The stranger, who is by no means badly dressed, hurriedly pulls away his arm, which had been thrown round Otti’s shoulder, but there’s really no need for that. Borkhausen’s not particular in that regard.

He thinks to himself, Well, will you look at that! So the old bird can still pull in a john like that! He’s bound to be a bank employee at least, or a teacher, from the look of him…

In the kitchen, the children are yelling and crying. Borkhausen cuts them each a slice from the loaf that’s on the table. Then he has himself a little breakfast—there’s sausage and schnapps as well as bread. He throws the man on the sofa an appreciative look. The man doesn’t seem to feel as much at home as Borkhausen, which is a pity.

And so Borkhausen decides to go out again, once he’s had a bit of something to eat. He doesn’t want to chase the john away, heaven forfend. The good thing is that he can keep his twenty marks all to himself now. Borkhausen directs his strides toward Roller Strasse; he’s heard there’s a bar there where people speak in a particularly unguarded way. Perhaps he’ll hear something. There’s always fish to be caught in Berlin. And if not by day, then at night.

When Borkhausen thinks of the night, there seems to be a silent laugh playing around his drooping mustache. That Baldur, those Persickes, what a bunch! But they’re not going to make a fool of him, no sir! Let them think they’ve bought him off with twenty marks and two glasses of schnapps. He can see a time coming when he’ll be on top of all those Persickes. He just has to be clever now.

That reminds Borkhausen that he needs to find someone called Enno before nightfall—Enno might be just the man for the situation. But no worries, he’ll find Enno all right. Enno makes his daily rounds of the three or four pubs where the low rollers go. Borkhausen doesn’t know Enno’s full name. He only knows him by sight, from a couple of pubs where everyone calls him Enno. But he’ll find him all right, and it could be he’s exactly the man Borkhausen is looking for.

*Winter Relief Fund was a Nazi-organized charity collected during the winter months. Pressure to contribute was considerable, and armbands and pins were distributed for public display to identify donors—and thus, non-donors. Much of the money was siphoned off by the Party, and scholars have noted that it kept the populace short of extra cash and acclimated to the idea of privation.

Chapter 4



TRUDEL BAUMANN BETRAYS A SECRET

While it might have been easy for Otto Quangel to get into the factory, getting Trudel Baumann called out for a moment to see him was an entirely different matter. They didn’t just work shifts as they did in Quangel’s factory, no, each individual had to produce so and so much piecework, and every minute counted.

But finally Quangel is successful, not least because the man in charge is a foreman like himself. It’s not easy to refuse a favor to a colleague, much less one who has just lost his son. Quangel was forced to say that, just for a chance to speak to Trudel. As a consequence, he will have to break the news to her himself, whatever his wife said, otherwise she might hear it from her boss. Hopefully, there won’t be any screaming or fainting. Actually, Anna took it remarkably well—and surely Trudel’s a sensible girl, too.

Here she is at last, and Quangel, who’s never had eyes for anyone but his wife, has to admit that she looks ravishing, with her dark mop of curls, her round bonny face that no factory work was able to deprive of its healthy color, her laughing eyes, and her high breasts. Even now, in her blue overalls and an ancient darned and patched sweater, she looks gorgeous. But maybe the most captivating thing about her is the way she moves, so full of life, every step expressive of her, overflowing with joie de vivre.

Strange thing, it crosses Otto Quangel’s mind, that a lard-ass like our Otto, a little mama’s boy, could land such a girl as that.