They stood in line together, father, mother, and daughter, like other families in need. They waited until it was almost too late. The father worked and was paid a little money: a starving wage, by the time they paid too much for a small one-room flat, which because of inflation and a tax they subleased and shared with a young, single man from the country. With hardly enough room for a family of three, adding a person meant they lived on top of each other. Still they managed, and at night the daughter and the single young man slept on the floor in opposite corners. The girl was not yet ten. They all shared a sink, a toilet and water with all of the other people who lived in flats on their floor. Whenever they went to the WC in the middle of the night, they had to step over each other and sometimes had to wait their turn in the hall. They also took turns bathing out of a single basin and with water heated from on top of a stove, and how well they managed depended on timing.
As soon as she saw the value of their money slip, and it became harder to obtain basic foods with ration cards, she began hoarding and depending on smugglers. The fortune they had came from investments that brought them nearly 5,000 kronen a year. At first, with what the father brought in, it seemed like more than enough to live on. And as long as they watched it, they thought they wouldn’t have to worry. If it hadn’t been for the scourge of inflation and food shortages, they wouldn’t have had to go to the Obdachlosenhein. Unfortunately within a very short time, they lost three-fourths of their fortune. Lost it! They didn’t know what to think. They asked their banker, “Why, don’t you think the krone will recover again?” “Recover!” the banker said with a laugh. “Just try to get what is stamped on this note and you’ll see…” “Yes, but ours are government securities: surely there can’t be anything safer than that.” “My dear lady, where is the State that guaranteed these securities to you? It is dead.” And her husband’s War Loan had already become worthless. Even so, she thought if they were resolute enough they’d find a way. She never gave up. Then her husband got the flu. Almost died from it. Scurvy was also dreaded. But she never completely relented.
The four of them woke up in a cold flat and found themselves without food. They also woke up knowing that their money wouldn’t buy them enough food to keep them alive and that they would soon have to start exchanging their belongings for wheat and potatoes. Almost before they could savor the apples their young tenant stole, the thought of what they’d become began to torment them. The torment wouldn’t go away. They’d been corrupted out of need. By then even the most respectable Austrians broke the law, unless they were prepared to starve.
One day she watched a large group of people on Ringstrasse pull mounted policemen off of their horses and then slaughter the animals in the middle of the boulevard. They were hungry and angry, bony from starvation and dressed in rags. At least that day they ate meat, and horsemeat tasted very good to them.
While rioters clamored for bread and work, and side by side with almost universal want, there was an extravagant display of wealth by those who profited from the inflation. These were the people who went to nightclubs. They sought out each other and listened and danced to jazz. And many of them made this deal with themselves: they would continue to place their profits in the stock exchange as shares rose to unlimited heights.
A sacrifice had to be made, the father’s gold watch was exchanged for four sacks of potatoes.
When the potatoes were all gone the family, while still relatively healthy and dressed better than their neighbors, went to the Obdachlosenhein. The mother thought, as they stood in line, “What are we going to do to survive?” The father told her not to worry. “We’ll make it somehow. I know you’re worried. Things will get better soon. I know they will.”
She wanted to shake him. “What more would it take,” she thought. She then said, “We’ve lost everything, and you continue to smile. It’s your stupid way. It’s how you’ve always been, while I carry the burden. Now we’ve had to lower ourselves to this or starve. And yet you still smile. I have to give you that…your smile…because I know you, but I can’t say that I can forgive you for it, but given the circumstances, you’re acting and looking like a buffoon. Now look sad. Don’t look so proud.” He cringed then, as they emerged at the head of the line. And she ended by saying, “I’ll never forgive you for this. I never will.”
And then he took two trays and handed his wife and daughter one each. Then taking one for himself, he greeted Pauline and Fredrick with a smile, as they helped serve him and his family the best meal that they had in weeks. As he proceeded down the serving line, he put on a big show by greeting each server with a word or two. His wife was not surprised. It irritated her, but she didn’t say anything. The father thought that he had behaved in a proper way. What his wife thought she would’ve been too embarrassed to say. When it came to buffoons he played the part well.
Randy Ford
