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strain and the man screamed, releasing the weak hold he had on her and struggling to get away.
    Now Bibi turned to take on number three, the deliveryman, again. The already injured Arab, still gasping for a real breath, was about to become the target of Bibi’s enthusiastic, final vengeance. Seeing and hearing what was happening to his comrades, this somewhat tubby, bearded fisherman who had lost his name tag and cap in the initial struggle, got up and backed away, hands in front of him, into the building’s inside hallway. Bibi was up and on him in a flash, shouting attack cries and in hot pursuit. The frightened Arab suddenly realized that he was trapped in the dead end hallway. But it was too late. Bibi drop-kicked him first in the chest and sent him back against the locked door at the end of the hall, driving the heavy brass doorknob into the man’s already damaged kidney. Then Bibi pivoted once and drove the ball of her other bare foot directly into his horrified face. Ammad’s nose crumbled like mashed putty under the deadly blow and his front teeth vanished. He went to his knees, tuning up his screams with those of the other man, who, with blood streaming from his face, sat hunched up against one wall, his cries rising and falling like a siren.
    The scene was not one often staged in a modern, middle class apartment house in Berlin, but had some unpleasant nuances of similar events in other times, following surprise visits by the East German Secret police. The deliveryman was completely out, crumpled on the floor near the door, his battered nose, balls and kidneys telling him they were likely to fail shortly. The man with the cuts from the steel handcuff and torn ear sat on the floor, looking dazed and holding a bloody handkerchief to his face, making moaning sounds that blended well, Bibi thought, with the duet of screams from the other two. Taking a crouched, attack stance and silhouetted in the open doorway, Bibi spoke quietly to the trio in German.
    “You have ten seconds to tell me who sent you and why, or the police will find three dead bodies when they arrive.” She began to count down from ten and all three men started jabbering in different languages.
    “One at a time, you morons,” Bibi yelled.
    On the stair landings above, three of her neighbors, all senior pensioners, hung over the railings and watched the performance with considerable glee, cheering Bibi on and shouting unnecessary warnings when it looked like one of the men might be gaining the upper hand.
    “He’s speaking Farsi,” her neighbor from the floor below her shouted. The woman was from Lebanon and fled the country years ago. She and Bibi were good friends and had often remarked about the crime rate in this part of the city being worse now than it was under Soviet rule.
    “I don’t think so, I know Persian,” Bibi shouted back.
    “It’s a mix of Turkish, Kurdish and Persian, that’s why you can’t understand it,” the woman shouted back down the stairwell. “He says he’s Turkoman and that his brothers will kill you.”
    “A Turkoman? I doubt that,” said Bibi and she stepped over to the man with the already ruined face and kicked him hard in the stomach, using the top and instep, of her narrow and calloused foot. The man folded up, hit his head on the floor and vomited. Bibi backed away and turned to the next moaning man.
    “What about you?” Bibi said, moving over to the one who had been at the door first. “Minayna atayt?” she asked harshly, resting the ball of her stronger left foot on his quivering shoulder. “Where are you from?” She repeated, this time in English, punctuating her words with light kicks on either side of the man’s already swollen face.
    “Brillcart,” the man mumbled from his broken mouth. Bibi hit him again, bringing her foot up under his chin. Bone and teeth crunched. “Brillcart,” he mumbled through broken teeth and blood. Then he too pitched forward and passed out.
    “What a bunch