“Leave your suitcase down here, Sommer,” says the head-nurse. “I’ll give you your institution clothes tomorrow, civilian clothes are forbidden here. And now I’ll show you your bed, it’s bed-time already. We go to bed at half-past seven here, and get up at a quarter to six in the morning …”
“Might I perhaps have some supper?” I ask. “I didn’t have any there.…”
I expect to get a “No” as I did on my first arrival in prison. I did not really intend to ask, having already learned that a prisoner should say nothing, ask nothing, question nothing. But—wonder of wonders—the head-nurse nods his head and says: “All right, Sommer, go and sit in the day-room for a while.”
I am put into the day-room. It is a long, three-windowed room, containing nothing but scrubbed-down wooden tables once painted white, primitive wooden benches without backs, and a sort of kitchen clock on the wall. I sit down on a bench. By the clock it is shortly after half-past seven.
Outside, the cry echoes: “Bed-time! Clothes out!” A violent shuffling begins (what an incredible number of people there must be in this block). Doors slam; in a neighbouring room, which is probably the lavatory, an uninterrupted rush of water begins. In bed at half-past seven, like children! How am I to get through the night? And the thirty-six nights of the observation period? And perhaps many many more nights to come? The weight of an infinite length of time in which nothing happens, descends on me like lead. This bare room, containing only the essentials, seems an image of my future life. Nothing to look forward to, nothing to wish for, nothing to hope for … a life in which every minute is empty and the future will be empty, too …
An aluminium bowl is set before me, a spoon is put by it … This is done by a little man in a dirty linen jacket. His face is ugly, and is made even uglier by the fact that all his upper teeth are missing, except two fang-like yellowish-black eye-teeth.
The man looks like some malevolent animal.
“Who are you?” he asks in a high-pitched insolent voice. “Where are you from? What have you done? What’s up with your nose?”
I do not answer him at all, silently I begin to dip into my aluminium bowl. It is nothing but cabbage and water. Warm salt water with very little cabbage.
“Is this your supper?” I ask. “No bread at all?”
Around me, though it is bed-time already, several figures are creeping, in worn-out brownish clothes which in many cases are in rags.… The little man with the fangs laughs shrilly.
“Is that our supper, he wants to know! He thinks it ought to be cooked specially for him. He thinks he’s in a restaurant. He’s so posh, he won’t talk to the likes of us. No bread, he says!”
He laughs again, and suddenly all is quiet. There are six or seven figures slinking around me or leaning silently against the walls. I put my spoon down in the bowl—what is the good of filling ones belly with warm water? I stand up, take a step toward the door. At the same instant uproar breaks out behind my back. They have thrown themselves on my barely half-emptied bowl, they struggle together like animals. Suppressed cries are heard … the clapping sound of blows … Oh God, they fight like beasts over a pint of hot cabbage-water! A high yelling neigh of triumph rings out—it is the little man with the fangs, he is the victor! “Will you get out and let me through! I’ll report you to the head-nurse! I brought the new fellow the bowl, it belongs to me! You give me the grub, didn’t you, new fellow?”
I hurry to get out of the door. I stand again in the corridor, by the glass box. The head-nurse comes out.
“Well, come along, Sommer. Is your bandage still all right? I’ll have a look at it tomorrow morning.”
In the long corridor, before each cell door, lies a bundle of clothes.
“You put your clothes outside the door too. You’re only allowed to keep your shirt on inside.”
“Mayn’t I fetch some pyjamas out of my suitcase?”
“Pyjamas, nightshirts—things like that don’t exist here. You’ll get a decent institution shirt that’ll last you a week.”
We enter a long narrow cell, the air is fetid, stifling already. Eight beds stand in the narrow room, four below, four above.
“Yours is the lower bunk on the right by the window. Make it up quickly and put your things outside the door. It’s lock-up time immediately.”
The door slams behind me, I go over to my bed. I feel many searching eyes turned towards me, but nobody says a word. The bed is better than in prison. There are no straw-bags here but proper mattresses, hard as stone; one can lie on them better. There is a sheet too, and a fine white blanket which, rather clumsily, I button into a cover. There is also a bolster. The bed-linen is blue-chequered. All the time I feel the searching eyes on me, but not a word is said. Hurriedly I slip off my clothes, bundle them clumsily together, and run back to bed in my shirt. I creep into it. The plank bottom of the upper bunk is close above me, I cannot sit upright. The bed above seems empty. I wrap myself tight in my blankets and stretch out full-length. The warm cabbage-water rumbles disagreeably in my stomach.
A voice says loudly: “Don’t even say good evening or introduce himself, the miserable bastard!”
Murmurs of approval can be heard. I start up in my bed—I must not fall out with these people on the very first evening. I have had enough with my strained relations with Duftermann. I knock my head badly on the planks of the upper bed. Seeing this, the two men in the beds opposite laugh.
One cries: “He’s bumped his nut!”
And the other: “He crumpled his fine cloth pants up in his jacket, he’s got plenty to learn, the fat swine.”
Murmurs of approval again. I creep out of my bed.
“Gentlemen,” I say, “excuse me if I have not behaved properly. I didn’t wish to offend you. If I said nothing, it was because I thought some of you were asleep already.”
A voice from an upper bunk calls out: “That’s Zeese, he’s deaf and dumb, he can’t hear anything!”
I eagerly continue, “I’m not used to all this yet. I’ve only been a fortnight or so in remand prison. For the attempted murder of my wife …”
Murmurs of hearty approval. I have guessed rightly: “attempted murder” makes a much better impression here than “uttering menaces”.
“My name is Erwin Sommer, I have a market-produce business, and I’m here for six weeks’ observation …”
“You watch out it doesn’t turn into six years,” calls a laughing voice. “The medical officer loves us all so much, he doesn’t like to lose any of us.”
Laughter again, but the ice is broken, the bad impression is made good again. I go from bed to bed and hear the names: Bull, Meierhold, Brachowiak, Marquardt, Heine and Dräger. I shall not remember them, especially as it has become almost dark by now and I cannot recognise the individual faces in their box-beds. Then I creep back to my own bed.
A voice calls: “Hey, new fellow, tell us how it happened, that business with your wife.”