A Stranger in My Own Country (5 page)

‘It makes me sick!' she burst out. ‘We could have done without their play-acting. Or did you believe a single word they said?'

‘Not a word', I replied, and then we walked down through the
garden to the Spree, where our little boy's delight in the rippling waves and river barges soon made us forget all about the two old hypocrites.

(25.IX.44.)
The next morning came, it was the Saturday before Easter, and mother was busy with cooking and baking. So father and son went out by themselves, down to the banks of the Spree again, walking side by side with Teddy in the middle. Teddy was a wonderful and indestructible creature; I'd bought him when we were still living in ‘straitened circumstances' for the sum of 33 marks, much to the horror of my wife. Teddy stuck out his jolly red tongue, and he seemed to take as lively a pleasure in the sunny spring sky and the bustling river traffic as my boy did. For a while we were content just to stand there and watch, and then we started to play more actively, poking about in a little patch of reeds and disturbing some birds, which flew up, chirping indignantly. We'd parked Teddy on a molehill while we played. We were still rummaging about when suddenly there were two figures standing in front of us, wearing those brown shirts that I didn't care to see even then, and the sight of which still unsettles me to this day. Each of the figures had a pistol in his hand, which was unmistakably pointed at me. ‘Uh-oh!' I thought to myself. ‘Are you Fallada?' one of them asked. Except that the speaker didn't say ‘Fállada' with the stress on the first syllable, which I prefer, because it sounds a bit like a triumphant blast on the trumpet; instead he pronounced it ‘Falláda', which always sounds like someone who's about to trip over and fall flat on his face. In a way he was right, because I
was
about to take a tumble – out of all my dreams of a joyous Easter, at any rate: but I was not going to be floored and laid low on that account! ‘Yes, that's me' I said, and tightened my grip on my little boy's hand, finding this whole show of force wildly histrionic, given my peace-loving nature. ‘You're to come with us!' the man barked. ‘And don't even think of running, because we'll shoot the moment you try it.'

‘Do you mind if I fetch our Teddy first?' I asked amiably, and in sullen silence they allowed us to collect Teddy from his molehill. And
so we marched back up through the garden, towards the villa at the top: my son and I, with Teddy in the middle, and the two brownshirts with pistols drawn. Personally I thought I completely ruined the dramatic effect for them, but they didn't see the funny side; no-one has ever been more lacking in a sense of humour than Mr Hitler and all his hangers-on, right down to the last lackey. To them everything was deadly earnest, and in the end that's exactly what it all turned out to be – in the most literal sense of the word.

For the rest, I wasn't unduly concerned about this morning visitation. It was probably just another of those searches for weapons or Communist literature that they were so fond of – and they were welcome to search my place, because I was sure they wouldn't find anything. (Sweet innocent that I was, I had no idea back then that people can bring with them what they want to find – a sure-fire method of getting rid of undesirables, come what may. But on that day I gave no thought to such things. Politics seemed a long way off, and money matters were uppermost in my mind; but I would learn my lesson soon enough!)

I found our quiet house at the end of the village in a state of uproar. The place was crawling with SA stormtroopers, at least twenty or twenty-five of these gentlemen had graced me with their presence, including a big man wearing some sort of gold insignia. Was he a ‘Standartenführer'? A ‘Rottenführer'? A ‘Scharführer'? I've no idea, and to this day I have not wasted mental energy on learning to tell the difference between all these silly uniforms that the new Germany has gone to town on since 1933. I'd like to die without insignia or decorations of any kind; if I reach a ripe old age, they can put me on display by the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin with a sign saying: ‘This is the only German who never received a medal or decoration, never earned a rank or title, never won a prize and never belonged to a club.' In this regard I'm doubtless very un-German.

So anyway, some kind of senior SA officer was involved, but what cheered me was the presence of a good old country policeman, wearing the familiar green uniform complete with shako-style helmet. An
edict had only recently been issued by Mr Göring to the effect that house searches and arrests were no longer to be carried out by Party echelons acting alone, but that a regular police officer must always be present. The abuses and brutalities that Party members had permitted themselves in their dealings with opponents had caused quite a stink, and in those early days there were even a few Party noses that were still sensitive to excessively rank odours. But that sensitivity was short-lived. The powers that be soon saw that they could take all the liberties they wanted with the German people, who were too acquiescent by half.

So the sight of a policeman, putting me in mind of that edict, gave me a certain feeling of security: at least things would be conducted with a semblance of ‘legality'. (In the next two hours I would find out just how much this ‘legality' was worth.) The policeman was very polite and proper: ‘We have to conduct a search of your house, Mr Fallada, a complaint has been lodged against you. Give me your keys!'

‘Be my guest!' I replied, and handed them over. I was reassured by the courteous tone, but knew better than to inquire as to the nature of the complaint. ‘Ask too many questions and you'll get too many answers' – or none at all, and that's certainly true when dealing with court officials and anything to do with them.

We processed solemnly into the house, my little boy, who had been following everything that happened with big blue eyes and without a sound, and Teddy still holding on to my hand.

For a moment Mrs Sponar peeped round an open door in the hall. There was a burning look in this evil woman's eyes, and the way she looked at me made me feel distinctly ill at ease. Although I didn't know it at the time, I was right to feel that way: she thought she was seeing me for the last time in her life. We climbed the stairs, and in the kitchen I saw my wife busying herself with the dishes. She was a little pale, but there was no clattering of plates as she worked. I sent the boy in to her, and the policeman said: ‘For the moment you are not allowed to have any contact with your wife or anyone else.' I nodded. ‘And now you can start by showing us where you keep your correspondence!' Which I did.

I have always been proud of the good order in which I keep my private affairs, and my double-entry bookkeeping would not put a professional accountant to shame. My correspondence is clearly filed in alphabetical order by addressee. I unlocked the cupboard where it was kept. The first folder they took out was not the letter A, but the letter S. ‘Aha!' I thought to myself. ‘This early-morning visit is all about Mr von Saloman! Who knows what that adventurer with his hard-line Communist brother has been up to this time – and now I'm in trouble too because of it!'

But they didn't find a single letter to or from Mr von Saloman, who was someone I'd only ever spoken to.

But that didn't discourage them, even if it was initially a disappointment. They went through the correspondence folder by folder, and when they had finished that they started on my books. They took every book and shook it out vigorously, which didn't do the bindings much good. I didn't have very many books at the time, but there were still a good few – so it took them quite a time. Every now and then they would trot across to their gold-braided leader and show him a book that had caught their attention, such as the book of memoirs by Max Hölz
³⁵
–
Vom weissen Kreuz zur roten Fahne [From White Cross to Red Flag]
– or Marx's
Das Kapital
or an issue of the journal
Radikaler Geist
.
³⁶
But the leader shook his head. He was not interested in such trifles: he was after bigger game. I rightly took that to be a bad sign. This wretched Mr von Saloman had doubtless been planning another little putsch of some kind, they'd been keeping him under surveillance, and that's how they knew about his visit to me. Well, whatever: they wouldn't find anything in my house! Incidentally, the policeman took no part in this house search. He just stood by and watched, looking pretty bored, and let the brownshirts rummage about by themselves. After searching for a whole hour, all they had to show for it was a piece of paper they had found in my work folder for
Jailbird
. Written on the paper next to a small drawing was the one word ‘Maschinengewehr' – ‘Machine gun'.

‘Why are you interested in machine guns?' I was asked. ‘And what's the meaning of this drawing?' They had all clustered around me,
listening intently. Written across their faces was a mixture of schadenfreude and curiosity – they thought they had got me. ‘Gentlemen', I said with a smile, ‘as you can tell from the manuscript folder there, I am working on a novel about the fate of people who are sent to prison. To that end I have collected a good deal of material about prison life. And this ‘machine gun' is part of that. But this is not a real machine gun: as you can see from the drawing, it's eight prisoners who have got hold of a ninth prisoner, who's made himself unpopular by stealing, say, and they've wrapped him in a blanket and are now about to beat him up in a particular way. They have a special word for this in the nick, they call it “machine gun” . . .' I beamed at them. But in their faces all I saw was naked disbelief, and their leader screamed at me in fury: ‘Don't try and pull the wool over our eyes! Do you think we're going to fall for a pack of lies like that? Tell us right now where you've buried the machine gun, or I'll start getting rough with you. I'll come down on you like a ton of bricks, my friend!' He glared at me threateningly. My heart sank as I realized I had no other proof if these men chose not to believe me. I was entirely at their mercy, and they had no interest in my innocence, since they were determined to find me guilty. But now, in my hour of need, help came from an entirely unexpected quarter: from a coarse, thuggish-looking man in a brown shirt. ‘No', he cried, ‘that's right! We once worked a guy over in the dormitory like that, and “machine gun” is what we called it . . .' He broke off, cowed by a look from his leader, who probably thought it not quite the thing to be discussing the past history of an upstanding SA fighter in the presence of an outsider like me. ‘Fine', growled the leader, and pushed the piece of paper into the cuff of his uniform sleeve – for possible use at a later date. ‘I'll look into the matter later. But for now we need to search the other rooms.' They did so thoroughly, but not overly skilfully. I was gratified to note that a house guest we had at the time, a Jewish lady, managed without much difficulty to evade these gentlemen by slipping from one room to the next. They never even saw her, despite the fact that the few rooms I had were fairly swarming with SA men. At one point I saw the lady sitting in a corner on the balcony. I signalled to her by blinking my
eyes slowly, and she nodded back with a smile. I was glad they didn't find her – for her sake and also, a little bit, for mine. Having a Jewish woman in the house would have been one more item on the charge sheet against me.

The search of the remaining rooms also failed to yield anything remotely incriminating. In sullen silence they then climbed up into the attic and proceeded to search through our empty suitcases and boxes. I stood by one of the attic windows, while the SA leader and policeman stood by the next one, deep in conversation. Suddenly I heard the policeman say firmly: ‘There's not a shred of evidence against him. I can't arrest the man.'

The SA leader replied heatedly: ‘But look here – we've received very definite information. You've got to take him in.'

The policeman put on his helmet and tugged at his belt. ‘I can't – and I won't', he stated as firmly as before. ‘Then I'll just have to arrest him myself!' retorted the SA leader waspishly. ‘Do what you like. But I'm having nothing to do with it!' replied the policeman, and left the attic. When he left the house, all ‘legality' went out the door with him: so much for compliance with Göring's edicts
³⁷
. . . Up until this moment I had looked upon the whole thing as a rather tiresome but amusing game: these fellows had nothing on me – I was innocent! But now I realized that this was beside the point, if they really had it in for me. I realized that I was in real danger, and that it would be better for me not to take the whole thing so lightly. It might be that I would need all my strength and courage to get out of this business in one piece!

I was taken back to my study and kept there, guarded by two SA men, while the others left, along with their leader. But when I looked out of the window I saw that an SA sentry had been posted by the garden gate that led to the street. Doubtless there was another one behind the house, on the side overlooking the Spree. I really did seem to be very valuable to them. I listened for any sound in the house: dead quiet everywhere. The waiting was torture. What had they got planned for me? Why were they leaving me here? I looked into the faces of my two guards – and thought it better not to ask. They had the coarse faces
of thugs, veterans of a hundred brawls at political meetings, where they drove home the words of their Führer with knuckledusters and chair legs; the vicious faces of ruthless men who were ready to smash heads in here – anyone's head – if someone gave the word. I've always thought that this archetypal SA visage, which became a familiar sight after the Nazis had seized power, was perfectly epitomized in the face of Gauleiter Streicher,
³⁸
that intimate friend of the Führer and editor of the anti-Semitic paper
Der Stürmer
– a filthy rag, and far filthier than any muck-raking scandal sheet. Whenever I saw that man in a photograph, I felt the hatred rising up within me, a hatred that had absolutely nothing to do with politics. Those little piggy eyes, the low brow, the overdeveloped chin, and above all that thick neck with its six or seven rolls of fat: for me he was the embodiment of evil, the devil incarnate – so much so that I had taken to calling him ‘the Hangman'. My two guards had faces just like him, the kind of people who wouldn't hesitate to grab a child by the legs and smash its head against the radiator of their car until it was dead. (This is what eye-witnesses later told me about the Führer's praetorian guard, the SS, the elite formation that employed such methods to solve the Jewish question . . .)