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
