The Drinker (19 page)

43

Six years—I could hardly believe my ears—this young man had been living for six years in these wretched surroundings, and had retained all the flexibility and charm of youth, he still bore about him the brightness of the outside world! It was a puzzle to me, after being there only a few days I was already worn down and crushed. Since then I have thought a great deal about Hans Hagen and I believe I have discovered how he managed to remain so unalterably strong.

First, nothing penetrated him very deeply. So nothing could deeply hurt him. He lived so much on the surface, his brilliant gifts enticed him here and there, he was always busy yet he never did anything seriously. He could do everything about the place, he cut the keepers’ hair in an unusually bold and elegant style, he laid bricks better than a bricklayer, he gave lessons in shorthand, English, French, Russian, he worked hard in the factory, he did carpentry, he had been looking after the pigs—he could do everything, but he did it in a brilliant offhand way, he was irresponsibility itself, nothing was durable. But the main reason for his immutability, his unconquerable youth, was that here in this death-house he lived hardly differently from outside. True, his surroundings had changed, but not Hans Hagen. If he had charmed women outside, here he charmed sick men. He did not overlook even the dullest one among them, he would not rest till a ray of his charm had touched him. He was the real king of this place, was Hans Hagen, and the authorities knew it too.

And like a king he collected his tribute—exactly as he did outside. I never saw Hans Hagen ask for anything, beg for anything. That was not necessary, to such an extent did his followers look after him. A keeper told me that while Hagen was in the punishment cell, there was a constant coming and going, every unguarded moment was taken advantage of to pass him something on the sly. There was an endless whispering at the spy-hole, whose glass had been broken so that the most precious commodity in the institution, matches, could be handed in to him. If another comrade was in the punishment cells he was forgotten, nobody thought any more about him. His reappearance was received as indifferently as his disappearance. Not so Hans Hagen. I have seen myself, often and often, how they came to him, these poorest of the poor, with hunger gnawing at their bowels. One outside-worker brought him a cucumber, another a pocketful of potatoes, here a piece of bread, there an onion, a few sprigs of parsley, carrots, windfall apples, salt, a handful of picked-up cigarette ends. In this place, these are all most precious valuables, difficult to obtain, there is none who can give out of an over-abundance, all are sacrificing what is most essential. And Hagen took everything, everything. He laughed, he thanked them, he made a joke. He could say “Thank you” so charmingly. And then he would turn his back and the giver was forgotten.

Hans Hagen had sometimes given me some of his surplus, in that swift spontaneous way that was peculiar to him. I was sitting disconsolately over my water soup, and Hagen cried: “Here, Sommer, catch!” and from the next table a piece of bread flew across to me, and he laughed heartily as I clumsily caught it; even as he laughed he had already forgotten that he had given me something precious for which I was obliged to be grateful to him. That is how he was: without memory. That is how he stands before me: without past or future, only living for today, abandoned to the moment. But it worried me that I allowed him to give me presents, that I accepted his company and his amiable chatter, without having anything to offer in exchange. For who was I, after all? A mediocre little businessman gone astray!

44

It was one of the inconceivable things about our administration that among this gang of fifty-six decrepit, bestial and criminal men, they should allow two youngsters to live, one of seventeen, the other eighteen years of age. One would have thought that this place, whose walls were constantly echoing with obscenities, curses and brawls, whose atmosphere was saturated with hatred and baseness, was anything but a suitable place for the education of youngsters, before whom a whole life lay. But they were among us, not transiently, but for good. They shared our dormitory, our table and our work. I do not doubt that they also shared our way of thinking and feeling, and if they differed somewhat from us older ones, it was that their wickedness was perhaps transfigured by the glitter of youth, but was more deliberate and calculating than ours. They were both handsome youths; the one, Kolzer by name, I shall mention later in another connection. The other, the eighteen-year-old Schmeidler, belonged to Hagen’s closest circle. Also belonging to this circle were Liesmann, the gloomy taciturn fighter with the black leather patch over his right eye, and a tall, strange, somewhat Don-Quixoteish figure of twenty-nine years old, Brachowiak by name. In contrast to Hans Hagen, all these three had been in state institutions since their sixth year. They had been in orphanages and reformatories, they had been put in prison and eventually they had landed up in this place. Though they always resisted its discipline and complained about it, they felt at home in such a place, its poisonous atmosphere was their life-breath. All three had been repeatedly released on probation and all three had failed to pass the test: within five or six weeks they were back again in the hands of the law, for they shied away from any form of work and preferred to live only by stealing.

I heard with astonishment and at first disbelief that Liesmann, whom I constantly saw in the company of the scintillating Hagen, who was his most faithful friend with whom everything was shared, that Liesmann was the very one with whom Hagen had fought so savagely that he had been given eight weeks in the punishment cells. But I had to believe it, for I heard from the head-nurse himself that apart from minor brawls, Hagen had successfully fought Liesmann three times: once he had dislocated his jaw, once he had stabbed him through the hand, and this last time he had so damaged his eye that Liesmann had almost entirely lost the sight of it. And Hagen himself once pulled the black patch off Liesmann’s brow, showed me the fixed and sullen-looking eye and said, “That’s where I hit Hein—can you see a bit again, Heini?” with a note of touching solicitude.

“Well, it’s as if I’d been looking too long at the sun,” answered Liesmann placidly.

Yes, they were the best of friends, they looked after each other. Liesmann bled the weaker ones without scruple, manhandling them until they parted with their treasured scraps. They looked after each other and they fought, not just brawling but as if they were fighting to the death, impelled by a blind and furious jealousy. For the handsome little eighteen-year-old Schmeidler, the male whore, was shared by the two of them, quite peacefully as a rule; but if young George—he was nicknamed “Otsche” Schmeidler—happened to favour one of them a bit more than the other, the fighting broke out. It was just like outside, it would not have been Hans Hagen if he hadn’t been able to procure for himself the pleasures of love, even in this house of the dead, a dark corrupt love, but still love, with all its voluptuousness and its dangers.

This youngster with the fair wavy hair, the blue eyes, the almost Grecian profile with its straight nose and round chin, scampered about among these men of a morning in the washroom. He would whisper in his short shirt, his slender white limbs as yet unspotted by any boils, and they turned their heads towards him, a light came into their eyes, their hearts beat faster, and in this comfortless place the day would seem not quite without comfort after all. The place was deranged by love, a flower on a muck-heap; other men moved lasciviously about the fringe of this circle and dare not come nearer for fear of Liesmann’s brutal strength and Hagen’s cunning ju-jitsu holds. But the boy Schmeidler, the whore, did not ignore these distant mute admirers. He “kept them on the boil,” he took their last bit of tobacco, for a smile he got bread, for a swift tender caress he got the best morsel from a newly-arrived food parcel. Oh, he looked after the interests of their common household, did Otsche Schmeidler, he did not allow himself merely to be kept, he contributed also. And his two friends were generous, they were men of the world, they shut one eye; in short, even the charming Hans Hagen was a pimp, nothing more nor less. He let his boy-whore run around provided that it brought something in. Have I not said that we lived in hell? Nothing was lacking in this hell, not even love, but even love was corrupt, it stank to high heaven!

45

I would never have got to know as much about these various entanglements, had I not daily sat at table beside Emil Brachowiak. I have often noticed that people prefer to make quiet silent men their confidants, and during the first week after my arrival in the asylum, I hardly spoke at all. So Brachowiak made me his confidant, he poured all his amorous troubles into my ear, he even tried to make me a sort of cupid’s messenger. Many an hour we walked side by side up and down the long corridor while he talked indefatigably. I have seen him cry and I have seen him laugh with happiness.

Outside it was getting dark already, the patients leaned forlornly against the walls; when they drew on their pipes the glow burned red; in one cell, Hagen, Liesmann and Schmeidler were at their secret business; and the outcast went on talking more and more feverishly to me, whether he should disclose the whole filthy affair to the medical officer, whether he should split on them or better still write a letter to Otsche.

“ ‘Otsche’, I’ll put, ‘I’ve done so much for you. I’ve given you two and a half packets of tobacco and a little gold ring I found in the factory. I know full well you gave the ring straight to Hagen, and he swapped it with one of the orderlies for a pound and a half of bacon stolen from the kitchen. But I won’t complain about that if you’ll be nice to me again. Since yesterday morning you’ve not as much as said “Good day,” you don’t even look at me any more. You’d better be nice to me or I’ll go and split to the doctor. I’ll tell the doctor everything you told me about those filthy tricks Liesmann and Hagen get up to with you.’ That’s what I’ll put.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t split,” I answered. “You’ll only get the worst of it.”

“All right, then will you take the letter to Otsche this evening?”

But no, I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to take any active part in this affair. It didn’t matter at all, for Brachowiak easily found another messenger, and next morning, he reported in a voice trembling with indignation, that Otsche Schmeidler had sent him an answer.…

“What sort of answer?” I asked. “Is he going to be nice again?”

“I can lick his arse,” cried Brachowiak furiously. “That’s the message I get from that snotty-nosed little whore. But you wait, my boy. I’m finished with you now for good and all. You’re not getting anything else out of me, not another pipeful of tobacco!”

Oh, it was all right for Brachowiak to talk, I knew full well he hadn’t a shred of tobacco left, Otsche had cleaned him out, and Otsche knew it too.

But what had Hagen, our king, to say to all this, that charming and amiable young man who always kept up the appearance of cleanliness at least? Emil Brachowiak was utterly without shame in his amorous troubles, he knew Hagen’s relationship to Schmeidler, he constantly saw the youngster in the closest proximity to the king, Otsche himself had told him of the filthy tricks they practised with each other—but despite that Brachowiak went running to Hagen and poured out all his troubles to him, as he had to me. And Hagen listened and was kind and friendly, he spoke comfortingly and promised to act as a mediator with Schmeidler. And behind Brachowiak’s back they laughed at the useless fool—oh, what a truly hellish atmosphere of baseness and deceit!

Brachowiak was a clever and industrious worker, he had to some extent a position of trust in the factory, also he often came in contact with civilian workers and knew how to flatter and to beg, in a short time he once more had tobacco.

“This time I’m not giving in, this time he won’t get anything, not a pipeful!”

And Brachowiak went up and down the corridor with his long-stemmed pipe, and blew smoke into Schmeidler’s face without even looking at him. Brachowiak had reported sick and was not going to work. He spent his leisure-hour with me and, lo and behold, this time Schmeidler appeared in the prison yard, Schmeidler, quite alone, without Hagen and Liesmann. A rare sight.

“I won’t even look at him!” Brachowiak assured me, as we passed Schmeidler, who was sitting on the steps in the sunshine. The light summer wind moved his fair hair, he looked young, he looked fresh, he looked uncorrupted.

As we passed for the second time, Brachowiak said, “Otsche smiled at me just now.”

“Hang on to yourself,” I warned him. “The young lout is only after your tobacco—by the way, can you give me a bit of tobacco for a cigarette?”

“I haven’t got any tobacco down here,” said Brachowiak quickly. “No, he’s not going to get a bit of it. He only wants to clean me out again.”

But at the third time round, Schmeidler said quite amiably to us: “Shall we have a game of cards?”

And he took out of his pocket a filthy pack on which one could hardly distinguish the pips. Brachowiak was willing enough, so I did not say no either, but I nudged him and he nodded reassuringly, as if his mind was firmly made up. So we played our game of cards, Schmeidler with extraordinary luck, Brachowiak with equally remarkable ill-fortune. Schmeidler was the winner, I came second.

The youngster cried: “That’ll cost you a bit of tobacco, Emil,” and laughed at him, and Brachowiak took out his tobacco (which he hadn’t got with him!) and generously filled the youngster’s tin, while I, when I held my hand out, got barely enough for a cigarette. Then the two went round the yard, arm in arm, pressing closely together. I was forgotten. That evening, Emil Brachowiak was in tears again: Schmeidler had cleaned him right out and would have nothing more to do with him. And next day, Brachowiak really split on them, not to the medical officer, but to the head-nurse. But nothing happened, nothing at all. Why not, I do not know. The authorities had everything in their power, they could have punished the offenders, they could have separated them, they could have put the youngsters, that constant source of trouble, into other institutions. They did nothing, just as they did nothing about our hunger. I suppose it was immaterial to them how we lived and in what filth we rotted away. Of fifty-six, there were not six who would ever see freedom again. All, or nearly all, were sentenced to live in this place for ever. It was quite unimportant how they did so, that didn’t matter. They had to work as long as a bit of productivity could be squeezed out of their emaciated bodies. Let them put up with it or perish, life was outside, and this was the house of the dead!