Once a Jailbird, Page 3

  ‘It’ll go on for ever again today,’ he groaned to the man in front; ‘the grub’s sure to be ice-cold when we get back. And there’s peas today.’

  The man in front turned round. He was a tall lanky fellow in an incredible get-up—trousers consisting almost entirely of light and dark blue patches, a waistcoat so short that a hand’s width of shirt could be seen between the lower edge of it and his trousers, and a jacket with arms that reached only to the elbows. And above it, a small, pallid, evil head.

  ‘Well, you’re a fine sight, I must say,’ said Kufalt. ‘You must have got across the storeman. They’ve made a proper guy of you. How long are you in for?’

  ‘Are you speaking to me?’ said the beanpole. ‘Can we talk here?’

  ‘No. But you don’t need to throw your weight about; all our buckets will be emptied at the same time. How long have you got?’

  ‘I was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. But I’m innocent. Two witnesses committed perjury. I’ve written to the Public Prosecutor’s office.’

  ‘Oh, we all talk about perjury when we come in,’ said Kufalt soothingly. ‘That’s natural. What was written up outside your cell before your case came on?’

  ‘Written? What do you mean? Oh, yes—“prisoner on remand”.’

  ‘Well, that means Innocent. And what is written there now?’

  ‘Convict.’

  ‘And that means Guilty. It’s all quite simple. When you’re in jug, you’re guilty, it’s no use making any fuss about it. A sentence is a sentence. And don’t start any talk about perjury here, it won’t get you anywhere. There’s some of us here that’ll put you through it if you do.’

  ‘Pardon me, I am innocent, my wife and my secretary will find themselves in jail for perjury. Listen, let me tell you about it . . . ’

  But he got no further. A violent jingle of keys came from the glass cubicle. ‘Herr Petrow! Will you please attend to what’s going on. That tall fellow there, Menzel, keeps on talking to Kufalt.’

  Petrow dashed savagely up to the innocent convict. ‘Do you want me to pull out your rotten teeth, you big bastard? Do you think you’re in a Jews’ school, eh? Quick march, left, right, left, right, to the cell, and you can talk to the iron door till the doctor comes.’

  The door clicked, the bewildered prisoner disappeared, and as he passed Petrow whispered, with a twinkle in his eye: ‘Put the wind up him, didn’t I? Don’t you get pally with that lad, he’s always going to the governor and the inspector and he tells everything he hears.’

  Petrow was already ten paces away. There stood two men in brown uniforms by themselves, smart-looking lifers, no doubt on their way elsewhere. And the pair had moved three steps forward, from the linoleum onto the waxed cement floor, to make contact with the other prisoners, probably for tobacco . . .

  ‘Keep on the brown lino, please—don’t move off the lino, you there!’

  The men did not look up, they stared straight in front of them and did not move. Kufalt once more observed that lifers treated the prison officials in quite a different way. Ordinary prisoners jollied them, and tried to get on terms with them; but for these men, an official simply did not exist.

  This time Petrow burst into a real fury: ‘Get back onto that lino!’ The pair heard nothing, saw nothing. As though by accident, they each took one step, two steps, three steps—and again stood on the linoleum. They did not so much as look at the warder.

  The infirmary door opened, and the infirmary chief warder appeared in a white jacket. ‘Prisoners to see the doctor!’

  ‘Double file—into the infirmary,’ shouted Petrow.

  But at that moment all the carefully maintained discipline and decorum collapsed. With a hubbub of talk and hurrying feet the fifty prisoners jostled along a narrow passage and down some steps into the infirmary. Petrow tried to keep the two lifers at least in view, but they were at once lost among the others; they whispered, hands grabbing.

  ‘Just you wait, you miserable swine, I’ll have that tobacco off you . . . Now then, move aside you two!’

  ‘All prisoners in double file, eyes to the wall and back to back. Take off shoes and slippers and place them in front of you,’ ordered the infirmary chief warder.

  A name was called, and the prisoner vanished into the doctor’s room, followed by the chief warder.

  ‘This is going to last for hours,’ sighed Kufalt to little Bruhn, who was standing beside him.

  ‘I’m not so sure, Willi,’ whispered Bruhn. ‘He often gets through sixty in half an hour. Hello, there’s a row going on.’

  From the doctor’s room came curses and shouts, and a prisoner emerged, red with fury. ‘But I’m really ill, I’ll complain to the Prison Board, I won’t stand it . . . ’

  ‘Move on, move on,’ said the chief warder, pushing the man out.

  ‘Malingering scum,’ the doctor was heard to shout. ‘I’ll teach ’em! Next!’

  ‘Doesn’t look too good today,’ said Batzke, from the other side of Kufalt. ‘If he starts on the first one like that . . . ’

  ‘Anyhow, we’ll be through quicker. I want to get in some football. Are you coming?’

  ‘Don’t know yet. My dripping’s all gone, I’ll have to wangle some more.’

  ‘Will we have to take all our clothes off?’ asked Kufalt.

  And Batzke: ‘We had to at Fuhlsbüttel. I don’t know what they do here in Prussia.’

  ‘Course not,’ whispered Bruhn from the other side. ‘He won’t even look at us.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure,’ said Kufalt. ‘It says in the Prison Regulations that prisoners are to be thoroughly examined before release as to their health and their capacity for work.’

  ‘It says a lot in those regulations.’

  ‘Then you think we won’t have to undress?’

  ‘What have you got tucked away in your pants, eh? Halves, or . . . ?’

  ‘Silence over there,’ shouted Petrow; ‘if you don’t want a crack on the head with my keys.’

  ‘Oh, please, sir, can I be excused? I’ve got such a pain in my guts, I’m afraid to go in to the doctor,’ grinned Kufalt.

  ‘All right, go and shit then, old codger. Over to the toilets. Now mind—no smoking, or there’ll be trouble with the doctor.’

  ‘Of course not, sir.’

  And Kufalt disappeared into the toilet, and left the door ajar. For safety’s sake he pulled down his trousers; then he stood with his back against the peephole, hurriedly took the note out of his scarf, pushed it down into his sock (‘no halves, Batzke’), stood up, flushed the toilet, and took his place in the ranks again.

  Petrow stuck his head round the toilet door to check, and withdrew it with a look of satisfaction. ‘You haven’t smoked—good boy, Kufalt.’

  Kufalt felt really touched by this approbation.

  But Batzke whispered: ‘Well, Kufalt, how about it? Will you cough it up or . . . ?’

  Kufalt parried: ‘What about the fat Jew and the naked tart? Cut it out, nothing doing here!’

  ‘Aha!’ grinned Batzke. ‘So you too stung the little swine, did you? Good for you, lad!’

  From the corner growled a menacing voice: ‘How long am I to be kept on this cold floor in my socks? It’s a scandal. I’ll complain.’

  Petrow grinned: ‘Ah, the gentlemen lifers. Medical officer’s orders; I can do nothing. You must complain to the medical officer.’

  ‘I’d like to know why it’s allowed too,’ said Kufalt softly to Bruhn. ‘I’ve caught a dozen colds standing around on this cold floor.’

  ‘So we won’t scratch the orderlies’ lino,’ said Batzke.

  ‘Wrong,’ said Bruhn, who knew everything. ‘Six or eight years ago a prisoner hit the doctor over the head with his slippers. Since then all prisoners have had to wait in their socks.’

  ‘It’s a bloody shame,’ growled Kufalt. ‘We have to catch cold here just because . . . ’

  ‘We’re just cattle,’ said Batzke. ‘But outside I’ll show folks what sort
of animal I am!’

  The prisoners had melted away like snow in the sun; there had been more outbursts, more shouts, indignant protests and whining, but in the end the infirmary chief warder’s heavy shoulder had edged them through the door, where Petrow received them, listened sympathetically to their complaints, and bustled them away, delighted to have got them back from the infirmary.

  The only ones left were the two lifers and the discharges.

  ‘Now for a row,’ said Kufalt warningly.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Bruhn sceptically. ‘I’d be surprised if there was.’

  And in five minutes the two reappeared from the doctor’s room, with the same expressionless faces, followed this time by the medical officer himself. ‘The chief warder will bring you the medicine. And the cotton wool. Right.’

  ‘Those lads know how to fix him,’ said Kufalt enviously.

  ‘Oh, he’s just a coward,’ said Bruhn. ‘They’re lifers, probably—and they don’t risk anything if they give him one on the jaw. A lifer’s always a lifer. The doctor knows that well enough.’

  ‘Eyes ahead! These are the men due for discharge this week, sir.’

  ‘Right.’ The medical officer did not look up. ‘They can be taken away. All in good health, all fit for work, chief warder.’

  ‘And that’s what we’ve waited an hour for,’ said Bruhn.

  ‘Well, I’ll put in a stiff complaint when I get out,’ said Kufalt.

  ‘Cattle must be treated like cattle,’ grinned Batzke. ‘The old pillpusher’s right.’

  VII

  When Kufalt got back to his cell, he found something else to make him indignant. Dinner had been given out in the meantime and his bowl stood on the table, but there was only one ladleful in it. Lousy bastards! Was he to go on an empty belly these last few days? Peas too—which he liked so much!

  But as Kufalt sat there and crammed the food into his mouth—he had to bolt it, as the bell for the category three men’s recreation might ring at any moment—a sudden nausea came over him. That had happened several times during his five years; for weeks and even months he could not get the sloppy mixture down.

  Listlessly he stirred the bowl, to see whether a bit of pork might have strayed into it—in vain.

  He tipped the stuff into his bucket, cleaned the plate and smeared a slice of bread with dripping. His dripping tasted fine; the tailors stewed it up for him on the ironing stove, with apples and onions. They were very decent to him, and never took more than a quarter off the pound for their ‘work’; others had to give up a half or even three-quarters, and the new boys got nothing back at all. The tailors always told them that the chief warder had confiscated it and that it was very decent of them to take all the blame. And they had to put up with it.

  Kufalt squatted on his stool and yawned. He would like to have had a bit of a snooze on his bed, but the chief warder might ring the bell at any moment; it was already time.

  How the time dragged, these last few days and weeks! It would not pass, it stayed, it stuck, it would not pass. Every free minute he had he had always sat down to knot, but now he could not, he would never knot another mesh. He cared for nothing now. The thought of freedom left him cold. Werner would be sure not to write, and then he would have to go and beg the chaplain for help.

  The best thing for him would be a decent safe wage—small it might be, but it must be sure. No more dealings with crooks; he would get some quiet little room, where insignificant Willi Kufalt could sit and keep warm through the winter. A cinema now and again. And a nice office job, and so on and so on. He wanted nothing better. Amen.

  The bell rang.

  He sat up, picked up his cap and scarf, felt for the note to make sure it was still safe in his sock—and there was Steinitz at the open door: ‘Recreation—category three!’

  They gathered round the glass cubicle, eleven manikins out of six hundred.

  ‘All here?’ asked Petrow.

  ‘No, Batzke’s not here yet.’

  ‘Having a snooze, is he? Someone go and wake him up.’

  ‘No, he won’t come.’

  ‘Oh? Well, I know what’ll happen. They’ll soon knock off the extra recreation period when they see we don’t use it.’

  ‘Who’s got the football?’

  ‘We need a new one. This one’s past mending.’

  ‘Rubbish, shoemaker! Of course it can be mended, you lazy sod.’

  ‘The gentlemen who are going out tomorrow might cough up ten marks out of their pay, eh?’

  ‘I need my money for myself, thank you.’

  ‘Well hello, why are we going through the cellar today, sir?’

  ‘It’s nearer.’

  ‘And it’s forbidden.’

  ‘It isn’t. Who said so?’

  ‘Rusch.’

  ‘Oh, I fart at what he forbids.’

  ‘There’s somebody!’

  ‘Hi, Bruhn, are you coming with us?’

  ‘Fine, Emil, we can have a bit of a chat.’

  ‘Petrow slipped me out, Rusch isn’t in the building. Good work, eh, Willi?’

  ‘Well, that’s rich! He’s not even category two, Senior Warder, sir!’

  ‘I don’t see anything. I don’t know how Bruhn came out.’

  ‘Shut your mouth, you jealous pig. Can’t you let Bruhn come out with us once in a while?’

  ‘You idiot, when I want anything you get all worked up about it.’

  ‘It’s different with Bruhn, no warder minds about Bruhn.’

  ‘Different—because he’s your boyfriend, eh? Listen, I won’t stand for it, I’ll squeal.’

  ‘All right, squeal if you dare. I know a thing or two about you . . . ’

  They were outside. It was the Junior Prison’s recreation ground, where they played football and were allowed to walk about without supervision—Petrow had gone off straight away—as a preparation for freedom, surrounded, of course, by a wall five metres high.

  ‘Come along, Willi, don’t mind him. I’m here anyhow.’

  ‘Yes, come on. Let’s walk by the wall, then we won’t disturb the game.’

  ‘I’ve a good mind to give you one in the jaw—think a lot of yourself, don’t you?’

  ‘All right, do, if you’ve got any guts.’

  ‘Guts, eh? I’ll soon show you, you dirty scab . . . ’

  ‘Now then, shoemaker, are we playing football or not?’

  ‘I wouldn’t dirty my hands on you—clear off with your boyfriend. But I’ll tell Rusch . . . ’

  ‘Oh, come on, Willi.’

  ‘The shoemaker’s a pig, Emil. But I’ll tell you what he’s making all this fuss about. I sold him my two canaries for four packets of tobacco. And Rusch found out. So he’s lost the birds and the tobacco. That’s what’s bugging him, it’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘When’s the shoemaker due to come out? He’s going crazy already.’

  ‘Too right! He’s got three years to go yet. But he sucks up to everyone, and secretly mends the warders’ shoes, and now he wants to join the Catholic Church; he’ll get out on probation all right.’

  ‘Yes, he’ll fix it, he knows what’s what.’

  They were walking up and down under the wall in the warm May sunshine. Not a blade of green grass, not a leaf to be seen, but the sky was deeply blue, and after the bleak cells the sun seemed doubly bright and warm. It warmed them to the bones, their limbs loosened; their tense, watchful and defensive mood was relaxed, and they both became easy and quiet.

  ‘Hey, Willi,’ said Bruhn.

  He was a plump, friendly young man, only just twenty-eight, who had been in prison since he was seventeen. With his light blue eyes, his ruddy round face and his flaxen hair he looked like a large child. But on the card in his cell was written ‘Robbery and murder’, and he had received the maximum sentence for those underage, at that time—fifteen years. And yet he did not appear as anything of the kind; he was a pleasant young man and popular with everyone. He had never tried to i
ngratiate himself, and yet he was liked by all.

  In fact, when he mentioned the subject, which he did very seldom and with an air of hopeless resignation, he maintained that he had been unjustly convicted. It had not been murder for robbery, but manslaughter in a fit of fury and despair; he had killed the captain of the barge, who tortured him, his cabin-boy, beyond all human endurance. The fact that he could not bring himself to leave the gold watch on the corpse when he threw it into the water was in his view quite a separate matter. He had not killed the man to get his watch.

  So the two young men walked up and down in the sunshine, with five, and eleven, years of jail behind them; in two days all would be over, and life would smile on them again.

  ‘Hey, Willi,’ said little Bruhn.

  ‘Yes, Emil?’

  ‘I asked you this before, in the toilets: why don’t you stay here? In this town, I mean. No, don’t answer yet; we might take a room together, it would be cheaper. And if you don’t get a job at once, you could cook and wash and do the housework. I’ll be earning good money. And in the evenings we could smarten ourselves up and go out.’

  ‘But I must get a job, Emil. I couldn’t do your housework for ever.’

  ‘You’ll get a job all right. Just at the beginning, I meant. If you were stronger I would fix you up at the timber yard, but you’ll have to get some sort of clerk’s job for a start . . . The old man likes you, he’s sure to help.’

  ‘Oh, the governor? But he can’t do just what he likes. And, Emil, this is such a hole, warders around everywhere, and the lads on outside work, and there’s the prison always under your nose, and in three days the cops would all know where you’d come from. And there’d be talk, and the landlady would hear about it, and she’d give you notice . . . ’

  ‘But we’ll find a landlady that doesn’t mind.’

  ‘Yes, but even if we could she’d pile on the rent.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Willi, really I don’t think so. There are some. But I’ll try to get hold of a decent girl, not a tart, and marry, and have a shop of my own, and children . . . ’

  ‘Would you tell her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d have to see. But better not.’