‘It was mean. Just to show the new blokes I had him in my pocket. It’s not worth it, I do everything wrong—how will I get on outside?’

If only his brother-in-law would write . . . Outside was the world, full of towns, and the towns full of rooms, one of which he would have to rent: and looking for jobs, and the money that would too soon be spent—and what then?

He stared into vacancy. Scarcely eighty-four hours until the moment of his release, for which he had so yearned during five long years. And now he was afraid. He had liked being here, he had soon adapted himself to the atmosphere and ways of the place; he had quickly learnt when a man should be humble and when he could speak up. His cell was always spotless, his bucket lid had always shone like a mirror, and he had washed the cement floor of his cell twice a week with graphite and turpentine until it gleamed like an ape’s arse.

He had always made his allotted amount of net, sometimes twice and even three times as much, so that he had been able to buy little luxuries for himself and tobacco. He had reached category two, then three: a model prisoner, whose cell was visited by committees and who always gave a sensible and modest answer to their questions.

‘Yes, sir, I feel very well here.’

‘No, sir, I’m sure it is doing me good.’

‘No, sir, I have no complaints.’

But sometimes—and he grinned as he recalled how the girl students training to become welfare workers had asked him so inquisitively what his crime had been; and instead of answering, ‘Embezzlement and forgery,’ he had said humbly: ‘Incest. I slept with my sister, I’m sorry to say.’

He recalled the face of the police inspector, grinning delightedly at the joke, and the eager-eyed girl student who came up closer to him. A nice girl, who had often brought him pleasing thoughts as he fell asleep.

It had been a good time, too, when he had to arrange the altar for the Catholic priest, even though he had strongly objected to Kufalt as a Protestant. But there were no ‘reliable Catholics’ in the place—it was really a dig by the Protestant officials at the Catholic priest.

He had stood behind the organ and pumped air into the bellows and the choirmaster always gave him a cigar; and on one occasion the choir of the Catholic church had come, and the girls sent him chocolate and some good toilet soap. Rusch, the chief warder, had taken it away from him afterwards. ‘Brothel, brothel!’ he had said when he came into Kufalt’s cell and sniffed. ‘It smells like a brothel here.’ And he had rummaged around until he found it, and the old soda soap had to be brought out again.

No, he had had a good time, all in all, and the prospect of release rather bewildered him. He felt quite unprepared, and he would gladly have stayed inside another six or eight weeks to get ready to leave. Or was it that he was beginning to get a little crazed? He had often noticed that the quietest and most sensible prisoners cracked up just before their release and acted crazily. Had he reached that stage?

Perhaps he had; never before would he have risked that business with the nets instructor and the fat Jew, entering the cell like that, nor spoken up to Warder Steinitz as he had done.

If only his brother-in-law would write. Had the chief warder given out the post that day? He was a pig you couldn’t trust; if he didn’t feel like it, he wouldn’t give out any post for three days.

Kufalt walked a step or two and stopped. He had always set the wash-basin on the top of the cupboard so that the edges met within a millimetre; and now it stood at least a centimetre back.

He opened the cupboard door.

‘So old Nets, the dirty dog, has been going through my cell. Hasn’t given up hope of his hundred marks. All right, my lad, just you wait.’

Kufalt threw a suspicious look at the peephole in the door, and grabbed his scarf. Something crackled encouragingly in its folds. But it then occurred to him that in half an hour at most he would have to appear before the doctor and undress, and must not have a hundred mark note on him. The nets instructor would know that, and search his cell again . . .

Kufalt frowned and pondered. He knew of course that there was no hiding place in the cell of which the officials were not well aware.