Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (7 page)

The blond fellow eyes him with disgust: “Why, you’re a wreck, Krause, and you know it, too. A fine sort of example you are. You make no bones about your bad luck, Krause. Didn’t you tell me yourself how you often go hungry with your private lessons? I wouldn’t be caught dead like that.” The gray-haired man has emptied his glass, he leans back in his iron chair in his raglan, blinks at the youngster for a moment in a hostile way; then snorts and laughs convulsively: “Nope, I’m no example, you’re right, I never claimed to be. Not for you, anyway. The fiy, let’s see, it’s all in the point of view. A fly stands under the microscope and thinks it’s a horse. Just let the fly get in front of my telescope some time! Who are you anyway, sir, Herr Georg? Go ahead and introduce yourself: The Honorable City Sales Representative of the firm of XY, shoe department. Nope, stop that nonsense. Always telling me about your troubles; your troublesspelled t for tripe, I for rotter, a damned rotter, eh? -and a for oaf. And you got the wrong number, the wrong number, my dear sir. absolutely the wrong number.”

A young girl gets out of the 99, Mariendorf, Lichtenrader Chaussee, Tempelhof, Hallesches Tor, Hedwigskirche, Rosenthalcr Platz, Badstrasse, Seestrasse corner Togostrasse, during the night of Saturday to Sunday continuous service between the Uferstrasse and Tempelhof. FriedrichKarl Strasse, at intervals of 15 minutes. It is 8 p.m., she has a music-case under her arm, she has pulled her lambskin collar high about her face, she paces to and fro at the corner of Brunnenstrasse and Weinbergsweg. A man in a fur coat speaks to her, she starts back, crosses quickly to the other side. She stands underneath the high street-lamp, watches the opposite corner. A small elderly man with horn-rimmed spectacles appears on the other side, and she goes up to him at once. She walks beside him, giggling. They turn up the Brunnenstrasse.

“I mustn’t come home too late, really I mustn’t. As a matter of fact I shouldn’t have come at all. But I can’t call you up, can I?” “No, only exceptionally, if it’s urgent. They listen in at the office. It’s for your sake, child.” “Yes, I am afraid, suppose it should be known, you won’t tell anybody, honest?” “Honest.” “If Papa should hear anything about it, and Mama, Oh, my Lord.” The elderly gentleman holds her delightedly by the arm. “Nothing’s going to leak out. I won’t tell anybody about it. Did you have a nice lesson?” “Chopin. I’m playing the Nocturnes. Are you musical?” “Yes, when it’s necessary.” “I’d like to play something for you some time, when I can. But I am afraid of you.” “Well, well.” “Yes, I am always afraid of you, a little, not very much. No, not very much. But I needn’t be afraid of you, need I?” “Not at all. What a way to talk! Why, you’ve known me three months now.” “Really it’s Papa I’m afraid of. If he should find it out.” “Girlie, surely you can go out a few steps alone at night. You’re not a baby any more.” “That’s what I always tell Mama. And I do go out, too.” “We’ll go where we please, sweetie.” “Don’t call me sweetie. I only told you that so-well, just in passing. Where shall we go today? I have to be home by nine.” “Right up here. We’re there already. Friend of mine lives here. We can go up without being bothered.” ‘I’m afraid. Is anybody going to see us? You go ahead. I’ll come up after you.”

Upstairs they smile at each other. She stands in the corner. He has taken off his coat and hat, she lets him take her hat and music-case. Then she runs to the door, switches off the light: “But not long today, I have so little time, I must get home, I won’t undress, you are not going to hurt me?”

Franz Biberkopf goes on the Quest, a Man must earn Money, Man cannot live without Money. Concerning the Frankfort Crockery Fair

Franz Biberkopf sat down with his friend Meek at a table where several loud-voiced men were silting, and waited for the meeting to start. Meek declared: “You don’t want to take the dole, Franz, and you don ‘t want to go into a factory, and it’s too cold for ditch-work. Business is the best thing. In Berlin or in the country. You can take your choice. But it keeps a fellow going.” The waiter called out: “Mind your heads!” They drank their beer. At that moment steps were heard overhead, Herr WunscheL the manager, up on the next floor, was running for help, his wife had fainted. Then Meck explained once more: “As sure as my name’s Gottlieb, take a look at these people here! Aren’t they well off! And tell me, do they look starved? Are they respectable people, or aren’t they?” “You know, Gottlieb, I won’t stand any joking about respectability. Honest now, is it a respectable profession or not?” “Welt look at these people! I’m not saying anything at all. Tip-top, I’m tellin’ you, look at ‘em!” “A steady kind of a life, that’s what we need, yes, sir.” “It’s the steadiest you can find anywhere. Suspenders, socks, stockings, aprons. Maybe head-shawls, too. The profit’s in the buying.”

On the stage a hunchback was walking about the Frankfort fair. People can’t be warned enough against sending merchandise to the fair from other towns. The fair is badly situated. Especially the crockery fair. “Ladies and gentlemen, my esteemed colleagues, all who were present at the Frankfort crockery fair last Sunday can bear me out, it’s asking too much of the public.” Gottlieb nudged Franz: “He’s talking about the Frankfort crockery fair. You’re not goin’ there anyway.” “What’s the odds, he’s a good man, that one, he knows what he wants.” “Anybody who’s been to the Magazinplatz in Frankfort will never go there again. That’s as sure as you’re alive. It was nothing but a filthy morass. Also I should like to state further that the municipal authorities of Frankfort took no steps till three days before the opening of the fair. Then they said: Magazinplatz for us, not Marktplatz, as it always was before. Why? I’d like my colleagues here to take a sniff at that: because the weekly market is held on the marketplace, and if we go there, it would cause traffic congestion. It’s an unheard of thing for the Frankfort authorities to do, it’s a smack in the face. Imagine giving an excuse like that. They now have market four half-days a week, and yet we are supposed to go? Why us, especially? Why not the vegetable-man and the butter-woman? Why doesn’t Frankfort build a covered market? The fruit, vegetable, and food dealers are treated just as badly by the municipal authorities as we are. We all suffer from the blunders of the authorities. But it has got to stop. The receipts on the Magazinplatz were small, practically nothing, nothing at all it didn’t pay. Nobody came in all that filth and rain. Most of our colleagues who were there didn’t even make enough dough to get away from the place with their wagons. Railroad fares, booth rent, parking charges, getting there, getting back. And then I would most distinctly submit and state to the entire public that the toilet conditions in Frankfort are indescribable. All those who were there can tell a tale or two about that. Such unhygienic conditions are unworthy of a big city, and the public should brand them, wherever it can. Such conditions will never attract visitors to Frankfort, and they do a lot of harm to the tradespeople. And then those narrow booths, like sardines in a can!”

After the discussion, in which the board of directors was also attacked for its inactivity up till now, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:

“The fair-merchants feel that the removal of the fair to the Magazinplatz is a slap in the face. The business results for the merchants fell considerably short of those of former fairs. The Magazinplatz as a fair-site is absolutely unsuitable, because it cannot possibly hold all the fair-visitors, and because in regard to sanitation it is a perfect disgrace to the city of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, without taking into consideration that, if a tire had broken out, the merchants themselves, as well as their wares, would have perished. The members assembled here demand that the municipal authorities remove the fair back to the Marktplatz, because only in this event can a guarantee be given for the holding of the fair. At the same time the members assembled strongly urge a reduction of the booth rent, since they are not in a position to fulfill even approximately their obligations under the given conditions, and may well become a charge upon the city’s charitable institutions.”

But Biberkopf was irresistibly attracted by the speaker. “Meck, that’s some orator, a man just made for the world.” “Go ahead and step on his toes, maybe something will fall your way, too.” “You can’t tell about that, Gottlieb. But you know, them Jews did give me a lift. I went from one courtyard to another singing the Watch on the Rhine, that’s how dizzy I was in my head. Then the two Jews fished me out and told me stories. Words are a good thing, too, Gottlieb, and what a man says.” “That story about Stefan the Polak. Franz, you’re still a little cracked.” The latter shrugged his shoulders: “Gottlieb, cracked or not cracked, put yourself in my place and then talk. That man up there, the little hunchbacked fellow, he’s all right. I tell you, he’s first-class, first-class.” “Well, have your way. You better begin to worry about business, Franz.” “We’ll get around to that; one thing at a time. Why, I don’t talk against business, do I?”

And he wended his way towards the hunchback. Respectfully he asked him for a piece of information. “What do you want?” “I should like to ask for some information.” “The debate is over now. Finished, this is the end. We get sick of it, too, sometimes, up to here.” The hunchback was venomous. “But what do you really want?” “Me? -They’ve been talking a lot about the Frankfort fair here, and you did your job wonderfully, first-class, sir. I wanted to tell you that, as coming from me. I’m entirely of your opinion.” “Glad of that, comrade, if I may ask, what’s your name?” “Franz Biberkopf. I saw with pleasure how you did your job and how you gave it to the Frankforters.” “The municipal authorities.” “First-class. That was a smooth ironing out. They won’t say boo after that. They’ll have to take a back seat now.” The little fellow collected his papers, stepped from the stage into the smoke-filled hall. “Fine, comrade, that’s great.” And Franz beamed, bowing and scraping behind him. “But didn’t you want some information? Are you a member of the association?” “No, sorry.” “You can get it from me right away. Come along and sit down at the table.” Thus Franz sat at the chairman’s table below, among the flushed laces, drank, saluted, got a ticket in his hand. The fees he promised to pay the first of next month. Handshake.

From a distance he started signaling to Meck with the sheet of paper: ‘‘I’m a member now, yes, sir! I’m a member of the Berlin local Group. There, read that, there it is: Berlin local Group, National Association, and what does it say here: of the Itinerant Tradesmen of Germany. Great, heh!” “And what are you, a dealer in textiles? Here it says textiles. But since when is that your line, Franz? What kind of textiles have you got?” “But I didn’t say textiles, I said stockings and aprons. He just would have it that way, textiles. But it doesn’t matter, I don’t have to pay till the first of the month.” “Well, old boy, first of all, suppose you should go in for china plates now, or kitchen pails, or let’s say you trade in animals, like these gentlemen here: gentlemen, isn’t it nonsense for a man to get himself a membership card for textiles when he might be going to deal in cattle?” “I advise you not to do anything in cattle. Cattle are low. You’d better go in for small live-stock.” “But he isn’t going in for anything at all, yet. That’s a fact. Gentlemen, this fellow’s only sitting around here and would like to do something. You might just as well tell him, yes, sir, Franz, go in for mouse-traps or plaster heads.” “If it’s necessary, Gottlieb, if you can make a living at it, why not? Not particularly mouse-traps, there’s already a strong competition on the part of the drug-stores with their patent poisons, but plaster heads, why shouldn’t a man take plaster heads into the small towns?” “You see, there you are: he gets himself a ticket for aprons and is going in for plaster heads.”

“Gottlieb, that’s not it; gentlemen, you’re right, but you mustn’t turn the thing around like that. You ought to explain a thing properly and show it in its proper light, like the hunchbacked chap did about that Frankfort business, when you weren’t listening.” “Because I got nothing to do with Frankfort. And these gentlemen ain’t either.” “All right, Gottlieb, that’s fine, gentlemen, don’t wanta reproach you, only I, for my part, in my humble way, I was listening, and it was great, the way he illustrated everything, so calmly, but forcefully too, although he had a weak voice, and the man has a weak chest, too, and the way everything was arranged in order and the way he led up to the resolution, every point clean-cut a fine thing, he’s got a good head on him, and accurate even to mentioning the toilets they didn’t like. Of course, I had that business with the Jews, you know, don’t you? Once, gentlemen, when I felt very low, two Jews helped me by telling me stories. They spoke to me, decent people, who didn’t know me, and then they told me about a Pole or somebody or other, and it was nothing but a story and still it was very good, a good lesson for me in the situation I was in. I thought: Cognac would have done the work, too. But who knows? Afterwards I was going good, and on my feet again.” One of the live-stock dealers puffed and grinned: “Before that you must have got a pretty big wallop in the neck?” “No joking, gentlemen. Besides, you are right. It was some wallop! Might happen to you, too, in life, that things come plopping down on your head and make your knees wobble. Might happen to anybody, a dirty break like that. What are you going to do with your wobbly knees afterwards? You run around the streets, Brunnenstrasse, Rosenthaler Tor, Alex. You run around sometimes and can’t even read the street signs. Clever people helped me then, they talked to me and told me a lotta things, people with heads on ‘em, and from that you learn this: You shouldn’t swear by money or cognac or the lousy pennies you pay in dues. The main thing is, head high, and see that you use it and that you know what’s goin’ on around you, so you don’t get knocked out before you know it. Then everything’s not half bad. That’s it, gentlemen. That’s how it strikes me.”

“And so, sir, I mean fellow-member, let’s drink something. To our organization!” “To our organization, here’s how, gentlemen. Here’s how, Gottlieb!” The latter laughed and laughed: “Boy, the only question that’s left now is how you’re goin’ to pay your dues the first of the month.” “And then see to it, young colleague, now that you got a membership card and you are a member of our organization, that the organization helps you to make some real money.” The live-stock dealers tried to outlaugh Gottlieb. One of the dealers: “You’d better go with that paper to Meiningen, next week is market week there. I’ll take my stand on the right-hand side. You can go on the other side, to the left, and I’ll watch how business goes with you. Let’s imagine it; Albert he has his card and is a member of the organization and is standing in his booth. line on my side they’re yelling: Hot dogs with real Meiningen crackers, and he yells opposite me: Right this way! First time here, member of the organization, the great sensation of the Zwick market of Meiningen. Tile people will come in droves. Say, Isaac, you make my eyes ache!” They beat on the table, Biberkopf along with them. Cautiously he shoved the paper into his breast-pocket: “If a man wants to walk, he simply buys himself a pair of shoes. I haven’t said anything yet about doing a fat lot of business. But I ain’t looney, either.” They got up.