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peace with himself and the world. The smell of his shoulder. Trunov didn’t let the Captain go out. Tapped the wooden partition between the sauna and the interrogation cell with his saber in time with Karrenbauer’s heartbeat. “Tell me what you worth, soldier!” He put the sword blade behind the captain’s ear.
    â€œI’m—I can’t—please, Comrade General. . .” Karrenbauer was sweating well, sweating phenomenally, his best visit ever to a sauna, the Jew swiped him one with the towel. Over the last few days they had all been drinking schnapps before and during and after lectures, had drunk from the outlet before the sauna, but when Trunov put back the arm holding his saber no one was drunk any more. Schramm jumped up and looked into the General’s left eye with its little broken veins.
    â€œLeave the man alone,” he said. “You can’t learn anything from a man sliding about on his knees.”
    Herr Schramm puts the coin in the slot at the top of the machine. The machine gives a satisfied click. It digests the coin, the display shows the amount of credit and the information, “Tobacco sold only to age 18 and over.”
    Herr Schramm says, “That’s right.”
    The display says, “Proof of age required. Insert EC card with chip.”
    â€œNo,” says Herr Schramm. “No.”
    Lieutenant-Colonel Schramm escorted the mushroom-gatherers to the outer perimeter. There were plenty of mushrooms beside the path, but now they didn’t know whether it was all right to pick them. So Schramm made a start and put a porcini mushroom in the little girl’s basket. Then it turned out not to be a porcini after all. The mother took it out of the basket again without a word.
    Karrenbauer crawled out, and Trunov kissed Schramm on the mouth like a brother. He insisted on visiting Schramm’s department, so Schramm took him to see the anti-aircraft rockets. The workforce came to the reception. The General pinched everyone who had a bare neck affectionately on that bare neck. There was a state flag, a national anthem and a one-pot lentil dish. The anti-aircraft station at 123 Wegnitz ate lentils and drank for five days. The General wasn’t interested in the rockets and rocket technology. The General was interested in the soil. He had a hole dug one meter deep, smelled the earth, climbed happily into the hole and said they must plant a vegetable garden there. Peppers, he wanted them to grow peppers. Comrade Trunov was interested in cultivation. And culture, he wanted culture every evening. The Radar Combo II played for dancing. Trunov taught the musicians a song from Uzbekistan. The workforce danced awkwardly at first, and then more casually. The Adjutant played a soloon the double bass. The General sang. The General danced with Schramm, whispered into Schramm’s ear that Trunov wasn’t his real name, and the only fear he had in the world was fear of those who appointed themselves judges of names. He slept in his boots, and the Jew shaved him while he dreamt. The anti-aircraft station at 123 Wegnitz had forgotten what it was like to be sober. The fifth night was hot. The garrison members on active duty undressed. There was dancing on the starting ramps. The battery commander, the loading gunner and several artillerymen wanted to fire at something, never mind what, but Schramm stepped in, and Trunov punched them all and then told them how once he had climbed the great cold-blooded Tian Shan mountain range on his stallion All My Prayers without dismounting. He asked the rockets if he could use them for that kind of thing, and the rockets whimpered, “No.” He asked the soldiers what their lives were worth, but no one could say. In the light of dawn General Trunov was seen getting on a tractor with two young peasant girls and driving it east, with the Jew in the trailer, a typewriter on his lap, on which he was hammering out everything