Ernst Haffner - Blood Brothers

Fred, in such good earning form, has a new idea that must be good for at least three hundred marks. Only he needs three or four helpers. From his time as a male prostitute he has one faithful old admirer left. A very well-off butter merchant, who is surely good for a couple of hundred marks, especially if there are four of them. Fred picks Jonny, Konrad, Hans and Erwin to help him. Then he goes to find a telephone. Comes back and tells them he’s meeting Fritz in the Tiergarten at eight. The helpers’ task is to catch them together in a compromising situation. The four seeming strangers are to act outraged and threaten to call the police. The terrified Fred will beg his merchant to secure their silence with a little bribe. And that is where the three hundred marks comes in. “A doddle. He won’t kick up, he’s got a wife and kids.” So Fred concludes his presentation.

Very slowly, setting one foot down in front of the other, Heinz walks into the bar. His eyes are full of pain and the fear of mockery from his friends. Fred is about to oblige: “Well, how’s it hanging, you old eunuch!” But curtly and decisively Jonny puts a stop to it. Heinz tells them that the doctor wanted to keep him in hospital. Only when Heinz objected that he would be very well looked after at home did he finally let him go. Fred wants to leave now, and he decides to add Georg and Walter to the bunch, just to be on the safe side. Ludwig and Heinz agree to meet them at Schmidt’s at eleven.

Heinz can hardly remain upright with pain and exhaustion, and gratefully accepts Ludwig’s suggestion that they go back to the hostel. They pool their money. There’s just enough for a bed for Heinz.

LUDWIG IS STANDINGin front of an Aschinger’s at Stettiner Bahnhof, gazing at the imposing sausages in the window. “I’m sure they wouldn’t miss one …” he thinks to himself. A fellow draws up next to him. Probably a couple of years older, a little bit better dressed as well. He looks at Ludwig, looks in the window, looks at Ludwig again. Then: “I expect you’re hungry, eh?… Fancy earning half a mark?” “Half a mark?” says Ludwig. “How’d I do that?” The fellow shows him a ticket for the left-luggage office. Perhaps Ludwig could pick the piece up for him. Sure, it was his ticket, but he couldn’t get away, he had to stay by the bus stop, he was meeting his friend off the bus any minute. Okay. Ludwig takes the ticket and a mark piece to pay the charge; the change is his. That comes to one pea soup with bacon, plus at least half a dozen rolls, Ludwig thinks to himself on the short walk to the station. Or maybe a couple of frankfurters for twenty-five pfennigs, and the rest on cigarettes. Even better, he says to himself, and he hands the ticket to the official: “My case, please.” The official comes back without the case, and says, “Just a mo,” and goes away again.

One or two minutes go by, then the official comes back, and he points at Ludwig and says, “It’s him.” Someone taps Ludwig on the shoulder from behind: “Would you mind coming along with us?” A transport policeman. The left-luggage official hands over to a colleague, and comes along to the police station as well. The duty officer listens to him first. He says: “The ticket this young man presented was reported as lost earlier this morning. A gentleman claims he had it in his wallet, which was stolen from him on the tram.”

Ludwig is incensed: “It’s not me … there was this stranger I met outside Aschinger’s …” “All right, all right. One thing at a time,” the duty officer cuts him off. “Have you got any identification, passport or registration certificate?” he asks. “No, not on me,” says Ludwig. “All right, what’s your name, then?” Ludwig hesitates. Should he give the officer his real name? Then they’d send him straight back to the institution. Whereas if he gives a name that’s not on any of the files, they’ll just let him go. “Erich Müller,” he says hurriedly. The officer writes it down. Ludwig gives him a made-up date of birth, and improvises other details. “Address?” asks the officer. “Homeless, just arrived in Berlin yesterday, looking for work.” “So where’re your papers then?” “Er … I lost them yesterday on the way to the city.” The official seems to take it equably enough. “All right, now give me your version of what happened again.” At last, Ludwig is able to launch into his account. He does it with such zeal that the official can’t help but accede to Ludwig’s earnest request to have an officer accompany him back to Aschinger’s to identify the responsible party. Not least as it’s one of the oldest tricks in the book, to get some third party to present the hot ticket.

Ludwig and a detective in civilian clothes make a large detour round the possibly still waiting villain to the spot where Ludwig was first accosted. He keeps his eyes peeled, but there’s no one who looks even vaguely like the youth. The policeman is smirking. Wouldn’t you know it, it was that A.N. Other again. Why couldn’t the lads at least come up with something original once in a while? Back at the station, the statement is concluded. “Are you adamant that you were to present the ticket on behalf of a third party, then?” “Yes.” “Very well, you’re staying the night here in the station, and tomorrow morning you’re being transferred to HQ,” says the policeman, and Ludwig is taken to a holding cell.

Thoughts are swarming and tangling in Ludwig’s brain. Should he tell them that his name’s not really Müller, and that he’s fled from welfare? Then they won’t believe another word he says. They’ll think he’s definitely the thief. But the police will surely work out by themselves that he’s given them a false name.

An endless night on a hard wooden bench in the company of snoring drunks, night birds and arrested criminals. A continual lurching between half-sleep and panic each time someone else is thrown into the cell. Finally, in the early morning, the detainees are taken away by a police escort. Off into the van that does the rounds of the police districts, the Green Minna. The thing’s already full to bursting when Ludwig is escorted out. He’s put between two drunken women who’re not too proud to grope him for cigarettes. The van rumbles off to HQ. In the yard, it does an elegant turn, and stops directly in front of a flight of steps going down to a basement. Under the watchful eye of the police, the freight, now separated into male and female, is taken to a large pen.

Hours and hours go by. The exhausted detainees are already reconciled to their misery and are exchanging stories of the various prisons of their acquaintance. Presumptive sentences are passed. “What did yer do?” “Took the wallet off a john,” says a male prostitute. “Any previous?” “Nah.” “Well, two, three months, on probation.” Thus the semi-professional judge. A sergeant comes along and calls out two or three names to the examining magistrate. Including Erich Müller.

A bare chilly office. Seated at his desk, cursorily looking up through his glasses, the magistrate. To one side a typist, young and pleasant, a faint scent of powder and good soap wafts over to Ludwig. “So you’re the young man with no papers, name of Erich Müller?” begins the magistrate. “Born on —, last living at —. Is that right?” “Yes, sir,” replies Ludwig, looking at the tapered white fingers of the typist, nimbly and efficiently feeding a fresh sheet of paper into her typewriter. “Now what was the story with the ticket? Tell me in your own words.” “Erich Müller” talks; the magistrate stands, feet apart, behind the desk, apparently listening intently.

Ludwig finishes his truthful account. The room is quiet inside, though the din of Alexanderplatz can be heard outside. The typist has spotted a blemish on the nail of her right index finger, and is just deciding to invest her money in a careful and painstaking manicure. The magistrate is still quiet, flexing a metal ruler into a semicircle. Then, very suddenly and roughly, he barks out a question to Ludwig: “So you continue to claim your name is Erich Meyer, right?” Ludwig replies with a quiet, “Yes, sir.” A short pause. “Got you.” The magistrate sits down in triumph. Ludwig and the typist look up at him questioningly. “In your statement you said your name was Erich Müller. A moment ago I asked whether you insisted your name was Erich Meyer. You said yes. How many names have you got?” The magistrate leans back in his chair. The blood rushes to Ludwig’s head so fast that his eyes go black. The typist smiles foolishly. Now she too has registered her boss’s trick. “I would like to draw your attention to the fact that claiming a false identity carries severe penalties. Now, I want the truth.” Ludwig hooks his fingers in between the slats of his chair, the magistrate’s voice is coming from a vast distance. “Could I … have a glass of water?” The typist brings him one. The magistrate waits patiently. He knows his seed will bear fruit. “My name is Ludwig N — and I’m a runaway from the home in H —.” The magistrate picks up the wanted list and scans it. “Could be. When did you abscond from H.?” Ludwig gives the date, which matches the date on the sheet. The magistrate is now convinced that Ludwig is telling the truth. Since Ludwig is sticking to his story about the ticket, the hearing is at an end. The files of Ludwig N. are ordered from H. What happens next is up to the prosecution authorities. A red form is filled in. A form of destiny. An arrest warrant. A bell rings: take him away.