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stopped working. “Where’s my family?” shouted Neubauer.
    The man answered something in Russian.
    “Quit your swine language, idiot! You understand German! Or shall I come out and teach you?”
    The Russians stared at him. “Your wife is in the cellar,” said someone behind Neubauer.
    He turned round. It was the servant girl. “In the cellar? Oh yes, of course. And where have you been?”
    “Out there, just for a moment.” The girl stood in the door, her face red and her eyes shining as though she had come from a wedding. “Already a hundred dead, they say,” she began to babble. “At the station, and then in the copper foundry, and in the church—”
    “Silence!” Neubauer interrupted her. “Who said that?”
    “Out there, the people—”
    “Who?” Neubauer took a step forward. “Such talk is hostile to the State! Who said that?”
    The girl stepped back. “Out there—I didn’t—someone—everyone—”
    “Traitors! Brutes!” raved Neubauer. At last he could release the pent-up tension. “Skunks! Swine! Alarmists! And you? What were you doing out there?”
    “I—nothing—”
    “Slacking on the job, eh? Spreading lies and horror stories! We’ll soon find that out! Measures must be taken here! Damn strong measures! March into the kitchen!”
    The girl ran out. Neubauer breathed heavily and closed the window. Nothing has happened, he thought. They’re in the cellar, of course. Might have thought of that before.
    He pulled a cigar out of his pocket and lit it. Then he straightened his coat, threw out his chest, glanced in the mirror and went downstairs.
    His wife and his daughter sat next to one another on a couch that stood against the wall. Above them hung a multicolored picture of the Führer in a wide gold frame.
    Before the war the cellar had been turned into an air-raid shelter. It had steel girders, a concrete ceiling and massive walls; in those days Neubauer had had it built simply for show; it had been patriotic to set a good example in such matters. No one had seriously considered that Germany could be bombed. Marshal Goering’s declaration that they could call him Meier if enemy planes ever brought off such a feat in the face of the Luftwaffe, had been enough for any honest German. Unfortunately it had turned out otherwise.A typical example of the treachery of the plutocrats and Jews; to pretend that they were weaker than they actually were.
    “Bruno!” Selma Neubauer got up and began to sob.
    She was blond and fat and wore a dressing gown of salmon-colored French silk with lace. In 1941 Neubauer had brought it back from a furlough in Paris. Her cheeks trembled and her too-small mouth chewed on words.
    “It’s over, Selma. Calm down.”
    “Over—” She continued to chew, as though the words were out-sized Königsberger meatballs. “For how—how long?”
    “For good. They’re gone. The attack has been repulsed. They won’t come back.”
    Selma Neubauer gathered her dressing gown tight over her breast. “Who says so, Bruno? How d’you know?”
    “We have shot down at least half of them. They’ll take good care not to come back.”
    “How d’you know?”
    “I know. This time they surprised us. Next time we’ll be properly on our guard.”
    The woman stopped chewing. “Is that all?” she asked. “Is that all you can tell us?”
    Neubauer knew it was nothing. So he asked gruffly, “Isn’t that enough?”
    His wife stared at him. Her eyes were pale blue. “No!” she suddenly yelled. “That is not enough! That’s nothing but twaddle! It means nothing! The number of stories we’ve heard already! First we’re told we’re so strong that no enemy plane could ever get into Germany, and suddenly there they are. Then it’s said they won’t come back because we’d shoot them all down at the border, and instead ten times as many come back and the alarm never stops. And now that they’ve finally caught us here, too, in you come fullof yourself and say they won’t