Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (33 page)

But Franz Biberkopf goes through the streets, jogging along in his own little way. He does not give in, and asks for nothing more than to get really well again and strong in his muscles. The weather is warm and summery; Franz wanders from cafe to cafe.

He dodges the heat. In the cafe the big schooners of beer come sliding up. The first schooner says: I come from the cellar, from hops and malt. Now I am cool, what do I taste like?

Franz says: Bitter, fine, cool.

Yes, I cool you off, I cool all men off, then I make them warm and then I dispel their idle thoughts. Idle thoughts? Yes, the majority of all thoughts are idle. Aren’t they? - Maybe so. I leave you the last word.

A small brandy stands before Franz with its bright yellow lights. Where did they pick you up?-They burnt me, man.-You certainly do bite, old fellow, you got claws. -Goshalmighty, that’s why I’m a brandy. Maybe you haven’t seen any of me for a long time?-Nope, I was almost dead, my little brandy-sprite, I was almost dead; I rode away without a return ticket. -You look it. -What d’y’ mean, look it, don’t talk rot! Let’s try you again, come here! Ah you’re good, you’ve got fire, you certainly have, young fellow. -The liquor ripples down his throat: and what fire!

The smoke from the fire rises in Franz and makes his throat so dry that he has to take another schooner: you’re schooner number Two. I’ve had one already, what have you got to tell me? -Say, Fat, taste me first, then you can talk.-All right.

The schooner says: Listen, if you have two more schooners and another kümmel and then a grog, you’ll bubble up just like peas. -Is that so? Yes, then you’ll get fat again, gee, you’re looking bad, feller! You really can’t go around with people like that. Take another swallow.

Franz takes up the third: I’m swallowin’ all right. One after the other. Keep everything in order.

He questions number Four: Watcha know, darling? -It only yawps delightedly. Franz pours it down his throat. I believe it. Everything, darling, everything you say, I believe, you’re me lambkin, we’ll go into the green pastures together.

Third Conquest of Berlin

And so Biberkopf has come to Berlin for the third time. The first time the roofs were about to slide off, then the Jews came and he was saved. The second time Lüders cheated him, but he swigged his way through. Now, the third time, his arm is gone, but he ventures courageously into the city. The man’s got courage, two-and threefold courage.

Herbert and Eva had left him a nice wad of money which the bartender downstairs keeps for him. But Franz only takes a few pfennigs, resolving at the same time: I won’t take any of their money, I’ve got to make myself independent. He goes to the “Charity Association” and asks for help. “We’ll have to make inquiries first. “ “And what’ll I do in the meantime?” “You may come back in a few days.” “A fellow might starve to death in a few days.” “People don’t starve as fast as that in Berlin, that’s what they all say. And then we don’t hand out money, only tickets, and we pay your room-rent from here, and that’s your address all right, isn’t it?”

And Franz leaves the “Charity Association,” and when he gets downstairs, the scales fall from his eyes: inquiries, say, they’re going to make inquiries, maybe they’ll inquire about my arm and how it all came about. He is standing in front of a cigar-store ruminating: they’ll try to find out what’s the matter with my arm, who paid the bill and what hospital I was in. That’s what they might ask. And then, what I was living on those last few months. You just wait.

He broods as he strolls along: what can a fellow do then? Who shall I ask, what am I going to do now, and I don’t want to live offa their money, either.

So for two days he walks around looking for Meek, between the Alex and the Rosenthaler Platz, he might talk to him about it, and he finds him all right, the second evening, on the Rosenthaler Platz. They look at each other. Franz wants to shake hands with him - how they had greeted each other that time after that affair with Lüders, with what joy, and now meek hesitantly gives him his hand, does not press it. Franz wants to start shaking again with his left hand, but Meek suddenly makes such a serious lace; what’s the matter with him, what’s up now? And they walk up Münzstrasse and walk and walk, and back through Rosenthaler Strasse again, and Franz still waits to hear whether Meek is not going to ask about his arm. But he doesn’t even do that, he keeps on looking sideways. Maybe I look too dirty for him. Whereupon Franz gets gay and asks about Cilly, what she’s doing.

Oh, she’s fine, why shouldn’t she be, and Meck talks at great length about her. Franz forces himself to laugh. But the other still doesn’t ask about his arm, and suddenly Franz sees everything clearly, and he asks: “You still hang around the cafe in the Prenzlauer?” Meck says disparagingly: “Yes, sometimes.” Then Franz catches on, and he walks slowly, keeping always a step behind Meck: Pums has told him something about me, or Reinhold or Schreiber, and now he thinks I’m a burglar. And if I should start talking now, I’d have to tell him everything, but he can wait a long time till I open my mouth.

And Franz gives a jerk and stands in front of Meek: “Well, Gottlieb, then let’s say good-bye, gotta go home, a cripple’s got to hit the hay early.” Meck looks him full in the face for the first time, takes his pipe out of his mouth, and wants to ask him something, but Franz waves him aside, no use asking questions, he has already givin’ him his hand, and is gone. Meck scratches his head and thinks to himself. I gotta give that one the once-over one of these days, and is dissatisfied with himself.

Franz Biberkopf marches across the Rosenthaler Platz, he feels happy and says to himself: What’s the use of all this yapping, I gotta earn money, what’s Meck to me, I gotta get some money.

You should have seen the way our Franz Biberkopf went hunting for money. Something new raged inside him. Eva and Herbert put their room at his disposal, but Franz would like to have a place of his own, otherwise he can’t get started right. Then comes the cursed moment, when Franz has found a place and his landlady puts the police registration papers in front of him. There he sits, our Franz, and he starts brooding again: if I write my name’s Biberkopf, they’ll look me up in their files right away, they’ll phone headquarters, and they’ll say, this way, old boy, and why don’t you show up once in a while, and what’s the matter with that arm, what hospital did you stay in, who paid for it, and it’s none of it true.

And he rages across the table: Charity, do I need charity? I don’t want that, that’s no good for a free man; and still brooding and raging away, he writes a name on the registration blank, first Franz, and before him he sees the police station and the charity association in Grunerstrasse and the auto out of which they had thrown him. He strokes the stump of his arm through his coat, they’re going to ask him about his arm, let ‘em go ahead, damn it all, I don’t care, I’ll do it.

And as if writing with a stick he chisels thick letters into the paper: I’ve never been a coward, and my name, I won’t let any of ‘em steal it from me
,
that’s my name, that’s what I was born, and that’s what I’ll lemain: Franz Biberkopf. One thick letter after the other, Tegel Prison, the street bordered with black trees, the convicts sitting there, at their gluing, carpentry, repairing. Dip it in again, I’ll put a dot over the I. I’m not afraid of the coppers, nor of the bulls with their brass badges. Either I’m a free man or I’m not.

There is a mower death yclept.

Franz hands the registration blank to his landlady, well, that’s settled. All settled. And now let’s hitch up our breeches, straighten our legs out, and march right into Berlin.

Clothes make the Man and another Man sees Things with other Eyes

On Brunnenstrasse, where they are excavating for the subway, a horse has fallen into the hole. People have been standing around watching for half an hour when the firemen come with a wagon. They put a strap around the belly of the horse. It is standing on a lot of conduits and gas pipes, who knows if it hasn’t broken a leg, it trembles and neighs, from above only its head can be seen. They draw it up with a pulley, the animal strikes out with force.

Franz Biberkopf and Meck are in the crowd. Franz jumps into the hole with the firemen and helps pull the horse up. Meck, and everybody else, is astonished at what Franz can do with his one arm. They tap on the sweaty animal and find that nothing has happened to it.

“Franz, you certainly got courage; where’d you get so much strength in that one arm of yours?” “Because I got muscles; if I want to do a thing, I ran do it all right.” They ankle down Brunnenstrasse, they have just met again for the first time a little while ago. Meck had thrown himself at Franz. “Yes, Gottlieb, that comes from eating and drinking well. And shall I tell you what else I do?” I’ll let him have it, Meck’s not going to give me any more of his lip. I’d rather not have friends like that. “Well, listen now; I gotta nice job. I stand in a circus on the Fair Grounds in Elbingerstrasse and bark for the merry-go-round, fifty pfennigs, ladies and gentlemen, for one time around, and back there in Romintenerstrasse I’m the strongest one-armed man, but that’s only since yesterday; why don’t you come and box with me once?” “You don’t say you box with one arm!” “Come and take a look for yourself. If I can’t cover up above, I use footwork.” Franz kids him good. Meck is amazed.

They wander down to the Alex in their same old jogtrot, then a short way through Gipsstrasse, where Franz takes him to the Alte Ballhaus. “It’s all done over, you kin watch me dance here or else take a look at me at the bar.” Meck is agog. “What’s happened to you all of a sudden, say?” “Righto. I’m starting over again, like in the old days. Well, why not? Any objections? Come in and look at me dance with one arm.” “No, no, no, I’d rather go to Munzhof, then.” “‘S all right with me; they won’t let us in, anyway, like this. But come around some Thursday or Saturday. I guess you think I’m playing the eunuch because they shot off my arm.” “Who shot it off?” “Oh, I had a shooting party with a bunch of bulls. ‘Twasn’t really nothin’ at all, it happened back there on the Bulowplatz, a few lads wanted to pull off a job, a decent lot they were too, but they didn’t have anything and where could they get it? Well, I walk up and down outside, and look around to see what’s up, when what should I see right on the corner but two suspicious-looking characters standing back there with shaving brushes in their hats. Well, I’ll tell ye: me for the house, and I whisper the alarm to the boy who’s the lookout, but they don’t want to go yet, just on account of two bulls, not on your life. Boy, they was some fellows, and they gotta get the stuff away first. Then up comes the bulls and starts sniffing around the house. I suppose one of the guys musta noticed something in the house, furs, something for the womenfolks, when coal is scarce. So we lie in ambush, and when the bulls try to get in, y’see they can’t get the house-door open. The others, of course, beat it out the rear. And when the bulls call in a locksmith to try and get in, I shoot through the key hole. What d’you think o’ that, Meck?” “Where’d it happen?” He can’t believe his ears. “In Berlin, just around the corner, on the Kaiserallee.” “Aw, go on with that stuff.” “Well, so I took a blind shot. Some shot it was, too, right through the door. But they didn’t catch me. By the time they got the door open, I was gone. Except for my arm. You see.” Meck bleats: “Well, what about it?” Then Franz gives him his hand with a magnificent gesture: “Well, so long, Meck. And if you ever need anything, I live - I’ll tell you that later. And good luck to your business.”

Off he goes through Weinmeisterstrasse. Meek is dumfounded. Either the boy’s pulling my leg, or I’ll have to ask Pums about it. They told me an entirely different story.

And Franz wanders through the streets back to the Alex.

I cannot accurately describe to you how the shield of Achilles looked, nor what arms and decorations he wore when he went forth to battle, I can only dimly recall armlets and greaves.

But how Franz looks as he now goes forth into a new battle, that I must tell you. Well, Franz Biberkopf has on his old dusty things all covered with horse-dirt, a sailor’s cap with a crooked anchor on it, and a worn-out brown coat and pants that were cheap to start with.

He has been into the Miinzhof and, after drinking down a mugful, left it again ten minutes later with a rather fresh little thing who had been stood up by somebody else. He walks along with her through WeinIlleisterstrasse and Rosenthaler Strasse, because inside it’s kind of muggy and outside it’s nice, although a bit misty,

And Franz’s heart opens up, he sees so much cheating and fraud wherever he looks! Another man, other eyes. As if he had just gotten his eyes. He and the girl laugh themselves sick at all the things they see! It i, six o’clock, a bit past six, it is raining, it’s pouring, thank God, the little tart has got an umbrella.

The shops, they look in all the windows.

“Here’s a shopkeeper selling beer. Just watch how he serves it. Didja see that, Emmi, didja see that: foam down to here.” “Well, what of it?” “Foam down to here? It’s cheating! Cheating! Cheating! But he’s right, too, the lad’s smart. That does me good.”

“Oh dear! Then he must be a crook.” “That fellow’s smart.”

A toy-shop:

“I’ll be blowed, Emmi, y’know when I stand here and look at all them little things, just take a peep at ‘em, well, I can’t say it does me good anymore. What a lot o’ trash, and all those painted eggs. Say, when we were kids, my mother set us to gluing pictures on ‘em. I won’t tell ye what they paid for ‘em.” “So you see!” “They’re a lot o’hogs! We better smash the window in! Rubbish! Exploiting poor folks is a dirty trick.”

Ladies’ cloaks. He wants to go on, but she puts on the brakes. “For if you really want to know, I can tell you a thing or two about that subject. Making ladies’ cloaks. Say! For the swell ladies. Whatcha think they pay for a thing like that?” “Come on, kid, I don’t want to know. If you let ‘em give it to you.” “Well, well, hold on now, what do ye want to do?”

“Wouldn’t I be a jackass if I let ‘em pay me just a few pfennigs. I’ll wear a silk coat myself and nothing less, that’s what I say.” “Well, say it then!” “And I’ll see to it so’s I can wear a silk coat. Otherwise I’d be a fool, wouldn’t I, and he’d be right to hand me his eight groschen.” “That’s the bunk.” “Because I’ve got on dirty pants I s’pose? Y’know, Emmi, that (ames from a horse that fell into the subway shaft. Nope, nothing doing with eight groschen as far as I’m concerned, a thousand marks, that’s what I want.” “Think you’ll get ‘em?”