But then, he corrects himself, what do I really know about Otto? I never saw him straight. He must have been completely different to how I thought. And he really understood a thing or two about radios; employers lined up for him.

“Hello, Trudel,” he says, and holds out his hand, into which she quickly slips her own warm, plump hand.

“Hello, Papa,” she replies. “What’s going on at home? Does Mama miss me, or has Otto written? You know I like to pop by and see you whenever I can.”

“It’ll have to be tonight, Trudel,” Otto Quangel says. “You see, the thing is…”

But he doesn’t finish the sentence. With typical briskness, Trudel has dived into her blue overalls and pulled out a pocket calendar, and now starts leafing through it. She’s only half listening, it’s not the moment to tell her anything. So Quangel waits while she finds whatever it is she’s looking for.

The meeting of the two of them takes place in a long, drafty corridor whose whitewashed walls are covered with posters. Quangel’s eye is caught by the one over Trudel’s shoulder. He reads the jagged inscription: In the Name of the German People, followed by three names and were sentenced to death by hanging for their crimes of treason. The sentence was carried out this morning at Plötzensee Prison.

Involuntarily he takes hold of Trudel with both hands and leads her away from the picture so that he doesn’t have to see her and it together. “What is it?” she asks in perplexity, and then her eyes follow his, and she reads the poster in turn. She emits a noise that might signify anything: protest against what meets her eyes, rejection of Quangel’s action, indifference, but then she moves back to her old position. She says, putting the calendar back in her pocket, “Tonight’s not possible, Papa, but I can be at your place tomorrow at eight.”

“But it has to be tonight, Trudel!” counters Otto Quangel. “There’s some news of Otto.” His look is sharper now, and he sees the smile vanish from her face. “You see, Trudel, Otto’s fallen.”

It’s strange: the same noise that Otto Quangel made when he heard the news, that deep “Ooh!,” now comes from Trudel’s chest. For an instant she looks at him with swimming eyes and trembling lips, then she turns her face to the wall and props her head against it. She cries, but cries silently. Quangel can see her shoulders shaking, but he can hear no sound.

Brave girl! he thinks. How devoted she was to Otto! In his way Otto was brave, too, never went along with those bastards, didn’t allow the Hitler Youth to inflame him against his parents, was always opposed to playing soldiers and to the war. The bloody war!

He stops, struck by what he has just caught himself thinking. Is he changing too? It’s almost like Anna’s “you and your Führer!”

Then he sees that Trudel has rested her forehead against the very poster from which he just pulled her away. Over her head he can read the jagged type: In the name of the German people; her brow obscures the names of the three hanged men.

And a vision appears before him of how one day a poster with his own name and Anna’s and Trudel’s might be put up on the wall. He shakes his head unhappily. He’s a simple worker, he just wants peace and quiet, nothing to do with politics, and Anna just attends to the household, and a lovely girl like Trudel will surely have found herself a new boyfriend before long…

But the vision won’t go away. Our names on the walls, he thinks, completely confused now. And why not? Hanging on the gallows is no worse than being ripped apart by a shell, or dying from a bullet in the guts. All that doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is this: I must find out what it is with Hitler. Suddenly all I see is oppression and hate and suffering, so much suffering… A few hundred thousand, that’s what that cowardly snitch Borkhausen said.