I wish I could get nearer to Thiel, to see that he doesn’t lose his cool.

But the farmers press him too closely, and now the oxen are almost running, they have the smell of home, of Päplow’s byre in their nostrils.

But Kalübbe is paying attention. Just at the moment his ox makes to turn home into the entry, he gives him a resounding thwack on the right horn, and jabs the tip of his stick into the animal’s side, and the steer races blindly off, straight along the village street.

That did the trick, thinks Kalübbe in pursuit, surprised that the farmers haven’t given up, but are still providing a trotting escort. And there’s Thiel coming up alongside him as well. Breathless from running, he whispers to Thiel: ‘Don’t worry about anything. Keep the rope looped round your wrist. Don’t let them steal the animal off you. It rightfully belongs to the State, and we have to get it to Lohstedt, whatever happens.’

The farmers are trotting alongside. They are distracting, and they restrict his vision. Even so! There ahead, across the middle of the road, is the pale straw again.

This time there’s no stopping. We have to go through, thinks Kalübbe.

The alarmed beast is rumbling along so fast, Kalübbe can’t manage to turn round. He hears the sticks of the farmers raining blows down on his ox, and he shouts, ‘Look out, Thiel, we’ll cut on to the pasture!’

And there is the fire already. He sees, in bizarrely sharp focus, six or eight faces, and suddenly he spots the man from the Chronicle as well, camera in hand, he just manages to catch a farmer lashing out at the camera with his stick . . .

Then the blaze is there, the heat, the choking smoke.

He can’t see anything any more. His ox is practically pulling his hand off.

Now he’s standing under a tree. He’s made it, the road ahead of him is clear, he is breathing hard, through choking lungs.

He looks back. Thick clouds of yellow-white smoke roll over the pastureland. Shadows dart hither and thither.

Where is Thiel?

Then he sees the other steer racing across the grass, leaderless, tail up and head down.

He waits for fifteen minutes, thirty. He can’t leave his beast, after all—it belongs to the State. Finally he stops waiting. Thiel will turn up somewhere along the way. The farmers won’t hurt him.

Kalübbe takes his ox all the way to Lohstedt.

2

The Hunt for the Photograph

I

It’s almost eleven at night. Stuff has just stepped out of the cinema and joined Wenk at his table in Tucher’s.

‘What’ll you have? Just beer? No, that’s not enough, I’ve got flies buzzing round my brain again today.—Franz, I’ll have a pint of lager and a short.

‘What was the film like?’

‘Load of rubbish. To have to praise something like that, just because the bastards buy space.’

‘Well, and what was it?’

‘Hokum. Sex. Nudity.’

‘I thought you liked that?’

‘Get lost, Wenk! What they call sexy these days! Why take anything off? You know it all anyway.’

Stuff drinks. First a schnapps. Then a long pull on his beer. Then another schnapps.

‘That’s better. I recommend it.