Ernst Haffner - Blood Brothers

“Shouldn’t he thank us for the lashes?” butts in Fred, apparently still not satisfied. “Yes, he should say thank you, that’s only right,” Ulli concurs. Hermann Plettner is forced to thank his punishers. He hobbles over to Ulli: “Er … thank you.” “No, no, boy, that won’t do. You have to say: thank you very much for my lashes.” Plettner begins again: “… thank you … very much … for … my … lashes.” Then Fred trumps everyone. He forces Plettner to kiss the whip that has his blood on it. Two boys escort him out to Koloniestrasse. They watch him unsteadily feel his way along the plank fencing … The gang’s court of justice has bloodily avenged the despicable deed.

*The bear is the animal of Berlin and the origin of the city’s name.

JONNY IS HAVING A PRIVATE MEETINGwith Ludwig and Willi. “This afternoon we’re going on the job. First, I just want you to watch how it’s done. I want you, Ludwig, to be attached to Fred’s group, and you, Willi, come along with me. I just want you to watch today, to observe and learn.” Now, at last, Ludwig knows where the money comes from. Pickpocketing! Ludwig has no chance to talk it over with Willi. Both of them listen in silence to Jonny’s revelations. For today, they are there in a purely passive role. They won’t agree to be involved in any actual stealing. That’s what both of them decide for themselves, and they resolve to talk about it with each other at the next opportunity.

The gang splits up at Alexanderplatz. Each group makes their own way east. Ludwig follows Fred, Willi walks along after Jonny. Fred’s band are detailed to work on the ground floor of the department store, Jonny’s section in the food hall, and Konrad and Hans are to work the elevators. Ludwig sees Fred press himself against a sale counter, which is thronged with housewives. The other two push in behind him, Fred is pressed against the women. These few seconds Fred takes advantage of. His hand slips into a canvas shopping bag. A little purse is swiftly transferred from Fred to Georg, and from Georg to Erwin. Fred moves off. So do Georg and Erwin.

The elevator gives a little jerk that sends Konrad barging into a woman. He begs pardon. Behind his back, his hand passes on a little change purse …

Jonny heads for a stand where deep-frozen geese are on sale. An incredible pushing and shoving, because of the cheap wares. The eyes of the customers are all on the geese, and with one hand they test the goods. Jammed in between them are their shopping nets and bags. It’s like stealing candy, thinks Jonny, passing a purse on. After each strike the band is under instructions to go to a different part of the store. No more than one hour in the building as a whole. Then each group makes its own way back to headquarters on Badstrasse.

The gang are sitting in the windowless back room, sorting through the pickings. Five change purses and three little wallets, which are immediately fed to the flames. One wallet has the jackpot: four fifty-mark notes, the other two contain a total of ninety marks. The five purses contain one hundred and eight marks, forty pfennigs in all. Stamps, receipts and other papers are also burned. The takings of one single hour: three hundred and ninety-eight marks, forty pfennigs! Ludwig and Willi sit there in amazement. They try desperately to convey delight as the others do. But their eyes express chiefly fear and shock. “Well, what do you say to that, Ludwig and Willi? Nice line of business?” asks Fred. “If it wasn’t for me, all of youse would still be broke!” he crows. Gotthelf gets his share: twenty marks. Each of the boys gets thirty marks. What’s left goes into Fred’s keeping, he’s the treasurer. Ludwig and Willi pocket their share. If they refused it, that would be tantamount to betrayal, and they would be looking at arse tartare like Plettner’s.

They arrange to meet up at ten in the Auto-Topp. Anneliese will be there too, so it’ll be a jolly evening. Till then, they’re all left to their own devices. Money’s not a problem, anyway.

Ludwig and Willi sit down in a bar and ponder. What are they going to do? Trying to talk the gang out of thieving is senseless. Every gang is either “for us or against us.” For us? “No, Ludwig, I’m not doing that!” “No, me neither, Willi.” Against us, then? That’s no better. “You can do what you like. But we want no part of it, isn’t that right, Willi?” “Yes, Ludwig, but we can’t tell them that.” “Then we leave the gang.” Alone again. All alone again in Berlin? Willi remembers the terrible nights and days of homelessness and hunger. But he’s got Ludwig now. If there’s two, it’s not quite so bad. “What about the thirty marks? Do we give them back, or hang on to them?” asks Ludwig. He supplies the answer himself: “If we give them back, we’d be starting off broke.” “I think it’s better we keep them …” says Willi, slowly and quietly, “I mean, it’s not as though the housewives are going to get them back or anything.”

They decide to disappear. The gang’s first thought will be that they’ve been arrested. The police are looking for both of them. Of course, it means giving up the Grenadierstrasse digs; that would be the first place the gang looked. It means giving up the odds and ends of property they’ve got in there; if they went back for anything, then Jonny would know the score. “We need to leave the Münzstrasse area, Willi. We’re too well known there.” “So where do we go?” Their decision doesn’t exactly make them happy, too many times already they’ve known what it is not to have a penny in their pockets. But to go on the job with the gang? They might as well hand themselves in to the police right away. It’s inevitable that the gang will one day get caught. “And you, Willi, you’re twenty-one soon, so you’re done with child welfare. Then you can go around everywhere and say: my name’s Willi Kludas, and I want papers and I want unemployment … Your position is different from mine. I’m nineteen. They can keep me for another two years. But I’d rather go stealing from the rich if I’m skint. What the gang’s doing … they’re stealing from people that haven’t got much themselves. Did you see, there was an unemployment card in one of the purses. Those people will be hungry …”

They sit over their beer, pondering. No valid papers, wanted by the police, and go straight? That’s a trick no one’s yet pulled off, Ludwig and Willi. Only bettered by having no documents at all and trying to lead a law-abiding life! Go back to the institution you’ve run away from. Show some remorse and accept what’s coming. Take your reprimands and the occasional slap until you’re twenty-one. Then they may deal with you generously …

Ludwig and Willi trudge through the crowds and lights of Tauentzienstrasse. They feel they are in a foreign city. What’s Berlin? As far as they were concerned, Berlin was Münzstrasse and Schlesischer Bahnhof. It never occurred to them to go to the west of the city. Gray streets with one yard and then another behind and then maybe a third, that was home to them. Here they feel they’re somewhere else. In a rich and cheerful abroad, as it would appear. Everyone is wearing brand-new clothes, as though it were a holiday and not some ordinary Wednesday. The shops are like palaces, in which His Majesty the customer *is standing around idly, on the lookout for some precious knickknack or other. And the women — the ladies. Every one, apparently without exception, well dressed, fragrant, lovely. Even the little dogs the ladies press to their furs, or have trotting along beside them, are dressed in cute little blankets and have sparkling collars. And a dog, one little dog, a tiny bundle of fluff, actually wears little patent leather booties on all four feet. “Did you catch that, Willi?”