Alone in Berlin (Penguin Modern Classics)

50

The Death of Escherich

Midnight finds Inspector Escherich still, or more accurately, once again in his office. He’s sitting there slumped, but however much he’s had to drink, he is unable to wash from his mind the horrible scene in which he has just participated.

This time, his noble superior, Obergruppenführer Prall, didn’t have an Iron Cross for his darling, hardworking, successful inspector, but he did invite him to a little SS victory celebration. Then they had sat together, they had drunk a lot of powerful Armagnac out of not such little glasses, they had bragged of their capture of the Hobgoblin, and, to general applause, Inspector Escherich had been forced to read out the statement that included Quangel’s confession…

Arduous, painstaking detective work cast before swine!

And then, once they were all well sozzled, they had thought of yet more fun. Clutching bottles and glasses, they had decamped, the inspector included, to Quangel’s cell. They wanted to see that odd bird for themselves in the flesh, the maniac with the audacity to take on the Führer!

They had found Quangel rolled up in his blanket on his cot, sound asleep. A strange face, thought Escherich, not even relaxed in sleep. Asleep and awake, it looked equally opaque and worried. In this instance the man had been sound asleep…

Of course they hadn’t let him lie. They had jolted him awake, roused him from his cot. There he had stood before a lot of men in black and silver uniforms, in his much too short shift that didn’t quite conceal his nakedness – a ludicrous figure, as long as you remembered not to look at the head!

And then someone had had the idea of baptizing the old Hobgoblin, and they had emptied a bottle of schnapps over his head. The Obergruppenführer had given a little, comically slurred speech on the Hobgoblin, that pig that was now on his way to the slaughter, and at the end of his speech he had smashed his brandy balloon over Quangel’s head.

That was the signal for all the rest of them to smash their glasses over the old man’s head. A mixture of Armagnac and blood ran down his face. But while all this was going on, Escherich had had the sense that through the rivers of blood and drink, Quangel was staring at him; he could have sworn he heard him saying, So that’s the just cause in which you do murder! These are your henchmen! This is how you are. You know very well what you’re about. But I will die for committing acts that were not crimes, and you will live – so much for the justice of your cause!

Then they had made the discovery that Escherich’s glass was still intact, and ordered him to break it over Quangel’s head as well. Prall had had to order him twice in the most explicit terms – ‘Have you forgotten what happened to you before, Escherich, when you were disobedient?’ – and so Escherich had smashed his glass over Quangel’s head. He had to try four times, with trembling hand, before the glass broke, and all the while he’d had to face the mocking, challenging stare of Quangel. This ridiculous figure in his too-short shift was actually stronger and more dignified than all his tormentors. And with each blow that Inspector Escherich had brought down in terror and despair, he had had the sense that he was hitting out at himself, striking with an axe at the roots of the tree of his own life.

Then all at once Otto Quangel had collapsed, and they had let him lie on the bare floor, bleeding and unconscious. They had also told the guard to ignore the bastard, and had gone back upstairs to their boozy celebrations, as if they had won God knows what heroic victory.

And now Inspector Escherich is back at his desk. Up on the wall there is the map with the red flags. His body has crumpled, but his mind is still clear.

Yes, that map is finished. It can be taken down tomorrow. And the day after I’ll put up a new one, and begin the chase of a new Hobgoblin. And then another. And another. What’s it all for? Is that my purpose here on earth? I suppose it must be, but in that case, I don’t understand the world, and nothing makes sense. It really doesn’t matter what I do…

‘I have his blood on my hands…’ The way he said it! And his, in turn, on mine! No, there’s Enno Kluge’s as well – that wretched weakling I sacrificed in order to deliver this man to a gang of drunken thugs. He won’t whimper the way that little runt did on the pier, no, he’ll die with dignity…

And me? What about me? For me, it’s on to the next case, and if the diligent Escherich isn’t up to the expectations of Obergruppenführer Prall, I’ll get another stint in the basement. Eventually, the day will come when I’ll go down there never to come up again. Is that the day I’m living for? No, Quangel is right to call Hitler a murderer and me his henchman. I never cared who manned the tiller, or why this war was being fought, so long as I was able to go about my usual business, the catching of human beings. Then, once I’d caught them, I didn’t care what became of them…

But now I do care. I’ve had it up to here with it; it disgusts me to keep those fellows supplied with fresh prey; from the moment I caught Quangel, it felt disgusting to me. The way he stood there and looked at me. Blood and liquor running down his face, but the stare! This is your doing, his eyes were telling me, you betrayed me! Oh, if only I could, I would sacrifice ten Enno Kluges for the sake of this one Quangel, I would give this entire building here for his liberty! If it were still possible, I would leave here, and I would start something, like Otto Quangel did – something better conceived, but I also want to fight.

But it’s impossible, they wouldn’t let me, they call that kind of thing desertion. They would catch me and throw me in the basement again. And my flesh screams when they torture it. I’m a coward. A coward like Enno Kluge, not a brave man like Otto Quangel. When Obergruppenführer Prall yells at me, I start to shake, and I do what he tells me. I smashed my glass over the head of the only decent man here, but each blow was like a sprinkling of earth on my coffin.

Slowly Inspector Escherich got to his feet. There was a helpless smile on his face. He went to the wall and pressed his ear against it. There was quiet now in the building on Prinz Albrecht Strasse, an hour after midnight. Only the pacing of the sentry in the corridor, back and forth, back and forth…

You have no idea why you’re going back and forth, do you? thought Escherich. One day you, too, will understand that you have wasted your life…

He reached for the map and tore it off the wall. There was a flurry of little flags. Escherich scrunched up the map and dropped it on the floor.

‘Finished!’ he said. ‘Over! The Hobgoblin case is over!’

He walked slowly to his desk, pulled open a drawer, and nodded.

‘Here I am, probably the only man Otto Quangel converted with his postcard campaign. But I’m no good to you, Otto Quangel, I can’t carry on your labour. I’m too much of a coward. Still, I’m your only disciple, Otto Quangel!’

Quickly he drew out the pistol and fired.

This time his hand hadn’t trembled.

The sentry ran in to find an almost headless corpse behind the desk.

Obergruppenführer Prall raged. ‘Desertion! All civilians are pigs! Everyone not in uniform belongs in a cell, behind barbed wire! But just you wait, whoever follows in the footsteps of that pig, Escherich, I’ll have you from the start, so that you won’t have a single thought in your head, just fear! I’ve always been too easygoing, that was my biggest mistake! Bring that pig, Quangel, upstairs! I want him to look at this mess, and clean it up!’

In this way, Otto Quangel’s only convert put the foreman to the trouble of a couple of hours of grisly overtime.