Blood Brothers (2 page)

There is, however, an apparently successful attempt to break the cycle. Willi Kludas—whose exploits, including a harrowing train ride under the carriage of an express train, are given in greater detail—finds a younger soul mate, named Ludwig. Together they try to establish an identity through honest work. Having acquired some modest capital by shoveling snow, they concoct a scheme by which they become young entrepreneurs. They collect old shoes in the better parts of town, then refurbish and resell them
en gros
for a profit. This, however, places them outside the circle of the gang, as they no longer share their gains; it leaves them vulnerable in all directions, since they also lack the papers that would confer a legitimate identity upon them. When they are denounced to the police, they seem to be going back into the never-ending cycle; but Willi is close to his twenty-first birthday, which means papers and identity and legality. And he has promised Ludwig that he would wait for him and help him break out of his institution so they could start their successful and permanent break with the past together. In short, one of the overriding messages of this fascinating novel seems to be that alone you are totally at the mercy of a merciless reality, be that the big city or the legal system. Only by becoming a member of a group would you raise your survival chances but at the cost of continuous uncertainty and outsider status. A true friendship, however, and adherence to the rules of society just might allow you to establish your identity and some degree of safety. This striving for self-determination against heavy social and institutional odds makes the story of one of the gangs of Berlin such compelling reading. It allows the reader to empathize even when the author remains detached and aloof.

It is remarkable how this short novel reflects the concerns and issues of the time. The massive social dislocations caused in Germany by rapid industrialization and urbanization since 1890 was focused in Berlin as in a prism. This transformation was magnified by the great revaluation of values caused by losing World War I. For the German Empire this meant not only a reduction in size and importance, not to mention being saddled with war guilt and reparations; it also meant a complete upheaval of the social order. Nobility ceased to matter, parliament replaced monarchy, fortunes were lost and made without anyone quite understanding how. Everyone was looking for a new identity, sanctioned by society, with some stability and escape from what must have appeared as a never-ending loop of dispiriting and unsettling catastrophies. This book and the others of the time seem a metaphor for this search.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

About the Authors

1

EIGHT BLOOD BROTHERS —
tiny individual links of an exhausted human chain stretching across the factory yard and winding up two flights of stairs — stand and wait among hundreds of others to be admitted from the awful damp cold into the warm waiting rooms. Just three or four minutes to go now. Then, on the dot of eight, the heavy iron door on the second floor will be unlocked. The local welfare bureaucracy for Berlin-Mitte on Chausseestrasse jerks into life; the coiled line jerks into life. Limbs advance, feet shuffle, hands clutch the innumerable necessary papers. (In the furtherance of good order, the office has put out printed instructions that list them in endless sequence, and which twenty-four offices are responsible for issuing them.)

The queue has already reached the cash-office waiting room. There, with military precision, it splits into two smaller queues. One waits patiently to surrender its stamped cards to the hoarse-voiced office boy Paule, prior to receipt of payment. The second queue winds in front of the information counter in order to answer questions of who and where and where from, and then, with luck, to be issued with cardboard numbers. Thereafter, the individual parts will go into two other rooms to stand outside the doors of officialdom
and wait with the patience of saints for their number to be called. The saints will have to be patient for five or six hours or more. The eight gang members join neither of the two queues but make straight for United Artists. Maybe they’ll be in time for a bench.

The “United Artists’ ” waiting room, where applications for urgent assistance are filled in. The initials “UA” have been repurposed by cynical Berlin humor as “United Artists.” Half an hour after opening time, the large hall is already jam-packed. The few benches are fully occupied. Individuals who couldn’t find a seat fill the aisles or lean against the two long walls, which have acquired a nasty black stain at shoulder height from so many thousands of slumped human backs. The indescribably dreary light of the day outside mingles with the glow of the weak electric bulbs to form a chiaroscuro, in which these poor souls look even more wretched, even more starved. On the other side of the walls are bright clean offices. Though these offices are fitted with doors, in the conventional manner, beside each door there is also a four-sided hole large enough for the head of an official on a lower pay scale. To spare their vocal cords and to avoid excessive contact with the needy public, the officials don’t themselves call out the numbers through the doors. No, a flap is thrust open, a human head appears nicely framed and yells out the number. And with that the flap clacks shut. The number — in the office, it is translated back into “Meyer, Gustav” or “Abrameit, Frieda” — trots into the office through the door beside the hole. Each time a number is called, all the waiting heads jerk up. It can happen that two numbers are called from opposite walls simultaneously. Then all the heads jerk up and back in time.

The eight boys were able to capture a whole bench and, serenely oblivious to the numbers, they drop off to sleep. They’ve spent the whole endless winter’s night on the street. As so many times before: homeless. Always trudging on, always on the go. No chance of any shut-eye in this weather. Day-old remnants of snow, the occasional thin shower of sleet, everything nicely shaken up by a wind that makes the boys’ teeth chatter with cold. Eight boys, aged sixteen to nineteen. A few are veterans of borstals. Two have parents somewhere in Germany. The odd one perhaps still has a father or mother someplace. Their birth and early infancy coincided with the war and the years after. From the moment they undertook their first uncertain steps, they were on their own. Father was at the Front or already listed missing. Mother was turning grenades, or coughing her lungs out a few grams at a time in explosives factories. The kids with their turnip bellies — not even potato bellies — were always out for something to eat in courtyards and streets. As they grew older, gangs of them went out stealing. Stealing to fill their bellies. Malignant little beasts.

Ludwig from Dortmund has jerked awake at the sound of a number being called. Now he’s sitting there, feet out, fists in his pockets, empty cigarette holder in the corner of his mouth. The lantern-jawed face with the alert brown eyes looks with interest in the direction of the entrance. His friends are all asleep, slumped forward, collapsed, or leaning inertly against their neighbors. Jonny, their leader, their boss, has summoned them for nine o’clock. As so often before, he has promised to get hold of money from somewhere. He hasn’t said how. At ten last night he said goodbye — at this point, Ludwig sees Jonny walking into the room, and he
waves animatedly. “Here, Jonny, over here!” Jonny is a young man of twenty-one. His physiognomy, with square chin and prominent cheekbones, looks a little brutal, and testifies to his willpower. He speaks with fluency and decisiveness, almost without dialect, and this proves that he stands above the rest of the gang in terms of education and intellect. Superior strength is taken for granted; he wouldn’t be their boss otherwise. “Hey, Ludwig!” He hands him a big box of cigarettes. Ludwig helps himself and chews on the smoke with delight. The others are still sleeping. Ludwig takes a long drag and blows smoke in their faces. They gulp, splutter, wake up. Nothing could have woken them so effectively. Cigarettes? Jonny? Here! Quickly all help themselves. And now they know too that Jonny’s in the money, and that they’re going to get something to eat. So what are they waiting for? As ever, they move in three troops. Nine boys in a gaggle attract too much unfavorable attention. They turn off Chaussee- into Invalidenstrasse. That’s where they buy breakfast. Forty-five rolls in three mighty bags, and two entire liver sausages with onion. That has to do for the nine of them.

Rosenthaler Platz, Mulackstrasse, then down Rückerstrasse. Into the bar used by all the gangs around the Alexanderplatz, the Rückerklause. You can stand outside and watch the cooks frying batches of potato pancakes. The greasy scraps of smoke drift into the furthest recesses of the unlit, sinister, and unsavory bar. In spite of the early hour, it’s already full. The Klause is more than just a bar. It’s a kind of home from home for those who don’t have a home. Noisy loudspeaker music, noisy customers. The unappetizing buffet, the beer-sodden tables, the smoke-blackened graffitied walls — all this doesn’t bother anyone. The gang
occupy the space to the right of the door. The waiter brings them some broth — well, at least it’s hot. Then they set about scoffing their rolls and liver sausage. There’s not much conversation. Only dark, barbarous sounds: the grunts with which the stomach expresses its satisfaction. The boys are transformed. They sink their teeth into the sausage ends, they work their jaws. They look at each other, their expressions seeming to say: Don’t it feel good to be eating, and knowing there’s more to come … And other expressions, of gratitude and pride, are for Jonny, who once more has saved their bacon.

In one of the booths at the back, a young gang member is sitting on the lap of a passed-out customer. Two of his mates are walking up and down in front of the niche, gesturing to their chum: “Go on, mate!” Pull the wallet out of his pocket, and give it to us …

Standing at the bar between two gang bosses is a girl, a child of fifteen or sixteen. Cheekily she’s put on the leather jacket of one of the young men, who doesn’t need it, and his peaked cap, and is now tossing back one schnapps after another with the two of them. The sickly pale face with its blue veins at the temples convulses with disgust, but then the dirty little paw reaches for the glass to drink to one of the leather jackets. The girl’s mouth opens: almost no teeth, just isolated blackened stumps. She’s not even sixteen …

Behind the bar stands the watchful landlord. In a good blue suit and spic-and-span collar, the only one in the whole bar. Music blares out without a break. Incessant comings and goings. Everyone here is either young or underage. Many turn up with rucksacks and parcels. They go directly to the bathroom, the hideously dirty toilets. Brief exchange, unpacking,
packing, money changes hands. A schnapps at the bar. Gone. Police raids are not infrequent.

The girl, legless by now, goes reeling from table to table, offering herself. Oh, Friedel, showing off again, they say, otherwise unmoved by the sorry spectacle of a drunken child offering her scrawny charms. Rückerklause, a kind of home from home for those who don’t have a home. The forever-hungry boys have demolished the rolls and the liver sausage, and two potato pancakes each. They lean back contentedly, draw on their ciggies, sip their beer, and hum along to the tunes on the loudspeaker. “…  
Auf die Dauer, lieber Schatz, ist mein Herz kein Ankerplatz
 …” They’re full, the bar feels warm. They’re starting to feel drowsy. Their heads sink. Only Jonny is sitting up, smoking, watchful. He pays the tab for them all. Then he counts up what he’s got left. All of eight marks. Where will they go tonight? The very cheapest hostel takes fifty pfennigs for the use of a bug-ridden mattress. That comes to four-fifty, which would mean almost nothing left for tomorrow. Jonny racks his brains for a cheaper option. Lets them sleep. He leaves word with the waiter to tell them to meet him at Schmidt’s at eight.

2

THE NIGHTTIME EQUIVALENT
to the Rückerklause is Schmidt’s on Linienstrasse. Of course it’s busy and there’s a din of brass band music all day here as well. But, after dark, the bustling little bar becomes a thronging, teeming scene. The beer tap isn’t idle for a minute, and every chair is occupied twice over. And whoever hasn’t got one at all leans against the stage or just stands anywhere he can, beer glass in hand. The inevitable paper chains, essential for producing a festive atmosphere, are permanently shrouded in thick tobacco fumes, even though a ventilator is doing its best to restore law and order to the air. The band plays energetically and without a break. Generous rounds of beer and shorts sustain them. Sustain them to the point that the alcohol starts to affect the tunefulness of their playing. That’s when Schmidt’s really comes into its own. Then the whole bar becomes one roaring foot-stamping chorus.

Jonny needs to dig up his eight fellows from various nooks and crannies to tell them he’s scoped out a cheap billet for the night. Two marks for the whole lot of them. It’s in a warehouse on Brunnenstrasse. For two marks the nightwatchman will let them in at ten. But at six o’clock tomorrow morning they’ll have to be on their way again. Straw and large crates
they can curl up inside are provided. At half past nine the gang set off.