Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (9 page)

He meditates across the table-top, and draws a design in a beer puddle with his finger: “I’m going to get a license somewhere and sell newspapers. That’s a good thing.”

She remains speechless, slightly insulted. Franz does what he pleases. One noon, he’s on Rosenthaler Platz, she brings him sandwiches, then he lights out at twelve, plunks the box with the tripod and all the cardboard-boxes under her arms and goes out looking for information about newspapers.

To start with, an elderly man on the Hackesche Market in front of Oranienburger Strasse advises him to take an interest in sexual education. It’s now being practiced on a big scale and doing quite well. “What’s sexual education?” Franz asks, and hesitates. The white-haired man points to his exhibit. “Better first take a look at this, then you won’t ask questions about it.” “Those are naked girls painted there.” “That’s the only kind I got.” They puff silently side by side. Franz stands and gapes at the pictures from top to bottom, puffing into the air, the man looks past him. Franz looks him in the eye: “Listen here, comrade, do you get any fun out of this, these here girls and pictures like that? The
Gay Life.
Here they go and paint a nude girl with a little kitten. Wonder what she’s after, on the stairs, with a li’l kitty. Suspicious bird. Am I disturbing you, pardner?” The latter, seated on his camp-chair, takes a deep breath and sinks into himself: there are jackasses in this world as big as mountains, the real thing in blockheads, who run around the Hackesche Market in broad daylight and stop in front of a fellow, if he’s in bad luck, to talk a lot of tommyrot. As the white-haired man becomes silent, Franz takes a few magazines from the hook: “You mind, pardner? What’s this?
Figaro.
And this one,
Marriage.
And this,
Ideal Marriage.
Now I s’pose that’s different from marriage.
Woman’s Love.
Everything to be had separately. Why a fellow can get all kinds of information here, if he’s got any money, but it’s mighty expensive. Beside there’s a catch in it somewhere.” “Well, I’d like to know what kind of a catch is in it. Everything goes. Nothing’s forbidden. What I sell, I got authorization for, and there ain’t no catch in it. Things like that I leave alone.” “I can tell you one thing, I just want to tell you, looking at pictures is no good. I could tell you a thing or two about that. It does a man harm, yes, sir, that botches you up. You start by looking at pictures and afterwards, when you want to, there you are, and it won’t go naturally any more.” “Don’t know what you’re talking about. And don’t spit on my papers, they cost a lot o’ money, and don’t paw the covers like that. Here read this:
The Unmarried.
There’s everything, even a special magazine for people like that.” “Unmarried, well, well, why shouldn’t there be people like that, why, I’m not married with Polish Lina either.” “Well, here; look what’s here, if that isn’t true, it’s only an example: To attempt to regulate the sexual life of the two parties by contract, or to decree conjugal duties in this respect, is the most loathsome and humiliating slavery we can possibly imagine. Well?” “How so?” “Is it true or not?” “That don’t happen to me. A woman who would ask a thing like that from a man, is that really possible? Can it happen?” “Well, there you read it.” “Well, that’s going a bit strong. Just let ‘em come and try anything like that on me.”

Franz reads the sentence again in amazement, then he gives a start, and shows something to the old man: “Well, and look what it says
here:
I would like to give an example from the work of d’Annunzio,
Lust,
now watch out, d’Annunzio’s the name of that super-swine, he’s a Spaniard or Italian or from America, maybe. Here the thoughts of the man are so full of his distant sweetheart that, during a night of love with a woman who serves as substitute, the name of his true love escapes him against his will. That beats everything. No, sirree, I won’t have anything to do with things like that.” “Hold on, where’s that, lemme see it.” “Here. Serves as substitute. Artificial rubber in place of rubber. Turnips instead of a real meal. Did you ever hear anything like it, a woman, a girl, for a substitute? He takes another one, just because he hasn’t got his own, and the new one notices something, and that’s the end, and I suppose she’s not to peep? He gets that printed, the Spaniard! If I was a printer, I wouldn’t print it.” “Well, cut out that rot! Y’ mustn’t think you can understand everything with your little brain, what a fellow like that means, a real writer, and a Spaniard or Italian at that, right here in the crowd on the Hackesche Market.”

Franz continues reading: “A great emptiness and silence then filled her soul. That’s enough to make you climb trees. Nobody’ll make me believe that. I don’t care who he is. Since when, emptiness and silence? I can talk about that, too, just like that fellow, and the girls probably ain’t any different there than anywhere else. Once I had one of ‘em, and she noticed something, an address in my notebook, well, boy: she notices something, and then silence? Maybe you think so, heh, but then you don’t know anything about women, old feller. You shoulda heard ‘er. The whole house shook and roared. That’s how loud she bawled. I couldn’t tell ‘er what it was all about. She kept on going, as if she was on a hot griddle. People came running. I was glad when I got outside.” “Say, there’s two things you don’t seem to notice?” “Which are?” “When anybody takes a paper from me, he buys it and he keeps it. If there’s any tripe in it, it don’t matter either, he’s only interested in the pictures, anyway.” Franz Biberkopf’s left eye disapproved of that. “And then here we got:
Woman’s Love
and
Friendship,
and they don’t talk any bunk, I’m tellin’ you, they fight. Yes, sir, they fight for human rights.” “Why, what’s the matter with ‘em?” “Penal Code, Section 175, if you don’t know it.” There just happens to be a lecture in Landsberger Strasse, Alexanderpalais, tonight, Franz might hear something about the wrong done to a million people in Germany every day. It’s enough to make your hair stand on end. The man pushed a bunch of old papers under Franz’s arm, Franz sighed, looked at the package under his arm: all right, he’ll probably be there. What’ll I do there, anyway, shall I really go, wonder if it’s worth while handling magazines like that? The pansies; he just gives me this stuff and expects me to carry it home and read it. A fellow might feel sorry for those boys, but they’re none o’ my business.

He left in a great pother, the whole thing seemed to him so far from kosher that he didn’t say a word to Lina and got rid of her in the evening. The old news-vender pushed him into a little hall, where there were almost nothing but men, mostly very young, and a few women, who sat apart in couples. Franz didn’t say a word for an hour, but grinned a lot behind his hat. After ten o’clock, he couldn’t stand it any longer, he had to beat it, the whole thing, and those funny people, it was too ridiculous for words, so many fairies in a bunch, and he right among ‘em, he got out quickly, and laughed until he came to Alexanderplatz. As he was leaving, he heard the lecturer talking about Chemnitz and the police ordinance of November 27. This forbids all inverts to go on the streets or use the comfort stations, and, if they are caught, it costs them 30 marks. Franz looked for Lina, but she had gone out with her landlady. He went to sleep. In his dream he laughed and swore a lot, he had a fight with a silly old driver who kept driving him around and around the Roland fountain in the Siegesallee. The traffic cop, too, was running after the car. At last Franz jumped out, and the auto drove like mad around the fountain and around him in a circle, and this went on and on without stopping, and Franz was
always
standing around with the copper while they consulted together: what arc we going to do with him, he’s crazy?

Next morning he waits for Lina in the cafe as usual, he has the magazines with him. He wants to tell her what boys like that really have to suffer. Chemnitz and the article of the law with the 30 marks, at the same time it’s not his business, and they can bother about their articles themselves. And then Meck might come too, trying to get him to do something for the cattle drivers. Nope, all he wants is peace, they can go soak their heads.

Lina sees right away that he has slept badly. Hesitantly he pushes the magazines towards her, the pictures on top. Frightened, Lina claps her hand over her mouth. Then he starts talking again about mind. Looks for yesterday’s beer puddle on the table, but there isn’t any. She moves away from him: Suppose there’s something wrong with him like the kind here in the papers. She doesn’t understand, up to now he certainly wasn’t like that. He fiddles around, draws lines on the bare wood with his dry finger, then she takes the whole package of papers from the table and throws it down on the bench. At first she stands there like a mænad, and they stare at each other, he looking up at her like a little boy, then she waltzes off. And there he sits with his papers, now he can think about the fairies.

A baldpate goes walking one evening in the Tiergarten, he meets a pretty boy, who hooks onto him at once; they have a lovely stroll together for an hour, then the baldpate has the notion-the instinct, oh the desire, immense at that moment-to be very nice to the youngster. He is a married man, he has often noticed these things before, but now it has to be, ah, it’s really marvelous. “You’re my sunshine, you’re my darling.” And the lad is so gentle. To think that such things exist: “Come on, let’s go to a little hotel. You can give me five marks, or ten. I’m quite broke.” “Anything you want, my sunshine.” He gave him his whole pocketbook. To think that such things exist. That’s the nicest part of it all.