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people till they were cripples.
    He came strolling along. 509 could still have tried to sneak out of his way—signs of fear usually satisfied Handke’s simple need for superiority—but he didn’t do it. He remained standing.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “Nothing.”
    “H’m, nothing.” Handke spat in front of 509’s feet. “You bedbug! Dreaming, eh?” His flaxen eyebrows went up. “Don’t you geta swollen head! You won’t get out of here! They’ll send all you political dogs up the chimney first!”
    He spat again and went away. 509 had held his breath. A dark curtain waved for a second behind his forehead. Handke couldn’t stand him, and 509 usually avoided him. This time he had stood his ground. He watched him till he vanished behind the latrine. The threat did not frighten him; threats were daily fare in the camp. He thought only of what was behind the words. Handke must have sensed something too. Otherwise he wouldn’t have said it. Maybe he had even heard it over at the SS. 509 turned round. So he was not such a fool after all.
    He looked once more at the town. The smoke now lay close over the roofs. The sound of the fire brigade bells rose up thinly. From the direction of the railroad station came irregular crackling, as though ammunition were exploding. The camp Commandant’s car took a curve down the mountain so fast that it skidded. 509 saw it and suddenly his face grew distorted. It screwed up into laughter. He laughed, laughed, noiselessly, convulsively, he couldn’t remember when he had laughed last, he could not stop, and there was no joy in it, he laughed and looked carefully round and raised a feeble fist, clenched it and laughed, until a violent fit of coughing threw him down.

Chapter Three

    THE MERCEDES CAR shot down into the valley.
Obersturmbannführer
Neubauer sat next to the chauffeur. He was a heavy man with the bloated face of the beer drinker. The white gloves on his broad hands gleamed in the sun. He noticed it and took them off. Selma, he thought, Freya! The house! Nobody had answered the telephone. “Get on,” he said. “Get on, Alfred! Drive on!”
    In the suburbs they smelled the stench of fire. It smarted more and grew denser the further they went. Near the New Market they saw the first bomb crater. The savings bank had collapsed and was burning. The fire brigade had driven up and was trying to save the neighboring houses. But the jets of water seemed much too thin to have any effect. The crater on the Square stank of sulphur and acids. Neubauer’s stomach contracted convulsively. “Drive through the Hakenstrasse, Alfred,” he said. “We can’t get through here.”
    The chauffeur turned. The car made a wide detour through the southern section of the town. Houses with small gardens lay here peacefully in the sun. The wind stood to the north and the air was clear. Then, as they crossed the river, the smell of burning returned and grew stronger until it lay in the streets like heavy fog in fall.
    Neubauer tugged at his mustache which was clipped short like that of the Führer. At one time he had worn it twirled up like William II. This cramp in the stomach! Selma! Freya! The beautiful house! The whole belly, the chest, everything was stomach.
    At last the car turned into the Liebigstrasse. Neubauer leaned out. There was the house! The front garden! There on the lawn stood the terra-cotta dwarf and the dachshund made of red china. Undamaged! All windows intact! The cramp in the stomach eased. He mounted the steps and opened the door. Lucky, he thought, damn lucky! So it should be! Why should anything happen just to him?
    He hung his cap on the hat rack of antlers and entered the living room. “Selma! Freya! Where are you?”
    No one answered. Neubauer strode to the window and pulled it open. In the garden behind the house two Russian prisoners were working. They glanced up quickly and then continued eagerly to dig.
    “Hi, there! Bolsheviks!”
    One of the Russians