Little Man, What Now?

After Heilbutt leaves, Emma and Johannes retire to their room. As they prepare for bed, they skirt around the subject of money. Johannes refuses to pay rent to his mother and, as he kisses Emma goodnight, he feels an awkwardness between them. Emma mentions an “ad [Mia] put in the paper” (152), but Johannes is distracted as they draw close to one another. He reveals how much he spent on the vanity unit; Emma is shocked that he spent most of his small paycheck on something they cannot afford. Johannes says he has been “an idiot” and begs for her forgiveness. As they press together, he feels the fetus inside her kick. Mia enters, clearly under the influence of alcohol, to complain about the unpaid rent. She staggers out, and then Jachmann enters. He is concerned for the young couple and the disagreement over rent; he offers to pay on their behalf. When Mia knocks again, he hides. Mia finds Jachmann’s money—three months’ rent—and accepts it.

At work, Johannes is approached by a colleague he particularly dislikes, a man named Kessler. As he urges Kessler to leave him alone, Kessler makes a scene over a scandalous advertisement he read in the newspaper. He implies that the ad, advertising “intimate gatherings for select individuals” with satisfaction guaranteed (163), was taken out by Johannes’s wife. Johannes attacks Kessler and Heilbutt has to pull them apart. Heilbutt calms Kessler, explaining to him that the ad could not possibly have been written by Emma. In private, he learns from Johannes that Mia wrote the ad, and he recommends that Johannes leave the apartment as soon as possible to avoid scandal. Johannes agrees and sends Emma out to look for apartments while he works. Due to her evident pregnancy, however, Emma struggles to find someone willing to rent to her. Approaching despair, she faints in a store. As the store owners help her, they suggest a friend who is renting out an apartment. When Johannes comes home that night, Emma takes him to see the rooms. They are hidden behind a furniture warehouse and a movie theater; since they are not technically legal, the rent will be cheap. The small but “fantastically cozy” rooms suit their needs. They enlist the landlord, a carpenter named Puttbreese, to help them move out as soon as possible. They wait until the evening, when Mia is throwing one of her sordid parties, and leave with all their possessions. As they leave, Jachmann spots them. He quietly helps them to the door and bids them farewell, then returns to reveal to Mia that her tenants have moved out. She is furious.

In their new apartment, Emma draws up a strict budget. She hides what little savings they have left so as to avoid further temptation. When Johannes returns home, he complains about the store’s efforts to “economize” the workforce. A consultant has been hired who will likely introduce strict sales quotas. Emma, naturally inclined to left-wing views about labor issues, agrees to put her politics aside for now. She speaks to Johannes about the budget and he agrees on their own need to reduce expenses and save money. Emma also points out that, in the later stages of her pregnancy and the period afterward, they will not be able to have sex. This upsets Johannes, who complains about “the way things are in this world” (186). At Christmas, the couple celebrates frugally. In January, the store introduces sales quotas for employees. Johannes “comfortably” hits his target in January but struggles in February. His inability to make sales, compounded by his sexual frustration, causes him to become miserable.

One afternoon, Johannes returns home for lunch as Emma goes into labor. He walks with her to the municipal hospital as the time between her contractions decreases. He fills out the forms and hands Emma over to the nurses, who tell him to come back later. Johannes says goodbye to his wife and then returns, alone, to “his quiet galley” (200). Johannes fears that he may “never see [Emma] again” (201). After doing the household chores, he lies down and remembers the first time they met. They encountered each other on a beach in a brief meeting that turned into a romantic night spent together among the dunes. Eventually, Johannes rises and returns to the hospital, only to be told that he needs to wait another few hours as “the first delivery is usually difficult” (205). As he leaves the hospital, he hears a woman scream in agony. Outside, he wanders around Berlin. He decides to call on Heilbutt, who entertains his friend and, after a drink, invites him to a social gathering. Heilbutt reveals that he is a nudist. He evangelizes about the importance of nudism and reveals to Johannes that he is in possession of a number of illicit nude photographs of other people. He would like Johannes to join him at a nudist meeting. Reluctantly, Johannes accompanies Heilbutt to the meeting at a local bathhouse, though he is assured that there is “no need to get naked” (210). Johannes feels awkward. He sits and talks to another clothed person, a “substantial woman” named Mrs. Nothnagel. She notes that her business-minded husband, Max, joined the society as a sales venture, though she lacks his entrepreneurial spirit. Johannes cannot stop thinking about his wife, so he leaves without saying goodbye to Heilbutt.

Johannes enters a bar and orders a beer. When he calls the hospital from the bar’s telephone, he is told that his baby has been born. He nearly rushes out of the bar in his excitement, only to be stopped by the waiter, who is bemused that Johannes still sees his baby’s birth as a blessing. Johannes rushes to the hospital, where he finds Emma with a baby boy in her arms. She has named him Markel. Eleven days later, Johannes brings Emma and the baby home from the hospital. He has cleaned everything in the small apartment. The young couple has a great deal to learn about raising a child, such as changing Markel’s diapers and not going to him whenever he cries. Johannes struggles to ignore the “helpless plaintive whimpering sound” (231), but Emma insists that they must not pick up Markel when he cries. Feeling trapped in the house, they buy a secondhand stroller. Johannes becomes frustrated with the bureaucracy of the hospital, eventually visiting the offices to have his payments hurried up as the couple is short of money. He hopes that the office workers will be “white-collar employees like himself” (237), but they are not sympathetic to his plight. He tries to file a complaint about their delay but the complaint does nothing, prompting Johannes to insist that he will “vote Communist” in the next election.

Johannes struggles to meet his monthly sales quota. Heilbutt helps him by occasionally sending sales his way, but Johannes has lost all his confidence. He fears unemployment, the threat of which grows stronger with every lost sale. Heilbutt is fired after a nude photograph of him appears in a magazine. Heilbutt wins a case for unfair dismissal but he falls out of contact with Johannes. One evening, Johannes runs into Jachmann. Though Jachmann is acting strangely, he remains his charismatic self. He invites himself to dinner, buys extravagant gifts for Emma, then invites himself to stay the night. In the coming days, he secretly gifts Johannes a large sum of money. They watch a film in which a bank clerk borrows more and more money from his colleague to impress his wife, only for his wife to leave him for the colleague. Johannes is very impressed with the lead actor, who conveys the “terrifying” nature of working-class life. During the evening, however, Jachmann runs into someone and is forced to abscond. Johannes and Emma return home to Markel.

Markel falls sick and his parents panic. After a sleepless night, Johannes runs to fetch a nurse, who reveals that Markel is suffering from his first tooth. The incident makes Johannes late and he is reprimanded by his boss. Many people are being fired at the store for minor infractions but Johannes escapes with his job. He increasingly feels the pressure to meet his quota, however, especially without Heilbutt to help him. At home, Emma is surprised when Johannes’s mother pays a visit. She demands information about Jachmann, only to be told that they have no idea where Jachmann has gone. They refuse to allow her to take Jachmann’s suitcases, which he left at their apartment. At the store, the increasingly desperate Johannes is surprised to see the actor from the film he enjoyed. The actor is researching a role and, after paying the man a string of compliments, Johannes helps him to try on many suits. Hours later, however, the actor reveals that he will not be buying anything. Johannes is shocked and begs the actor for help. The actor is appalled and, when one of the bosses appears, Johannes is fired.