A Burglar’s Dreams Are of His Cell

(1931)

He has two years of penitentiary behind him in Hamburg, and five more in Prussia, and the bottom line is that he doesn’t much care for the Prussians. Their penal system is rubbish, a well-behaved convict doesn’t even get to enjoy a kickabout, you have to crawl to obtain such privileges. When he goes to work now he always takes a map with him, so as to make damned well certain he doesn’t do a job somewhere in Prussian-administered Altona instead of Hamburg. Each time he passes the Nobis Gate on the Reeperbahn, he reminds himself: ‘Commit a murder here, it’s fifteen years; one more step, and it’s off with your block.’

When you see him, he’s bound to make a decent impression on you. He’s polished and polite, because in the course of his life he’s had to negotiate many difficult situations. He’s a sharp dresser, because he mustn’t arouse suspicion by looking shabby. He has strikingly dextrous hands, quick hands, clever hands, he needs those for his line of work. He’s alert, how else would he ever have got to be thirty in that line of work, with only seven of them spent behind bars. He is, if called upon to be so, brutal: caution and regard aren’t much help when it comes to cracking safes.

He has two passions, and two only. And that’s his strength: most people have more. One is breaking and entering, he’s done that from when he was a nipper. Even today he thrills to the memory of first cutting a window pane with a diamond at thirteen, climbing in and standing in his uncle’s bedroom, listening to the easy rhythm of his sleep, and fumbling for the dresser and taking his wallet. It was an impressive show of nerve for a thirteen-year-old. Sure, it got him a place in a young offenders’ centre, but that wasn’t so bad, and he learned lots of useful things while he was there.

Today he disdains such crimes of opportunity, he doesn’t mind taking up to six months patiently scoping out a job. Ideally he works alone, use a leg man and you always end up as the mug. He’s popular with his fences, they give him sweetheart deals, up to twenty per cent of the value of an item: he’s yet to shop one of them.

His second passion is women: an inclination, admittedly, he shares with most of his sex. Only that he won’t stick to just one. The girls on the Reeperbahn and the harbour district all know him. He’s never seen, or tried to find, other girls. He can’t be doing with the fuss. He needs women, but they’re all the same to him, he doesn’t distinguish between them. They’re all stupid, all money-hungry, untrustworthy, loose-mouthed, only good for one thing. He’s like a Muslim in that regard; he would laugh if you tried to tell him women were more than flesh.

He reserves his hatred for the cops, but even more for traitors in his own ranks. If he happens to run into one the world goes red, he will knock him down on the street, bite and kick and rip his ear off, smash his nose, till he comes to his senses in some station holding pen – his senses, yes, but never remorse. He’s big on professional ethics: don’t attempt stupid jobs, do good work, cover your fence come what may, don’t shop anyone or anything. He’s a reliable fellow till it comes to divvying up the goods, where his watchword is: get more than your fair share. Afterwards, everything is sorted out. He’s a sworn enemy to the respectable world.

And so he goes through life, almost silent in the human crush, with little sense of participating in its needs and joys. But sometimes, in his off hours, when the police are on his tail, when he doesn’t have an hour to himself day or night, or when he’s just simply blue, he rides out to Ohlsdorf and tours the prisons at Fuhlsbüttel. He looks up at the barred windows and dreams of being inside again. In there is quiet, sleep without fear, regular meals, his own sort. Behind those lit-up windows he’s worked in the carpentry shop and made roll-top desks, nice, demanding work, and not without its little touch of irony.

Finally he goes home to the big city, which has no home for him. Enemy to all, enemy to himself, with the dream in his heart of a barren cell.