Every Man Dies Alone (9 page)

“You know, Borkhausen, we’re not going to clean this stuff out very quickly, and we don’t want to sit over it too long, either. I vote we each take a couple of suitcases and clear off. Tomorrow, we can think about a return visit.”

“You’re right, Enno, I don’t want to sit here too long, either, on account of the Persickes.”

“Who’re they?”

“Oh, these people… But when I think of leaving with a couple of suitcases full of linens, and leave behind a box full of money and jewels, that drives me crazy. You’ll need to let me look awhile longer. Cheers, Enno!”

“Cheers, Emil! And why wouldn’t you go on looking around awhile longer? The night is long, and it’s not us paying the electricity bill. But what I wanted to ask you is where are you going to take your cases?”

“How do you mean? I don’t understand the question, Enno.”

“Well, where are you going to take them? Back to your flat?”

“Do you think I’m going to take them to the lost property office? Of course I’m taking them home to my Otti. And tomorrow morning off to Münzstrasse and flog the lot so the birds sing a bit.”

Enno rubs the cork against the bottleneck. “Here’s birdsong for you! Cheers, Emil! If I was you, I wouldn’t do it your way, and involve your apartment and your wife. What does she need to know about your little earnings on the side? No, if I was you I’d do it my way, namely take the suitcases to the Stettiner Bahnhof and leave them at the station’s checked baggage department, and send myself the receipt, but general delivery. That way there’d never be anything on me, and no one could prove anything against me.”

“That’s pretty sharp, Enno,” says Borkhausen admiringly. “And when do you go back to collect the goods?”

“Well, whenever the coast is clear, of course, Emil!”

“And what do you live off in the meantime?”

“Well, it’s like I said, I’ll go to Tutti’s. When I tell her what I’ve done, she’ll throw open all her arms and legs!”

“Very good,” Borkhausen agrees. “Then if you go to the Stettiner, I’ll go to the Anhalter. You know, less attention that way.”

“Not bad, Emil. You’re a pretty sharp cookie yourself!”

“Oh, I pick up a few tricks here and there,” says Borkhausen modestly. “You hear this and that.”

“Well, right! Cheers, Emil!”

“Cheers, Enno!”

For a while they gaze at each other with mute fondness, taking the odd swig from their bottles. Then Borkhausen says: “If you turn round, doesn’t have to be right away, there’s a radiogram behind you, must be at least ten valves. I wouldn’t mind picking that up.”

“Go on then, Emil, take it! A radio’s always a useful item, to keep or to sell!”

“Well, let’s see if we can stow the thing in a suitcase, and pack it in clothes.”

“Shall we do that now, or shall we have a drink first?”

“Ach, we can have one first, I say. Only one, mind!”

So they have one, and a second, and a third, and then they gradually get to their feet and try to pack the large ten-valve radiogram into a case that might have managed at best a portable radio. After some considerable struggle, Enno says, “Oh, it won’t go, it won’t go. Leave the damned thing, Emil, take a suitcase with some suits in it.”

“But my Otti likes listening to the radio!”

“And I thought you didn’t want to tell your old lady about this whole deal. You must be pissed out of your mind, Emil!”

“And what about you and your Tutti? You’re pissed yourself. Where’s your Tutti in all this?”

“She sings. I tell you, how she sings!” And again, he moves the moist cork in the bottleneck. “Let’s have another!”

“Cheers, Enno!”

They have a drink, and Borkhausen continues: “You know, I do want to take the radio after all. If I can’t get the damned thing in a case, then I’ll tie it on a string and wear it round my neck. Then I’ll still have both hands free.”

“Go on then, mate. Well, shall we pack up?”

“Yeah, let’s. It’s getting late.”

But they both stop and stare at each other with silly grins.

“All things considered,” Borkhausen begins, “life is really pretty good. All these nice things here,” he gestures at them, “and we can take our pick of the lot, plus we’re doing a good deed because we’re taking them off a Jewish woman who only stole them in the first place…”

“You’re right there, Emil—we’re doing a good deed for the German nation and our Führer. These are the good times he has promised us.”

“And our Führer, you know, he keeps his promises, he keeps his promises, Enno!”

They gaze at each other, eyes welling with tears.

“What on earth are you two doing here?” comes a sharp voice from the doorway.

They jump, and see a little fellow in a brown uniform.

Then Borkhausen nods slowly and sadly to Enno. “This is Herr Baldur Persicke, whom I spoke of to you, Enno! This is where our troubles start!”

Chapter 8

SMALL SURPRISES

While the two drunks were talking together, all the male members of the Persicke family had filed into the room. Nearest to Enno and Emil is the short, wiry Baldur, his eyes glinting behind his highly polished spectacles; just behind him are his two brothers in their black SS uniforms, but without caps; next to the door, as though not quite sure of himself, is the old former publican Persicke. The Persicke family has had a bit to drink as well, but the alcohol has a different effect on them than on the two housebreakers. Far from becoming emotional and dull-witted, the Persickes are even sharper, greedier, and more brutal than in their normal condition.

Baldur Persicke barks, “Well, out with it! What are you doing here? Or is this where you live?”

“But Herr Persicke!” Borkhausen whines.

Baldur pretends only now to recognize him. “Ah, it’s Borkhausen from the basement flat in the back building!” he exclaims in mock astonishment to his two brothers. “Herr Borkhausen, what are you doing here?” His surprise takes on an edge of sarcasm. “Wouldn’t you be better advised to look after your wife, the lovely Otti, a little bit—especially at this time of night? I’ve heard tell of convivial gatherings with well-placed gentlemen, and your children rolling around
the courtyard at all hours, drunk. Don’t you think you should put your children to bed, Herr Borkhausen?”

“Trouble!” mutters Borkhausen. “I knew it the moment I saw the spectacles: trouble.” He nods sadly at Enno.

Enno Kluge is no help to him at all. He is swaying slightly, his brandy bottle dangling from one hand, and he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.

Borkhausen turns back to Baldur Persicke. His tone is no longer plaintive so much as accusatory; all at once he is deeply offended. “If my wife does behave in a certain way,” he says, “then I’ll take responsibility for it, Herr Persicke. I am a husband and father—by law. And if my children are drunk, well, you’re drunk yourself, and you’re no more than a child yourself, for Christ’s sake!”

He looks angrily at Baldur, and Baldur glints back at him. Then he gives his brothers a discreet signal to get ready.

“What are you doing in the Rosenthals’ apartment?” the youngest Persicke barks again.

“But it’s all according to our arrangement!” Borkhausen assures him, eagerly now. “All agreed. Me and my friend here, we’re just on our way now. We’re running a bit late, in fact. He’s going to the Stettiner, I’m going to the Anhalter. Two suitcases each, plenty left for you.”

He’s practically falling asleep, the last few words are mumbled.

Baldur fixes him with an alert stare. Maybe it’ll pass off without violence—the two men are completely sloshed. But his instinct warns him. He grabs Borkhausen by the shoulder and barks: “Who’s that man with you? What’s his name?”

“Enno!” Borkhausen barely manages to say. “My friend Enno…”

“And where does your friend Enno live?”

“Don’t know, Herr Persicke. Met him at the bud… drinking pubbies… at the Also Ran…”

Baldur has made up his mind. Suddenly he swings his fist into Borkhausen’s midriff, causing him to fall into the piles of clothes. “Bastard!” he yells. “How dare you refer to my spectacles, and call me a child. I’ll show you!”

But his shouting serves no purpose, for the two men can no longer hear him. His SS brothers have jumped in and knocked their opponents cold with a couple of brutal blows.

“There!” says Baldur happily. “In an hour or so we can hand the two of them over to the police as burglars caught in the act. In the meantime we can move down whatever things we want for ourselves. But quiet on the stairs! I haven’t heard old Quangel come back from his late shift.”

The two brothers nod. Baldur looks down at the bloodied, unconscious victims, then at all the cases, the clothes, the radiogram. Suddenly he breaks into a smile. He turns to his father. “Well, Father, how did I do? You and your anxiety about everything! You see…”

But that’s as far as he gets. His father isn’t standing in the doorway, as expected; his father has suddenly disappeared. In his place is Foreman Quangel, the fellow with the sharp, cold birdlike face, silently staring at him with his dark eyes.

When Otto Quangel got home from his shift—even though it had grown very late, because of the meeting, he had refused to take a tram, saving his pennies—he saw that in spite of the blackout there was a light on in Frau Rosenthal’s apartment. On closer inspection he saw that there were lights on at the Persickes’ as well, and downstairs at Judge Fromm’s, shining past the edges of the blinds. In the case of Judge Fromm, of whom it wasn’t certain whether he had gone into retirement in ‘33 because of old age or the Nazis, this wasn’t surprising. He always read half the night. And the Persickes were presumably still celebrating their victory over France. But he couldn’t believe that old Frau Rosenthal would have the lights on all over her apartment—there was something amiss there. The old woman was so cowed, she would never light up her flat like that.

There’s something wrong, thought Otto Quangel as he unlocked the front door and slowly went up the stairs. As ever, he had forborne to switch on the lights in the stairwell—he didn’t just economize for himself. He economized for everyone, including the landlord. Something’s up! But what’s it to do with me? I want nothing to do with those people. I live for myself. Me and Anna. The two of us. Anyway, perhaps it’s the Gestapo conducting a search of the place. And I walk in! No, I’ll just go to bed…

But with his scrupulousness, almost his sense of justice, sharpened by the “You and your Führer” gibe, he found this decision rather unsatisfactory. He stood outside the door of his apartment, key in hand, head cocked. The door must be ajar there, there was a little light filtering down, and he could hear a sharp voice giving orders. An old woman, all alone, he thought suddenly, to his own surprise. Without protection. Without mercy…

At that moment, a small but forceful male hand reached out of the darkness and grabbed him by the scruff and faced him toward the stairs. A cultured voice said: “Why don’t you go on ahead, Herr Quangel. I will follow and appear at the correct moment.”

Without hesitating now, Quangel went up the stairs, such persuasive force had been vested in that hand and voice. That can only
have been old Judge Fromm, he thought. What a secretive so-and-so. I think in all the years I’ve lived here, I’ve seen him maybe a score of times by day, and now here he is creeping around the stairs in the middle of the night!

So thinking, he mounted the stairs unhesitatingly and reached the Rosenthal apartment. He just caught sight of a squat figure—certainly old Persicke—retreating hurriedly into the kitchen, and he caught Baldur’s last words about the thing they had done, and that it was wrong to be afraid all the time… And now the two of them, Baldur Persicke and Otto Quangel, stood silently confronting one another, eye to eye.

For an instant, Baldur Persicke thought the game was up. But then he remembered one of his maxims, Shamelessness wins out, and he said a little provocatively, “I can imagine your surprise. But you got here a bit late, Herr Quangel, we’ve caught the burglars.” He left a pause, but Quangel didn’t say anything. A little less brightly, Baldur added, “One of the two villains appears to be Borkhausen, who lives off immoral earnings at the back of the house.”

Quangel’s eyes followed Baldur’s pointing finger. “Yes,” he said curtly, “that’s Borkhausen.”

“As for you,” broke in Adolf Persicke of the SS, “what are you doing, standing there staring? Why don’t you go to the police station and report the crime, so that the police can arrest the culprits? We’ll keep them pinned down in the meantime!”

“Will you keep out of it, Adolf!” hissed Baldur. “You can’t issue orders to Herr Quangel. Herr Quangel knows what he has to do.”

But that was just what Quangel at that moment did not know. If he had been alone, he would have decided spontaneously. But there was that hand grabbing at his shirt, and that cultured voice, and he had no idea what the old judge had in mind, or what he wanted from him. But whatever it was, he didn’t want to spoil his plan. If only he knew what it was…

And that was when the old gentleman appeared on the scene, though not, as Quangel had expected, at his side, but from the interior of the apartment. Suddenly he stood in their midst, like an apparition, and gave the Persickes a further, deeper shock.