Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (55 page)

“Reading aloud, morphine, but where is Mieze?”

It is terrible, from a tree there hangs a man, and his wife stands beside him, wailing, when Franz comes by. “Come quickly, cut him down. He will not stay in his grave, he’s always climbing the trees and dangling to one side.” “Oh God, oh God, and why?” “My Ernst had been sick for such a long time, nobody could help him, and they didn’t want to send him away, they always said he was pretending. So he went down to the cellar and took a nail and a hammer with him. I heard him hammering in the cellar and I wondered what he was doing; a good thing, I thought for him to be working and not sitting around all the time, maybe he’s building a rabbit-hutch. But he didn’t come up that evening. I got afraid and puzzled as to where he could be, are those cellar keys up here, they weren’t back in their place. Then the neighbors went down and fetched the police. He had hammered a stout nail into the ceiling, though he was quite a thin man, but he wanted to make sure, what are you looking for, young man? What are you whimpering about? Do you want to kill yourself?”

“No, they killed my girl, and I don’t know if she’s lying here.” “Well, you had better look for her back there, that’s where the new ones are.”

Now Franz is lying on the path beside an empty grave, he cannot shout, but bites into the earth. Mieze, what have we done anyway, why did they do that to you? You hadn’t done anything, Miezeken. What can I do, why don’t they throw me into the grave with you, how long is life going to treat me like this?

He gets up, hut he can hardly walk, he rouses himself and goes out, staggering along between the rows of graves.

Franz Biherkopf, the gentleman with the stiff arm, gets into an automobile outside, which takes him to the Bayrischer Platz. He keeps Eva very, very busy. Eva is busy with him all day long and all night long. He does not live and he does not die. Herbert has practically vanished.

There follow a few days when Franz and Herbert are busy chasing Reinhold. Herbert is armed to the teeth and listens around everywhere, he’s out to catch Reinhold. Franz does not want to at first, then he, too, feels the urge, it’s the last medicine which will serve him in this world.

The Fortress is entirely Surrounded, the last Sallies are made, but they are only Feints

November is advancing. Summer has been over for a long time. The rain has continued into the autumn. Very far away are those weeks when a soft glow lay upon the streets and people walked about in light clothes and you would have said the women were in chemises. A light dress, a tight-fitting hat, that’s what Franz’s girl, Mieze, wore, she who once rode out to Freienwalde, and never came back again; that was in the summer. The court is in session to try Bergmann, the parasite, who preyed on the community, a public danger, devoid of scruples. The Graf Zeppelin, on a day of low visibility, flies over Berlin, the stars are bright when it leaves Friedrichshafen at 2.17 a.m. To avoid the bad weather, reported in Central Germany, the airship follows a course leading over Stuttgart, Darmstadt, Frankfort on the Main, Giessen, Kassel, Rathenow. At 8.35 it passes over Nauen, at 8.45 over Staaken. Shortly before nine o’clock the Zeppelin appears above the city, and in spite of the rainy weather, the roofs are crowded with sightseers who exultantly acclaim the airship as it moves to and fro in a loop to the east and north of the city. At 9.45 the first landing-rope is dropped in Staaken.

Franz and Herbert scour Berlin together. They are nearly always away from home. Franz haunts the shelters of the Salvation Army, men’s almshouses, and watches out as he wanders through the August Shelter in Auguststrasse. He is sitting in Dresdener Strasse in the Salvation Army hall, where he once went with Reinhold. They sing Hymn No. 66 in the Hymn Book: Say, brother, why do you wait? Arise, and hurry to your goal! Your Saviour called you long ago, He’d like to give peace to your soul. Chorus: Why? Why don’t you hurry to your goal, Why? Why don’t you want peace in your soul? O brother, don’t you feel in your heart the spirit’s living might? Don’t you want salvation from sin? Oh, hurry to Jesus in flight! Say, brother, why do you wait? Soon death will come and judgment-day too! Oh come, while the gate is still open, Jesus’s blood is ready to pray for you!

Franz walks through Fröbelstrasse to the public flophouse, to the Palme, trying to find Reinhold. He lies down on a bunk, today in this one, tomorrow in another, hair-cut 10 pfennigs, shave 5, there they sit, get their papers in order, shoe and shirt peddlers, hey there, guess it’s the first time you been here, no use undressing, or you’ll be lookin’ for your stuff tomorrow morning, your shoes, look here, you’ve got to put each one separate at the bottom of the bed, else they’ll steal everything you got, even your teeth. Do you want to get tattooed? And rest. Night. Black rest, snoring like a sawmill, I haven’t seen him. Keep quiet. Ding, dong, what’s that, prison. Thought I was in Tegel. Wake up. A fight over there. Let’s get out. Around six o’clock, the girls are over there, waiting for their sweethearts, they go into the dives with them and gamble away the money they begged.

Reinhold isn’t there, it’s damned hopeless lookin’ for him, he’s probably out chasing a skirt again, Elfriede, Emilie, Caroline, Lilli; brown hair, fair hair.

Each night Eva watches Franz’s drawn features, no caresses, not a single kind word, he eats and talks but little, just swills liquor and coffee, lies on the sofa with her and groans and groans. We can’t find him. “Let him go!” “We can’t find him. What’ll we do, Eva?” “You’ve got to stop that, there’s no sense in it, you’ll go to pieces.” “You don’t know what we’re going to do. That - you didn’t go through that, Eva, you don’t understand it, Herbert understands a little bit. What’ll we do? I want to get him, yep, I’d go to church and get down on my knees if I could catch him.”

But all that is unreal. Nothing is real. All this chasing after Reinhold is unreal, it’s all a moaning and a terrible fear. Now the die is cast for him. He knows how it will fall. Everything will reveal its meaning, an unexpected, terrible meaning. This game of hide-and-seek won’t last long now, my friend.

He spies around Reinhold’s house, but his eyes avail him nothing, he looks around and feels nothing. Many people walk past the house and some go in. He has gone in himself, had a look, just because of tararara taraboomdeeay.

The house bursts into laughter, as it sees him standing there. It would like to be able to move in order to collect its neighbors, so that the crosswise wing and the end wings could get a look at him. Here’s a fellow with a wig and an artificial arm, a flaming fool, full of liquor, standing and jawing away about something.

“How do you do, lil’ Biberkopf? This is November 22nd. Still rainy weather. Do you want to catch a cold? Wouldn’t you rather go to your beloved saloon and get a cognac?”

“Give him up.”

“Give in.”

“Give Reinhold up.”

“Go out to Wuhlgarten. Your nerves must be on edge.”

“Give him up.”

Then Franz Biberkopf works in the house one evening, he hides a gasoline can and a bottle. “Come out, are you hiding there, you snake, you stinking dog? You haven’t got the nerve to come out, have you?” The house: “Why are you calling him when he’s not here? Why don’t you come in, you might have a look around.”

“I can’t look into all the holes.”

“He isn’t here. Do you think he’d be crazy enough to stay here?”

“Give him up to me. It’ll go bad with you otherwise.”

“You and your ‘it’ll go bad with you.’ Go home, fellow, and get a good sleep, you must be pickled, it’s because you don’t eat nothin’.” Next morning he arrives there just behind the newswoman. The street-lamps watch him run and start to rock: Fire! Fire! The flame’s crawling higher!

Smoke, tongues of flame pour from the dormer-window, the firemen arrive at seven, but Franz is already with Herbert, his fist clenched: “I know nothing and you know nothing, needn’t tell me anything. He’ll be smoked outa there. Now he can go and look for something, yep, I set it on fire.”

“Aw, he don’t live there any more, you can bet on that.”

“That was his dump all right, and he knows if it burns it was me. We’ve smoked him out, you’ll see him marching up here yet.” “I don’t know, Franzeken.”

But Reinhold doesn’t appear. Berlin goes on rattling and rolling and roaring, there’s nothing in the papers about their having caught him, he’s escaped, gone abroad, they’ll never get him.

And Franz stands before Eva, groaning and twisting his body. “I can’t do a thing, and gotta stand it, he can smash me to pieces, he gave that girl the works and I’m standing still like a milk-sop. It ain’t fair, it’s unjust.”

“Franz, it can’t be changed.” “I can’t do nothin’, I’m finished.” “But why are you finished, Franzeken?” “I did what I could, it ain’t fair, it’s unjust.”

The two angels walk beside him, Sarug and Terah are their names, and they talk together, Franz stands in the crowd, walks in the crowd. He is silent, but they hear him, the wild outcry within him. Bulls walk past on raiding parties, but don’t recognize Franz. Two angels walk beside him.

Why do the two angels walk beside Franz, and what child’s game is this, that angels should walk beside a man, two angels on Alexanderplatz in Berlin, in 1928, beside a former murderer, a burglar, and now a pimp? Yes, this tale of Franz Biberkopf, of his hard, true, and revealing existence, has now progressed thus far. Everything is growing clearer and clearer, the more Franz Biberkopf rears and rages. We are nearing the point where everything will become clear.

The angels talk beside him, their names are Sarug and Terah, and their conversation, while Franz is looking in Tietz’s show-window, runs as follows:

“What do you think, Sarug, what would happen if we abandoned this fellow, if we let him go his own way and be caught?” Sarug: “Fundamentally it would make no difference, I think; they will catch him anyhow, that is inevitable. He looked towards that red building over there and he was right, he will be in there in a couple of weeks.” Terah: “So you think we are superfluous?” Sarug: “A little, I think-as long as we arc forbidden to take him away from this present life.” Terah: “You are still a child, Sarug, you have seen this present life for a couple of thousand years only. If we take this man away from the Present, and set him elsewhere, in another existence, will he have accomplished what he could have done in the Here and Now? For every thousand beings and their lives, you must know, there are seven hundred, nay, nine hundred failures.” “And what special reason is there, Terah, to protect this man, he is a commonplace man, I see no reason to protect him.” “Commonplace, uncommon-what are these? Is the beggar ‘commonplace’ and the rich man so exceptional? The rich man may be a beggar and the beggar rich tomorrow. This man is on the brink of a vision. Many have reached that stage. But he is also on the point, I tell you, of becoming sentient. You see, Sarug, he who goes through much experience, and lives through much, is easily inclined towards mere knowledge, and then-towards escape, and death. He is no longer interested. He has passed along the road of experience and grown weary. His journey has outwearied body and soul. Do you understand?” “Yes.”

“But after a man has experienced much and learned neither to hold fast, nor to go down, nor to die, but to stretch himself, to stretch himself, to feel, not evade things, but to stand straight, with a steadfast soul, that is something. You don’t know, Sarug, how you came to be what you are, what you were, and how it comes about that you are walking with me here, protecting other beings.” “That is true, Terah, I do not know that, my memory is all blotted out.” “It will slowly come back to you. A man is never strong by himself, through himself, alone, unless there is something back of him. Strength must be acquired, you do not know how you acquired it, but you stand there and things which destroy others are no longer dangerous for you.” “But he does not want me, this Biberkopf. You yourself say he wants to shake us off,” “He’d like to die, Sarug. No man has ever made that great step forward, that terrible step, without desiring death. And you are right, that is how most men fail.” “So you have hope for this man?” “Yes, because he is strong and unimpaired, and because twice already he has stood his ground. So let us stay beside him, Terah, I ask that favor of you.” “Granted.”

A young doctor, a giant of a man, is sitting before Franz. “Good morning, Herr Klemens. You’d better go on a trip, this often happens after a death in the family! You ought to get a change of air, the whole of Berlin will oppress you now, you need another climate. Don’t you want to get a little diversion? You are his sister-in-law, aren’t you, has he anybody to accompany him?” “I can start off alone, if necessary.” “Necessary, I tell you, Herr Klemens, that’s the only thing you can do. Just a little quiet diversion, something to take your mind off this, yes, but not too much of it, otherwise it might have the contrary effect. Always in moderation. There’s still good weather everywhere just now. Where would you like to go?” Eva: “How about a tonic, Lecithin, wouldn’t that be good for him, and then more sleep?” “I’ll write it all down, wait a minute, Adalin.” “I’ve given him Adalin already.” (Don’t want that poison!) “Then you had better take Phanodorn, one pill at night, with peppermint tea. Tea is good, it helps in taking the medicine; and then you might go to the Zoo with him.” “Nope, I’m not interested in animals.” “Well, then to the Botanical Gardens, a little diversion, but not too much.” “Why not prescribe some nerve-tonic to strengthen him?” “We might give him a little opium to raise his spirits.” “I drink already, Doctor.” “No, opium is different. But I’ll prescribe Lecithin, it’s a new preparation, the instructions are written on the label. And then you must take baths, calming baths, of course, you have a bathroom, madame, haven’t you?” “Certainly, Doctor.” “Well, you see, that’s the advantage of these new houses. That’s why we all say ‘certainly.’ It wasn’t like that in my place. I had to have everything installed, had to pay a wad of money, and then getting the rooms painted, you’d be astonished, if you saw it, that’s what we haven’t got here. All right, then, Lecithin and baths, one every other morning. And then a masseur should give his muscles a good kneading, to give his whole body some exercise.” Eva: “That’s right.” “A good massage, you’ll see, you’re going to feel much freer, Herr Klemens. Don’t worry, you’ll feel all right again. And then, travel.” “It’s not easy with him, Doctor.” “Doesn’t matter, it’ll come. Well, then, Herr Klemens, how about it?” “How about what?” “Don’t let your spirits droop, take these things regularly, also this sleeping potion and the massage.” “All right, Doctor; good-bye, and I thank you for the advice.”