But he starts eating anyway, slices up the onions and lays them flat on the bread, and he’s so hungry, it tastes pretty good to him.

While Enno Kluge’s standing there chewing away, his eye falls on a lower shelf and he suddenly sees that while the Rosenthals may not have much in the way of food in the house, they do keep a cellar. Because down on the lower shelf are rows and rows of bottles—wine, but also schnapps. Enno, a moderate man in all things except horses, picks up a bottle of dessert wine, and starts off by drizzling his onion sandwiches with it from time to time. But God knows why, suddenly the sweet stuff is sickening to him. (Ordinarily, he is perfectly capable of nursing a glass of beer for three hours.) He opens a bottle of cognac and takes a couple of slugs from it, and within five minutes the bottle is half empty. Perhaps it’s the hunger, or the excitement, that makes him act so out of character. For the moment he’s stopped eating.

After a while the schnapps no longer interests him, and he trots off to find Borkhausen, who is still rummaging around in the big room, opening wardrobes and cases and chucking everything on the floor in his quest for something better.

“Wow, they must have moved their whole haberdashery here!” Enno says, awestruck.

“Stop talking and get cracking!” is Borkhausen’s reply. “There’s bound to be some jewelry hidden here, and cash—the Rosenthals used to be well-off people, millionaires—and you, you prize fool, go talking about cowboy stunts!”

For a time the two of them work together silently, which means they chuck more and more stuff on the floor, now so covered with clothes and linens and stuff that they’re trampling it underfoot. Then Enno, feeling the worse for wear, says: “I can’t see anything anymore. I need a drink to clear my head. Get some cognac out of the larder, will you, Emil!”

Borkhausen doesn’t fuss but does as he’s asked, and comes back with two bottles of schnapps, and then they sit down together companionably on the piles of linen, drink slug after slug, and talk through the situation earnestly and thoroughly.

“You know, Borkhausen, we’re not going to clean this stuff out very quickly, and we don’t want to sit over it too long, either. I vote we each take a couple of suitcases and clear off. Tomorrow, we can think about a return visit.”

“You’re right, Enno, I don’t want to sit here too long, either, on account of the Persickes.”

“Who’re they?”

“Oh, these people… But when I think of leaving with a couple of suitcases full of linens, and leave behind a box full of money and jewels, that drives me crazy. You’ll need to let me look awhile longer. Cheers, Enno!”

“Cheers, Emil! And why wouldn’t you go on looking around awhile longer? The night is long, and it’s not us paying the electricity bill. But what I wanted to ask you is where are you going to take your cases?”

“How do you mean? I don’t understand the question, Enno.”

“Well, where are you going to take them? Back to your flat?”

“Do you think I’m going to take them to the lost property office? Of course I’m taking them home to my Otti. And tomorrow morning off to Münzstrasse and flog the lot so the birds sing a bit.”

Enno rubs the cork against the bottleneck. “Here’s birdsong for you! Cheers, Emil! If I was you, I wouldn’t do it your way, and involve your apartment and your wife. What does she need to know about your little earnings on the side? No, if I was you I’d do it my way, namely take the suitcases to the Stettiner Bahnhof and leave them at the station’s checked baggage department, and send myself the receipt, but general delivery. That way there’d never be anything on me, and no one could prove anything against me.”

“That’s pretty sharp, Enno,” says Borkhausen admiringly. “And when do you go back to collect the goods?”

“Well, whenever the coast is clear, of course, Emil!”

“And what do you live off in the meantime?”

“Well, it’s like I said, I’ll go to Tutti’s. When I tell her what I’ve done, she’ll throw open all her arms and legs!”

“Very good,” Borkhausen agrees. “Then if you go to the Stettiner, I’ll go to the Anhalter. You know, less attention that way.”

“Not bad, Emil. You’re a pretty sharp cookie yourself!”

“Oh, I pick up a few tricks here and there,” says Borkhausen modestly. “You hear this and that.”

“Well, right! Cheers, Emil!”

“Cheers, Enno!”

For a while they gaze at each other with mute fondness, taking the odd swig from their bottles. Then Borkhausen says: “If you turn round, doesn’t have to be right away, there’s a radiogram behind you, must be at least ten valves. I wouldn’t mind picking that up.”

“Go on then, Emil, take it! A radio’s always a useful item, to keep or to sell!”

“Well, let’s see if we can stow the thing in a suitcase, and pack it in clothes.”

“Shall we do that now, or shall we have a drink first?”

“Ach, we can have one first, I say. Only one, mind!”

So they have one, and a second, and a third, and then they gradually get to their feet and try to pack the large ten-valve radiogram into a case that might have managed at best a portable radio. After some considerable struggle, Enno says, “Oh, it won’t go, it won’t go.