipes alone that get a fellow ahead in the world, today he’s got to be a business man.

That’s why, as September rolls along, Pums worries not only about oxygen blow-pipes, but who’s going to take that stuff off my hands? He started all that in August already. And if you want to know who Pums is: he’s the silent partner in five good little fur-shops-never mind where and then he’s put a little money into a couple of quick-pressing places, American plan, with ironing-boards in the window, a tailor stands around in his shirt-sleeves, he’s always lifting the board up and down, it’s steaming, but in the rear they’ve got a lot of suits hanging up, well, they’re what matters, it’s the suits that matter, and where we got ‘em from, well, you simply say, from customers, they brought ‘em in here yesterday to be pressed and altered, here are the addresses, and when a dick comes in to look around, everything’s jake. So good old Fatty Pums has made his preparations for the winter, and now we can say, let ‘er go. If anything happens, a man can’t prepare everything in advance, can he now? It won’t go without a bit of luck, but we should worry about that.

Now let’s get on with our story. It’s early in September, and our classy loafer, the go-between, who is also an imitator of animal-cries-but that’s another story - Waldemar Heller is the baby’s name, and he’s really bright as hell, now, that lad has been snooping around the big clothing stores in Kronenstrasse and Neue Wallstrasse to get the lay of the land. He knows all about entrances and exits, front-doors, back-doors, who lives upstairs, who lives downstairs, who shuts up the place, where the timeclocks are, etc. Pums pays his expenses. Sometimes Heller pretends to represent a Posen firm which has recently started in business; well, people would first like to make some inquiries about that Posen firm; all right, why not, I just wanted to see how high your ceiling is, next time we’ll come down from upstairs.

The job is to come off during the night from Saturday to Sunday. It is the first time Franz goes along. He fixed it. Franz Biberkopf is sitting in the automobile, they all know what to do, he has an assignment like the others. It all goes in a very business-like way. Another fellow has to be the lookout, that is, he’s not a lookout in the real sense of the word, three of the boys simply sneaked their way into the printers’ shop on the floor above during the previous night, they carried the ladder and blowpipe upstairs in boxes and hid them behind the reams of paper, one of them drove the car away; at eleven they open the door for the others, not a damned soul in the house notices anything, there are nothing but office rooms and stores in the building. They sit peacefully working, one of them at the window keeps looking out while another watches the courtyard. Then they start blasting the floor, more than half a yard square, the tinner with the horn-rimmed glasses does that. Next they cut through the wood of the ceiling, there is a rattling noise downstairs, but that’s nothing, that’s just the debris of heavy stucco falling down, the ceiling bursts with the heat, through the first opening they thrust a fine silk umbrella into which the lumps fall, that is, most of them, of course it is impossible to catch them all. But nothing happens, downstairs everything is black and dead quiet.

At ten they climb in, classy Waldemar first, because he knows the place. He walks down the rope-ladder like a cat, the boy’s doing that for the firs t time, he’s not the least bit afraid, people like that are regular greyhounds, they have all the luck, that is, of course, till things go wrong. Then it’s another’s turn to come down, the steel ladder is only 8 feet high, it doesn’t reach to the ceiling, so downstairs they drag up some tables, then slowly lower the ladder till it rests on the upper table, and here we are. Franz remains upstairs, lying across the hole on his belly. He gathers up the bundles of cloth handed up to him, like a fisherman, then puts them behind him, where another man is standing. Franz is strong. Reinhold himself, who is downstairs with the tinner, is astonished at the things Franz can do. A funny thing to be pulling off a job with a one-armed man. His arm grabs things like a crane, he sure has got a mighty punch, he’s some bloke. Afterwards they drag the baskets down. Although one of them is on the watch downstairs at the exit of the courtyard, Reinhold is also patrolling the place. Two hours, now we’re sitting pretty, the watchman walks through the house, better leave that man alone, he won’t notice anything, never mind, he’d be a fool to let himself be shot dead for the few pennies he gets, well, there you are, he’s gone, he’s a good fellow, we might leave a blue-back beside the time-clock for him. By that time it’s two o’clock, at half-past two the car arrives. Meantime the men upstairs have a nice supper, but not too much liquor, otherwise they’d make a lotta noise, and then it’s half-past two, anyway. Two men pull off their first job with the gang today. Franz and the classy Waldemar. They quickly toss a coin, Waldemar wins, he has to put the seal on today’s trip, he’s got to go down the ladder again, into the dark devastated stockroom; and there he crouches down, pulls off his trousers and presses on the floor what he has in his belly.

At half-past three, after they have unloaded, they quickly pull another job, for we won’t get together so young again, and who knows when we’ll see each other again upon the Spree’s green bank? Everything goes according to schedule. Only on the trip back they run over a dog, fancy a thing like this happening to them, of course it gets Pums excited beyond all reason, because he likes dogs, and he bawls out the tinner who acts as chauffeur, can’t he blow his horn, they chased that kiyoodle into the street, because they can’t pay their taxes, and here you come and run over him and kill him. Reinhold and Franz roar with laughter at the way the old fellow has a crazy fit over a mutt like that, he’s really a bit weak in the head. That dog was hard of hearing, I blew my horn, sure I did, once, and when did you ever hear of a dog being hard of hearing, well, maybe we’ll turn back and take him to the hospital, cut it out, you’d better watch out, I can’t stand that, a thing like this brings you bad luck. Whereupon Franz nudges the tinner: he means cats. Everybody roars with laughter.

For two days Franz Biberkopf says nothing at home about what has happened. Only after Pums has sent him two hundred, and if he doesn’t need it, he’s to give it back, Franz laughs, he can always find use for it; supposing now I gave it to Herbert for Magdeburg. And to whom is he going, whom does he look straight in the eyes at home, well, whom, which tiny whom, well, whom do you think? For whom, for whom, have I kept my heart pure? For whom, for whom, sure, for you alone, tonight will happiness come near, boldly I call to you, my dear, for you, I swear, I’ll always pine, tonight I’m yours and you are mine. Miezeken, my darling Miezeken, you look like a little bride made of marchpane, with little golden shoes, there you stand and wait, wondering about all the fuss your Pranz is making with his pocket-book. He squeezes it between his knees, and then he pulls out a couple of flimsies, holds them out and puts them on the table, beams at her and is as gentle with her as only he can be; he’s her big boy, he holds her fingers tight, what sweet slender little fingers she’s got!