Gunther was blissful.

This was a friend! Gunther had no fear of him. With Atze he would go to the end of the world! Atze listened when one talked to him, and he held nothing back like underhanded Max, the ape! Gunther wanted to learn much more from Atze—everything he did not know. Everything.

*

At Atze’s dwelling, in an entirely respectable-appearing house, only far up in the north, they did not even have to ring. Already standing at the door was an enormously fat woman, with a rosy, good-natured face, wearing a dazzling white nightgown covering huge breasts. She held a burning lamp in her hand, as if she had expected the late guests, and she greeted them with the words:

“Well, Atze, what kind of a shady little bird have you brought with you again, you shameless rascal, you!”

But Atze, already by her in the room, took the lamp from her hand, grasped her around the hips, and whirled the reluctant woman around a couple of times.

“Little Mama,” he cried, “Little Mama, just think, he lost his virginity only today! Astonishing, eh?”

During this night, as they lay side by side in Atze’s bed in his room, with Little Mama nearby audibly snoring, the boy learned much more: what a hustler was, and what a john was; which gentlemen one should go with, and which not; what one should do, and what not, and what to ask for. Also, what a cop was, and what an auntie was. An auntie—well, that was just: “Oooh nooo! an auntie—like girls when they’re young and then just like old maids.” Cops however—the police were called that—were the criminal officers who were always after them, and were the only ones against whom you really had to be on your guard. Then there were also those over twenty—smart guys, hot heads, toughs—precisely those who were so dangerous to every auntie.

Gunther, still awake and entirely spellbound by everything he had heard and experienced, listened with both ears as if to a revelation and drank it in. His respect for his new friend knew no more bounds. Atze knew everything. There was nothing that Atze did not know.

Atze, however, as much as he enjoyed hearing himself talk, finally grew tired of his own wisdom, and since at the bottom of his wicked soul he “loved ‘em young,” he threw himself on top of him.

PART TWO 

1

There now followed a splendid time for the young Gunther. At least it seemed so to him.

They were together the whole day and Atze took care of everything. First, another suit. In Atze’s clothes closet were remarkably many things which did not fit him. Most were for younger boys. He had either grown out of them, or they had belonged to other boys. Gunther asked him about it.

“That’s not really your suit, is it?”

But he received only a short answer.

“Someone must have left it.”

There were shoes, too, low ones with wide heels, somewhat too large, but still quite wearable. Underwear, too. And a fine cravat. Atze was big on neckties.

Thus the boy was newly dressed, from head to foot. Only his straw hat was still suitable, despite the strain it had suffered.

Above all, Atze saw to his identification papers.

“What,” he said, “ya don’t have any papers! Man, how can ya hit the pavement then? When they could arrest ya at any minute!”

While Little Mama made coffee, he disappeared and stayed away half the morning. But when he returned he actually had procured identification papers. False ones, of course, but they suited him well.

“So that you know now: your name is Michael Koslowsky, you’re fifteen and a half and from Kattowitz. Understood?”

“Kattowitz? Where’s that?”

Atze hesitated.

“By the Polacks back there,” he then said with a wide wave of his hand.

He had him repeat everything before carefully tucking the papers into his inside breast pocket. He gave no hint of where the papers came from.

The two knocked about during the day, but not in the hustler areas of Unter den Linden or the “Tauenziehn.” For these areas Atze had only scorn, and he spoke with downright rage of the Brandenburg Gate.

“The only ones who go there are those who don’t have anything more to eat and don’t have any place left to stay—and they always get arrested there.”

Instead, they went into the lounges, especially when evening fell, and then in those of the west. There, everything was outwardly quite respectable. At mostly small tables sat more or less well-dressed, often over-elegant young men, many with affected manners and even wearing makeup, but others still quite vigorous and manly, waiting until customers came and sat at their tables, or called them to theirs, while soft music accompanied the mostly soft-spoken conversations. No one was allowed in without a necktie. Nor, or course, was any female admitted.

Only toward evening, after nine, did it become really full. Many couples showed up, always an older man and a younger.