Authors: Ernst Haffner
Ludwig finishes his truthful account. The room is quiet inside, though the din of Alexanderplatz can be heard outside. The typist has spotted a blemish on the nail of her right index finger, and is just deciding to invest her money in a careful and painstaking manicure. The magistrate is still quiet, flexing a metal ruler into a semicircle. Then, very suddenly and roughly, he barks out a question to Ludwig: “So you continue to claim your name is Erich Meyer, right?” Ludwig replies with a quiet, “Yes, sir.” A short pause. “Got you.” The magistrate sits down in triumph. Ludwig and the typist look up at him questioningly. “In your statement you said your name was Erich Müller. A moment ago I asked whether you insisted your name was Erich Meyer. You said yes. How many names have you got?” The magistrate leans back in his chair.
The blood rushes to Ludwig’s head so fast that his eyes go black. The typist smiles foolishly. Now she too has registered her boss’s trick. “I would like to draw your attention to the fact that claiming a false identity carries severe penalties. Now, I want the truth.” Ludwig hooks his fingers in between the slats of his chair, the magistrate’s voice is coming from a vast distance. “Could I … have a glass of water?” The typist brings him one. The magistrate waits patiently. He knows his seed will bear fruit. “My name is Ludwig N — and I’m a runaway from the home in H — .” The magistrate picks up the wanted list and scans it. “Could be. When did you abscond from H.?” Ludwig gives the date, which matches the date on the sheet. The magistrate is now convinced that Ludwig is telling the truth. Since Ludwig is sticking to his story about the ticket, the hearing is at an end. The files of Ludwig N. are ordered from H. What happens next is up to the prosecution authorities. A red form is filled in. A form of destiny. An arrest warrant. A bell rings: take him away.
A sergeant walks Ludwig to the prison office. He is to wait in an area separated from the office by a chest-high partition. “Have you got any money or valuables on you?” asks the official. Ludwig hands him the mark he was given by the hoodlum. Then he is taken away to prison. In front of him the endless corridor, left and right indistinguishable, cell by cell. Brown iron-clad door by brown iron-clad door. Only the numbers of the doors, which are the same as the numbers of the inmates, change. In the reception area, Ludwig is called upon to empty his pockets. Everything is taken off him. Then he is brought to a cell, and he’s on his own. A rock-hard rumpled field bed, with blue-and-white sheets and two woollen blankets. A stool, a wall-mounted shelf for his tin dish, a drinking
cup and a water jug. In the corner a stinking toilet. There’s no space for a table.
The hobnails of the guards clank along the stone-flagged corridors. An eye looks through a peephole in the door, watches the inmates on the toilet or dreaming of freedom and girls … A jangle of metal against Ludwig’s cell door. The insertion of a big key into the lock hits him like an electric shock. “Come on.” He is handed over to a civilian official, who is to take him to get processed.
Up stairs and down, round corners and into obscure nooks of the huge labyrinthine building. A large bright room on the ground floor. Trams whizz past outside. “Go in there.” Ludwig is shown into a cage of loose wire, next to a whimpering little girl. Almost a child. Wonder what she’s done? Whatever it was, she is measured, fingerprinted, photographed from the front and both sides, as though she is a dangerous criminal. Ludwig’s turn next. He has to wash his hands. “Otherwise your sweat might blur the prints,” the official explains. He takes Ludwig’s right hand, and gently presses the fingertips on a plate, which has previously been impregnated with printer’s ink. Then he takes Ludwig’s fingers one at a time, and presses each one in a space on the prepared personnel-data sheet. And then the same thing with the left hand. The prints of all ten fingers on both hands are to be kept for perpetuity. Then the photograph. A white draped room. Ludwig has to sit on a square stage. Rods at his back make him sit up straight, at both sides the delinquent model is kept in an upright posture. A flash of light. One profile is in the bag. The official pulls a lever. Ludwig, not having moved, is now full-face. The procedure a second time, with cap, then Ludwig is taken back to his cell.
6
WILLI KLUDAS IS WOKEN
by a terrible pressure. A heavy object is lying on top of him, crushing the breath out of him. Broad awake, he opens his eyes. He can see nothing, nothing at all. Below him something is going rat-ta-ta-TA … rat-ta-ta-TA. It takes Willi a while to get his bearings. Yes, he ran away, climbed into a railway wagon, and lay down among the wood wool. And it’s a dislodged bale of wood wool that’s crushing him. It’s too big for him to lift. He twists and wrestles with difficulty until he’s lying on his stomach, and slowly wriggles clear of the bale. When he lifts the heavy tarpaulin at the back of the wagon, he finally sees that it’s nighttime. The train is idling along.
In the brake hut of the wagon behind his own, Willi suddenly sees a little spark moving around and flaring. A smoking railwayman? Or a stowaway, like himself? Hurriedly, he re-secures the tarpaulin and squeezes down among the bales again. It’s warmer there as well. He’s still got a cigarette and a couple of squashed slices of bread. But nothing to drink. He smokes the cigarette first, careful not to get too near the wood wool. Where is the train going? The passing landscape gives no clues. And how long has he been traveling for? The locomotive whistles, then twice more, and the brakes start to
squeal. No approach. Willi twists his way up, in the hope of maybe spotting the name of a station. The train has stopped in the middle of nowhere.
Cautiously Willi peeks through a finger-wide crack in the direction of the brake hut. The door opens, and a hatless head can be seen peering in all directions. There is no sign of any railway personnel. Now the man clambers down from the hut, stops at the bottom to look about him, and then slaps his arms round his ribs to warm up. Willi’s eyes drill into the darkness to try and make out the figure. Slowly, slowly, he can make out a bearded face, a jacket, and a pair of tracksuit bottoms with puttees. No sign of a railwayman’s uniform. Should he call out to the fellow? Perhaps he can tell him where they are. On an impulse, Willi pushes up the tarpaulin and softly calls out: “
Psst
, mate, over here!” The form jumps, makes to run off. Willi calls out a second time, and leans out. The tension leaves the man’s body, and he comes closer. Willi pulls up the tarpaulin invitingly, and with a single bound the stranger is up with him. When the tarpaulin has been reattached, the bearded man pulls out a torch and shines it in Willi’s face. What he sees seems to calm him down. “Journeyman?” he asks. “No,” replies Willi, “I’m on my way to Berlin.” The man laughs. “Berlin, eh? By the time it gets light, we’ll be in Cologne!”
The news comes as a shock to Willi. Cologne? What would he do in Cologne? He doesn’t know a soul there. That means he’s been going in the wrong direction all this time. Would it be best to jump off now, while the train is stopped? No, there’s no point. “Does it have to be Berlin?” asks the stranger. “Yes, I know someone there who’ll help me out,” replies Willi. “There is a way of getting to Berlin quickly and for no
money,” says the stranger, “but it’s dangerous. I know some who’ve fallen on the tracks and been turned into cat food.” Willi asks what it is. Says he’s ready for everything. Here in the Rhineland, the only alternatives are starving to death and turning himself in to the police. In Berlin he knows the ropes. Things will be better. But he needs to get there quickly. It could take a week or more on a goods train. The stranger shines his torch in Willi’s face again. “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll just get my pack out of the brakeman’s hut.”
No sooner is he back than the locomotive whistles again. The train moves off. Willi and the stranger join forces to heave the bales out of the way, to give themselves more space. The stranger introduces himself to Willi. In spite of his beard, he’s only thirty, is Franz, tramp from conviction, wanting to see Cologne again, where he hails from. Could be that Franz will be in Berlin in another week. Who can know? Willi volunteers that he’s fled from borstal. Franz is busy doing something in the dark. The next time the torch flashes on briefly, Willi sees a bundle of newly rolled cigarettes in Franz’s cap, rolled in the pitch black. Christ, the fellow’s skilled. And then, when the two of them are smoking, Franz comes out with his plan of getting Willi to Berlin in quick time. There’s a little pause for effect, then he says curtly: “The express.” “Get away!” says Willi in his disappointment. “No, I’m serious, the express!” Franz insists. “But what about the inspector, for Christ’s sake!” objects Willi. “You don’t get no inspectors there. They’re all up in the train.” Franz laughs. “You’re underneath the train.” Willi freezes. Under the express, at sixty mph? Never! Where is “there,” anyway? Under the carriages? Where do you hang on to when it’s racing along?
Franz takes his time. Long before departure, when the train is still in a siding, the stowaway has to climb under the train and hunker over an axle. That’s where he has to hang, a foot or two above the ground. If he drops off, he’s dead. But there’s a chance, too, that a fist-sized chunk of ballast could bounce up and kill him. Or that his arms and legs seize up with cold or lack of movement, and can’t hold him up on the axle anymore … The prospects as Franz describes them aren’t exactly rosy. He admits that he only takes this route when he’s really up against it. His most horrible experience under an express was going from Warsaw to Berlin one time. From Warsaw to Berlin under the express! “For cowards I expect it’s easier to take a goods train,” Franz concludes. “I’ll take the chance,” Willi determines. It doesn’t sound especially heroic, but it’s a decision, and Willi is determined to follow through. Franz offers to put Willi under the right train in Cologne — a city Willi doesn’t know — and also offers to help equip him for the ride. Franz doesn’t pursue the conversation, and Willi’s thoughts are too preoccupied with the risk he’s staring at. The train goes on with its monotonous rat-ta-ta-TA … rat-ta-ta-TA … rat-ta-ta-TA …
When they wake up from their nap, light is seeping through cracks in the tarpaulin. Franz pushes his way through to find out where they are. “It’s almost time, laddie. As soon as the train starts to slow, we’ll hop off. How are you feeling about Cologne–Berlin now?” Franz alludes to their earlier conversation. “My mind’s made up,” replies Willi. The locomotive whistles and starts to brake. There’s still no trace of Cologne, they’re just going through a little wood. Franz gives Willi instructions on how to jump off a train. Throw yourself down as soon as you land, so that the brakemen don’t
notice. The train slows further. Franz jumps first, and throws himself to the ground. Willi comes after. But he doesn’t even need to throw himself to the ground, the impetus does it for him, he doesn’t have much say in the matter. They set off across the fields, and before long they hit a tree-lined road. After a good hour or so, they reach the end of one of the tramlines, and not long after they’re in the city.
Willi isn’t especially interested in Cologne or the Rhine. He wants to get to Berlin. Franz, however, is full of the joys of coming home. Though Franz knows Willi is probably down to his last fifty pfennigs, he takes him along to his old hostel. Comradeship is a given among kings of the road. In the hostel they are shown to a niche with two field beds in it, and in the dining room there is a huge bowl of bean soup with pork belly. Willi starts to object again. “Eat,” replies Franz, and divvies the meat up. When they are both full, Franz returns to the subject of Willi’s trip. “First you need to be well-rested. Otherwise you won’t last an hour before you’re ground up.” On Franz’s advice, Willi decides not to go till tomorrow night. Then they repair to their beds, to catch up on their sleep.
Willi sleeps through till noon the next day. He’s planning to leave in the evening. After eating, they go back upstairs to prepare for the journey. In just five hours, he’ll be lying on the axle. Franz has got hold of an old threadbare blanket, which he cuts up into pieces. Willi stands there, shaking his head. What’s Franz doing, cutting up these yards and yards of footcloths? And that bag he’s sewing? Franz drapes the bag over Willi’s head, and marks the places for his eyes. Takes it off him again, and cuts a couple of peepholes in it. Two strips are sewn on to the bottom end. Finally Franz explains: “You have to keep this bag over your head right through the
journey. First, it’ll keep you warm. Second, if you didn’t have it, you’d arrive in Berlin with grime on your face an inch thick, and that would give you away.” Willi can imagine what a pair of heavy mittens would be for. But all those strips of material? Franz goes on to explain that in addition to his face his clothes will be filthy. So he needs to wear his anorak inside out, same with his trousers. In Berlin he’ll just turn them right way round so he doesn’t catch people’s attention from the outset.
The strips of material are to be wrapped round legs, thighs and torso. On account of the cold, laddie! The cold times a sixty-mph wind. With your thin undergarments you’d be stiff as a board in no time, no feeling in your limbs, and the train wheels would grind you up. Obediently Willi takes off his outer garments, and allows himself to be wound about with the strips of blanket. Not too tight, mind, so that the blood can flow, but not so loose that they slip. Puts his trousers back on inside out, weskit and jacket over them, and then his anorak, again inside out. It barely fits over his jacket. Just before they head off for the shunting yard, Willi has to down a few glasses of schnapps. Their purpose is to keep his courage up and his blood going round.
It takes minute knowledge of the terrain to approach the already-prepared Cologne-Berlin train without being seen. As long as they’re not on the actual rails, the wintry dusk keeps them from sight. But thereafter, they have to creep, crawl, slither and leap, taking advantage of every inch of shadow. Done it, thank God! They scurry along the side of the carriages. Not too near the back, there’s too much lateral movement. But not too close to the front either, otherwise the locomotive might spew glowing ashes over the
hapless bundle cowering under the carriage. Franz stops at a second-class carriage. Nothing but the best, Willi thinks to himself. They creep right up to it, and Franz demonstrates the way he has to hunker over the broad axle. Then he pulls out two short ropes from his pocket, and attaches them to a couple of bars. Now Willi has a couple of handholds. Once again, Franz does the demonstration, and Willi shows him he can do it. With the train standing still, it looks straightforward. Once he’s in Berlin, Franz continues, best to hop off in some suburb, when the train’s waiting for the track to clear. On no account go into a station, that’s far too risky. Otherwise, wait till the passengers have all got off and the train is being put by. “All right then, sunshine, best of luck!” Willi gets into his crouch, and gives his friend a firm handshake. Franz slopes off.