The Drinker (16 page)

35

I lay for three or four days, amid Duftermann’s abuse; I was in bad pain and I cursed my unhappy lot. All thought of revenging myself on Magda or of instituting divorce proceedings had quite faded away; I would have been glad if they had let me go home to her. I would have fallen on my knees and begged her forgiveness. But this was only a passing mood, it did not last. My feelings towards Magda were to change very often. I never saw the wood-yard again, nor my mate Mordhorst. Strangely enough, in my memory today they seem beautiful peaceful hours that I spent at the saw-bench, in my blue prison jacket, with the tops of the apple and pear trees above me, and the sunny sky.

Then late one afternoon, when I was absolutely in despair at the interminable nagging of that murderous incendiary Duftermann, the lock of the cell-door rattled at a quite unusual time, and the warder came in and cried: “Sommer, get up at once and pack your things! You’re released!”

I started up from my bed and stared at the warder.

“Released,” I whispered, and my heart beat furiously. At last! At last!

“Yes, released,” he said maliciously. “You’re going to the institution. Come on, come on, man, pack your things up! D’you think we’ve got all day?”

“Ah,” I said slowly, and started to pack. “Ah—to the institution!”

Duftermann watched me closely to see that I did not pack any of his precious belongings, and all the time he was telling the warder how glad he was that I was leaving, I was the worst cell-mate in the world, I never spoke a sensible word, and the row I kicked up of a night-time was unbearable. I left without a word to him, I did not even look round.

Below, in the governor’s office, stood a strange warder, who scrutinised me carefully, and I notice that he pulled a face at the sight of me. I was still wearing the bandage on my nose.

“Yes,” said the governor, “this is the man another prisoner tried to bite the nose off. I suppose you heard about it officer?”

He had heard about it.

The governor added: “But up to now he’s been quite a quiet orderly man. I don’t think you’ll need to handcuff him.”

“No, no!” said the warder sharply. “I’m responsible for him. If he runs away.…”

“Do as you think fit, officer,” said the governor, “I was merely giving my opinion. Listen, Sommer,” he now turned to me, “sign this receipt, that you’ve had all your things back from us. We’ll send your money on to you by post …”

“Please send it to my wife,” I said, on a sudden impulse. “I shan’t need money any more.”

“Very well,” said the governor impassively, and with that, I was released.

The warder put the handcuffs on my wrist and so I was led through my home town to the station, but that did not worry me. I still had the bandage on my nose; even Magda would not have recognised me.

Like my own ghost I walked through the town in which I was born, along the streets I had played in as a child; on that bench over there I once sat with Magda, she had plaits then, and we both carried school satchels under our arms.… Now we passed my own business, “Erwin Sommer, Market Produce, Wholesale and Retail” it still said on the ground-glass panes—for how much longer? And led along by a little chain, a suitcase in his free hand, this same Erwin Sommer went by, living yet dead for all that; traces of his life still remained—for how much longer?

“I’m only forty-one,” I said to the officer.

“What do you mean by that?” asked the young man. “What are you getting at?”

“Oh, nothing, officer,” I answered. “But when a man’s already dead to the outside world at forty-one.…”

“Ah, come on, don’t fret so,” said the warder placidly, “you’ll be much better off in the place I’m taking you to than you would be in clink, and if you make a sensible impression, maybe you’ll get out again some time. D’you know what?” he continued, more and more humanly, “later on, when we get on the train, I’ll take the handcuffs off, and I won’t put ’em on again outside either. It’s just here in town, one never knows what you fellows suddenly get into your heads.”

I was silent. He meant well, but he did not know how unimportant the little handcuffs were to me. But with his clumsy efforts to console me, he had uttered a phrase that struck me like a thunderbolt, in my depressed mood. “Maybe you’ll get out again some time,” he had said! Maybe … some time.… And I had been counting on a six weeks’ observation period, that’s what Mordhorst had told me.

Maybe … some time.…

Was it just a random remark of the sergeant’s, or did he really know something? He had my papers! Of course, he knew something: I was going to be locked up for life! Really dead to the outside world, as I had imagined just now. A mist rose before my eyes, and the sun that shone for everybody, shone no more for me. Never again would it shine for me.

36

We are walking together along a beautiful country road, the warder and I. I am free of the handcuffs, which has the advantage that I can carry the suitcase, which is none too light, now in my right hand, now in my left. The warder has lit a short pipe, and has graciously given me permission to smoke. This permission does not help me in the least. In any case it would probably go ill with my bitten nose.

Along the road stand tall old chestnut trees, which have finished blossoming. The sun is sinking. Now and then, a belated cartload of hay creaks passed us. The people hardly turn their heads after us, they are long accustomed to such a sight around here, in the near vicinity of the asylum. The most that happened was that once a woman threw an inquisitive look at my bandaged face. The warder had tried to question me about my “crime” and my former life, but I had only answered him in monosyllables. But since he has decided to shorten the journey with a little conversation, he now tells me about himself, or rather about a garden which he works with his young wife. He would so much like to rent the neighbouring plot of land, and, weighing the matter up at his ease, he sets out before me all the reasons for and against it—his low salary and the high rent, the soil full of weeds, the doubtful yield—oh, there were only reasons against. The warder breathes out a cloud of blueish-white smoke and says finally: “Well, I’ll rent that plot at all costs. A plot of land—that’s better than a thousand marks in the savings bank!”

I only half-listen to his chatter, and now when he comes to his surprising conclusion I smile bitterly. “It’s with such empty-heads as this that I’m to keep company from now on, and they simply call me ‘Sommer’ without ‘Herr’ and graciously admit that ‘so far I make quite a sensible impression’!”

But aloud I ask: “Is that the institution?”

“That’s it,” replied the warder. “And now we’d better put a bit of a spurt on; it’s nearly office closing-time, and the governor will complain if I bring you in late.”

Seen from the road, the asylum does not make a bad impression. My heart starts to beat easier. Situated on a slight rise, surrounded by tall thick-leaved old trees, it lies as stately as a great manor-house or some old castle. Great windows blink in the light of the evening sun. But as we come nearer, I see the high red walls all round, with iron spikes and barbed-wire along the top, I see the bars in front of the flashing windows, and my companion has no need whatever to explain: “This used to be a convict prison.”

No, I can see for myself this does not look like a hospital but a convict prison. A real moat, quite wide, encircles the whole group of buildings, ducks and geese swim peacefully on it, but on the bridge we are crossing stands an armed guard in a green uniform, and the office to which I am taken is no whit different from the prison office I left an hour and a half ago. Even the officials in it seem to be of the same kind, the same bored, uninterested yet searching glance is thrown at the new inmate, the same slow formality is gone through by which my escort is relieved of me and my personal details are entered.

This evening affords me only one ray of light; I was arrested on a charge of attempted murder, the magistrate had ordered my transfer to an institution on the grounds of homicidal intent, now I am being handed over here with the entry “uttering menaces”. Without my doing anything about it, the seriousness of the charge against me has been considerably reduced; for a moment I tell myself that it is impossible for them to keep me here for any length of time, and to destroy my whole life for such a slight offence.

But then, as I followed my green-uniformed guide with his fattish melancholy face, through all the wretched stone courtyards on which only barred windows looked down, as I was admitted into a gigantic stone building through double iron doors, and mounted the gloomy staircase, as I realised that the so-called hospital differed in no respect from a prison, that here, too, were bars and warders and iron discipline and blind obedience, I thought no more about the great step I had taken from attempted murder to uttering menaces, I believed no more in the slightness of my offence—I felt that anything was possible, I realised how helplessly I stood at the mercy of gigantic and pitiless powers, powers without heart, without compassion, without human qualities. I was caught in a great machine and nothing that I did or felt was of any more consequence, the machine would run its unalterable course, I might laugh or cry, the machine would take no notice.

37

One iron grill and then another iron grill, and now we enter a long gloomy corridor full of pale figures. It stinks here, it stinks piercingly of latrines, cabbage and bad tobacco. Outside the corridor window is the last glow of sunset, above the high iron-spiked wall I see the peaceful evening countryside with its meadows and slowly-ripening cornfields, right across to the low strips of woodland on the horizon. Around me, pale figures are standing, leaning against the walls. Sometimes I see something of their faces, when the glow of their pipes momentarily becomes brighter. A man, a short sturdy man in a white jacket, takes me behind a partition at the end of the corridor. It is his sanctum, the “glass box” as it is called. From this “glass box” the stocky man, who turns out to be the head-nurse, watches everything that happens along the corridor, and he watches very keenly, as I was to discover. He even sees things that he cannot see at all, he knows what happens in the cells, he knows everything that happens at work—he is the stern conscience of Block 3, and the doctor’s information service.

“Leave your suitcase down here, Sommer,” says the head-nurse. “I’ll give you your institution clothes tomorrow, civilian clothes are forbidden here. And now I’ll show you your bed, it’s bed-time already. We go to bed at half-past seven here, and get up at a quarter to six in the morning …”

“Might I perhaps have some supper?” I ask. “I didn’t have any there.…”

I expect to get a “No” as I did on my first arrival in prison. I did not really intend to ask, having already learned that a prisoner should say nothing, ask nothing, question nothing. But—wonder of wonders—the head-nurse nods his head and says: “All right, Sommer, go and sit in the day-room for a while.”

I am put into the day-room. It is a long, three-windowed room, containing nothing but scrubbed-down wooden tables once painted white, primitive wooden benches without backs, and a sort of kitchen clock on the wall. I sit down on a bench. By the clock it is shortly after half-past seven.

Outside, the cry echoes: “Bed-time! Clothes out!” A violent shuffling begins (what an incredible number of people there must be in this block). Doors slam; in a neighbouring room, which is probably the lavatory, an uninterrupted rush of water begins. In bed at half-past seven, like children! How am I to get through the night? And the thirty-six nights of the observation period? And perhaps many many more nights to come? The weight of an infinite length of time in which nothing happens, descends on me like lead. This bare room, containing only the essentials, seems an image of my future life. Nothing to look forward to, nothing to wish for, nothing to hope for … a life in which every minute is empty and the future will be empty, too …

An aluminium bowl is set before me, a spoon is put by it … This is done by a little man in a dirty linen jacket. His face is ugly, and is made even uglier by the fact that all his upper teeth are missing, except two fang-like yellowish-black eye-teeth.

The man looks like some malevolent animal.

“Who are you?” he asks in a high-pitched insolent voice. “Where are you from? What have you done? What’s up with your nose?”

I do not answer him at all, silently I begin to dip into my aluminium bowl. It is nothing but cabbage and water. Warm salt water with very little cabbage.

“Is this your supper?” I ask. “No bread at all?”

Around me, though it is bed-time already, several figures are creeping, in worn-out brownish clothes which in many cases are in rags.… The little man with the fangs laughs shrilly.

“Is that our supper, he wants to know! He thinks it ought to be cooked specially for him. He thinks he’s in a restaurant. He’s so posh, he won’t talk to the likes of us. No bread, he says!”

He laughs again, and suddenly all is quiet. There are six or seven figures slinking around me or leaning silently against the walls. I put my spoon down in the bowl—what is the good of filling ones belly with warm water? I stand up, take a step toward the door. At the same instant uproar breaks out behind my back. They have thrown themselves on my barely half-emptied bowl, they struggle together like animals. Suppressed cries are heard … the clapping sound of blows … Oh God, they fight like beasts over a pint of hot cabbage-water! A high yelling neigh of triumph rings out—it is the little man with the fangs, he is the victor! “Will you get out and let me through! I’ll report you to the head-nurse! I brought the new fellow the bowl, it belongs to me! You give me the grub, didn’t you, new fellow?”

I hurry to get out of the door. I stand again in the corridor, by the glass box. The head-nurse comes out.

“Well, come along, Sommer. Is your bandage still all right? I’ll have a look at it tomorrow morning.”

In the long corridor, before each cell door, lies a bundle of clothes.

“You put your clothes outside the door too. You’re only allowed to keep your shirt on inside.”

“Mayn’t I fetch some pyjamas out of my suitcase?”

“Pyjamas, nightshirts—things like that don’t exist here. You’ll get a decent institution shirt that’ll last you a week.”

We enter a long narrow cell, the air is fetid, stifling already. Eight beds stand in the narrow room, four below, four above.

“Yours is the lower bunk on the right by the window. Make it up quickly and put your things outside the door. It’s lock-up time immediately.”

The door slams behind me, I go over to my bed. I feel many searching eyes turned towards me, but nobody says a word. The bed is better than in prison. There are no straw-bags here but proper mattresses, hard as stone; one can lie on them better. There is a sheet too, and a fine white blanket which, rather clumsily, I button into a cover. There is also a bolster. The bed-linen is blue-chequered. All the time I feel the searching eyes on me, but not a word is said. Hurriedly I slip off my clothes, bundle them clumsily together, and run back to bed in my shirt. I creep into it. The plank bottom of the upper bunk is close above me, I cannot sit upright. The bed above seems empty. I wrap myself tight in my blankets and stretch out full-length. The warm cabbage-water rumbles disagreeably in my stomach.

A voice says loudly: “Don’t even say good evening or introduce himself, the miserable bastard!”

Murmurs of approval can be heard. I start up in my bed—I must not fall out with these people on the very first evening. I have had enough with my strained relations with Duftermann. I knock my head badly on the planks of the upper bed. Seeing this, the two men in the beds opposite laugh.

One cries: “He’s bumped his nut!”

And the other: “He crumpled his fine cloth pants up in his jacket, he’s got plenty to learn, the fat swine.”

Murmurs of approval again. I creep out of my bed.

“Gentlemen,” I say, “excuse me if I have not behaved properly. I didn’t wish to offend you. If I said nothing, it was because I thought some of you were asleep already.”

A voice from an upper bunk calls out: “That’s Zeese, he’s deaf and dumb, he can’t hear anything!”

I eagerly continue, “I’m not used to all this yet. I’ve only been a fortnight or so in remand prison. For the attempted murder of my wife …”

Murmurs of hearty approval. I have guessed rightly: “attempted murder” makes a much better impression here than “uttering menaces”.

“My name is Erwin Sommer, I have a market-produce business, and I’m here for six weeks’ observation …”

“You watch out it doesn’t turn into six years,” calls a laughing voice. “The medical officer loves us all so much, he doesn’t like to lose any of us.”

Laughter again, but the ice is broken, the bad impression is made good again. I go from bed to bed and hear the names: Bull, Meierhold, Brachowiak, Marquardt, Heine and Dräger. I shall not remember them, especially as it has become almost dark by now and I cannot recognise the individual faces in their box-beds. Then I creep back to my own bed.

A voice calls: “Hey, new fellow, tell us how it happened, that business with your wife.”

Another calls heatedly: “Shut your trap, Dräger! What do you always want to be so nosey for? Leave it to the fellow to tell what he wants. You just want to go crawling to the chief in the glass box tomorrow.”

A heated quarrel begins, about who is the head-nurse’s “earwig”. The occupants of other beds join in. Wild abuse is hurled to and fro. I am glad that, at least, they leave me in peace. I am tired, my nose hurts badly. The quarrel is just beginning to die down for lack of material when angry shouting is heard in the corridor, the sound of blows and howls. Our cell door flies open and a figure hurtles in.

A loud voice calls: “Will you get into your own bed instead of hanging round other people’s cells, you damned queen, you!”

And a shrill complaining voice—I recognise it immediately, it is the fang-toothed man: “You’ve hurt me bad, keeper. Keeper, I shan’t be able to work tomorrow!”

“You damned queen, you!” rumbles the voice outside once more. “Hurry up and roll into kip, or else you’re for it!”

The fang-toothed one thrusts his face into my bed.

“Well, new fellow, so you’re under me? I tell you straight, if you don’t lie still in the night, if you wobble about, I’ll come down and wobble you.”

“I’ll lie still all right,” I tell him, and I think anxiously of my rattling and snoring.

The little man undresses with incredible speed and shoots his rags outside the door. Then with a disgusting lack of ceremony he uses the bucket.

“You could have done that outside, Lexer,” calls an indignant voice.

“Are you too posh to breathe my stink?” cries the shrill insolent voice. “We’re real posh in here now the new fellow’s come! O.K. Now I’ll shit more than ever!”

And he lets a thunderous one.

“In hell,” I think. “I have landed in hell. However shall I be able to live here? And sleep? These are not human beings, these are animals. And am I supposed to live here for six weeks, perhaps longer? Perhaps very long? In this hell? This Lexer, or whatever he is called, is a devil!”

They try to question me further. But I do not want to hear or see anything more of them. I pretend to be asleep. And slowly they too become quieter, the shrill hateful voice falls silent. It becomes darker and darker, most of them are probably asleep already. I hear a clock strike three times. What would it be? A quarter to nine? A quarter to ten? I hope the clock strikes the hours as well. That would shorten the night. Above me Lexer tosses restlessly to and fro. My bed sways each time. And I am not supposed to move! I lie quite still, my face hidden in my arm. I am utterly alone with myself, I see clearly that from now on I shall always be utterly alone with myself. I am somewhere where neither love nor friendship can reach, I am in hell … I have sinned for a brief while and I am being punished for it, incredibly severely, for a long time! But one should have known, before one sinned, how severe the punishment would be. One should have been warned beforehand, then one would not have sinned … God, that bit of brandy-drinking, is it really so terrible? That squabble with Magda—well, all right, legally they could make out a case of uttering menaces, but do I have to spend a living death in hell on that account? If Magda knew how I am suffering—she would at least take pity on me, she would help me out of pity, even if she doesn’t love me any more. There is just one hope, and that is the doctor. Dr Stiebing, the medical officer, had not made a bad impression on me during that car journey. He had joked and laughed with Dr Mansfeld like a real human being. Perhaps he is a real human being, not just part of a machine. I will speak to him as to a human being, I will fight for my soul with him, I will save my soul from this hell.

“Sir,” I will say to him, “I take full responsibility for all I have done. I have never been so intoxicated that I did not know what I was doing. I want to be punished severely. I would gladly go to prison for a year, two years. I would do that gladly. But don’t leave me in this place, in this hell, where a man doesn’t know how he will come out again, and perhaps he will only come out feet first. Sir,” I will continue, “you know our family doctor, Dr Mansfeld. You joked and chatted with him in the car. Ask Dr Mansfeld, he has known me for many years. He will confirm that I am a decent, respectable, sober man. That affair was just a sudden attack, I don’t know how it happened myself”—No, I interrupted myself, I mustn’t tell the medical officer that, or he’ll certify me insane. “But Dr Mansfeld will confirm that I have always been decent. I put Magda into a private ward in hospital and paid the high cost of the operation without a murmur, and spared nothing for her comfort. I always was a decent man, sir, let me go back to live among decent men. Give me a chance.…”

The clock strikes, it strikes the hour, a quarter of the long night is past, it is now ten o’clock. And so I spend the first night in the asylum counting quarter-hour after quarter-hour, making speeches and writing letters, between sleeping and waking. Sometimes, exhausted, I have nearly fallen asleep, but then I start up again: Lexer above me has thrown himself about in his bed, or someone has gone over to the bucket. For a ‘joke’ I kept count this first night: from ten o’clock at night till a quarter to six in the morning seven men went to the bucket thirty-eight times. When I wanted to use it in the morning it was full to overflowing. And not a single man used paper—they were past that. Oh, I got to know a fine corner of hell that night.