Little Man, What Now? (44 page)

‘Shall I help you on your way?’ said the policeman.

Pinneberg complied abjectly; his mind a blur, he turned to go down the pavement in the direction of Friedrichstrasse Station. He only wanted to be on the train and on the way home to Lammchen.

He received a blow on the shoulders. It wasn’t a hard blow, but enough to knock him into the gutter.

‘Clear off, you!’ said the policeman. ‘Get a move on, will you.’

And Pinneberg started to move. He trotted along the gutter at the side of the road; he thought about a lot of things: arson, bombs, assassination. He thought that this was the end with Lammchen and the Shrimp, that it was the end of everything … but then he thought of nothing at all.

He came to the intersection with Jägerstrasse. He wanted to cross over to the station, to Lammchen and the Shrimp, the only place where he was somebody …

The policeman gave him a shove. ‘That way, you!’

He pointed into Jägerstrasse.

Once again Pinneberg tried to object: he had to get to his train. ‘But I have to …’ he said.

‘That way, d’y hear,’ repeated the policeman, pushing him into Jägerstrasse. ‘Now you clear off and sharp, young fellow-my-lad!’ And he gave Pinneberg a hefty swipe.

Pinneberg began to run, he ran very fast. He noticed that they were no longer following him, but he did not dare to look round. He ran along the road he was on, straight ahead into the dark night, which isn’t absolutely dark anywhere.

After a long, long time he slowed down. He stopped, he looked round. There was no one there. No police. Gingerly he raised one foot and put it on the pavement. Then the other. He was off the road and onto the pavement.

Then Pinneberg went on his way, one step at a time, through Berlin. But nowhere was completely dark, and going past policemen was particularly difficult.

A VISITOR IN A CAR. TWO PEOPLE WAIT IN THE NIGHT. LAMMCHEN IS OUT OF THE QUESTION

On road 87a, in front of allotment 375, stood a car: a taxi from Berlin. As for the driver, he had been sitting in the Pinneberg’s summer house for some hours, filling up the entire kitchen.

The man had drunk a pot of coffee, then smoked a cigar, then walked for a while in the garden, but there was nothing to see out there in the darkness. He had then gone back into the kitchen, drunk another pot of coffee and smoked another cigar.

But the people in the room were still talking, in particular the big fair man who jawed and jawed. The cab driver could have listened in if he’d wanted to, but he wasn’t interested. In a taxi there’s
almost always a gap in the glass panel separating the driver’s seat from the interior, and one can hear enough intimate conversations in the course of a week to last a lifetime.

After a while the man decided to act. He stood up and knocked on the door. ‘Aren’t we leaving soon, sir?’

‘Why!’ shouted the fair man. ‘Don’t you want to earn some money?’

‘I do,’ said the cab-driver. ‘But the waiting costs a lot of money.’

‘It’s my money that it costs,’ said the big man. ‘You sit right down again on your backside, and see if you can still recite the Catechism. That’s the kind of thing it’s almost impossible to forget. Try it.’

‘Well, all right,’ said the driver. ‘In that case I’ll have a nap.’

‘All right by me,’ said the fair man.

Lammchen said: ‘I really can’t understand where Sonny has got to. He’s always here by eight at the latest.’

‘He’ll come soon,’ said Jachmann. ‘How is the young father then, little mother?’

‘Lord,’ sighed Lammchen. ‘It’s not easy for him. When you’ve been unemployed for fourteen months …’

‘That’ll change,’ declared Jachmann. ‘Now I’m back on the scene, something will turn up.’

‘Were you away on a trip, Mr Jachmann?’ asked Lammchen.

‘Yes, I’ve been away a little.’ Jachmann stood up, and went to the Shrimp’s bedside. ‘It’s a mystery to me how a father can stay out when he has something like that lying here at home.’

‘Ah, Mr Jachmann,’ said Lammchen. ‘Of course the Shrimp is wonderful, but you can’t build your whole life round a child. What happens is that I go out sewing in the day …’

‘But you shouldn’t! That must stop now.’

‘… I go out sewing in the day and he looks after the house, and the meals, and the child. He doesn’t complain, he even gets pleasure out of it, but what sort of a life is it for him? What d’you think,
Mr Jachmann? D’you think it’s going to be like this from now on with the men at home doing the housework while the women work? It’s impossible!’

‘Oh come, how d’you work that out? During the war the women did the work while the men killed each other, and everybody thought that was all right. It works better this way round.’

‘Not everybody thought it was all right.’

‘Nearly everybody, young lady. People are like that. They don’t learn from experience, they keep on doing the same stupid things. Me too.’ Jachmann paused. ‘I’m moving back in with your mother-in-law.’

Lammchen said hesitantly. ‘Well, you must know what’s best, Mr Jachmann. It may not be so stupid. After all she is clever and amusing.’

‘Of course it’s stupid,’ said Jachmann angrily. ‘It’s damn stupid. You don’t know the half, young lady! You have no idea. But let’s say no more about it …’

He sank into thought.

After a long while Lammchen said. ‘You mustn’t wait, Mr Jachmann. The ten o’clock train has gone through now. I really believe that Sonny’s got up to mischief tonight. He did have rather a lot of money on him.’

‘What? A lot of money? D’you still have a lot of money?’

Lammchen laughed. ‘What we call a lot of money, Jachmann. Twenty marks. Twenty-five marks. He can go out on that.’

‘He can,’ said Jachmann sadly.

And after that there was another long silence.

Then Jachmann lifted his head and said: ‘Worried?’

‘Of course I’m worried. You’ll see what two years and those people have done to him. And he’s such a decent chap.’

‘He is.’

‘It wasn’t necessary to walk all over him like they did. And now if he begins to drink …’

Jachmann thought about it. ‘He won’t,’ he said. ‘Pinneberg has always had a freshness about him. Serious drinking is a squalid business; he won’t go in for it. Maybe the odd night on the tiles but not real drinking …’

‘The half-past-ten train has gone by,’ said Lammchen. ‘Now I am getting worried.’

‘You mustn’t,’ said Jachmann. ‘He’ll struggle through.’

‘Through what?’ asked Lammchen angrily. ‘What will he struggle through? None of what you’re saying makes sense, Jachmann. It’s just to comfort me. The worst thing is actually that he’s stuck out here with nothing to struggle for. All he can do is wait, but what for? There is nothing. It’s a life spent waiting.’

Jachmann gave her a long look. He had turned his great leonine head quite round and looked her full in the face.

‘You must stop thinking about the trains, Lammchen,’ he said. ‘Your husband will come back. I’m sure of it.’

‘It isn’t just the drink,’ said Lammchen. ‘Drinking would be bad, but not very bad. But he’s so down, you see, something might happen to him. He was at Puttbreese’s today, and Puttbreese might have been mean to him. A thing like that can knock him right over these days. He can’t stand much more. He might …’

She gave him a big-eyed stare. And then suddenly her eyes filled with tears. They ran, large and bright, down her cheeks. The gentle, strong mouth began to quiver, lost its firmness. ‘Jachmann,’ she whispered, ‘he might …’

Jachmann had stood up, and placed himself half behind her. He gripped her by the shoulders. ‘No, young lady, no!’ he said. ‘That couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t do that.’

‘Anything can happen.’ She broke free. ‘You’d better go home. You’re wasting your money waiting. You caught us at a bad time.’

Jachmann didn’t answer. He kept pacing two steps forward, two steps back. On the table was the tin cigarette-case with the old playing-cards so beloved of the Shrimp.

‘What did you say your young chap called those cards?’

‘Which young chap? Oh, the Shrimp. He calls them “Ca-ca”.’

‘Shall I read the ca-ca-cards for you?’ said Jachmann, smiling. ‘Wait and see, your future is quite different from what you think.’

‘Leave off,’ said Lammchen. ‘A small gift of money will come into the house. That’s next week’s unemployment benefit.’

‘My funds are rather low at the moment,’ said Jachmann. ‘But eighty marks, maybe ninety, I’d be glad to give—’ he corrected himself—‘lend, I mean.’

‘It’s nice of you, Jachmann,’ said Lammchen. ‘We could certainly use it. But you know, money isn’t the answer. We can get by, and money isn’t what’s needed. It’s work that would help Sonny, a bit of hope. Money? No.’

‘Is it because I’m going back to your mother-in-law?’ he asked, looking searchingly at her.

‘That too,’ she said. ‘I have to keep things away from him if they’re going to add to his misery. You must understand that, Jachmann?’

‘I do understand,’ he said.

‘But the main thing is that money really doesn’t help. How does it change things being able to live a bit better for six or eight weeks? Not at all.’

‘Perhaps I could get him a job?’ reflected Jachmann.

‘Oh, Mr Jachmann, you mean well. But don’t put yourself out. If he does get something, it mustn’t be through lying or fraud. He’s got to lose his fear, feel free again.’

‘Well …’ said Jachmann sadly. ‘If you want the luxury of getting something today without lying or fraud, there I can’t help you!’

‘You see,’ said Lammchen eagerly, ‘they steal wood around here for fuel. I don’t find that specially wrong, but I told Sonny: you mustn’t. He shan’t go down, Jachmann, I won’t let him. That’s one thing he’s got to keep. It’s a luxury, maybe, but it’s our only luxury, and I’m going to hold onto it, and then nothing bad can
happen to us, Jachmann.’

‘Young lady,’ said Jachmann. ‘I …’

‘Look at the Shrimp there in his little bed. Supposing things did get better, and Sonny got back on his feet and had a job he liked, and earned money again. What if he had to keep thinking: you did that, you were like that? It isn’t the wood, Jachmann, it isn’t the law. What sort of law is it that can smash up everything for us with impunity, and we can be sent to gaol for three marks’ worth of wood? That’s a laugh. Of course it’s no disgrace.’

‘Young lady …’ Jachmann tried to break in.

‘But Sonny,’ pursued Lammchen passionately, ‘he can’t laugh over it. He takes after his father, he’s not like his mother at all. Mama’s told me ten times over what a stickler his father was. He was chief clerk in a lawyer’s and everything at work had to be right, down to the last jot. His whole private life was the same. If he got a bill in the morning, he went straight out in the evening to pay it. “If I were to die,” he used to say, “and the bill wasn’t paid, someone could say I’d been a dishonourable man.” And Sonny is exactly like that. So that’s why it’s not a luxury, Jachmann. He has to hang on to that. He may sometimes think he can be like the others, but he can’t. He has to keep his hands clean. So I make sure it’s so and that he never again takes a job that’s built on dishonesty.’

‘What am I doing sitting here?’ said Jachmann. ‘What am I waiting for? You’re doing all right. You’re right, young lady, you’re absolutely right. I’m going home.’

But he didn’t go. He didn’t even get up from his chair, he looked Lammchen full in the face. ‘This morning at six, young lady, I was let out of gaol. I did time for a year, young lady,’ said Jachmann.

‘Jachmann,’ said Lammchen. ‘Ever since you didn’t come back that night, I’ve imagined something of the kind. It wasn’t my first thought, but it seemed possible. I mean,’ Lammchen didn’t know how to put it. ‘You’re that sort of …’

‘Of course I’m that sort,’ said Jachmann.

‘To the few people you like you’re nice, and to all the rest I think you’re probably not nice at all.’

‘Exactly!’ said Jachmann. ‘You I like, young lady.’

‘Then you enjoy living and having a lot of money, and you have to have things going on around you, and you have to have plans … Well, all that’s your business. But when Mama told me you were wanted by the police, I realized it must be so.’

‘And d’you know who informed on me?’

‘Mama, wasn’t it?’

‘Of course it was Mama. Mrs Marie, otherwise known as Mia Pinneberg. I went astray a bit, you know, Lammchen, and Mama’s a devil when she’s jealous. She landed in it too, but not badly, four weeks.’

‘And now you’re going back to her? Actually, I do understand why. You belong together.’

‘Right, young lady. We belong together. And she is a splendid woman for all that. I like her for being so greedy and so egotistical. Did you know that Mama’s got over thirty thousand marks in the bank?’

‘What? Over thirty thousand?’

‘What d’you think of that? Mama’s clever. Mama prepares for the future. She thinks about her old age and doesn’t want to be dependent on anybody. No, I’m going back to her. For a man like me she’s the best pal in the world, through thick and thin, game for anything.’

There was a silence, and then Jachmann stood up suddenly and said ‘Well, good night, Lammchen. I’ll be off.’

‘Good night, Jachmann, and I hope things go well, really well for you.’

Jachmann shrugged his shoulders. ‘The cream’s gone when you reach fifty, Lammchen. There nothing left but skimmed milk, just watery stuff.’ He paused, then said softly. ‘I suppose you’re out of the question for me, Lammchen?’

Lammchen smiled at him, from the depths of her heart. ‘Yes, Jachmann, I am. Sonny and I …’

‘Well, don’t worry about your young man! He’ll come. He’ll be here in a moment! Cheers, my Lammchen. Perhaps we’ll meet again!’

‘Certainly we’ll meet again. When things are going better for us. Now go, and don’t forget your cases. They were the main reason.’

‘They were the main reason, young lady. Right as always. Absolutely right.’

A BUSH BETWEEN THE BUSHES. AND THE OLD LOVE

Lammchen went out into the garden with him, the sleepy driver couldn’t get the cold engine going at once, and they stood in silence next to the car. Then they shook hands and said goodbye once again, and Lammchen watched the light of the headlamps getting farther and farther away. She heard the noise of the engine for a little while longer, and then all was still and dark around her.