Authors: Ernst Haffner
The huddle of people breaks up. No more trouble. Interest is gone. The prostitute stands at a bus stop, sobbing and dabbing at her nose. “Now, that’s enough of that, Edith.” The pimp, perfectly amiable. And Edith tries desperately to shut up, but the occasional sob still shakes her. She pulls out lipstick and powder, to try and restore order to her teary face. Then they go, arm in arm, to the nearby Rehkeller.
It’s the only one of the so-called cellars to deserve the ascription of criminal dive. But even here everything is lite. Underworld is a style. A low-arched room with dim-colored lights. The ancient oft-painted walls give off an appalling reek of mold. A pianist makes despairing efforts to bang out a coherent sequence of notes from a tangle of wire in front of him. Clientele: the usual Alex mob, admittedly with very few tourists. Doesn’t promise much from the outside, the Rehkeller.
The Blood Brothers are sitting at a table in the deepest darkest corner of the bar. Sitting with them is a girl of seventeen or eighteen. Anneliese, the new sweetheart of the Brothers. Anneliese has come into the gang ever since, in some way still unknown to Ludwig, they have come into money.
Ludwig shows up in his new coat. Anneliese welcomes him with a great smacking kiss. They have never met before, and Jonny explains to Ludwig that Anneliese is part of the gang. The other Brothers greet Ludwig with a facetious, “Evening, Herr Kaiweit.” Ludwig is flavor of the month. Anneliese sits on the lap of the “poor lad who was innocent and did time in Moabit,” and comforts him at any opportunity with kisses and petting. The first round of schnapps is brought, and they all solemnly intone: “Here’s to you, Ludwig.” Then he has to tell them all about it. How he was nabbed, the interrogation, his time in the Alex, the juvenile court hearing, the moment he spotted Auntie Elsie’s secret message to him on the inside of the sugar bag. What the food was like inside, how they treated him, and in minute detail, how he did his bunk in Friedrichstadt station. The transporter seemed to be a decent enough fellow, but freedom is freedom. The gang are ever so proud of their Ludwig when he tells them about picking up the discarded copy of the
B. Z.
on the train, and how that helped him get the money to make a call. My God, what a sharp lad! “Cheers! August Kaiweit!” And Jonny adds: “And here’s to us collaring the evildoer who tricked you in the first place.”
The pianist announces a rumba, and knocks out something that might equally well be a tango or a black bottom. The girls go looking for a few feet of space to dance with their sweethearts, and Anneliese grabs hold of Ludwig, who now has to go and rumba. This time yesterday he was still lying on a pallet in police detention, with the evening’s flour soup glugging in his belly, and the guards’ hobnailed boots clanking about in the corridor. “Kiss me, Anneliese,” he manages to whisper.
The bill is paid. The Blood Brothers move off. Where to now? What about the Mexiko? “Not there again,” replies Fred, grinning. The Alexander Quelle on Münzstrasse is an unappetizing place, but always packed. The din of the brass music is enough to blow the head off your pints, and the mass-produced tobacco smoke keeps the paper chains in a constant spin. Gang members of all ages, abjectest prostitution, layabouts, male and female beggars. They are, all of them, responsible for polishing the pate of the landlord, who can no longer stand to breathe the fug of his joint and stands outside the door. It is unbelievably full. The newest latecomer has to squeeze inside the door and yell for his beer or schnapps or whatever he wants. The gang barge their way through; of course there’s no space anywhere. Right at the back, in front of the upstairs toilets, they manage to huddle round a couple of already-occupied tables. They don’t mind being squashed together.
Ludwig, Anneliese, Jonny and Fred are sitting between skeletal-looking dossers, come to try and forget the chicken ladder of their lives with a
Koks
or a
Korn
with a dot (Koks: rum with a piece of sugar; Korn with a dot: kummel with a drop of raspberry). Jonny orders a round of Koks. The dossers included, of course. An old geezer with a long white beard is finishing his supper. In his left hand he has a half-wrapped sausage end, from which he slices piece after piece with the paring knife in his right, and pops them into his mouth with bread. The ancient face with the sprouting white hair looks like a throwback to those bygone films where the good child by the garden fence throws a coin into the nice old man’s hat. “Well, Grandpa, aren’t you going home yet?” asks Fred. “Home?” The oldster looks up quickly, before returning to his end of sausage. Then: “The manager’s going to throw me out,
I already owe him for four nights. I’ve reached my limit, so he says.”
Calm, objective, quite convinced that the manager is well within his rights, the words come out interrupted by the gummy chewing of his food. The heat in the bar is such that sweat is pouring down the creases of his face. Still the old man won’t be induced to take off his coat. Probably he doesn’t have a jacket on underneath. He takes his hat off. His snow-white hair curls over his collar and ears. The coppery face has the eyes of a beaten dog. A second schnapps and a cigar give the beggar a little self-confidence. “Where you from, old man?” He’s been out west, around Wittenbergplatz, begging. Up and down backstairs. Since nine o’clock this morning. And all the fine gentry in that area, their contribution to his welfare totaled seventy-two pfennigs, a couple of crusts of bread, and — the old man shows them off proudly — a pair of glacé gloves that are too much of a pair: in fact, they are two right hands.
As he tells his story, a trace of something resembling indignation comes into his voice: “Four flights up, I’m knocking on the kitchen door. A servant is about to give me a few pfennigs, when along comes the lady of the house. Why are folks always being given money without doing a scrap of work for it, she says. This man is still pretty fit, why shouldn’t he beat the bedroom carpet for it. Well, I lost it. All right, I say, give me your mangy old rug. So your crooked Gustav goes down four flights of stairs, beats the carpet, and back up. Then what does the old bird say? There, my dear chap, now you’ve earned your five pfennigs … And that’s a lady!” In the hostel on Gollnowstrasse, the old man now owes for four nights, and unless he can pay for at least two of them, the manager will throw him out.
“How old are you, Grandpa?” “Seventy-four … no, eighty- … no, seventy-two.” He’s not sure anymore. He was born in Posen. He doesn’t know if he’s German or Polish, and he doesn’t really care. When he was a young man, he was the best and most honest milker — he stresses that — on the whole estate. And then the owner threw him out, because a cow had lashed out at him, and he had kicked her in the stomach. But that didn’t matter. He had to go into the army anyways. Then there were his years as a hobo. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France and Spain, all on shanks’s pony. Years, decades. Till shortly before the Great War, when he found himself back in Germany again as an old man. During the war he worked in some munitions factory, and then a gentleman of the road again. More years.
Till he wound up in Berlin, and the four-million-strong city became his highway because he didn’t have enough puff anymore. He doesn’t know where his parents died, nor where his five brothers and sisters are, if they’re even still alive. He has never been inside a cinema. As far as he’s concerned, a book is something with stories in it, and the prime function of newspapers is wrapping things up.
But one thing he’s learned in his long years of experience, be it in Berlin or Italy or some burg in Silesia: rich people don’t do charity. They’d rather turn their dogs loose on beggars or slam doors in their faces. Giving, with a deep reflexive understanding of hunger and misery, is something that only poor people do. The Silesian mineworker, the Italian laborer, the unemployed geezer in Berlin. Tomorrow the old man is headed for proletarian Wedding. He knows and likes the area. “Coppers, only coppers. But at least they add up,” he
says, and pensively puts his hat back on. It feels better to be sitting with his hat on.
In a fit of magnanimity, Fred takes a collection from the gang members, to get together money for the old man’s kip. Grand total: two marks, eighty-five pfennigs. The beggar is sceptical when he is given the handful of coppers. They’ve got to be pulling his leg. But then, when the money’s stashed in his pocket, he’s in a hurry to leave. Keep what you got. You never know: maybe the boys will drink up their money, and then want it back. It’s better to scarper. The manager won’t chase him away, he’ll get his money …
Ludwig keeps noticing more ways in which the gang has changed. Fred seems to have become treasurer, and each member is called upon to pay a mark a week into the common exchequer. Johnny, Hans, Fred and Konrad have got a regular kip — with Anneliese — at an invalid jailbird’s place on Badstrasse. Heinz, Erwin, Walter and Georg seem to have somewhere as well, two of them at a time. Wonder where all this money comes from, thinks Ludwig. He doesn’t trust himself to ask.
The boys break up. It’s not possible to have a conversation in this crowd. They decide to ride to Schlesischer Bahnhof, and go to Café Messerstich. Why the Messerstich is called a café, and not a bar, is just as obscure as why it’s called the Messerstich
*
in the first place. The clientele is made up of organ-grinders, buskers, ragmen (also known as naturalists) and mainly handicapped, male and female beggars. The only
thing they like to stab is a piece of roast or at the very least a sausage. The local specialty here are the extraordinary prodigious pigs’ feet in jelly. The gang order, and have a slap-up dinner. Gnawed bones are stacked high on the table, the landlord has to send over the road for more rolls. They all eat like combine harvesters.
A disabled organ-grinder is propping up the bar. His left sleeve hangs down, loose and empty. His single hand is clutching a large glass of schnapps and raising it to his lips. A sip. The schnapps-wet lips purse themselves in a piercing whistle. As on command, two white rats appear from his two jacket pockets. Clamber nimbly up to his shoulders and perch there on their hind legs, begging. Laughter and applause from the other guests. The disabled rat-tamer feels flattered, takes his half-full glass and holds it under the noses of both his pets. Each head leans in and sips a tiny amount of the sweet schnapps. Another whistle. The rats scuttle back into their pockets. Contentedly, the man finishes his drink. The animals go with him on his tour. Stand up and beg when they hear the music, disappear up his trouser leg and reappear at his open collar. Ratty Paul is a celebrity in his profession and is reputed to be doing quite well, thanks to his little friends.
The Blood Brothers are sitting replete and idle over their beer. Anneliese is jiggling about on her chair. Casts fearful glances at a table by the stove. A young lad is sitting there, staring aggressively at the Brothers. And if his eyes happen to meet Anneliese’s, then she gets even more restless and anxious. Suddenly the boy is standing at the gang’s table: “Can I talk to you, Anneliese.” It sounds brutal and menacing. Anneliese is cravenly on the point of obeying when Jonny leaps up: “What do you want with her?” “None of your
business, you monkey!” is the ungentle reply. With Jonny’s characteristic speed, he lands the fellow an almighty slap. Before the lad knows what’s happened to him, he’s been hit a second time, and finds himself deposited out on the street. Doesn’t dare go back in. “Who was that, Anneliese?” asks Jonny. Anneliese is crying. “Oh, you know … someone from Friedel Peter’s gang.”
Only last week Anneliese was the sweetheart of another gang, namely that of Friedel Peters. But life at Friedel’s side no longer suited Anneliese. No one had any money, and one day Friedel had even said to her: “Anneliese, it’s time you went and earned for us.” And so she had gone over to Jonny’s mob, because they were flush. Really, Anneliese wasn’t behaving any differently than the mistress of some industrialist, who won’t hesitate to transfer her affections to a bank executive if heavy industry should fall on hard times and can no longer guarantee her pin money.
“Seems we might get a dustup later tonight,” says Konrad pensively. “You could be right,” replies Jonny. “Franz, ten double Koks!” Fred orders. The prospect of a dustup requires drink. Jonny owns two knuckledusters. He gives one to Konrad, who starts furiously hitting the jagged steel against the table. “Ten schnapps!” Jonny orders. The drinks in quick succession have the effect of making the boys tense and aggressive. But no one comes to claim Anneliese. Anneliese, who only a moment ago was gibbering with nerves and dread, is now flattered to be the bone of contention between two gangs. For the moment, though, everything in the bar is quiet.
A young man, new to the area, walks into the bar, and enters negotiations with the landlord. An unemployed circus
performer of some kind, an acrobat or tumbler. Even though the bar is full to bursting, he gets permission to do some of his stunts. There’s an audience for that kind of thing here. A couple of chairs, which the fellow needs as props, are willingly vacated. The guests are aware that something is about to happen, and they mill around the artiste like a great family, full of expectation. A handstand on one hand on the top of the chair-back. The drunken one-armed Ratty Paul grouses from the back: “Thass nothing, you should see wot I …” The artiste does a rubber man, twisting and contorting his body till he is puce in the face. That creates an impression. Everyone is fascinated by the artiste’s tricks. Even the landlord is watching now, and the waiter leaves the beers on his tray to go flat.
Now here comes the showstopper. The artiste picks up one chair between his teeth, and sets the second on top of it. That’s the high point of the evening’s entertainment. That stunt with the teeth wows them. Not least because they can see the incredible strain in the artiste’s face. It’s contorted, bright red, the eyes are bulging out of their sockets, his whole body is trembling. The spectators are beside themselves. Ideal moment for the performer to pass the hat around. Result: one mark eighty. Even in penurious circles people pay generously for first-class performance. Ratty Paul buys the artiste a drink. He discreetly wipes the blood off his mouth. His barbarous stunt has left him with bleeding gums.