Alone in Berlin (Penguin Modern Classics)

9

Nocturnal Conversation at the Quangels’

No sooner has Quangel opened the door to the bedroom than his wife Anna calls out in alarm: ‘Don’t switch the light on, Papa! Trudel’s asleep in your bed. I made up your bed on the sofa.’

‘All right, Anna,’ replies Quangel, surprised to hear that Trudel has got his bed. Usually, she got the sofa when she stayed. He asks, ‘Are you asleep, Anna, or do you feel like talking for a bit?’

She hesitates briefly, then she calls back through the open bedroom door. ‘You know, I feel so tired and down, Otto!’

So she’s still angry with me, thinks Otto Quangel, wonder why? But he says in the same tone, ‘Well goodnight anyway, Anna. Sleep well!’

And from her bed he hears, ‘Goodnight, Otto!’ And Trudel whispers after her, ‘Goodnight, Papa!’

‘Goodnight, Trudel!’ he replies, and he curls up on his side to get to sleep as soon as he can, because he is very tired. Perhaps overtired, as one can be over-hungry. Sleep refuses to come. A long day with an unending string of events, a day the like of which he has never experienced before, is now behind him.

Not a day he would have wished for. Quite apart from the fact that all the events were disagreeable (aside from losing his post at the Arbeitsfront), he hates the turbulence, the having to talk to all kinds of people he can’t stand. And he thinks of the letter with the news of Ottochen’s death that Frau Kluge gave him, he thinks of the snoop Borkhausen, who tried to put one over on him so crudely, and about the walk in the corridor of the uniform factory, with the fluttering posters that Trudel leaned her head against. He thinks of the carpenter Dollfuss, the smoking-break artist, he hears the medals and decorations jingling on the breast of the Nazi speaker, he can feel the small, firm hand of Judge Fromm, clutching at him in the dark and propelling him up the stairs. There is young Persicke in highly polished boots standing in the sea of clothing, looking greyer and greyer, and the two drunks groaning and gurgling in the corner.

He is on the point of sleep when something jolts him awake. There’s something else that bothers him about today, something he knows he heard but put from his mind. He sits up on the sofa and listens attentively. That’s right, he wasn’t inventing it. In a tone of command he calls, ‘Anna!’

She replies plaintively, which isn’t her style, ‘What are you bothering me about now, Otto? You’re not letting me sleep. I told you I didn’t want to talk any more.’

He continues, ‘What am I doing on the sofa, if Trudel’s in your bed? In that case, surely my own bed is free.’

For a moment there’s complete silence, then his wife says, almost imploringly, ‘But Otto, Trudel’s in your bed. I’m here alone, and I have such aches and pains…’

He interrupts her: ‘I don’t like it when you lie to me, Anna. I can hear the breathing of three people quite clearly. Who’s sleeping in my bed?’

Silence, long silence. Then the woman says stoutly: ‘Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies. Just pipe down, Otto!’

And he, insistent: ‘This apartment is in my name. I’m not having any secrets kept from me. What happens here is my responsibility. For the last time, who’s in my bed?’

Long, long silence. Then an old, deep woman’s voice: ‘I am, Herr Quangel, Frau Rosenthal. I don’t want your wife and you to have any trouble on my account, so I’ll just get dressed and go back upstairs.’

‘You can’t go into your apartment now, Frau Rosenthal. The Persickes are up there, and some other fellows. Stay in my bed. And tomorrow, early, at six or seven, go down to old Judge Fromm’s on the first floor and ring his bell. He’ll help you, he told me.’

‘Oh, thank you, Herr Quangel!’

‘Don’t thank me, thank the judge! All I’m doing is throwing you out. There, and now it’s your turn, Trudel…’

‘You want me to go, Father?’

‘Yes, you have to. This was your last visit here, and you know why as well. Maybe Anna can go and see you from time to time, but probably not. Once she’s seen sense and I’ve had a chat with her…’

Almost yelling, his wife protests, ‘I’m not putting up with this! I’m going as well. Stay in your flat by yourself, if you want to! The only thing on your mind is your peace and quiet…’

‘That’s right!’ he interrupts. ‘I don’t want any funny business, and above all I don’t want to be dragged into other people’s funny business. If it’s to be my head on the block, I want to know what it’s doing there, and not that it’s some stupid things that other people have done. I’m not saying that I’m going to do anything. But if I do anything, I’ll only do it alone with you, and with no one else involved, even if it’s a sweet girl like Trudel or an old, unprotected woman like you, Frau Rosenthal. I’m not saying my way is the right way. But there’s no other way for me. It’s how I am, and I’m not going to change. There, and now I’m going to sleep!’

And with that, Otto Quangel lies down again. Over in the other room, they go on whispering for a while, but it doesn’t bother him. He knows he will get his way. Tomorrow morning, the flat will be empty again, and Anna will give in. No more irregular episodes. Just himself. Himself alone. All alone.

He goes to sleep, and whoever found him sleeping would see a smile on his face, a grim little smile on that hard, dry, birdlike face, a grim and stubborn smile, but not an evil one.