Authors: Ernst Haffner
On the stroke of ten, they’re all close to the billet. Three of them are at the gate. The others are waiting nearby in the passage, to nip in the second the nightwatchman opens the door. Before they even hear him, there’s a furious growling and yapping behind the door: the guard dog. Then the door is unlocked, and one by one they sneak inside. The watchman locks the door after them. The bitch howls with rage and disappointment. She doesn’t understand her master. Normally she is under orders to go for anyone’s legs, and just now, with this collection of deeply suspicious individuals, she is kept on a short leash. The nightwatchman slopes on ahead with the snarling dog. The Blood Brothers bring up the rear after a respectful interval. The door of the low storehouse is unbolted, and Jonny has to put down his two marks. Then the old man goes through all their pockets. He’s looking for matches or lighters in case one of the scapegraces should get it into his head to smoke in there … With all that straw and dry wood around. That would be a right old firework. The guard dog tries a parting snap at the boys. But the studded collar reminds her that only non-paying guests are to be shredded. The boys are just finding their way round the dark windowless space when the old man locks them in. The freed dog sniffs crossly at the crack between the floor and the bottom of the door. Just let them try and get out …
The boys grope around in the dark. They catch themselves on nails, and as soon as someone thinks he’s found a good spot, a few piled-up crates come crashing down about his ears. By the time everyone has found a place in a crate or on a bale
of straw, it’s striking eleven. In a few more minutes, they’re all asleep. Only the mice are upset about the intrusion.
Were one able to see them, the huddled bodies of the boys in the crates and the straw, in their so-called beds, there would probably be only a voice of pity. Sixteen-year-old Walter, with his pigeon chest bulging out the front of his shirt and his Basedow pop-eyes … And Erwin, also sixteen, a beanpole, whose stringy arms show not the merest trace of muscle. Or quiet, dreamy Heinz: he is using his jacket as a pillow, his shirt is a filthy rag. Ludwig, the eighteen year old from Dortmund who fled from the institution a year ago, has tunneled so deeply into the straw that there’s nothing of him to be seen, and the mice scamper across his body. The boys all look wretched. Only Jonny retains an expression of bold resoluteness, even in sleep.
In the predawn dark of six, they’re all standing out on Brunnenstrasse again. The cold they couldn’t shake from their bones during the night now hurts like an acute pain. Frail Walter is gibbering so badly that they take him in their midst and make him jog-trot a ways to get him a little warmed up. Broken up into their usual subgroups, they are heading for Alexanderplatz. To the Mexiko. That opens at six. A cup of hot broth, no matter how thin and stale, will do them the power of good.
Hands cupped round the mugs, the Blood Brothers sit in a corner, tanking warmth … PA music at a volume that would have gratified a symphony orchestra, from 6 a.m. till three o’clock the next morning. Pimps, prostitutes, gang members, wrestling associations, casual criminals and vagrants, bourgeois slumming it, and detectives looking for someone. That’s the Mexiko. A few years ago, it was a small pub that failed for
lack of custom. Now it proudly advertises as Europe’s most prominent restaurant. The new owner clipped a few pictures of Indians from Moritz’s picture book, and plastered the four walls of his premises with cheap and cheerful copies. Set out some artificial palm trees, painted over the windows so no one could see in or out, and called his work a Mexican cantina.
The Blood Brothers are sitting quietly at their table. Another day ahead of them. They face it without a plan. A man walks into the pub, a stranger, not a regular. Looks about him inquiringly, and makes for their table. The eighteen-year-old Fred, Jonny’s lieutenant, leaps up, knocks a few of the others out of his way, and crashes out onto the street with the stranger in hot pursuit. Excitement in the establishment. What was that about? Police? But none of the customers has ever seen the man before. And they know all the local rozzers. The gang is puzzled. It feels inadvisable to stay any longer in this place. Jonny divides up the rest of the money equally, splits the gang up into four pairs, and sets them to look for Fred in all the usual places—with allied gangs, in hidey-holes. Even if he manages to get away from the stranger, Fred won’t risk going back to the Mexiko. So he’ll need to find out where the gang have got to. The rendezvous is eight o’clock at the homosexual bar the Alte Post on Lothringer Strasse. The four pairs head off in four different directions.
3
IN THE INSTITUTION,
the atmosphere has been mutinous for several days now. A small group, headed by the twenty-year-old Willi Kludas, have fixed on a kind of passive resistance. It was discussed at night in the dorm, and traitors and blacklegs were threatened with extreme measures: the sanctions were beating, beating and more beating. The director and educators were powerless in the face of the consequences of this passive resistance, up to and including acts of sabotage. Half the work gangs called in sick, suddenly people came down with the most obscure conditions. And the rest, while seeming to work, actually did more harm than good. The overseers were livid, threatened physical punishment or putting on report, but they were not able to prove any malicious intent. The youths smirked at each other as they put their heads down and went on “working.” They were starting to enjoy themselves.
In the buildings, dozens of windowpanes inexplicably broke. Locks stuck. Workmen had to be hired to extract sand and grit from the works. In the bathrooms, toilets were blocked, electric lights and fuses burned out en masse. Documents and entire files disappeared, or blue ink was spilled over them. The boys couldn’t wipe the grins off their faces.
This was some campaign that Willi had come up with, this was something else. The educators went round with pale faces and gritted teeth. They no longer had the nerve to approach the director. Woe betide any boy they caught red-handed. But the system of lookouts worked, and everything the authorities tried was ineffectual or only made matters worse.
On the afternoon of the fourth day the director called the staff together. What’s going on here? Yes, what is going on? They were baffled. Under the pretext of getting him to water some of the plants, they called in a boy — their boy, Georg Blaustein — to the director’s room. “Come on, Georg, you’re a sensible boy, tell us what’s going on. You’ve always kept us informed.” Georg Blaustein was haunted by an apparition four nights ago. He was lying there awake, same as everyone else. Suddenly a face loomed over his from the darkness. “If you breathe a word, I’ll break your neck …” With that the face disappeared beneath Georg’s bed, beneath several other beds, back to its own. “I … I don’t … I really don’t know … sir, what …” Of course, the director and all the teachers could tell that Georg knew everything, and that fear was keeping his lips sealed. “All right, Georg, do the plants.” Outcome: we don’t know, but we know! Strict ban on smoking for all boys, no time off, exemplary punishments for all transgressions. Till the return of normality. Report to the supervising authority with a request for instructions.
And what was going on? What had caused the quiet uprising? An almost daily occurrence. Willi Kludas, the twenty-year-old charge, had been given a slap for some infraction by Herr Friedrich, the loathed trainer. It was Willi’s birthday. He had taken it apparently without a murmur. But then in the night he had summoned up the quiet protest. As immediate
retaliation. He wanted to get his own back on Herr Friedrich. For the repayment of the slap with interest, Willi had thought of a particular plan, in which he initiated only his six closest friends, whom he needed to put it into effect.
Two evenings later. Between ten and eleven o’clock. The whole dorm can sense that something is about to happen. But only seven boys, Willi and his six friends, know what it is. Half an hour earlier, the face had loomed up beside Georg Blaustein’s bed again, and had uttered terrible warnings … Willi knows that if there’s a commotion now, his friend Friedrich will come. And that’s good. Very good. The seven boys, according to plan, embark on a noisy conversation, which gets louder and louder. Again according to plan, there’s a knock on the door: “Quiet in there!” Herr Friedrich’s voice. Okay. Quiet. For a little while. Not too long. Suddenly the conspirators make a hellish row, the whole of the dorm sits up. Two of Willi’s friends grab a sheet and trot off to the door barefoot. And here comes Herr Friedrich. The door flies open. A light switch clicks. No light. Two forms holding a sheet jump on Friedrich, who is standing in the doorway of the darkened room. Throw the sheet round his body. Four other boys hold the man by the hands and feet, a barely audible gurgling sound emerges from the sheet. Then Willi hurls himself at the white bundle. The whole room is silent, everyone hears the slapping sound of the blows. Then the boys whip the sheet off, and Herr Friedrich is deposited in the corridor. The door falls shut, and the avengers flit back to bed.
Half an hour passes — the sheets are all pressed nice and flat again — then in walk the director and several half-dressed but armed teachers. There is still no light. Two boys have to be roused from deep sleep. They are to fetch ladders and
screw in new bulbs. Then at last there is light, and, surprise surprise, everyone is awake, staring at the pyjama-ed staff. The fact is that Herr Friedrich was beaten by several figures in nightshirts, not too badly. But which figures? The whole dorm says with one voice: “I was asleep. The noise woke me.” Georg Blaustein outdoes everyone though. Not only was he not woken by the noise, no, he is so petrified he is still asleep. The investigation is suspended without result. Every one of the boys knows they are in for a collective punishment.
In the morning there are no work gangs. Everyone is confined to quarters for questioning. Notorious evildoers and teachers’ pets are interviewed individually. The rest in small groups. The result of the inquiry is kept secret. Punishments have not yet been announced. It remains a grave case. The supervisory authority is being asked to send a commission of inquiry. Herr Friedrich has called in sick.
Tonight I’m making a break for it, Willi Kludas has decided. In a letter a boy will “discover” tomorrow, Willi will claim sole responsibility. Those who helped him in the assault were press-ganged into it. He alone had beaten Herr Friedrich. The reason, sir? Because of the slap he gave me on my twentieth birthday. At lunch and dinner Willi eats everything he can lay his hands on. Who knows when he’ll next get a meal. He will walk all night to the nearest mainline railway station. Then he will try and get to Berlin with a platform ticket. A ten-hour ride. How he proposes to remain undetected on the train he can’t yet say. He takes discreet leave of his six friends. They give him some of their supper to take with him, and they hand over their spare change. Willi’s cash holdings come to ninety-five pfennigs. An hour before bedtime he takes the decisive step. In an hour’s time
they will notice he’s gone; by then he must be a long way away. Now his friends have to do him one last kindness. They stage an argument with no end of shouting and yelling. The now-skittish teachers and even the director himself rush into the day room. While the friends act confused, Willi hops over the wall.
He needs to run to the nearest settlement, which is ten minutes away. And then not through it, but round it. But not too quickly, so that he doesn’t use up all his energy. Wow, does it feel good, running like that! Running and running, in a straight line. Not having to turn, like in the yard of the institution. With the grotty weather there’s no one about, thank God. Willi runs with fists pumping and elbows tucked: “One, two, three, four … one, two, three, four …” Ah, it feels grand. Wonder if they’ve noticed yet? Pray to God they don’t send a teacher after him on a bike … One, two, three, four … hup, hup. Now left along the footpath, the village is on the right. Oh shit, the ground’s boggy, great clumps of it are sticking to his soles. It makes a difference. Now don’t slow. Hup, hup!
He’s left the village far behind him, he’s back on the main road. It’s easier, running here. What about a break? No, another quarter-hour first. He’s starting to get hot. Without stopping, he pulls a piece of bread out of his pocket … Smack, he’s lying down in the roadside ditch. A car speeds past. Luckily, going the other way. On, on. Come on, Willi, come on! But finally he is running out of puff. A five-minute break. Behind the hedge. What I’d give for a cigarette … Am I not near the next village yet? Maybe I’ll take a chance and buy five fags in the bar. Course I will! All right, Willi, let’s go, the sooner you’ll get your cigarette. One, two, three, four …
A girl’s serving in the pub, and Willi gets his cigarettes. He treats himself to a slow walk for the first of them. But as soon as the butt is in the ditch, he breaks into a sprint. A cigarette is an amazing thing, isn’t it, it gives you as much energy as a roast goose. Too bad he can’t run and smoke at the same time. But then he’d be sharing it with the wind. The skinny little thing would burn down in a flash. Hup, hup! They must be onto him by now, back home. Home? Some home! Prison is what it was. He turns off the road, and slows to a walk. Sufficiently far away from the road that he can keep an eye on it. Trotting along, the occasional smoke, thinking about what to do next. How do I get to Berlin? What if they nab me on the train? Then he’ll be back in the institution the next day, and the courts will want to punish him for what he did to old Friedrich.
Five in the morning, completely knackered, he walks into the town. Maybe they’re already waiting for you here, he thinks. As he approaches the station, he sees long lines of goods wagons in a siding. Well, the passenger express is no good to him, that’s for sure, where’s he going to lie low for ten hours? On the bog? The inspectors have got keys and all, and they’re bound to look everywhere. He’ll have to take the goods train. He scans the labels to see where it’s going. Can’t make head nor tail of it. So he up and jumps into a canvas-covered wagon. Bales of wood wool. He settles himself between two bales, arranges the makings of a pillow, and lies down. Who cares where they’re going. Just get away from here, and sleep!