I retire in disgust and stand in the corridor again. I read the name-plates on the cells; I read: Gothar, Gramatzki, Deutschmann, Brandt, Westfal, Burmester, Röhrig, Klinger. And as I go on I repeat them to myself, repeat them like the vocabularies I used to learn as a child: Gothar, Gramatzki, Deutschmann, Brandt … I go on repeating the list, till it sticks. Then I pass on to the next name-plate … So I learn, I pass the time, this endless time, two and a half endless hours! What are two and a half hours outside? And what are they here? Then at last the inside working parties march back to their cells, the mat-weavers and brush-makers; doors are slammed, shouts are heard, water runs in the wash-room, pipes are lit. Life, thank God, a bit of life!
And already the cry is heard: “Here comes the factory party!” And immediately after, another cry: “Food servers fall in!”
A little later we are sitting in the day-room which is now fully occupied; those who have been in the factory are asked for news, and they tell how this time they had to carry boxes weighing a hundredweight and a half, whereas yesterday the boxes only weighed one hundredweight twenty pounds. At once a furious quarrel breaks out, concerning how this difference in weight is to be explained. We do not need to worry about our food, it just eats itself, it is water with a few morsels of kohlrabi. I am still so finicky that I put these morsels, which are completely woody, beside my bowl. A great toil-worn hand reaches across the table, takes hold of the morsels and stuffs them into a wide-open mouth. Immediately a furious voice calls to me from the other side of the table.
“Why the hell do you give Jahnke your kohlrabi? The bastard stuffs everything into him that he sets eyes on!”
And Jahnke roars back furiously: “What’s it to do with you what I eat, snotnose? If the new fellow gives me his kohlrabi, that’s his business. Are you his keeper? Every young snotnose round here wants to act the keeper… !”
Fortunately, in this new quarrel in which of course others immediately join (“Shut that row, God damn you! Can’t you keep quiet!”—“What’s up with you?”—“He’s right! We want some peace!”—“I’ll shout as much as I want to!”), fortunately, in all the uproar which now arises, I am completely forgotten. But the keeper in the glass box, which has a window on to our day room, does not even lift his head at the din, he goes on calmly reading his newspaper.
The meal is over, I have managed what yesterday I had thought impossible; I have ladled into myself a whole quart of warm water. At the moment I feel satisfied. But in the night the rumbling of my stomach will teach me that I am utterly and absolutely unsatisfied. From now on, I too am to be among those who constantly visit the bucket. The head-nurse collects together all the men who are supposed to or want to see the doctor, the latter only if he approves of their intentions. From our section alone, about twenty men fall in, I am not among them.
Outside the bars which separate one corridor from the staircase, other sick men from the two buildings opposite have gathered. I count over thirty. And now “the women” march in, mostly girls, led by their wardress. They are put quite close to the wall, and the wardress keeps a sharp look-out so that none of us can exchange a word with them. But that is over seventy patients—and already it is past seven in the evening! Is the doctor going to hold his consultations till well past midnight? The outlook for me is bad. “Are there always so many?” I ask another patient.
“So many?” he answers indignantly. “It’s only a few today. In this cursed place every single one is ill. But I don’t report sick any more, there’s no point in it.”
The doctor came while I was at the other end of the corridor. I did not notice him. But that does not matter, I am not seeing him today, in any case. It is better that way, with more than seventy patients he would not have proper time for me. It is better for me to wait till some other day when things are quieter. I have to tell him my story in full detail.
The head-nurse calls: “Foot-patients first, shoes off!”
And now it starts, at a breath-taking speed. Six men at a time are ushered into the consulting room, and at the latest after one minute the first man is out, doctored and treated!
The head-nurse calls: “Shirts off, you others! Fall in, one behind the other.”
The girls watch how the men slip out of their shirts. This arouses the anger of the wardress, a robust elderly person with a red face. She rushes up to one girl who has a few curls hanging at her temples, under her kerchief.
“What’s this?” she cries angrily. “All you think of is men, eh? Wait, I’ll show you to make yourself pretty here!” and she tears the scarf off the girl’s head.
“What!” she cries indignantly. “You’ve been pinning curls up, have you? Haven’t I told you a thousand times you’ve got to wear just a simple parting? I’ll show you!”
And she tugged at the girl’s hair, she tugged the few poor curls apart. Without a sign of protest or pain the girl patiently moved her head this way and that as her tormentor pulled her hair. But I had no time to follow this shocking incident (which I seemed to be the only one to find shocking) any further.
The head-nurse came towards me. “Quickly, Sommer, pack up your bedding and your things. You’re being transferred!”
My bedding and belongings were packed into a bundle quickly enough, and I followed the keeper, who opened a cell door near the glass box. The cell was smaller than my former one, but there were only four beds in it. Fortunately one did not sleep in two tiers here. The cell was lighter and more airy too, it did not smell bad. I had decidedly bettered myself; I rightly attributed it to the doctor’s influence. “Thank God, he’s favourably inclined towards me,” I thought. “Everything’s all right.” Meanwhile the head-nurse had chased an old man out of bed.
“Come on, come on, out of it, Meier,” he cried. “Be a bit quick about it. You’re going in Wing 2.”
“Oh God!” wailed the old man; “Have I really got to move, sir? I get pushed around all the time! I’ve only had this bed a few weeks! And it was so peaceful in here, and such nice air.…”
But the head-nurse was not inclined to listen to an old man’s jeremiads.
“Out of it, Meier!” he shouted and he gave the old man a violent push. “Stop your nattering!”
With his bundle of bedding, the old man staggered out of his cell on his thin sticks of legs; his short shirt barely covering his behind.
“You can make your bed later!” said the head-nurse. “Now come with me to the doctor. He’s waiting.”
47
The doctor really was waiting for me—hardly an hour had gone by and a good seventy patients had already been treated.
Dr Stiebing, in a white coat, smiled at me amiably, invited me to sit down, and even offered his hand. The head-nurse stood in the background, with watchful eyes, waiting; not a word, not a movement, did he miss. I was pleased that he saw with what discrimination the doctor treated me, this friendly greeting now, beforehand, the transfer to a better cell—he would be careful about dealing too hard with me.
“Well,” said the doctor, smiling, “Now you’ve landed up with me, Herr Sommer. A fortnight ago we could have put you in somewhat more comfortable surroundings, my colleague Mansfeld and I. Well, well, you’ll be able to bear it here. It is a well-disciplined place, you’ll get your rights here. A little discipline is good for everybody, isn’t it?”
He was really amiability itself. Rather touched, I thanked him for the better sleeping quarters allotted to me.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said the doctor. “We’ll do what we can to make your stay here easier. Of course there are certain unchangeable house-rules.…”