Every Man Dies Alone (22 page)

Oh, it’s more than I can stand! What has he gotten himself into? And there I was, thinking this was something small! Once a week, and if he writes two cards, twice a week endangering his life! And he won’t always want to take me with him. I noticed that right away—he doesn’t really want me there. He will go by himself, he will drop
the cards by himself, and then he will go on to the factory (or he will never go to the factory again!), and I will sit at home waiting, waiting in terror, and this terror will never end, and I will never get used to it. Here’s Otto! At last! No, it’s not him. Not him again. Now I’m going to go and get him, I don’t care how angry he is! Something’s wrong, he must have been gone for a quarter of an hour, it can’t possibly take that long! I’m going after him!

She takes three steps towards the building—and turns around. Stops in front of the window, stares at it.

No, I won’t go in after him, I won’t go looking for him. I can’t let him down like that the very first time. I’m just imagining something has happened to him; people are walking in and out of the building, just as always. I’m sure Otto hasn’t been gone a quarter hour either. Now, let’s see what’s in this shop window. Corsets, garter belts…

In the meantime, Quangel has indeed entered the office building. He settled on it so quickly because of his wife. She was making him nervous: any moment she might start talking about “it” again. He couldn’t stand to prolong his search in her company. She was sure to start talking again, be in favor of this building or against that one. No, enough! He would rather walk into the first building he came to, even if it wasn’t ideal.

This one was a long way short of ideal: It was a bright modern office building that no doubt housed many companies but that still had a porter in a gray uniform. Quangel walks past him with an indifferent expression. He is prepared for the question Where are you going; he has noted that a lawyer named Toll is on the fourth floor. But the porter doesn’t stop him; he’s busy talking to someone else. He casts a fleeting, indifferent regard at Quangel as he walks in. Quangel turns left to take the stairs, then hears the purr of an elevator. There’s another thing he has failed to allow for, that a modern building like this will have an elevator and the stairs will hardly be used at all.

But Quangel continues up the stairs. The elevator boy will think, An old man, fearful of elevators. Or: Only going up to the first floor. Or perhaps he won’t think anything. Anyway, the stairs are hardly in use. He’s already on the second floor, and so far he has met only an office boy in a tearing rush, plunging downstairs with a bundle of letters in his hand, who didn’t even look at Quangel. He could drop his postcard anywhere here, but he doesn’t forget for a moment that there’s that elevator, and he could be seen at any second through its glinting glass. He needs to climb higher, and the elevator needs to be on its way down, and then he can do it.

He stops in front of one of the tall windows between stories, and stares down at the street. There, well hidden from view, he pulls a glove out of his pocket and puts it on his right hand. He then puts that hand in his pocket, slips it in past the waiting postcard, carefully, so as not to crease it. He takes it between two fingers…

While Otto Quangel is doing all this, he has noticed that Anna is not at her place in front of the shop window at all, but is standing by the side of the road, looking pale and conspicuous as she stares up at the office building. She doesn’t raise her eyes as high as where he is—she’s probably watching the entrance. He shakes his head crossly at her, firmly resolved never to take his wife on another errand like this. Of course she’s worried for him. But why is she worried for him? She ought to be a little worried for herself, badly as she is behaving. It is she who is endangering them both!

He climbs farther up the steps. As he passes the next window, he looks down at the street again, and this time Anna is standing in front of the shop window where she’s supposed to be. Good for her, she’s fought down her fear. Brave woman. He won’t even mention it to her. And suddenly Quangel takes out the card, lays it cautiously on the windowsill, pulls the glove off his hand as he begins walking downstairs, and puts it in his pocket.

Climbing down the first few steps, he looks back. There it is in bright daylight, he can still see it from where he is now—the big, legible, bold writing on his first card! Anyone will be able to read it! And understand it, too! Quangel smiles grimly to himself.

At that moment, he hears a door opening on the floor above him. The elevator has just left, heading downstairs. If whoever is upstairs can’t be bothered to wait for the elevator, if he takes the stairs and finds the card… Quangel is only one flight ahead of him. If the man runs, he will be able to catch up with Quangel, perhaps only at the bottom of the building, but he can catch up with him, because Quangel is not allowed to run. An old man, running down the stairs like a schoolboy—that would attract attention. And he must not attract attention, no one must recall seeing a man of such and such an appearance anywhere in the building…

He walks fairly quickly down the stone stairs, and between the sound of his own footsteps, he listens to hear if the other man really has taken the stairs. If so, he will have seen the card; it’s not possible to miss it. But Quangel isn’t quite sure. Once, he thinks he hears steps, but then he doesn’t hear anything more for some time. And
by now he’s too far down to hear much. The elevator rides up with a flash of lights.

Quangel sets foot in the lobby. A large group of people are just coming from the courtyard, workers from some factory or other, and Quangel mingles with them. This time, he’s quite convinced, the porter hasn’t even seen him.

He crosses the roadway and comes to stand beside Anna.

“Done!” he says.

And as he sees the gleam in her eyes, and the tremble on her lips, he adds, “No one saw me!” And then: “Let’s go. I’ve just got time to make it to the factory on foot.”

They go. But both throw a look over their shoulder back to this office building, where the first of the Quangels’ postcards has now embarked on its journey into the world. They nod good-bye to the building. It’s a good building, and however many buildings they visit at weekly intervals in the course of the next months and years, they’ll never forget this one.

Anna Quangel wishes she could stroke her husband’s hand, but she doesn’t dare. She just brushes it, as if by accident, and says, “Oh, sorry, Otto!”

He looks at her in surprise, but doesn’t say anything. They walk on.

Part II

THE GESTAPO

Chapter 19

THE POSTCARDS MAKE THEIR WAY

The actor Max Harteisen had, as his friend and attorney Toll liked to remind him, plenty of butter on his head from pre-Nazi times.
^*
He had acted in films made by Jewish directors, he had acted in pacifist films, and one of his principal theater roles was that of the despicable weakling, the Prince of Homburg, whom every red-blooded National Socialist could only spit at. Max Harteisen therefore had every reason to be extremely cautious; for a while it was far from certain whether he would even be allowed to work under the Nazis.

But in the end it had all panned out. Of course he had had to exercise a little restraint, and first of all cede the limelight to actors of a browner hue, even if they were far less gifted than himself. But he had fallen down on this matter of restraint; he had acted so well, he had even drawn the attention of Minister Goebbels. Yes, the minister had fallen for Harteisen. And as far as these ministerial infatuations went, as every child knew, there was no more fickle and unpredictable man than Dr. Joseph Goebbels.

At first it had all been sweetness and light, because when the minister wanted to honor someone, he made no distinctions of gender. Dr. Goebbels treated Harteisen like a mistress: he telephoned him
every morning to ask how he had slept, sent him chocolates and flowers as he would to a diva, and not a day passed without the minister spending at least a few minutes with his Harteisen. He even took him along him to the Party Congress at Nuremberg and explained National Socialism to him, and Harteisen duly understood everything he was supposed to understand.

The only thing he didn’t understand was that under National Socialism a citizen does not go about contradicting a minister. Because a minister, by simple fact of being a minister, is bound to be ten times cleverer than anyone else. On some perfectly trivial film question, Harteisen contradicted his minister, and even declared that what Dr. Goebbels had said was rubbish. It is unclear whether it was the trivial and utterly theoretical film question that had so engaged the actor’s passion, or whether it was more that he was fed up with so much adoration and desired to bring it to an end. At any rate, he stood by his words in spite of various suggestions that he take them back—minister or no minister, the view was and remained rubbish.

Oh, how the world then suddenly changed for Max Harteisen! No more morning inquiries after the quality of his sleep, no chocolates, no flowers, no more visits to Dr. Goebbels, and no more instructions in the true National Socialism either! All that might have been borne—perhaps it was even in some ways an improvement—but suddenly Harteisen found he had no more bookings either. Even signed film contracts were ripped up, provincial tours evaporated, and there was no more work for the actor Harteisen.

Since Harteisen was a man who not only looked to his profession for an income, but who was an actor to his fingertips, one whose life found its purpose on the stage or in front of the camera, he was completely destroyed by this enforced idleness. He couldn’t and wouldn’t believe that the minister who for a year and a half had been his dearest friend had now turned into an deplorable and unscrupulous enemy, or that he was using the power of his position to rob Harteisen of all
joie de vivre
merely because Harteisen had contradicted him. (In the year 1940, he had not yet understood, our good Harteisen, that any Nazi at any time was prepared to take not only the pleasure but also the life of any differently minded German.)

But as time passed and no possibilities of work appeared, the shoe finally dropped for Max Harteisen. Friends reported to him that the minister had declared at a conference on films that the Führer never wanted to see that particular actor wearing the tunic of an officer onscreen again. Not much later, he heard that the Führer did not want to see him again in any capacity. The actor Harteisen had be
come “undesirable.” Over, chum, finished, blacklisted at thirty-six—for the whole of a Thousand-Year Reich!

Now, the actor Harteisen really did have butter on his head. But he didn’t give up, he asked and inquired, he tried everything to find out whether this destructive judgment really was the Führer’s or the little minister had merely made it up to finish off his enemy. And that Monday, Harteisen had run to his attorney Toll, completely confident of victory, and had declared, “I’ve got it! Erwin, I’ve got it! The bastard was lying! The Führer never even saw the film where I played the Prussian officer, and he’s never said a word against me, either!”

And he reported excitedly that the news was perfectly reliable, because it came from Göring himself. A friend of his wife’s had an aunt, whose cousin had been invited to the Göring’s at Karinhall. There she had raised the matter, and Göring had expressed himself as stated.

The attorney looked at his excited client a little mockingly. “Well, Max, and how does that change things?”

The actor muttered in some bafflement, “Well, Erwin, it means Goebbels was lying.”

“And so? Did you ever believe everything that club-foot said was true?”

“No, of course not. But if we take the case to the Führer… He’s misused the name of the Führer!”

“Yes, and then the Führer will throw out his old Party veteran and propaganda minister, for stymieing Harteisen’s career!”

The actor looked imploringly at his mocking, condescending attorney. “But something’s got to happen in my case, Erwin!” he said. “I want to work! And Goebbels is wrongly and willfully obstructing me!”